Trump administration holds secret meeting... deciding options on Iran
Washington (Agencies): Axios revealed that senior U.S. administration officials held a lengthy, closed-door meeting at Camp David on Friday to discuss the war against Iran and the conflict in Yemen, amid growing U.S. military buildup in the region and President Donald Trump’s threats to resume military operations. The website quoted three U.S. officials as saying that Vice President J.D. Vance chaired the extraordinary meeting, noting that the last such meeting took place in June 2025, just days before Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran. According to Axios, the core discussions centered on evaluating military and political options regarding the conflict with Iran and directing airstrikes against the Houthi group in Yemen. The meeting, which was not announced by the White House, included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine. Axios quoted one official commenting on the Middle East crisis: “Things have been decided, or at least discussed in depth.”
This extraordinary meeting comes as President Donald Trump has threatened to resume combat operations against Tehran if a deal is not reached soon. He stated, “I now have to make a decision... either Iran signs the agreement, or it will no longer exist.” He added that some believe an agreement with Iran is impossible because Iran may not comply with it, noting that “it will end one way or another,” and emphasized that Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon” and that the United States “will easily defeat it.”
On Friday, the U.S. president said, “Part of the difficulty in reaching an agreement with Iran is that we don’t know who is in charge,” pointing out that the country has been “left without leadership amid the war.” Speaking to a crowd in Mobile, Alabama, Trump said, “This is part of our problem. I don’t know who to deal with. There is no one to deal with.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. military buildup in the region continues. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. military plans to reinforce its forces in the area by thousands of personnel in the coming weeks to provide flexibility for Trump and the commanders overseeing the war. A U.S. official told Al Jazeera on Thursday that military reinforcements, including an aircraft carrier, a Marine amphibious ready group, and Marine units, are heading to the Middle East. The official clarified that the aircraft carrier Roosevelt departed with its strike group from San Diego bound for the region, and the Makin Island amphibious ready group left San Diego last Monday en route to the area, according to the U.S. official. He added that more than 2,000 Marines from the Marine unit are moving in the same direction aboard the amphibious ready group. The U.S. official confirmed that by the end of next November, three aircraft carriers and two amphibious ready groups will be deployed around Iran. These reinforcements add to the approximately 50,000 U.S. troops currently deployed in the Middle East, according to the Washington Post.
