WASHINGTON — President Trump has directed more strikes on Iran that could begin as soon as this weekend, a source familiar with military planning said Friday, adding that the military has drafted multiple options for fresh attacks.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the president had given the order, citing US officials who said the strikes “would last a few days.”
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To date, the US has held back on attacking energy infrastructure — but that may change this weekend, CBS reported on Friday, noting there were high-level discussions on “cutting electricity across Tehran.”
During a Friday cabinet meeting at Camp David, the president previewed the pending strikes, saying Iran still has some military capabilities, “but soon they won’t have some left.”
Asked about plans to launch a large-scale attack, Trump confirmed that “we’re going big. We’ve already gone big,” later adding that US operations will “get a little stronger maybe now, but they’ll get weaker.”
“It’d be foolish to say no; you always have to keep your guard up,” the president went on.
Trump also characterized the Iranian regime as “very dishonest” and “very dishonorable to deal with” throughout attempts at negotiations to end the conflict
As an example, the president cited a surprise missile attack on US forces in Jordan Wednesday, which Trump said happened as “we were in the midst of a negotiation.”
“I mean, I’m waiting for [Special Envoy] Steve [Witkoff] to call me — ‘How’s the negotiation going?’” he said. “And instead, I got a call from [Secretary of War] Pete [Hegseth] that they just shot five missiles at one of our bases in Jordan.”
While the Journal reported the strikes could last “days,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) has also prepared a larger-scale operation in the form of a decisive two-week bombing campaign should Trump choose escalation to break the deadlock in the Middle East, two sources confirmed to The Post on Friday.
A senior administration official told the Journal — which first reported the option to “go big” on Wednesday — that Trump “is in an escalatory mood” but still considering “the depth of that response.”
Tehran has repeatedly used missiles to target US forces and regional allies in recent weeks.
Rather than yet another series of limited strikes, the larger proposal envisions 10 to 14 days of sustained attacks that would eliminate the need to preserve the dwindling US stockpile of defensive missiles.
That campaign, drafted by CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper, is not the only option before the president, but it would be the most significant military endeavor the US has taken on since the initial April 8 cease-fire that ended the first phase of the war, the sources said.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine has reportedly taken a more cautious approach, warning the White House that an expanded campaign would further strain US stocks of air-defense interceptors needed to protect American forces and allies around the world, according to the Journal.
The source familiar with military planning declined to say which plan of attack the president wants to move forward with, but a few days of strikes targeting energy infrastructure reported by CBS may bridge the gap between the admiral and general’s positions.
Following Wednesday’s attack, Trump vowed in a phone interview with Fox News that the US was “going to beat the f—ing sh—” out of Iran, adding that “we’ll be hitting them hard.”
Later that day, the US launched strikes against dozens of targets tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including command centers and missile and drone facilities, calling the operation a “powerful response” to Tehran.
In the same Wednesday interview, Trump said he had not yet closed the door on diplomacy, telling Fox that “we’re going to let them keep talking.”
By Friday, the president’s mood had changed, with him saying of the Iranians: “I’m losing faith in them because they do lie.”
Asked whether the US and Iran were close to a renewed cease-fire, the president stated simply: “We just want to win.”
A source familiar with internal discussions claimed Friday that recent negotiations have been fruitless, with even mediators growing frustrated at the lack of progress.
“[Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas] Araghchi and [Iran Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher] Qalibaf are on one side, the IRGC is on the other,” explained this source, saying that Tehran’s negotiators are on a “completely different page” than the war-hungry IRGC.
