Trump Reassesses Military Options at Emergency White House Security Meeting

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\r\n[The Financial News] Donald Trump is said to have abruptly put his plan for airstrikes on Iran on hold and then summoned his security team to the White House Situation Room for a briefing on military options. Although the attack was delayed amid concerns from allies in the Persian Gulf region, analysts say he is still keeping the possibility of military action open while adjusting the level of pressure.
According to Axios on the 19th (local time), Trump held a security meeting the previous evening with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and special envoy Steven Charles Witkoff.
The meeting reportedly included an update on negotiations with Iran as well as a briefing on military options. Axios said Trump's receipt of a military-action briefing signaled that he was seriously considering resuming the attack.
According to U.S. officials, when Trump announced the previous day that he was postponing the Iran attack scheduled for the next day, no final attack order had yet been issued.
Trump had initially been expected to hold a security team meeting on the 19th to decide whether to strike Iran. Instead, he announced the postponement ahead of schedule and then convened another security meeting hours later.
The decision was reportedly influenced in part by requests from Gulf leaders, including those in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who urged Washington to act cautiously out of concern over possible Iranian retaliation. Analysts say the administration was also weighing fears that an Iranian strike on oil facilities or U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region could destabilize the entire Middle East energy supply chain.
Axios reported that Trump's sudden decision to hold off on the attack also created confusion inside the U.S. government. Some officials were said to be closely monitoring the situation without a clear sense of the administration's actual response posture.
On his social media platform Truth Social the previous day, Trump said he had ordered the military to postpone the Iran attack scheduled for the next day at the request of Gulf states. Speaking later to reporters, he said he made the decision to hold off about an hour before the strike was due and described the delay as lasting "two or three days, or until early next week."
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km@fnnews.com Kim Kyung-min Reporter