President Donald Trump is facing a defining choice over Iran — whether to end the eight-month-old war or order a new round of major strikes — as his closest advisers split into openly competing camps and Qatari mediators mount an 11th-hour attempt to pull both sides back from the brink.
According to the Wall Street Journal, one camp, led by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and the head of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, has told Trump in recent briefings that resuming major combat operations is the only way to force Iran to surrender its nuclear material. Their plan would target Iranian energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile and drone arsenals. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also been pressing for renewed strikes. A rival camp, led by Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff, has sought Trump’s backing for a diplomatic deal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. A third strand, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, has argued for tightening sanctions and keeping the naval blockade in place rather than returning to full-scale fighting.
The divide burst into the open on Wednesday, when Vance publicly blamed the war for the Republicans’ sweeping midterm losses. Writing on social media after watching the results come in at the White House on Tuesday night, he said: “The reason we lost is the war.” He had told Trump beforehand that he intended to blame the defeat on the conflict, US officials said. Trump later said of the post: “I thought it was good,” and acknowledged that the war had driven petrol prices higher in the short term — though he added that he would start it again, because Iran could not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
On Thursday, after chairing his first National Security Council meeting on Iran since the 3 November midterms, Trump told reporters: “Now we will make a decision. I would rather not destroy the rest of the country if possible, but maybe I will have to. You’ll know soon enough.” Axios reported that he had told the outlet he was “in no rush” to decide, while NBC News reported that advisers had briefed him on a narrow window of roughly eight weeks — before a new Democratic-controlled Congress takes office in January — for restarting major combat operations.
While the debate raged in Washington, Qatari officials said on Friday that they had launched an 11th-hour attempt to stave off a new American operation and bridge the gaps between the two sides. “Our mediators are working as we speak to avoid another wave of escalation in the region,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said at an event in Oxford, England. Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, spoke with Trump by telephone on Friday, and Gulf officials said there were signs that both sides were looking for an off-ramp.
Iranian officials are expected to return to Doha in the coming days, possibly as early as Saturday, to discuss the prospective deal, officials told the Journal. The agreement under discussion would shrink the timetable for preliminary talks from 60 days — the term set in a June memorandum of understanding — to two days, moving almost immediately into nuclear negotiations. According to Axios, a draft confidence-building sequence would see Washington lift its naval blockade of Iran and release some of Tehran’s frozen funds on the first day, with Iran in return formally inviting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit nuclear sites struck during the conflict. On the second day, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, after which negotiations over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would resume.
Iran has restated its conditions for talks. Its Supreme National Security Council secretary, Mohsen Rezaei, met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, days after the Russian leader offered to mediate, and told him that Tehran had set seven conditions for the Americans. “Until the Americans fulfil our seven conditions, neither the Strait of Hormuz will be opened nor will there be any negotiations,” Rezaei said, according to Iranian state media. Tehran’s position was already on the table earlier in the week; the new element is that the mediation is now moving towards a possible face-to-face round in Doha.
Even as diplomacy continues, the military option is being kept ready. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, carrying dozens of fighter jets, is steaming towards the region from the Pacific, and two aircraft-carrier groups and an amphibious assault-ship group are already in the Arabian Sea, with a third carrier group on the way. Hegseth and Admiral Cooper have spent weeks making preparations for major combat operations. Smaller strikes have continued in the meantime: explosions were reported on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday evening after what a US official described as small-scale strikes, and the United States has conducted several such strikes in recent weeks while insisting they did not signal a return to full-scale combat.
The war has also become a political liability for the administration at home. Hegseth is facing an impeachment push led by Representative Thomas Massie, which he defied in a video message on Thursday, while Gulf allies — more sceptical of renewed strikes — have been trying to arrange a call with Trump or a high-level meeting in Washington to argue the case for a deal. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has warned that his country would unleash a much broader response across the region if the United States escalates.
The coming days may decide the direction of the war. If Iranian officials do arrive in Doha on Saturday and the two-day framework holds, the Strait of Hormuz could reopen within days and nuclear talks could restart — but if Tehran holds to its seven conditions and Washington refuses to meet them first, the mediation could collapse quickly. In that case, the carrier groups already moving into position would give Trump an immediate military option, and his own words suggest the decision will not wait long. For now, both war and peace remain on the table, and the choice is his alone.
