US President Donald Trump has not yet made a final decision on whether to launch a major strike against Iran, sources familiar with the administration’s decision-making process told The Jerusalem Post.
As the president said on Friday, the United States is continuing diplomatic talks with Tehran while keeping the military option fully prepared.
“We’re locked and loaded,” Trump said, adding that Washington could escalate its military campaign “to a much higher level” if necessary, but that his preferred option remains a negotiated agreement.
He also said Iran appears to be taking the talks more seriously than before, while reiterating that the administration’s bottom line remains unchanged: “They cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
This is also true for “regular daily attacks” that we got used to.
In Israel, a proposal was submitted to the government on Saturday stating that "there is a high probability that an attack on the civilian population will occur."
With the possibility of an Iranian attack, the proposal asked to extend the special situation in the Home Front Command until August 11th.
First interruption of strikes against Iran in two weeks
The order marked the first interruption in nearly two weeks of sustained US military operations against Iranian targets. During the previous 13 days, Trump had approved strike plans presented by military officials each afternoon, with the attacks generally carried out within hours, Axios reported earlier on Saturday.
Trump received another proposed strike plan on Friday but declined to authorize it, instead instructing the military not to launch new attacks, two sources familiar with the decision told Axios.
It remained unclear whether the pause was limited to Friday or represented the beginning of a longer suspension. The US military remained capable of resuming strikes on relatively short notice and continued drawing up plans for a possible return to major combat operations, the report said.
Trump had not ordered the military to begin preparations for such a broader campaign, despite publicly saying that the US remained ready to intensify its operations. On Friday, he said the United States was “locked and loaded” but was continuing to communicate with Tehran.
Trump favors diplomacy but keeps military options open
Shortly after issuing the order to hold fire, Trump told reporters at the White House that he retained the option of continuing or escalating the attacks, including “knocking out everything they have.”
He nevertheless said he believed the “smarter strategy” was to reach an agreement with Iran.
“We're talking to [the Iranians] right now. I think they're getting more and more serious as the days go by. We're locked and loaded and ready to go, but we're talking to them,” Trump said.
The president later appeared more cautious about the prospects for an immediate breakthrough. Speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Friday, Trump said he did not believe Iran was ready to reach an agreement at that stage, “but I'm willing to listen.”
The decision followed a campaign of US strikes against Iranian military targets, including missile sites, drone infrastructure, radar installations, naval assets and coastal defenses near the Strait of Hormuz. US officials said the operations were intended to reduce Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the strategic waterway.
Trump’s directive came several hours after an Omani delegation arrived in Tehran for talks aimed at reaching a new arrangement for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Two regional sources familiar with the negotiations told Axios that progress had been made and that Oman and Iran could reach an agreement over the weekend. Earlier Iranian-Omani negotiations focused on maritime traffic and possible mechanisms for securing shipping through the strait.
Any proposed agreement would still require Trump’s approval, leaving the future of the military campaign dependent on both the diplomatic negotiations and the president’s assessment of the deal.
The pause reflected Trump’s willingness to provide additional space for diplomacy, according to the report. It also suggested that the administration believed the current scale of attacks had reached the limit of what it could achieve without a return to significantly broader combat operations.
Questions have continued to surround the possible next phase of the US campaign, including whether Washington will maintain limited strikes near the strait, pursue a negotiated maritime arrangement or expand its attacks deeper into Iran.
The White House did not respond to Axios’s request for comment.