President Donald Trump has spent more than 100 days promising either a historic peace deal or a decisive military victory over Iran. He has neither — and on Thursday morning, he made clear he’s done waiting. 

In a Truth Social post, Trump threatened to strike Iran “very hard” and announced plans to seize Kharg Island, the linchpin of Iran’s oil export infrastructure, and “assume total control” of its oil and gas markets — comparing the move to the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, which he said was “working out brilliantly.”

It’s a striking escalation from a president who just earlier this week had projected a pending peace deal with Iran.

People close to the president told MS NOW that Trump has grown increasingly frustrated as he searches for a tangible victory to point to. Trump’s “annoyance,” according to a White House official granted anonymity to share sensitive details, has reached an all-time high as Iran’s “erratic behavior” makes the country increasingly challenging to broker with sincerely.

“The biggest mistake now would be if Trump reaches a peace deal without being able to point to a decisive victory of some kind,” the White House official said. Trump “needs to be able to point to something, and recent negotiations with Iran in many ways have exposed a fundamental miscalculation from Trump and the White House.” 

The problem isn’t just finding a deal. It’s also that any agreement Iran might accept would likely include terms resembling the 2015 nuclear accord Trump spent years denouncing — leaving him unable to claim the decisive victory he has promised. Seizing Kharg Island would be an effort to short-circuit that trap entirely, replacing a negotiated settlement with an assertion of total dominance. Whether it’s achievable or sustainable is another question.

Wednesday evening’s U.S. strikes — the second consecutive day of exchanged fire in what increasingly appears to be a resumed conflict and broken ceasefire — followed a Situation Room meeting in which Trump convened with top security officials, including Vice President JD Vance; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; CIA Director John Ratcliffe and White House envoy Steve Witkoff. The strikes were designed to signal unyielding U.S. resolve while nudging Iran toward the negotiating table, according to a White House official familiar with the thinking of the room. 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry released a statement Thursday morning accusing the U.S. of a “flagrant violation” of international law that “effectively rendered the April 8 ceasefire meaningless.” 

Trump’s Netanyahu-size problem

A huge component of Trump’s projection of strength amid the 100-plus days of conflict lies in his ability to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

On Sunday evening, following Iran’s missile attacks on Israel, Trump called Netanyahu with a singular message: “deter any escalation of conflict,” according to a U.S. official familiar with the phone call. Hours later, Israel bombed sites in Iran for the first time since the April ceasefire took hold. 

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Israeli officials aren’t worried that Trump will abandon them — they believe the president remains committed to Israel’s security even when that complicates diplomacy with Tehran.

“They know our red lines,” an Israeli official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic relations, said without elaborating. “If they would be willing to cross it off or not to do it, they could have a deal, and they did not do it. They’re [consistent] with what President Trump wants to achieve, so I don’t think it would come to this.”

The sharper divide between Washington and Jerusalem may be more fundamental: whether a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program is achievable at all.

“I think that we have a difference of opinion in that we’re not sure that there is a deal to be made with Iran,” the Israeli official told MS NOW. “The president does think there’s room, maybe, to make a deal. He wants to make sure that going back to war would be the last resort. We see the Iranian regime in a more realistic point of view because we dealt with them for so many years.”

Meanwhile, as a boxed-in Trump weighs his options, the financial toll of the conflict is compounding on multiple fronts. Pentagon officials estimate that the war has cost roughly $30 billion — though the real cost is likely much higher when accounting for damage to U.S. assets and bases — and the Trump administration is already struggling to push $350 billion of its $1.5 trillion defense budget request through reconciliation, facing bipartisan resistance. A move on Kharg Island would likely dramatically escalate those costs, even as Trump has framed it as a path to economic gain.

On the battlefield, U.S. forces face a punishing asymmetric fight — and a costly one. Earlier this week, an Iranian drone worth roughly $20,000 brought down an Apache helicopter valued at more than $30 million. Meanwhile, U.S. forces are stretched across the Middle East even as Trump officials float potential military action against Cuba, and as China-Taiwan tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific region.

Through it all, Americans are growing weary of a war with no clear end. On Thursday morning, Trump threatened to make it bigger.

Jake Traylor

Jake Traylor is a White House correspondent for MS NOW.

Julia Jester

Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.