Trump says he is close to decision on largest-yet attack on Iran

The US president, Donald Trump, has said he is close to deciding whether to launch “a massive” attack” against Iran, on a scale larger than strikes already witnessed during the months-long conflict with Tehran.

Speaking to the Axios news site Trump said: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

Trump made his remarks on Thursday as oil prices once again surged past the symbolic $100 for a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark – and amid indications the price could go higher still.

The US president acknowledged that such a decision would have consequences but said he had not yet made a final determination, saying Israel “would join in two minutes if I ask them to” before adding: “We don’t need anybody.”

Trump’s comments followed the earlier threat of “major military punishment” against Iran and the Houthis, after the Iran-backed Yemeni militia’s attacks on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea.

Underlining the sense of a region increasingly approaching an abyss, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told the security council that the Middle East was being pushed to the “edge of the unimaginable” amid mounting fears over the trajectory of the conflict.

“The situation is getting out of control. It is teetering on the edge of the unimaginable. The region is being pulled into an ever-widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next,” Guterres told a security council meeting.

“As this dynamic spreads, the political objectives are becoming increasingly obscured by the confrontation itself.”

Amid growing evidence that a major escalation may be imminent, the UK announced that it was temporarily withdrawing diplomatic staff from Iran on Wednesday, and the German military announced on Thursday that it would withdraw two vessels from the Red Sea.

In a separate development, Trump clarified on Thursday that an announced agreement that Saudi Arabia would get US help with its civilian nuclear programme would require the kingdom to normalise relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords, a move Saudi Arabia has long resisted until there is demonstrable movement on Palestinian rights and statehood.

It emerged later that Trump had not spoken to Saudi Arabia about the new condition.

The Houthi attacks threatened a second major maritime route connecting the Suez canal to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. It also comes amid reports that Iran had sent military advisers and drone parts to the Houthis 10 days ago.

Quoting four sources, including two Iranians, Reuters reported on Thursday that Iran had transferred ​Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel and military-related equipment on a flight from Tehran to Yemen on 13 July, as Tehran was calling for the Houthis to blockade the Bab el-Mandeb strait.

Ships had begun turning back from sailing through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait earlier this week after the Houthis had announced a blockade of Saudi ports, most notably the Red Sea port of Yanbu, which Riyadh has been using to ship oil to Asia during the conflict between the US and Iran over the strait of Hormuz.

Attacks in the Red Sea pushed the price of oil once again to more than $100 for a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark.

The Houthi attacks put at risk oil shipments from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on the Red Sea and present a “double whammy” on top of the disruption in the strait of Hormuz, said maritime data and analysis firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence, adding that the Houthi threats “raises questions on the viability of this route”.

“If [the Houthis] do this again, the US will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on social media.

The Houthis’ Saba news agency said the rebels had struck two tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, in the Red Sea, leading to fires on both. There were no reports of casualties in their first reported attack on a vessel since they announced the blockade of Saudi-linked shipping.

The Bab el-Mandeb is a vital shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. About 12% of the world’s trade, including a fourth of global container traffic, passes through there, moving between Europe and Asia via the Suez canal in Egypt.

The US president has been escalating his rhetoric against Iran in recent days, hinting the US was prepared to bomb an underground tunnel complex at the so-called Pickaxe mountain site where Israel has alleged Tehran has hidden centrifuges used in uranium enrichment.

As Trump has floundered in his attempts to get a grip on the spiralling crisis in the region, as part of which Iran has occasionally launched lethal strikes against US bases and Washington’s Gulf allies, the US president appears to have been sucked into a so-called escalation trap, threatening ever more violent retaliation.

On Wednesday Trump warned that the US would destroy one bridge or power plant each time Iran shoots at a ship in the strait.

Describing Trump’s position, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Trump was seeking a “head for an eye” following the recent deaths of several US service members in an Iranian strike on the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Jordan

However, speaking on the outskirts of the Asean conference in Manila, Rubio said Iran was “begging for a deal” insisting “they need to come to their senses” and adding that Tehran will “pay a very heavy price for the things they are doing” – all claims US officials have made before.

With Trump’s poll ratings in freefall, and his war against Iran deeply unpopular at home, the US president and his administration are running short of time before the midterm elections in the autumn to force a resolution to the conflict on Washington’s terms.

Underlining Trump’s growing political problems, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a resolution on Thursday to halt US military action in Iran, sending a warning to Trump for the second time as the war has escalated and the future of the conflict is increasingly uncertain.