“I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” the president said. Those were the words Donald Trump delivered to Axios in a brief interview on Thursday — as Brent crude crossed $100 per barrel, as Houthi rebels claimed to have struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, and as US Central Command completed its 13th consecutive night of airstrikes against Iranian military targets.
The statement represents the most explicit public threat of major escalation Trump has made since the war began on February 28, and it arrives in a context that makes it simultaneously more credible and more dangerous than any previous rhetorical escalation.
What Trump Said — in Full
Trump told the Axios news site Trump said: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”
Trump said Israel “would join in two minutes if I ask them to,” but added that “we don’t need anybody” to launch a new operation against Iran.
Trump made his remarks on Thursday as oil prices once again surged past the symbolic $100 for a barrel of Brent crude. The US president acknowledged that such a decision would have consequences but said he had not yet made a final determination.
In the same interview, Trump characterised Iran’s position in terms that simultaneously increased and decreased alarm: “They would like to do something, but I say they’re not ready yet. They need more of the same,” he said, adding that Iran’s leaders “have some evil intentions.” That framing — Iran wants to deal, but hasn’t felt enough pain — is the same formulation Trump used at multiple earlier stages of the conflict, when escalation ultimately gave way to a ceasefire attempt.
What Trump Had Already Threatened on Wednesday
The Axios interview came after a day of escalating threats. Trump had warned Wednesday the US will bomb one Iranian bridge or power plant every time the Iranians shoot at a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. The infrastructure threat — targeting Iran’s bridges and power plants — is a significant escalation of the war’s targeting parameters.
Previous US strikes have focused primarily on military targets: air defence systems, missile facilities, naval infrastructure and command networks. Striking bridges and power plants would move the war explicitly into the domain of civilian infrastructure targeting, with significant implications under international humanitarian law and with direct consequences for Iran’s civilian population.
Attacks on infrastructure in Iran will be met with a “severe and escalatory” response, Mohsen Rezaei, the senior military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said.
What the 13 Nights of Strikes Have Achieved — and What They Haven’t
The U.S. military later said it conducted its 13th consecutive night of strikes against Iran in attacks aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to threaten maritime traffic.
The 13 nights of strikes have, by CENTCOM’s own account, targeted missile and drone facilities, coastal radar and surveillance systems, naval assets, air defence batteries and command-and-control infrastructure. The cumulative damage is real and has degraded Iran’s military capacity in measurable ways. But the fundamental strategic objective — opening the Strait of Hormuz to something approaching pre-war commercial traffic — has not been achieved. The Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea demonstrate that the overall maritime threat environment has worsened, not improved, during the period of sustained strikes.
What the Arab Allies Are Saying Behind Closed Doors
There were signs Friday that some U.S. allies in the Middle East may be losing patience with the daily escalation and lack of diplomatic progress. “It’s only getting crazier,” one senior Arab official, directly involved with diplomatic efforts, told NBC News.
The frustration of Arab allies — the Gulf states that have been absorbing Iranian missile and drone attacks, that have hosted American military bases, and that have been conducting their own quiet diplomacy with Qatar and Pakistan to try to revive the ceasefire framework — reflects the gap between the Trump administration’s escalatory military posture and the diplomatic resolution that the region’s governments regard as the only sustainable outcome.
Whether the Threat Becomes Reality
Two other U.S. officials confirmed no call has been made and no new orders have been given to the military. The gap between Trump’s public statements and the actual military decision-making process is a consistent feature of his second-term foreign policy. He has threatened bridge and power plant strikes, massive attacks and “major military punishment” — while the actual decisions have proceeded through a military and diplomatic process that is more deliberate than the rhetorical temperature suggests.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted by state media as saying “Iran has shown that it will not bow to U.S. bullying and will under no circumstances respond to the language of force, pressure and threats.” He also said he had “detailed” talks with the foreign ministers of Russia and China. The reference to talks with Russia and China — Iran’s two principal non-Western diplomatic partners — signals that Tehran is simultaneously managing the military confrontation with Washington and maintaining the international alignments that give it diplomatic cover against pressure for concessions.
