Iran warns of crushing and bitter response if war resumes

Trump said weighing new Iran strikes as he seeks ‘decisive’ victory; Netanyahu frozen out of talks

Reports say Trump, ‘frustrated,’ has reviewed possible targets but not yet made decision; Netanyahu ‘banished from the cockpit,’ forced to rely on regional sources and intel for details

US President Donald Trump is seriously considering launching new airstrikes on Iran if there is no last-minute breakthrough in talks, and has met with military leaders to consider targets, US media reported, as Tehran warned of a “crushing” response if the US resumed attacks.

The reports by US news outlets Axios and CBS News on Friday came as a key mediator, Pakistani army chief Asim Munir, traveled to Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders aimed at finding a diplomatic solution.

Unnamed sources who spoke with Trump were cited by the news sites as saying the president was seriously considering renewing the strikes on Iran if there were no last-minute breakthroughs in the talks.

The president discussed the situation Friday morning in a meeting with top US officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA chief John Ratcliffe and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the sources said.

The New York Times reported that the meeting appeared to be a review of military options should he resume strikes and noted that possible new targets could include Iran’s energy sector, missile launch sites that have been restored, and an attempt to destroy Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that remains buried after the site was targeted last year.

A source close to Trump told Axios that the president has raised the possibility of a final “decisive” major military operation, after which he could declare victory and end the war.

Sources close to Trump were cited as saying the president has grown frustrated about the talks over the past few days. Trump told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday that the US president wanted to give diplomacy a chance. Still, by Thursday night, Trump was leaning toward launching strikes, the sources said.

Unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the planning were cited by CBS as saying several US military personnel and intelligence officials have canceled their plans for Memorial Day weekend, which started Saturday and will last through Monday.

Trump himself said Friday that he was skipping his son’s wedding this weekend to stay at the White House because of “circumstances pertaining to Government.”

Both CBS and Axios said Trump has yet to make the decision on whether to resume the conflict with Iran. A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, told CBS that “the president has been clear about the consequences if Iran fails to make a deal.”

Israel frozen out of talks

Separately, two unnamed Israeli defense officials were cited Saturday by The New York Times as saying Israel’s leaders have been kept out of the loop on the US-Iran talks, after Netanyahu’s pre-war pitch that the US-Israeli campaign would topple Iran’s regime failed to materialize.

Israel has instead been forced to resort to picking up information on the US-Iran talks from regional leaders and diplomats, and surveillance inside Iran, the officials said. The Israeli officials spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

The report noted that in the run-up to the start of the war against the Iranian regime earlier this year, Netanyahu was in close coordination with Trump and was leading a discussion in the Situation Room in Washington.

“The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel, and especially for the prime minister, who faces an uphill re-election battle this year,” the newspaper said. The Times headlined its article, “Once Trump’s Co-Pilot Against Iran, Netanyahu Is Now a Mere Passenger.”

Citing US officials familiar with Trump’s thinking, the report said that the US president views Netanyahu as a war ally, but not as a partner when it comes to holding talks with Iran.

“In fact, he considered Mr. Netanyahu someone who needed to be restrained when it comes to resolving conflicts,” the paper said.

The report also noted that during the war, Trump blamed Israel for acting alone in striking Iranian energy targets, even though the strikes were cleared with Washington ahead of time.

The report quoted Israeli officials as saying that the sidelining of Israel was “particularly hard to take,” as Israel had been willing to take on the more controversial strikes during the war, including the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Crushing and bitter response

Iran’s chief negotiator on Saturday warned of a “crushing” response if Trump resumed attacks on the country, saying Tehran had rebuilt its armed forces during the six-week-long ceasefire in the Middle East war.

“Our armed forces have rebuilt themselves during the ceasefire period in such a way that if Trump commits another act of folly and restarts the war, it will certainly be more crushing and bitter for the United States than on the first day of the war,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on social media.

Ghalibaf issued the warning after meeting in capital Tehran with Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, a leading figure in diplomatic efforts to negotiate a deal to end the war.

Munir met with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran on Friday night and was also expected to meet  with Ahmad Vahidi, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Washington’s negotiations with Tehran have faltered over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and the post-war control of the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran and the US have imposed competing naval blockades.

Iran has refused US demands to dismantle the nuclear program and is seeking to charge money from vessels traversing the strait, which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil shipments.

Trump said Thursday the US would eventually recover Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Tehran has enriched uranium to a level that is a short technical step from weapons-grade and that the UN atomic agency says has no civilian use. Iran, which openly seeks Israel’s destruction, claims its nuclear program is peaceful.

Araghchi said in a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Tehran was participating in the talks despite “repeated betrayals of diplomacy and military aggression against Iran, along with contradictory positions and repeated excessive demands” by the US, Iranian media reported Saturday.

Meanwhile, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said “deep and extensive” disagreements remained in negotiations with the US, and stressed that the Pakistani army chief’s visit to Tehran did not mean “we have reached a turning point or a decisive situation,” according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.

Baghaei also confirmed that a delegation from Qatar had held talks with the Iranian foreign minister on Friday.

“In recent days, many countries — both regional and non-regional — have been trying to help bring the war to an end … However, Pakistan remains the official mediator,” Baghaei said.

On Saturday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, both of whom have taken part in the mediation, began a four-day visit to China, Iran’s main trading partner, which has supported Islamabad’s efforts to end the Middle East war.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize its regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

Iran responded with missile and drone strikes across the region and by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, leading to a global spike in energy prices.

With Pakistan’s mediation, the fighting entered a truce on April 8. The US launched its own blockade on Iran-linked shipping on April 13.