President Trump told Axios this week that he's standing at the fork in the road. "I have a big decision coming up," he said. "Do I want to go in and annihilate them, or do I not? It's a big decision. Anything could happen with me." Tuesday, he meets at UN headquarters with leaders from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, and whatever direction he takes next will likely follow that room.

There may still be a negotiated road out. Trump himself says there is—he's told reporters Iran wants an agreement but isn't yet ready to accept terms he'd consider acceptable, though Tehran hasn't publicly confirmed his account of any direct contacts. But if that road goes nowhere, the two military choices left in front of him are hard ones, and neither comes without a bill attached.

Option one: end it. Wind the war down, pull back, let Tehran claim whatever victory lap it wants in front of its own state media. In exchange, America gets no boots on the ground, minimal additional loss of American life, and a regime that walks away diminished but intact — a wounded Iran instead of a defeated one. Middle East Institute fellow Nazee Moinian laid out the stakes bluntly this week: Iran is under enough military and economic pressure right now that it either escalates dramatically, tries to ride out the pain, or eventually implodes from within. "Both scenarios are possible at the same time," she said. Choosing to........

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