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President Donald Trump revealed Tuesday that he came within an hour of ordering a new military strike on Iran before pulling back, and warned that attacks could resume within days if a peace agreement is not reached, even as his vice president said negotiations are making meaningful progress.
The remarks came a day after Trump announced he had paused a planned resumption of hostilities following a new proposal submitted by Tehran to end the nearly three-month-old conflict.
“I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” Trump told reporters at the White House. He added that Iran’s leaders are “begging for a deal” and that a new U.S. attack would follow within days if no agreement materializes.
Vice President JD Vance presented a more measured and cautiously optimistic view of where negotiations stand.
Speaking at a White House briefing, Vance said both sides have made significant progress in talks and that neither Washington nor Tehran wants to see a return to active military operations.
“We’re in a pretty good spot here,” Vance said.
He acknowledged, however, that negotiating with Iran’s fragmented leadership has been complicated. Iran’s internal divisions have made it difficult at times to determine whether the negotiating team’s positions fully represent the government’s actual red lines.
Vance also said a core U.S. objective is preventing a broader nuclear arms race from spreading across the Middle East, framing the Iran nuclear question as a regional stability issue rather than solely a bilateral dispute.
Iran submitted a new peace proposal through Pakistani intermediaries, but the terms described in Iranian state media appear to differ little from the previous offer Trump publicly dismissed as “garbage” last week.
Tehran’s latest proposal reportedly calls for an end to hostilities on all fronts including Lebanon, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from areas near Iran, reparations for destruction caused by the U.S. and Israeli strikes, the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian funds abroad, and an end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports.
A Pakistani diplomatic source confirmed that Islamabad, which has served as the primary message carrier between Washington and Tehran since hosting the only direct round of peace talks in April, shared the Iranian proposal with the U.S. side.
The source offered a blunt assessment of where things stand.
“The sides keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said. “We don’t have much time.”
Iranian officials responded to Trump’s strike warning with their own escalatory language.
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on social media that Trump’s decision to pause the attack reflected his awareness that any strike on Iran would trigger “a decisive military response.”
Iran’s conditions for ending the conflict remain expansive and have not narrowed toward the U.S. position on the central question of nuclear weapons.
Tehran has long denied pursuing nuclear weapons, and continues to resist American demands that it surrender its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and halt enrichment research.
The broader ceasefire that has been in place since early April has largely held, but signs of strain are visible.
Drone launches toward Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been attributed to Iran and its allied militias operating from Iraqi territory. The U.S. also seized an Iranian-linked oil tanker in the Indian Ocean overnight, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The vessel, identified as the Skywave, had been sanctioned in March for its role in transporting Iranian crude oil in violation of U.S. restrictions.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the war with the stated goals of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its missile capabilities, curbing its support for regional militias, and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow their government.
Nearly three months in, none of those objectives have been fully achieved. Iran retains its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, continues to project power through proxy forces in Lebanon and Iraq, and maintains its missile and drone capabilities despite significant damage from the initial strikes.
The Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership, which had faced a significant internal uprising earlier in the year, has withstood the military campaign without showing signs of organized collapse, complicating the assumptions that underpinned the war’s original strategic rationale.
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President Donald Trump revealed Tuesday that he came within an hour of ordering a new military strike on Iran before pulling back, and warned that attacks could resume within days if a peace agreement is not reached, even as his vice president said negotiations are making meaningful progress.
The remarks came a day after Trump announced he had paused a planned resumption of hostilities following a new proposal submitted by Tehran to end the nearly three-month-old conflict.
“I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” Trump told reporters at the White House. He added that Iran’s leaders are “begging for a deal” and that a new U.S. attack would follow within days if no agreement materializes.
Vance Offers a More Optimistic Read
Vice President JD Vance presented a more measured and cautiously optimistic view of where negotiations stand.
Speaking at a White House briefing, Vance said both sides have made significant progress in talks and that neither Washington nor Tehran wants to see a return to active military operations.
“We’re in a pretty good spot here,” Vance said.
He acknowledged, however, that negotiating with Iran’s fragmented leadership has been complicated. Iran’s internal divisions have made it difficult at times to determine whether the negotiating team’s positions fully represent the government’s actual red lines.
Vance also said a core U.S. objective is preventing a broader nuclear arms race from spreading across the Middle East, framing the Iran nuclear question as a regional stability issue rather than solely a bilateral dispute.
Iran’s New Proposal Closely Mirrors the Last One
Iran submitted a new peace proposal through Pakistani intermediaries, but the terms described in Iranian state media appear to differ little from the previous offer Trump publicly dismissed as “garbage” last week.
Tehran’s latest proposal reportedly calls for an end to hostilities on all fronts including Lebanon, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from areas near Iran, reparations for destruction caused by the U.S. and Israeli strikes, the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian funds abroad, and an end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports.
A Pakistani diplomatic source confirmed that Islamabad, which has served as the primary message carrier between Washington and Tehran since hosting the only direct round of peace talks in April, shared the Iranian proposal with the U.S. side.
The source offered a blunt assessment of where things stand.
“The sides keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said. “We don’t have much time.”
Iran Vows a Decisive Response to Any New Attack
Iranian officials responded to Trump’s strike warning with their own escalatory language.
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on social media that Trump’s decision to pause the attack reflected his awareness that any strike on Iran would trigger “a decisive military response.”
Iran’s conditions for ending the conflict remain expansive and have not narrowed toward the U.S. position on the central question of nuclear weapons.
Tehran has long denied pursuing nuclear weapons, and continues to resist American demands that it surrender its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and halt enrichment research.
Ceasefire Mostly Holding but Fraying at the Edges
The broader ceasefire that has been in place since early April has largely held, but signs of strain are visible.
Drone launches toward Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been attributed to Iran and its allied militias operating from Iraqi territory. The U.S. also seized an Iranian-linked oil tanker in the Indian Ocean overnight, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The vessel, identified as the Skywave, had been sanctioned in March for its role in transporting Iranian crude oil in violation of U.S. restrictions.
The War’s Core Objectives Remain Unmet
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the war with the stated goals of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its missile capabilities, curbing its support for regional militias, and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow their government.
Nearly three months in, none of those objectives have been fully achieved. Iran retains its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, continues to project power through proxy forces in Lebanon and Iraq, and maintains its missile and drone capabilities despite significant damage from the initial strikes.
The Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership, which had faced a significant internal uprising earlier in the year, has withstood the military campaign without showing signs of organized collapse, complicating the assumptions that underpinned the war’s original strategic rationale.
The post Trump Says US May Strike Iran Again but Believes Tehran Is Ready to Make a Deal appeared first on .
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