Trump Rejects Iran Ceasefire, Expects Renewed Bombing After Midterms

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Sept. 25, 2026 8:26 pm ET | Alexander Ward in Washington and Summer Said in Dubai

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The president is skeptical that Tehran will meet his demands

President Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms, U.S. officials said.

Tehran’s proposal would have reopened the Strait of Hormuz and resumed nuclear talks in return for the U.S. lifting its blockade of Iranian ports, which is causing deep damage to the country’s economy. Trump says openly that Tehran is begging for a deal after the midterms that dismantles its nuclear program.

But privately Trump is skeptical Iran would meet his demands and has told his staff that he sees a renewed bombing campaign as likely, the officials said. 

Trump’s current position indicates the conflict’s stage—a liminal space between war and peace—is likely to tilt back toward hostilities. But the president, who has declared victory since the earliest days of the seven-month fight, alternates between pursuing diplomacy, ordering airstrikes and tightening sanctions around Iran. His views today could shift as the war drags over the coming weeks, officials said, and could be affected by the results of the midterms.

The level of strikes Trump is contemplating couldn’t be determined. He is reluctant to resume major combat operations, the officials said, partly because the U.S. wants to reserve dwindling munitions for other contingencies. But Trump has also announced massive attacks to push through diplomatic deadlocks in U.S.-Iran negotiations, sometimes following through but always stepping back from his most audacious threats, including wiping out the entirety of Iranian civilization.

Trump told the United Nations this week politics don’t enter his mind when aiming to pry nuclear fuel from Iran.

“The Republican Party is running, and I’ll be helping them, but I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence...

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TOPICS: Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: iran; midterms; trump; wsj

[Paladin2]

The GOPee [compleat with Long TDS] really deserves/has earned no support.

Unfortunately, the alternative is yugely/bigly way worse.

It’s a totally stinky choice.

[nathanbedford]

Trumps resolution to prevail in barring Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, even at the cost of losses in the midterm elections, is commendable.

If he is to be faulted for the conduct of this fight over seven months it should be for the following reasons: 1) failure to anticipate that Iran could and would close the Strait of Hormuz; 2) suspensions of bombing, in favor of negotiations; 3) failure to continue bombing while negotiating; 4) delay in imposing a United States blockade on ships attempting to export or move Iranian oil and goods; 5) discontinuing active coordinated operations with Israel; 6) failure, early and extensively, to secure cooperation by cooperating nations to impose sanctions against Iran; 7) failure to arm dissident Iranians; 8) denying Kurds' ambitions to attack Iran; 9) flip-flopping on stating war aims concisely and precisely; 10) flip-flopping on bombing/negotiating; 11) failure to advise and enlist European allies, especially NATO, to cooperate in the fight; unnecessarily antagonizing potential allies in Europe and elsewhere with off-putting braggadocio and belligerence, especially respecting Iceland.

Against all this, we have the transcendental fact that Donald Trump, alone among presidents, has found the courage to actually interdict by armed force Iran's nuclear potential, and that decision, because existential, is historic.

[Theophilus]

• My family and I will always vote.
• The outcome always belongs to God
• I'm grateful that President Trump is eliminating the Shiite Iranian threat, regardless of the election
• I don't understand why President Trump won't take every island, port and oilfield and destroy every power station, or other critical infrastructure right now, but trust the War Department knows what it's doing
• I hope we seize Cuba soon. It's been a loooooong time comin'
• Soddom Arabia, the nation most responsible for 9/11, has vast resources to defend itself, but I hope Mecca and Medina fall to the Houthis and that they publicly behead the craven, hand holding, mouth kissing, royal family with their scimitars, like good Muslims.

[Theophilus]

Amen!

[Paladin2]

Shia Islam needs to be smote first...

[redinIllinois]

.

[Antioch]

The 11 points are effects of one overarching fault: Trump decided to put the paranoid dreams of Netanyahu and Miriam Adelson ahead of his campaign promises to the American electorate. That’s it. And this new fallback “mission accomplished” position that Iran will never get the bomb will be the final humiliation: North Korea, a nation of 20 million under vast sanctions and covert warfare, had no problem developing nuclear weapons despite America swearing that they never would. Sorry to say, but even with a full scale, years long,multi trillion dollar ruinous ground war, Iran is going to eventually acquire nuclear weapons.It’s a mountain fortress of 92 million people.

All boomer jingoism aside, can we have a brief moment of honesty? Trump should have stuck to his promises. He could have easily won the mid terms and had sn amazing legacy. This was the saddest reversal of fortunes since Nixon.

[Pete Dovgan]

Your list of debatable mistakes is long, much as it is with conflicts. They call it ‘the fog of war’, more modern Mike Tyson ‘Everyone has a plan until you get hit in the face’. The only constant has been Trumps resolve to eliminate Iran as a world threat. 47 years of American Presidents, either backing down or, negotiating away, or outright assisting Iran, has only enabled them and more terrorism. Grant failed how many times before he took Vicksburg? Even when he did take it, none of Grant’s commanders recommended him. People often don’t perceive greatness in the moment, possibly caught up in the price of diesel or whatever it was at the time.

[LuxAerterna]

Iran would have multiple nuclear warheads by now if Kamala Harris or Joe Biden were President. At a minimum they would be using them for intimidation or blackmail. From that minimum it gets worse, MUCH worse.

I agree the ceasefires and MOU were mistakes. They gave a lifeline to a regime that, IMHO, was wobbling badly. But at least Donald Trump did SOMETHING. We’d be in dire straights if Donald Trump wasn’t President.

[TermLimits4All]

Your post implies that we would’ve kept the majority if he hadn’t started conflict with a country that has been at war with us since the 70’s. I submit that seeing the last two years of inaction in Congress should be exactly what you should expect even if we hold the majority.
The country is lost and short of one terrible event the likes of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, we won’t be coming together as Americans again.

[Beowulf9]

He has the worlds most sophisticated equipment to spy, eavesdrop. I wonder if this isn’t because he has heard something, knows what’s up and it’s the driving force. Heard through the lies.

We’ve seen how they treat their women, their children. Should we expect we should be treated any better? We are, in their own words, ‘the infidel’ and it’s okay to lie to ‘the infidel’.

[equaviator]

"But privately Trump is skeptical Iran would meet his demands and has told his staff that he sees a renewed bombing campaign as likely, the officials said."

A former Hanoi Hilton POW ('67-'73) once told me that if he and his fellow Americans who were finally released hadn't played by their own rules, they'd never have gotten out of there alive or dead.

Trump plays by his own rules and rightly so. We're seeing in nearly real time what it means to be an American President and Commander-in-Chief. That's almost unheard of anymore. There is an old American saying from the American Revolution that seems to fit and it's this--"Providence favors our undertaking (Annuit cœptis)."



People who don't trust Trump or take him seriously are missing the boat, and that ship will soon set sail not for a fundamentally changed America, but for the better days that lie ahead.

[Red6]

Nice write up.

In my mind, I keep trying to find an equivalent president from the past.

There isn’t.

The closest fit is maybe Teddy Roosevelt IMHO.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for a considered reply.

I presume that you did not contest any of the 11 points I submitted, largely because you believe they are irrelevant. In other words, even if the war is brought to a prompt conclusion, it does not matter because " Iran is going to eventually acquire nuclear weapons ."

10 of the 11 points, however, deal with the symptoms that have confounded the president's objective because he has consistently declined to state or recognize that the fixed goal of the war is to effect regime change.

Without regime change, I agree with you, an Islamist regime will eventually acquire nuclear weapons. With regime change, miracles can happen. Epiphanies make for rehabilitation. That is the essential message of Christianity. But it has happened in Islam more than once; witness Anwar Sadat. That is why, for example, we failed to arm dissident Iranians, because we failed to define victory properly.

So the 11 symptoms are but the product of a failure to define victory. A meaningful, permanent victory is indeed achievable with regime change - however difficult that might be to accomplish without boots on the ground.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for a considered reply.

I presume that you did not contest any of the 11 points I submitted, largely because you believe they are irrelevant. In other words, even if the war is brought to a prompt conclusion, it does not matter because " Iran is going to eventually acquire nuclear weapons ."

10 of the 11 points, however, deal with the symptoms that have confounded the president's objective because he has consistently declined to state or recognize that the fixed goal of the war is to effect regime change.

Without regime change, I agree with you, an Islamist regime will eventually acquire nuclear weapons. With regime change, miracles can happen. Epiphanies make for rehabilitation. That is the essential message of Christianity. But it has happened in Islam more than once; witness Anwar Sadat. That is why, for example, we failed to arm dissident Iranians, because we failed to define victory properly.

So the 11 symptoms are but the product of a failure to define victory. A meaningful, permanent victory is indeed achievable with regime change - however difficult that might be to accomplish without boots on the ground.

[dware]

Doesn’t matter anyhow. We’re headed the same direction with either party. Only difference is how fast we get there.

[dware]

Doesn’t matter anyhow. We’re headed the same direction with either party. Only difference is how fast we get there.

[OttawaFreeper]

I would want to mention that regarding European allies, they mostly are these corrupt, welfare state type fiefdoms that are dealing with the consequences of their own self contradictory policies. These people really were not friends to begin with.

I would also be curious to learn about what is really going on behind the scenes regarding the dissidents in Iran and I wonder if there is a lot we presently do not know about.

[equaviator]

"...I wonder if there is a lot we presently do not know about."

"We", as in Trump 47 or "we", as in the American people?

I think that "we", as in the American people, can assume that there's a lot we don't know about at any given time!