As America’s top negotiator, Steven Witkoff, prepares for Saturday’s second round of talks with Iran, hawks in President Trump’s inner circle and Israeli officials are attempting to stiffen his spine. Even as diplomacy takes center stage, military strikes loom as a viable option. 

Secretary Rubio, who accompanied Mr. Witkoff to Paris for talks on Ukraine, laid out clear American positions that Iran opposes, at least for now. At the same time, two top advisers to Prime Minister Netanyahu quietly met with Mr. Witkoff. Some Israelis now say military action is all but inevitable. 

“I don’t know when, but unless Iran agrees to dismantle its nuclear program, I’m sure there will be joint American-Israeli strikes,” the founder of the hawkish Israel Defense and Security Forum, Amir Avivi, tells the Sun after meeting top officials at the White House and the Department of State. 

Vice President Vance, reportedly a leader of an administration group that opposes military strikes, is at Rome, where Mr. Witkoff will meet Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Saturday. An Iran hawk, Mr. Rubio said after a Friday meeting with European counterparts that America is seeking a very different deal than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

“We would all prefer a peaceful resolution, and a lasting one,” he said. Yet, “it has to be something that actually not just prevents Iran from having a nuclear weapon now, but, you know, in the future as well, not just for 10 years with some sort of sunset provisions.”

The sunsets that were built into the phased 2015 nuclear deal made it much easier for the Iranians to conceal nuclear activities, a former International Atomic Energy Agency inspector, David Albright, tells the Sun. An agreement that will keep all restrictions in place for longer than 10 years will “discourage the Iranians from just keeping everyone employed like they did under the JCPOA,” he says.  

While inspectors were trying to verify that stockpiles of enriched uranium remained at a low level, Mr. Albright added, the Iranians built advanced centrifuges that later enabled enrichment to the current 60 percent purity, which is near bomb-level. Now, “Iran wants the world to focus on stocks and ignore centrifuges,” he said.

Last Saturday Mr. Araghchi proposed at Oman a three-stage process, which in effect would restore the JCPOA deal in return for removal of sanctions, according to the website Iran International. In the first stage, Iran oil exports would resume uninterrupted after it halts enrichment beyond 3.67 percent purity.   

Following that meeting Mr. Witkoff told Fox News that America, indeed, had called for a cap on enrichment to that level. A day later, though, the envoy had to walk back his statement, writing on X that “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.” 

Israelis fear that more clarity is needed. Mr. Netanayhu’s top adviser, Ron Dermer, and the Mossad chief, David Barnea, quietly met with Mr. Witkoff on Friday in an attempt to influence the talks. Mr. Netanyahu has said that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure must be completely dismantled — either by negotiation or using military means. 

The Islamic Republic would never agree to dismantle its centrifuges for enriching uranium, to halt enrichment altogether, or to reduce the amount of enriched uranium it stores to a level below that agreed to under the 2015 deal, an unidentified Tehran official told Reuters. These red lines were “mandated” by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and could not be compromised, the source said.  

Washington is hoping to soften Tehran’s rigid position with increased economic pressure. An IAEA report, expected soon, will say not just that Iran is “out of compliance, but Iran is dangerously close to a weapon, closer than they’ve ever been,” Mr. Rubio told reporters Friday. Therefore, he added, Europeans “have a decision to make on snapback.”

He was referring to a provision in the 2015 United Nations resolution that endorsed that year’s Iran nuclear deal allowing each participant to unilaterally strike it in case of noncompliance. That provision, known as snapback, would reimpose all international sanctions that existed prior to 2015. Yet, as part of the JCPOA “sunsets,” the snapback option expires in October. 

While Israelis are updating military plans, Mr. Avivi says his Washington meetings led him to believe that Washington and Jerusalem are in “complete sync.” Mr. Trump is engaging in diplomacy because “he is building up internal and external legitimacy, so he could say, ‘I tried it,’ before ordering an attack,” the former IDF general writes on X. 

Mr. Trump’s military intentions aside, he has ordered a significant military build-up in the region, including assets that are capable of penetrating Iran’s nuclear facilities. Perhaps they are there merely to push Iran toward an acceptable deal. However, “if deterrence fails, we won’t,” the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, David Allvin, writes on X above a photo of some of those assets.