US President Donald Trump announced Thursday  that the international community will discover “over the next, probably, ten days” if Washington can secure a diplomatic agreement with Iran or if it will resort to military force.

Speaking at the debut assembly of his Board of Peace in Washington, D.C., Trump acknowledged that “we have some work to do” to reach a consensus with the Islamic Republic regarding its nuclear ambitions, warning that “we may have to take it a step further.”

Despite the President’s ten-day timeline, an source heavily connected to the Israeli defense establishment told Belaaz that Israel is maintaining a heightened state of alert, expecting a potential attack within the next 72 hours. This source suggested that the President is attempting to give Iran a false sense of safety, remarking that he would make a fine “anesthesiologist.”

The United States has rapidly increased its military presence in the Middle East over the past few days, as talks with the Islamic Republic have stalled.

According to Thursday reports, the US Armed Forces have already authorized tactical strike blueprints, standing ready should Trump issue the final command to launch an offensive against Iran.

Meanwhile, a coalition of Democratic legislators, joined by a few Republicans, has publicly objected to executing any military operations in Iran without explicit authorization from Congress.

During his address, Trump highlighted that Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, recently engaged in “some very good meetings” with Iranian officials.
Reflecting on the historical challenges of these negotiations, the President stated, “It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran,” adding, “Otherwise bad things happen.”

Just a day prior, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt cautioned that Tehran would be “very wise” to reach an agreement with Washington, emphasizing that Trump continues to prefer a diplomatic resolution concerning Iran’s nuclear operations.

Upon its initial unveiling, Trump’s Board of Peace was widely perceived as an initiative to conclude the two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and to manage the subsequent rebuilding efforts. However, over the past month, the coalition’s scope has seemingly expanded far beyond a single regional crisis, prompting speculation that the roughly two-dozen-nation assembly, chaired by Trump, is designed to bypass the United Nations entirely.

To bolster these potential operational plans, American troops have steadily intensified their regional presence in recent weeks, with a level of force deployment not seen since the Gulf War of 1991. Simultaneously, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has taken to social media to issue direct threats against US military personnel. Elaborating on this rhetoric, one of Khamenei’s online statements read: “The US President constantly says that the US has sent a warship toward Iran. Of course, a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware,” before warning, “However, more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea.”