Fork in the Road: Trump Reportedly Deciding Between a New Ceasefire with Iran and a ‘Massive’ Military Escalation

As Iran continues to lob missiles at its neighbors despite days of American airstrikes, President Donald Trump is being presented with the option of declaring yet another ceasefire, according to a new report.

The report from Axios frames Trump as having two options, neither of which he has definitively decided to pursue.

One option is to call off the bombing campaign and agree to a 10-day ceasefire with the goal of restoring shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan and other regional nations have proposed the 10-day option that would give both sides a chance to talk.

The other option is to launch what Axios called a “massive campaign” that would dwarf the recent days of attacks on limited targets. This option would include fighting alongside Israel, which has not been involved in the recent bombing campaign.

That Trump has not yet decided to pack in the military option is shown by the movement of American warplanes into the region in the event that Trump gambles on a major military campaign.

The Axios report relied only on what it described as “two regional sources.”

The ceasefire proposal would allow two shipping lanes in the strait to be open while Iran stops firing on vessels and the U.S. stops bombing Iran.

“We told the U.S. and Iran that we propose a cooling-off period,” the report quoted “one of the regional sources” as saying.

The proposal is similar to one discussed earlier this month that went by the wayside after Iran started attacking ships in the strait. Those attacks derailed a “memo of understanding” that was supposed to outline a process for winding down the war.

The options at play include allowing Iran to collect fees from ships passing through the strait, Axios reported, citing “one regional source.”

A senior U.S. official said Trump has not yet signed off on the ceasefire.

“The president is focused on making Iran pay for its violations of the MOU and its continued acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz,” the official told Axios.

“In addition, the president will make Iran pay for the recent deaths of U.S. soldiers. These devastating blows will continue until the president deems otherwise,” the official said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed his country is talking with mediators, but did not discuss the substance of the talks.

A regional source quoted by Axios said Iran needs to be placated to secure a lasting peace.

“We are trying to work out a sustainable solution,” the regional source said. “The Iranians can’t dictate the terms, but they also can’t be ignored.”

On Tuesday, Trump took a publicly bellicose tone on the subject of Iran, according to the Times of Israel.

“You don’t know what the dialogue is behind the scenes,” he responded to a reporter who asked about Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in Arab nations, the newspaper reported.

“They want to meet desperately to try to end it because they’re getting decimated,” Trump said of Iran.

He also emphasized the U.S. goal of an Iran without nuclear weapons — now or in the future.

“They can not have a nuclear weapon and they won’t have — they have no chance of having a nuclear weapon… But we are doing very well. We are degrading them at levels that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said, according to Fox News.

Amid a report that Iran moved centrifuges connected with its nuclear program into the country’s Pickaxe mountain site to allow its nuclear program to continue, Trump said, “any site where they’re even thinking about nuclear, we’ll be hitting it very, very powerfully.”

“Now, nobody knows except the Iranians the damage that we’ve done to them. We have done damage that will take them 20, 25 years to recover from. So if we left tomorrow, we had a big success. But we’re not leaving tomorrow,” Trump said.

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