Trump weighs restarting war with Iran, but sticking with peace talks for now: report

President Trump has discussed resuming full-scale war with Iran, but is opting to stay the course with diplomacy for now.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Trump has spoken to War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about abandoning peace talks and launching additional strikes against the Islamic Republic, but has decided negotiations are currently the best way to ensure Iran dismantles its nuclear weapons program.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed June 17, the US and Iran have 60 days to broker a final peace deal that resolves the status of Tehran’s enriched uranium as well as billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and relief from US and international sanctions.

“They’re agreeing to everything that I want, and they have to,” Trump told reporters last week when asked about negotiations. “Otherwise, we just go back and do what we have to do.”

According to the Journal, Trump has indicated he will accept talks continuing past the end of the 60-day period Aug. 18, while being content to order one-off strikes if he deems Iran to have violated the MOU.

The US and Iran halted hostilities on Monday after trading attacks in the Strait of Hormuz for the previous four days.

Vice President JD Vance told Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday night that the ongoing talks, which had resumed earlier in the day in Qatar were “to see how serious they actually are.”

“They’ve got to not just say the right things, they’ve got to make real concessions,” Vance told host Laura Ingraham of the Iranian side. “So whether it’s the president, me, anybody else in the negotiation, we care a lot less about what the Iranians say, we care a lot more about what they do. We see some positive signs. Obviously we see some negative signs.

“What the president has told us is, work the problem, see where the negotiation is going to lead, and if it doesn’t lead to a successful resolution on the diplomatic side, we still have at lot of optionality and we’ve still accomplished a whole lot for the American people.”