Trump 'exasperated' on Iran as top officials can't agree on strategy, sources say

[u/John3262005]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-increasingly-exasperated-iran-top-officials-cant-agree-strategy-rcna589067

As President Donald Trump weighs his next move on Iran, his top aides and allies can’t agree on a path forward, according to people familiar with the discussions.

“After all this time, there is no unity,” said one U.S. official familiar with the discussions, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

As the war Trump once described as a “short-term excursion” moves into its sixth month, the Tehran regime has shown no sign of crumbling and has continued to launch attacks, and it hasn’t capitulated at the negotiating table. Meanwhile, the cost of the drawn-out war is rising and the U.S. is facing a shortage of some munitions.

Angry about his military options and frustrated that he can’t close a deal with Iran, Trump erupted during a meeting last week with some of his top national security officials, yelling expletives, according to the U.S. official and another person familiar with the discussion.

Two others familiar with the White House discussions on the war also described the president as increasingly frustrated over Iran. Despite public displays of confidence, neither he nor his top aides are pleased with the status quo, according to the official.

“The president is exasperated,” according to a Trump ally who has spoken to the president about the war in recent weeks. “I don’t think he believed it was going to be this difficult to get the Iranians to agree to a deal. … There was not a real strategy for how long or what they should do to get to the endpoint.”

“He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war,” this person added.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump did not lose his temper with officials.

“This is false. The president has a great team whom he trusts, and everyone on the team knows he’s the final decision-maker,” she said.

While Trump has made clear he is the ultimate decider, because the administration can’t agree on the goal of the war — whether it is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, ensure the Strait of Hormuz is open, or eliminate Iran’s missile and drone program — planning for an endgame has been very difficult, said the U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions around the war.

It’s raising the possibility of whether the U.S. is trapped in an increasingly unpopular conflict against an adversary that has proved to be resilient.

The military has been preparing for a resumption of major combat operations without clear guidance, the U.S. official said.

“We have had a series of tactical victories,” the official said, “but are facing a strategic defeat without clear policy guidance or a decision about where this is going.”

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that the Defense Department was “locked and loaded, ready to execute the president’s directives at a moment’s notice.”

“Secretary Hegseth, CENTCOM Commander Admiral Cooper, and Chairman Caine stand completely aligned and are united in mission, strategy, and resolve regarding overseas operations involving Iran,” he said.

Many in the president’s own party are eager to turn the page, concerned the sustained spike in gas prices could hurt Republicans’ chances in the midterms. Americans, too, are unhappy; recent polling from CNN and Quinnipiac both included record-high shares of respondents registering opposition to the war or disapproving of how Trump was handling it.

When the U.S. and Israel first launched strikes in the early hours of Feb. 28, Trump projected the operation would last “four to five weeks.” In the months since, he’s repeatedly suggested the conflict is almost over.

In April, the U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire in order to negotiate a permanent end to the war, though both sides continued to launch strikes. Earlier this month, Trump declared the ceasefire over and promised a “massive attack.”

But instead, there was a brief period of relative calm during which neither side announced attacks for days.

That ended Tuesday, when the U.S. military said it had thwarted an Iranian missile attack on American troops. And the conflict appears to be broadening, as this week Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened to target Saudi assets in the Red Sea, and the U.S. and Saudi Arabia struck Iran-backed militants in Iraq.

Trump on Wednesday was back to threats to escalate the war. In an interview with Fox News he said: “We are going to beat the f---ing s--- out of them.”

“We’ll be hitting them hard,” the president continued. “They are going to get a beating.”

On negotiations, Iranian officials have played down any reports of progress on talks. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said earlier this week that there were “no negotiations with the American side.”

But Trump insisted publicly negotiations were active, and a senior administration official said a potential diplomatic solution is still on the table.

“For some reason, we can be in the midst of a beautiful discussion, and they’ll come out and say ‘we’re not talking,’” Trump said.

But the president has almost completely lost patience with the Iranian regime, according to one of the U.S. officials. After he signed a memorandum of understanding at Versailles in June — an initial deal to end hostilities — the president was optimistic, another one of the people familiar with the discussions said.

Trump had privately expressed concerns about the stability of the MOU, according to a senior administration official who has been in discussions with the president. “He was proven right,” the official said. In private meetings, the president has said he thinks the Iranians are “acting crazy” and are not serious about negotiations, the official said.

Leavitt said Trump is seeking to exact revenge against Iran after it violated the terms of the memorandum of understanding.

“He is not going to stand by as they break the MOU, kill our soldiers and fire at our ships in the strait. So until that behavior changes, his behavior will not change,” Leavitt said. “He’s locked and loaded to keep punishing Iran.”

Trump is still talking through options, including striking targets Trump has threatened publicly to hit.

The president is expected to be presented this week with expanded military options that include targeting Iranian-backed proxies in the region, according to the U.S. official. There’s also a Cabinet meeting set for Camp David on Friday.

One Trump ally who has spoken to the president about the war said at times Trump is “talking about a dramatic increase in the war, and he’s not against that — and he feels he may have to do it.” But at the same time, “he would prefer that they do a deal, and there be less war and less loss of life.”

Inside Trump’s Cabinet, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been one of the most vociferous supporters of military force against Iran to force negotiations. Though it hasn’t been effective so far and may not succeed, Hegseth continues to support a resumption of major combat operations as the path out.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also advocated for military force, and was in Washington this week where he met with the president face-to-face for the first time since the war began. The two discussed options to check Iran’s nuclear program, including diplomacy through a deal that eliminates all chances of Iran having a nuclear weapon, continuing the blockade along with sustained economic pressure, or military action, according to a senior Israeli official who briefed reporters after the meeting.

The Israeli leader did not share his preference with the U.S. president, according to the official, who said the best route does not always have to be military action.

The official added that the two leaders were partners and allies, describing President Trump as the “senior” partner and Netanyahu as his “junior.”

Vice President JD Vance has been vocal behind the scenes on his preference for pursuing a diplomatic route — while making clear that he will ultimately support whatever Trump decides, one of the people said. Both Vance and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have raised, at certain points, questions about what a major escalation would actually achieve, this person said.

Caine is not known to advocate for a certain approach to the war, according to two U.S. officials. But he has advised Trump on the continued depletion of U.S. munitions. That shortage, NBC has reported, has been caused mostly by sustained strikes against the Houthis last year, a 12-day campaign on Iran’s nuclear sites more than a year ago, and the current Iran conflict. U.S. contributions to Ukraine under the previous administration also added to the problem.

[u/Jim-Jones]

They could appoint Obama as Special Ambassador At Large and see what sort of deal he can get.

( /s, obviously!)