President Donald Trump approved plans to join Israel in attacking Iran on Tuesday but delayed putting them into action to see if Tehran would pledge to abandon its nuclear ambitions, according to a report.
The president delivered his private instructions in the White House Situation Room, The Wall Street Journal reports, but has so far delayed giving the final order.
“I have ideas on what to do but I haven’t made a final – I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
A White House aide told the Journal that Trump is continuing to monitor developments and will act accordingly, adding that multiple options remain on the table.
So far, U.S. involvement has been carefully restricted to helping Israel block Iranian missiles and drones, according to officials.
At present, Iran shows little sign of backing down and continued its missile assault on southern Israel overnight, causing “extensive damage” to a major hospital, the Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheba.
Explosions were also heard in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv while Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor was hit in retaliatory strikes.
Israel began its Operation Rising Lion offensive six days ago, killing several top military leaders and subsequently striking some 1,100 targets, provoking an aggressive backlash from Tehran.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio originally stressed that the U.S. was not involved and that the president had made efforts to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from resorting to military action to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
But Trump’s messaging has since been much more mixed, and the president has reportedly fallen out with his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, over her opposition to intervention by “warmongers” playing at brinkmanship.
Talks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine continued on Wednesday after the two men had appeared before the Senate Armed Forces Committee and after Trump had publicly repeated his calls on Tehran to surrender, allowing the threat of reprisals, should the country fail to comply, hanging in the air.
“I may do it, I may not do it,” he told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week.”
Iran reacted angrily to his words, with its United Nations Mission saying in a statement: “Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT with a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance.”
The personal insult is unlikely to endear Trump to their cause, and Iran’s Fordow uranium-enrichment facility is considered a probable target if the president does give the go-ahead to attack.
Earlier this week, the U.S. military began relocating tanker planes and fighter jets to air bases in Europe and ships into the Mediterranean so as to “provide options to President Donald Trump as Middle East tensions erupt into conflict between Iran and Israel,” according to administration officials cited by Reuters.
During his appearance before Congress yesterday, Hegseth said any decision would be made “at the presidential level,” adding that the Pentagon is working “to ensure everything at our disposal is available to ensure maximum force protection against any contingency.”
