President Donald Trump is considering expanding U.S. military operations against Iran as diplomatic efforts remain stalled, according to administration officials.
Options under review include widening the air campaign, sending ground forces to seize strategic Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz and striking Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried complex linked to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump met with senior national security officials in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday to discuss operations against Kharg Island and other positions along the critical shipping route. The administration is also considering strikes against additional military and energy infrastructure, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The discussions included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine.
Trump has continued to express a preference for a negotiated settlement. But Iran’s refusal to meet U.S. demands, including those involving its nuclear materials, has prompted the administration to examine more aggressive alternatives.
The U.S. military carried out two rounds of strikes Wednesday against Iranian command centers, air defenses, missile and drone capabilities and coastal surveillance facilities. Earlier strikes targeted coastal defenses and cruise-missile sites on Greater Tunb Island.
“We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” Trump said as the second wave began.
American forces have also resumed a blockade of Iranian ports. On Wednesday, a U.S. aircraft fired Hellfire missiles into the smokestack of the Curaçao-flagged M/T Belma after the vessel ignored warnings and continued toward Kharg Island, according to U.S. Central Command.
Trump has not made a final decision and has suggested that military pressure could still bring Iran back to negotiations.
“We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain,” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt this week.
Trump also left open the possibility of seizing Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil-export hub.
⚡️Trump on his comments about taking Kharg Island:
We already hit Kharg Island, as you know, twice. Even three times.
I said hit everything but just leave that little area from 25 yards out because I don't want that in terms of the world economy.
As far as taking it is…
— War Intel (@warintel4u) July 15, 2026
“If we degrade them far enough and deep enough back, I would do that,” he said during a Fox News interview.
Vance described military action as one component of a broader strategy.
“We’re not just going to bomb and bomb and bomb. We’re going to try to use our military force as one of the many tools that we have to solve the problem,” he said in a podcast interview that aired Wednesday.
Pickaxe Mountain contains an underground tunnel network built into granite near the Natanz nuclear complex. The facility is believed to be considerably deeper than the sites previously struck at Natanz and Fordow, complicating any attempt to destroy it from the air.
Although the complex remains under construction, it relies on outside electricity, equipment and personnel that could provide alternative targets. Trump has said American bunker-buster weapons “can go deep.”
A ground operation against Kharg Island could sharply reduce Iran’s oil exports but would place American forces within range of missiles and drones launched from the mainland. Reuters reported that the island handles about 90% of Iran’s oil exports.
Retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, a former commander of U.S. Central Command, said capturing Iranian territory could give Washington additional negotiating leverage.
“That’s something we should think about doing because possession of Iranian soil would be a significant factor in future negotiations with Iran,” McKenzie said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Any operation against Pickaxe Mountain or Kharg Island would mark a major escalation in the nearly five-month conflict and could further disrupt shipping and global energy markets. Trump’s public discussion of the targets may also be intended to pressure Tehran into returning to negotiations.
