April 29, 2026
Dave DeCamp
A
view of the UN General Assembly hall in New York during the NPT conference on
April 28, 2026 (UN Photo/Manual Elias)“Iran can’t get their act
together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart
soon! President DJT,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Also on Wednesday, Axios reported that US Central Command has prepared a plan for a “short and powerful” wave of airstrikes against Iran to break the deadlock in negotiations, but any US strikes would almost certainly plunge the region back into a full-blown war.
Sources told Axios that there hasn’t yet been a decision by Trump to restart the bombing, but he appeared to confirm a report from The Wall Street Journal that said he told aides to prepare for a long-term blockade on Iran, which will continue to exacerbate the global economic crisis caused by the war.
“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told Axios.
“They want to settle. They don’t want me to keep the blockade. I don’t want to [lift the blockade], because I don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon,” the president added.
While framing his aggression against Iran as related to the possibility of the country obtaining nukes, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current conflict that Iran was pursuing a nuclear bomb.
President
Trump holds a ‘Make Iran Great Again’ hat in a photo posted to Sen. Graham’s X
account on January 5, 2026
Amid a US blockade on Iranian
ports and a very fragile ceasefire with Iran, President Trump has been
consulting with some of the most rabid Iran hawks who want him to restart the
bombing campaign, according to a report from Axios.
The report said Trump has been speaking with the notoriously hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ret. US Army General Jack Keane, and Marc Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for the George W. Bush administration, who has been urging the president to kill more of Iran’s leadership.
Trump recently shared a post from Thiessen where he called for the US to kill Iranian leaders who don’t want to give in to US demands. “If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones who don’t want a deal,” Thiessen said.
According to the Axios report, Trump is considering either restarting the bombing campaign or waiting to see if the US blockade and increasing sanctions have an impact. A Trump adviser told the outlet that Trump recently said that “all [Iran’s leaders] understand is bombs.”
Israel, the US’s partner in the conflict, has also made clear that it’s eager to restart airstrikes on Iran. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that Israel is awaiting a “greenlight” from the US to kill the rest of the Khamenei family and plunge Iran into “the age of darkness and stone by blowing up central energy and electricity facilities and crushing national economic infrastructure,” echoing similar threats made by Trump.
In the meantime, the US is attempting to ramp up the economic pressure on Iran, with the Treasury Department announcing more sanctions on Tuesday, part of the “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic.
“This is maximum pressure everywhere and from all angles,” a senior administration official told Axios. “That could mean military action, too. It might not. It’s up to the president.”
The report said that Trump was aware of the political cost to himself and the Republican Party as a result of the war, which, according to polling, is extremely unpopular among American voters. One White House official speaking to Reuters described the domestic pressure Trump was facing to end the conflict as “enormous.”
An Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month found that just 24% of Americans thought the war was worth it, while a majority, 51%, said it wasn’t, and 54% said it had a negative impact on their financial situation, as Americans have been facing rising gas prices.
The Reuters report said that, in the days after the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign, US intelligence agencies had assessed that if Trump declared victory and pulled forces out of the region, Iran would view it as a win. But if Trump claimed that the US won the war and didn’t reduce the US military presence in the Middle East, Tehran would just view it as a negotiating tactic.
After announcing the ceasefire with Iran, Trump did claim at one point that it was a “total and complete victory” for the US, but he has continued to build up forces in the region and threaten further attacks on the country. He has also implemented a blockade on Iranian ports, which has impeded further US-Iran peace talks, as Tehran views it as a violation of the ceasefire and is keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed in response.
“Earlier today in the Arabian Sea, US Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit boarded M/V Blue Star III, a commercial ship suspected of attempting to transit to Iran in violation of the US blockade of Iranian ports,” CENTCOM said in a post on X that included a video of the boarding.
“US forces released the vessel after conducting a search and confirming the ship’s voyage would not include an Iranian port call,” the US military command added.
So far, the US has seized at least three ships as part of its enforcement of the blockade, including two that were boarded in the Indian Ocean and one that was fired on and seized by US forces in the Gulf of Oman. Iran has maintained it won’t hold more negotiations with the US as long as it continues the blockade, which Tehran views as a ceasefire violation since it’s an act of war.
On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the US ship seizures as piracy. “This is the outright legalization of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas. Welcome to the return of the pirates — only now, they operate with government-issued warrants, sail under official flags, and call their plunder “law enforcement,” the ministry’s spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, wrote on X.
“The United States must be held fully accountable for this brazenly lawless behavior, which strikes at the heart of international law & international free trade, and threatens the basic principles of maritime security,” he added.
While a few dozen ships have made it through the US blockade, data show that Iran’s oil exports have fallen sharply since the US began its enforcement.
Christopher Yeaw, the US assistant secretary for arms control, fumed over the fact that Iran was chosen as one of the 34 vice presidents of the conference, which is being chaired by Vietnam.
“Rather than choosing to use this review conference to defend the integrity of the NPT and call Iran to account, we instead elect Iran a vice president,” Yeaw said, according to The Associated Press. “It is beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference.”
Iran’s representative at the conference, Reza Najafi, who serves as Tehran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), fired back at Yeaw, pointing out that the US is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon.
“It is indefensible that the United States, as the only state ever to have used nuclear weapons, and the one that continues to expand and modernize its nuclear arsenal… seeks to position itself as an arbitrator of compliance,” Najafi said.
He pointed out the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, calling the attacks a “grave violation of international law and a direct assault on the integrity of the global nonproliferation” system.
Najafi also said that the US was obstructing progress toward a nuclear weapons-free Middle East by supporting Israel, which, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the NPT and has a secret nuclear weapons program and an undeclared nuclear stockpile. The US also doesn’t acknowledge Israel’s nukes, a policy that allows the US to provide military assistance to Israel without worrying about the 1976 Symington Amendment, a foreign assistance law that prohibits aid to countries that traffic in or receive nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards.
“I can’t comment on that specific question. I’d have to refer you to the Israelis on that,” Thomas DiNanno, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said last month when asked about Israel’s nuclear capabilities.
Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to be somewhere between 70 and 400 nuclear warheads, is almost always missing from the conversation in US media coverage and political discussions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, which has never been used to develop weapons.
Last year, the AP reported that satellite images showed construction work on a major new facility at the Dimona nuclear site, and seven experts who examined the images all told the AP that they believed the construction was related to Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
Dave DeCamp
The post comes amid reports that
the US is considering restarting the bombing campaign
President Trump on Wednesday
issued a threat to Iran by posting an AI image of himself holding a gun, which
comes amid reports that he is considering restarting the bombing campaign
against the Islamic Republic.
Also on Wednesday, Axios reported that US Central Command has prepared a plan for a “short and powerful” wave of airstrikes against Iran to break the deadlock in negotiations, but any US strikes would almost certainly plunge the region back into a full-blown war.
Sources told Axios that there hasn’t yet been a decision by Trump to restart the bombing, but he appeared to confirm a report from The Wall Street Journal that said he told aides to prepare for a long-term blockade on Iran, which will continue to exacerbate the global economic crisis caused by the war.
“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told Axios.
“They want to settle. They don’t want me to keep the blockade. I don’t want to [lift the blockade], because I don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon,” the president added.
While framing his aggression against Iran as related to the possibility of the country obtaining nukes, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current conflict that Iran was pursuing a nuclear bomb.
According to Axios, Trump
recently told an aide that 'all Iran's leaders understand is bombs'
The report said Trump has been speaking with the notoriously hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ret. US Army General Jack Keane, and Marc Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for the George W. Bush administration, who has been urging the president to kill more of Iran’s leadership.
Trump recently shared a post from Thiessen where he called for the US to kill Iranian leaders who don’t want to give in to US demands. “If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones who don’t want a deal,” Thiessen said.
According to the Axios report, Trump is considering either restarting the bombing campaign or waiting to see if the US blockade and increasing sanctions have an impact. A Trump adviser told the outlet that Trump recently said that “all [Iran’s leaders] understand is bombs.”
Israel, the US’s partner in the conflict, has also made clear that it’s eager to restart airstrikes on Iran. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that Israel is awaiting a “greenlight” from the US to kill the rest of the Khamenei family and plunge Iran into “the age of darkness and stone by blowing up central energy and electricity facilities and crushing national economic infrastructure,” echoing similar threats made by Trump.
In the meantime, the US is attempting to ramp up the economic pressure on Iran, with the Treasury Department announcing more sanctions on Tuesday, part of the “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic.
“This is maximum pressure everywhere and from all angles,” a senior administration official told Axios. “That could mean military action, too. It might not. It’s up to the president.”
A White House official told
Reuters that the Trump is under 'enormous' domestic pressure to end the war
US spy agencies are analyzing how
Iran may respond if President Trump declared victory and pulled back from the
conflict with the Islamic Republic, Reuters reported on Tuesday.The report said that Trump was aware of the political cost to himself and the Republican Party as a result of the war, which, according to polling, is extremely unpopular among American voters. One White House official speaking to Reuters described the domestic pressure Trump was facing to end the conflict as “enormous.”
An Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month found that just 24% of Americans thought the war was worth it, while a majority, 51%, said it wasn’t, and 54% said it had a negative impact on their financial situation, as Americans have been facing rising gas prices.
The Reuters report said that, in the days after the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign, US intelligence agencies had assessed that if Trump declared victory and pulled forces out of the region, Iran would view it as a win. But if Trump claimed that the US won the war and didn’t reduce the US military presence in the Middle East, Tehran would just view it as a negotiating tactic.
After announcing the ceasefire with Iran, Trump did claim at one point that it was a “total and complete victory” for the US, but he has continued to build up forces in the region and threaten further attacks on the country. He has also implemented a blockade on Iranian ports, which has impeded further US-Iran peace talks, as Tehran views it as a violation of the ceasefire and is keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed in response.
The US continues to enforce the
blockade on Iranian ports, which is an impediment to peace talks with Iran
US Central Command said on
Tuesday that its forces boarded and then released a commercial ship in the
Arabian Sea, as the US continues to enforce the blockade on Iranian ports, the
main impediment to US-Iran peace talks.“Earlier today in the Arabian Sea, US Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit boarded M/V Blue Star III, a commercial ship suspected of attempting to transit to Iran in violation of the US blockade of Iranian ports,” CENTCOM said in a post on X that included a video of the boarding.
“US forces released the vessel after conducting a search and confirming the ship’s voyage would not include an Iranian port call,” the US military command added.
So far, the US has seized at least three ships as part of its enforcement of the blockade, including two that were boarded in the Indian Ocean and one that was fired on and seized by US forces in the Gulf of Oman. Iran has maintained it won’t hold more negotiations with the US as long as it continues the blockade, which Tehran views as a ceasefire violation since it’s an act of war.
On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the US ship seizures as piracy. “This is the outright legalization of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas. Welcome to the return of the pirates — only now, they operate with government-issued warrants, sail under official flags, and call their plunder “law enforcement,” the ministry’s spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, wrote on X.
“The United States must be held fully accountable for this brazenly lawless behavior, which strikes at the heart of international law & international free trade, and threatens the basic principles of maritime security,” he added.
While a few dozen ships have made it through the US blockade, data show that Iran’s oil exports have fallen sharply since the US began its enforcement.
Iran, unlike the US's ally
Israel, is a signatory to the NPT
The US and Iran clashed at the UN
on Monday during the first day of a month-long conference on the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which began amid a very fragile ceasefire
between the two countries and a continued US blockade on Iranian ports.Christopher Yeaw, the US assistant secretary for arms control, fumed over the fact that Iran was chosen as one of the 34 vice presidents of the conference, which is being chaired by Vietnam.
“Rather than choosing to use this review conference to defend the integrity of the NPT and call Iran to account, we instead elect Iran a vice president,” Yeaw said, according to The Associated Press. “It is beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference.”
Iran’s representative at the conference, Reza Najafi, who serves as Tehran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), fired back at Yeaw, pointing out that the US is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon.
“It is indefensible that the United States, as the only state ever to have used nuclear weapons, and the one that continues to expand and modernize its nuclear arsenal… seeks to position itself as an arbitrator of compliance,” Najafi said.
He pointed out the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, calling the attacks a “grave violation of international law and a direct assault on the integrity of the global nonproliferation” system.
Najafi also said that the US was obstructing progress toward a nuclear weapons-free Middle East by supporting Israel, which, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the NPT and has a secret nuclear weapons program and an undeclared nuclear stockpile. The US also doesn’t acknowledge Israel’s nukes, a policy that allows the US to provide military assistance to Israel without worrying about the 1976 Symington Amendment, a foreign assistance law that prohibits aid to countries that traffic in or receive nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards.
“I can’t comment on that specific question. I’d have to refer you to the Israelis on that,” Thomas DiNanno, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said last month when asked about Israel’s nuclear capabilities.
Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to be somewhere between 70 and 400 nuclear warheads, is almost always missing from the conversation in US media coverage and political discussions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, which has never been used to develop weapons.
Last year, the AP reported that satellite images showed construction work on a major new facility at the Dimona nuclear site, and seven experts who examined the images all told the AP that they believed the construction was related to Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
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