With an ongoing attack on high-profile targets in Iran that began on Thursday, Israel has presented President Donald Trump with his most significant foreign policy crisis yet. Trump now has to decide how — and whether — to prevent an all-out war across the Middle East that could spiral, endangering millions of people, drawing in US forces and worsening the global economic slowdown fuelled by Trump’s trade policies.

Israeli jets have already struck more than 100 sites, including in the Iranian capital of Tehran, killing at least three military commanders and two nuclear scientists, as well as civilians including children, according to Iranian state media. Israeli officials have told their US counterparts they plan to continue strikes for “several days or up to two weeks,” a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told HuffPost.

Israeli officials call their offensive “preemptive,” noting that Iran, a longtime foe of Tel Aviv, is closer than ever to being able to develop a nuclear weapon. There was no sign of an imminent Iranian attack on Israel, however, and Iran denied it intends to build a bomb.

For months, Washington and Tehran have been discussing a possible agreement to limit Iranian nuclear development in exchange for easing sanctions on the country.

On Friday morning, Trump appeared to call for diplomacy on his social media platform Truth Social: “There is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.”

The Trump administration may struggle to shape what comes next, given its limited policy-making circle, the president’s unpredictability and its hollowing out of government expertise. The administration recently slashed staff at the National Security Council at the White House, has urged thousands of professional diplomats to resign and plans to fire hundreds more as early as next week, and top positions at the Pentagon and State Department are lying empty.

Still, some leading officials, like White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Vice President JD Vance, have previously questioned those who wanted the US to help Israel attack Iran, like the demoted former national security adviser Mike Waltz. The administration may decide it must take the reins from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — defying him as Trump has notably done on Syria, and as some conservative voices, like commentator Tucker Carlson, have urged him to.

“The split on the right is already obvious,” said Reid Smith, the vice president of foreign policy at Stand Together, an organisation founded by the right-wing billionaire Charles Koch.

“Friends of Israel, and I number myself among them, should tread warily, as a casualty of this conflict could be essentially unanimous support for Israel on not just a bipartisan but a conservative basis,” Smith told HuffPost.

While Trump’s preference for an agreement has been relatively consistent, so has Netanyahu’s opposition to one. He is joined by some influential foreign policy hawks in the US, including leading Republican lawmakers, who argue Iran cannot be trusted and insist the only possible compromise would include a clause that Tehran calls unacceptable: a ban on any uranium enrichment. Those voices say force is the only way to cripple Iran’s nuclear program and press Iran to make concessions.

Since Trump abandoned the last international deal to limit Iranian nuclear development, negotiated by President Barack Obama, Iran’s capabilities have dramatically increased.

As Israel’s chief military backer and the key player in enforcing sanctions on Iran, the US is deeply implicated in the dispute. Trump is convening national security officials at the White House on Friday and calling Netanyahu to discuss next steps.

Meanwhile, developments outside the U.S. control may shape his choices, the US official told HuffPost, pointing to the chance that Iran’s plan for “severe” retaliation kills one of the tens of thousands of American troops deployed in the Middle East or prompts Israel to request additional US military involvement in the region, creating even more tension. Iran has already launched drones at Israel, which were intercepted. The US evacuated some personnel from the region earlier this week.

American and Israeli officials say they coordinated on the barrage against Iran, which hit sensitive figures and military sites, demonstrating extensive and effective Israeli espionage. Anti-Iran hard-liners who have long sought regime change in Tehran are, for now, echoing Trump’s line that the Israeli attack is linked to his diplomacy.

Still, a fundamental disconnect between the goals of Trump and Netanyahu persists, and will make it hard for the administration to de-escalate. The situation reflects a contest within Trump-linked foreign policy circles that has been significant in shaping policy throughout the administration and may no longer be tenable.

Trump has, for years, claimed he will limit global conflict, promising “peace through strength” and accusing his political rivals of enabling bloodshed in contexts like Ukraine and Gaza, while questioning deployments of American troops abroad. That political brand seemed reflected in the State Department’s Thursday night statement about the Israeli attack, which emphasized that it was “unilateral” and urged Iran not to “target US interests or personnel.”

On Friday, the president told CNN “hard-liners” in Tehran had been killed, boosting chances for diplomacy. And Tom Barrack, the US ambassador in Turkey and one of the personal friends Trump is relying on as a top Middle East deal-maker, posted on X: “Even in tension, there’s always a moment for dialogue to weave peace.”

Barrack and Steve Witkoff, another business figure who is leading the US–Iran negotiations for Trump, are seen as more pragmatic than many in the traditional Republican national security establishment — and their influence has grown as Trump has repeatedly fired officials whom members of his MAGA movement say are too bellicose and tied to the so-called “deep state.”

But Netanyahu and influential hawks are openly speaking of increasing pressure on Iran, not of compromise.

The Israeli leader appears to be betting that, as he did under President Joe Biden, he can treat the US as primarily an enabler of his goals through military support, reacting to Israeli moves rather than being the force driving events.

Netanyahu has been able to do that with his ongoing, devastating US-backed offensive in the Gaza Strip, pummelling Palestinians and avoiding a settlement with the Gaza-based militant group Hamas even as Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration. Under the Biden administration, Israel was able to use continued claims of interest in diplomacy and dramatic PR-focused moments — like its deadly pager attack in Lebanon — to sustain US backing and defuse criticism as it pursued sweeping military campaigns.

Now, George Washington University professor Marc Lynch wrote on Friday, “Israel’s attack on Iran is best understood neither as pre-emptive nor preventive, but as a continuation of its attempt to remake the Middle East through force.”

“The pattern of attacks in the first day of Israeli strikes actually suggests that the target of the attack is the regime itself, not necessarily the nuclear programme,” Lynch continued.

It’s unclear if Netanyahu’s playbook will work under Trump and against a far more capable opponent than Hamas or Hezbollah. As Iran faces greater pain and reputational damage, it could deploy a wide range of tactics, across the Middle East or even globally, to push back against Israel and the U.S. as its patron. That could create painful, unexpected consequences and a mounting, deadly, tit-for-tat cycle of violence.

Some observers claim a military-focused approach is the way to achieve Trump’s stated goal of preventing a nuclear Iran. “Israel should be hailed by nonproliferation organisations,” Jonathan Conricus, a former spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces who now works at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, wrote on X.

Yet experts have, for years, said force alone cannot destroy Iran’s expertise in nuclear technology, and could instead spur its leaders to see developing weapons as the only way to protect their rule.

“If the Trump administration truly wants to avoid Iran’s path to a bomb, it should clarify its involvement in these strikes and work to strike a deal. This will be exponentially more difficult if strikes continue,” Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, wrote on Bluesky.