Trump Is Weighing Two Options for Iran. They’re Both Horrific.

The president might resume military strikes or maintain a blockade for months—or do both.

One side effect, it seems, of threatening to destroy an entire civilization is that subsequent, less apocalyptic attempts at intimidation fall a little flat. Case in point: Early Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself in a suit and sunglasses, holding an assault rifle, with the caption “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY.” “Iran can’t get their act together,” he wrote in the post. “They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon!”

Iran got smart, alright: Its embassy in Ghana cleverly mocked Trump on X by comparing his post to a movie flop:

🎬 RATED DJT (excessive caps use, severe instability, fake plot, no exit strategy)🍊 Rotten Oranges: 34%🎯 MAGAcritic: 47/100🎞️ IMDB (Imaginary Movie Database): 4.5/10 😴 CinemaSnore: F−"Total witch hunt." — The Hollow-wood Reporter pic.twitter.com/pU8zD7PBaY— Iran in Ghana (@IRAN_GHANA) April 29, 2026

🎬 RATED DJT (excessive caps use, severe instability, fake plot, no exit strategy)🍊 Rotten Oranges: 34%🎯 MAGAcritic: 47/100🎞️ IMDB (Imaginary Movie Database): 4.5/10 😴 CinemaSnore: F−"Total witch hunt." — The Hollow-wood Reporter pic.twitter.com/pU8zD7PBaY

But don’t be fooled by these juvenile volleys on social media, or the fact that the ceasefire is still holding. The latest reporting suggests that the war is entering a more dangerous phase. The White House is considering several options to increase pressure on Iran, and none suggest that peace is on the horizon: They involve either a massive military escalation, the destruction of the global economy, or both.

It has been three weeks since Trump’s threat of nuclear annihilation—that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran didn’t unconditionally surrender. Iran did not surrender, of course. Instead, a day later, it agreed to a ceasefire with the U.S. and reopening the Strait of Hormuz; several days later, the U.S. went ahead and launched its own blockade of the vital trade route. And that is why the price of oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and so much more continues to wreak havoc around the world.

The Groundhog Day nature of this ceasefire—Hormuz opens briefly then closes; talks occur but never seem to settle on anything; Trump continues to issue deranged threats, and Iran mocks them—has created the false sense that this conflict is markedly less volatile than it was three weeks ago. Trump, yes, has quieted talk of nuking Tehran, but as peace talks have faltered, he is weighing scenarios to cause Iran more pain—all of which would also cause plenty of pain for other countries, including the U.S.

On Tuesday, Axios’s Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo reported that the war had “entered a Cold War-like phase of financial sanctions, gunboat interdictions and talks about having talks.” But their reporting contradicted that framing; a Cold War implies a degree of stability that this conflict decidedly lacks. Trump, they wrote, was weighing two options: “launching new military strikes or waiting to see whether his ‘maximum pressure’ financial sanctions make Iran more inclined to negotiate an end to its nuclear weapons program.” In other words, expanding the war or continuing the blockade for months, ensuring high energy prices for months and perhaps even a global hunger crisis.

A day later, Ravid reported that the U.S. had rejected Iran’s latest offer—to reopen the strait but punt on nuclear talks—and that Trump was settling into a maximum pressure campaign where the U.S. resumes strikes and continues its blockade indefinitely. Axios, citing three sources, reported on a U.S. Central Command plan “for a ‘short and powerful’ wave of strikes on Iran in hopes of breaking the negotiating deadlock.” “The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing,” Trump told the outlet. “They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them.” Trump, having settled on two awful choices, appears to be deciding to choose both.

It doesn’t help that Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have fired many experienced generals and regional experts. Or that Trump is consulting major energy CEOs about his plans: He met with oil and gas execs on Tuesday to discuss “steps we could take to continue the current blockade for months if needed and minimize impact on American consumers,” a White House official told Axios. That sounds like a pipe dream, given that roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump apparently believes that extending the blockade indefinitely and resuming bombing will force a weakened regime to make concessions. But a month of U.S. bombing and now the ongoing blockade apparently have not pushed Tehran’s hard-line leaders anywhere close to an unconditional—or minimally conditioned—surrender. Indeed, a great deal of reporting suggests the regime believes, with good reason, that Trump will not be willing to withstand the pain of high energy prices and that if they hold on long enough he will crack.

Trump probably could end this crisis somewhat easily, by restarting negotiations similar to those that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, in which Iran agreed to cease its nuclear weapon ambitions in exchange for the unfreezing of assets. That would cause energy prices to go down and end the needless death and destruction Trump has unleashed. It might not save the Republicans from a crushing defeat in the November midterm elections, but it might be enough to preserve their control of the Senate.

Trump is choosing not to do that. And he’s hurtling toward a horrific decision that will likely cause thousands of deaths in Iran and the destruction of the global economy, all while making zero progress toward peace—or, for that matter, toward any of the stated goals of the Iran war, like ending its nuclear program. In this scenario, everyone loses.

Alex Shephard is senior editor of The New Republic, where he has covered politics and culture since 2015. His work has also appeared in New York, GQ, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other publications.  

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