US weighs renewed Iran strikes as CENTCOM briefs Trump on blockade, Vance pushes talks

Trump wanted to hear directly from Cooper on whether the blockade is working, the officials said. Cooper also briefed him on the military operation guiding oil tankers out of the Strait of Hormuz to global energy markets and on the economic pressure campaign being run with the Treasury Department. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and other senior officials attended. The Wall Street Journal first reported the meeting.

The briefing came as Washington and Tehran send mixed signals. The New York Times reported last week that the US and Israel have drawn up joint plans to attack Iran after the November 3 midterms, while The Washington Post reported that Vice President JD Vance had offered to meet Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in person. On Friday, Qatari mediators returned to Tehran for talks coordinated with the US, an official told Reuters. A regional source said “the mediation is at a very sensitive stage”.

Vance’s letter, delivered to Rezaei through Qatari mediators on Sunday, proposed direct talks led by Vance with Iran’s nuclear programme on the table from the start, the NYT reported. Trump and Vance met Wednesday to discuss a possible goodwill gesture, such as sending food and medicine to Iran, and Trump later publicly backed the idea, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting. Vance told Fox News on Thursday that Trump would “never” let the conflict become “a forever war”.

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack told CNN the US and Iran were “very close” to a deal to de-escalate tensions. “I think we’re very close to finally getting to a place where we can say, ‘Let’s just have a timeout,’” he said. “We’re not going to have an overall solution immediately, but we can allow the region to find its own pace.”

Iranian officials continued on Thursday to demand that Washington lift the naval blockade, release frozen Iranian funds and allow Iran to sell oil before resuming nuclear negotiations. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said progress depends on Iran’s seven conditions being met, including the lifting of sanctions, guarantees of an end to US-Israeli strikes and the unfreezing of assets, and that the “carrot-and-stick approach has no effect on Iran”, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Military preparations are visible in parallel. The Wall Street Journal reported the US has boosted air defences and munitions in the region and moved some troops away from bases vulnerable to Iranian retaliation. Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported ten US military cargo planes landed at air bases in Israel’s Negev on Thursday, with more sent to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who said he had been briefed on the plans, called them “insane” and warned of a devastating escalation.

Analysts are split on which track will prevail. Paul Musgrave of Georgetown University in Qatar said “the United States is getting ready to carry out substantial attacks relatively soon” and does not expect Washington to accept what he called Tehran’s unfavourable deal “without another round of attacks”. Rouzbeh Parsi of Lund University called Vance the “voice of reason” in the administration but doubted the outreach would get credence until Vance proves able to deliver something on his own. Wolfgang Pusztai, a security analyst and former Austrian defence attache, called a large-scale attack before the elections “very unlikely”, but said “starting in mid to late November, there could be a major wave of attacks” aimed at weakening the IRGC enough to push it toward a deal on US terms. Andreas Krieg of King’s College London said he expects “nothing is going to happen until the 3rd of November”, after which the likelihood of war will “increase exponentially”. He added that Iran has been preparing for war for weeks and is “ready to fight”, and that the threat to the Gulf “will be unprecedented”.

The pattern of talks followed by strikes has recurred through the conflict. Israel attacked in June 2025 two days before a planned round of US-Iran talks, with the US joining days later; this year, strikes came two days after Geneva talks in February. President Masoud Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera in September that Iran no longer trusts negotiations with Washington because attacks had come during previous rounds.