President Donald Trump said on Thursday, September 17, 2026, that he is nearing a decision on whether to resume large-scale military action against Iran, telling Axios in an interview that a far more aggressive phase of the war remains on the table. “I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It’s a big decision. Anything could happen with me,” he said.
He declined to say whether he would make that call before or after the U.S. midterm elections in November. Operation Epic Fury, the American military campaign against Iran, began on February 28 and is now in its seventh month. No end date or clear timeline has been set.
A Meeting With Six Gulf Leaders
The remarks came days before Trump is expected to sit down on Tuesday, September 22, with the leaders of six Gulf states while the United Nations General Assembly is meeting in New York. On that guest list: Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Those talks are expected to steer the war’s next phase: either a return to broad military action or a fresh attempt at diplomacy.
Those governments have a great deal riding on the answer. Trump shelved a return to major combat operations in early August after Saudi Arabia and Qatar warned that Tehran could hit Gulf oil and gas facilities in response. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is fending off a growing campaign of missile and drone strikes launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.
A Different Message a Day Earlier
On Wednesday, September 16, Trump struck a markedly different note. “Hopefully we’re toward the end of the war. They want to make a deal. We’ll see how that works out,” he told reporters. Asked whether contact with Tehran was running through intermediaries, he said the two governments deal directly.
Later that day, at a rally at Gastonia Municipal Airport in Gastonia, North Carolina, alongside North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump said Iran cannot keep going and that the fighting would end soon. “You watch what’s gonna happen to Iran. It’s gonna be a really good conclusion,” he said.
Last week, Trump predicted the fighting would end “immediately after” the midterm elections because Iran “can’t hold out any longer,” and indicated that any eventual agreement would reach well past the nuclear limits that dominated earlier talks. “I’m doing much more than a nuclear deal. There’s a lot more than nuclear,” he said. He told Axios that Tehran remains in direct contact with Washington and still wants a deal.
Blockade, Sanctions and Force Levels
Short of launching a new offensive, Washington has kept its naval blockade of Iranian ports in place and widened economic sanctions on Tehran. “Not one ship has gone to Iran since we started. They tried, and we blew them up,” Trump said.
The military has also worked to reopen shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz. More than 900 million barrels of crude have moved through the waterway with U.S. military assistance since early May. “The strait is open. Those lanes are open. And that is why commercial vessels continue to flow through them,” CENTCOM spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said.
Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth have directed U.S. forces in the Middle East to hold at current strength through the end of the year, so that they can resume full-scale combat if ordered. On the diplomatic track, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been put in charge of negotiations with Iran; Tehran has signaled it would rather deal with Vice President JD Vance.
Gas and oil prices have climbed during the war. Trump has brushed off the concerns ahead of the November midterms. “It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done. Remember that. It’s a little more,” he told the Gastonia crowd on September 16, adding that prices were going to “come tumbling down.”
Planning for What Comes After
Inside the White House, an early-stage post-war strategy is taking shape, built on a regional effort to contain Iran and a broader push to normalize relations between Israel and its neighbors. Two votes are shaping that planning: Israel’s election on October 27 and the U.S. midterms in November.
Other pieces are moving into place before the General Assembly. The State Department cleared a potential foreign military sale to Saudi Arabia of 48 F-35 Lightning II aircraft and related equipment, a package valued at $24.3 billion. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has also been granted a visa for the New York session, as have Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other high-ranking officials from Tehran.
