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The U.S. and Israel are making intense preparations for the possible resumption of attacks on Iran as early as next week, as President Donald Trump weighs whether to restart military strikes after stalled peace negotiations, The New York Times reported.
Trump returned from China on Friday, facing major decisions on Iran, with top aides having drafted battle plans for renewed military action if he decides to break the impasse through strikes.
Aides said Trump has not made a final decision.
Officials from interested countries have been trying to assemble a compromise that would push Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and allow Trump to declare the military campaign a success.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving Beijing that Iran’s latest peace offer was unacceptable.
“I looked at it, and if I don’t like the first sentence I just throw it away,” Trump said.
Trump said he discussed Iran with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country is a strategic partner of Tehran and depends on oil and gas shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said he did not ask Xi to pressure Iran.
The Pentagon is planning for the possibility that Operation Epic Fury, paused when Trump declared a ceasefire last month, could resume in the coming days, possibly under a new name.
“We have a plan to escalate if necessary,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers this week. He also said there are plans to return the surge of more than 50,000 troops in the Middle East to standard deployments.
“They’re either going to make a deal or they’re going to be decimated,” Trump said Tuesday before leaving for China. “So, one way or another, we win.”
If Trump resumes strikes, options include more aggressive bombing runs against Iranian military and infrastructure targets, U.S. officials said.
Another option would be to send Special Operations forces after nuclear material buried deep underground, including Iran’s highly enriched uranium at the Isfahan nuclear site. Several hundred Special Operations troops arrived in the Middle East in March to give Trump that option.
Military officials said such an operation would need thousands of support troops, likely to form a security perimeter, and could draw them into combat with Iranian forces. They acknowledged it would carry major risks of casualties.
About 5,000 Marines and 2,000 paratroopers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are in the region awaiting instructions.
Officials said they could be used in an Isfahan operation or in an effort to take Kharg Island, a hub of Iranian oil exports, though more ground forces would be needed to hold it.
Iranian officials said they are preparing for renewed hostilities.
“Our armed forces are ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression; mistaken strategy and mistaken decisions will always lead to mistaken results,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s Parliament, posted Monday.
“We are prepared for all options; they will be surprised,” he added.
Any renewed attack would likely resume from where fighting stopped before Iran and the U.S. reached an 11th-hour cease-fire on April 7.
Before that deal, Trump had threatened to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” if Tehran did not allow commercial shipping to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Since the ceasefire began, Pentagon officials and military leaders said the U.S. used the pause to rearm warships and attack aircraft in the region.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than 50,000 troops, two aircraft carriers, more than a dozen Navy destroyers and scores of warplanes “remain ready to resume major combat operations against Iran if ordered to do so.”
“No adversary should mistake our current restraint with a lack of resolve,” he said.
Military officials said the U.S. hit Iranian ballistic missile launch sites, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps munitions depots and other military infrastructure. But U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.
Iran has also restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten U.S. warships and oil tankers, The New York Times reported.
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