US President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States will resolve the Iran issue “one way or the other,” warning Tehran that a peaceful outcome is still possible, but not guaranteed.
“We have an Iran situation, which we're going to take care of. One way or the other, we're taking care of,” Trump said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. “It'll be taken care of 100 percent. It'll be done nicely or not nicely. And the not nicely is not a good thing for them.”
US President Donald Trump, who once tore up the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, may now be in a position to deliver a stronger one, Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria wrote in an opinion piece Thursday.
“Trump reminded us that sometimes his willingness to take risks and think outside the box can shake up tired old ways,” Zakaria wrote, pointing to the president’s recent moves in Saudi Arabia, including lifting sanctions on Syria and signaling openness to a new deal with Iran.
He argued that the time is now favorable for a deal with Tehran because of two key shifts: Iran’s growing weakness and Saudi Arabia’s increasing strength. “Iran is in worse shape than it has been in a generation,” he wrote, citing economic decline, military setbacks, and the collapse of Bashar Assad's government in Syria.
Zakaria said Trump faces resistance from within his own camp — between realists, including chief negotiator Steve Witkoff, and hawks like Senator Marco Rubio. But he noted that Trump has the political capital to act.
"The more prosaic reality is that Iran is run by a bunch of brutish mullahs and corrupt military officials, who have spent their energies amassing fortunes in this world, not preparing for the next one," he wrote.
“There is a deal to be made with such men,” Zakaria wrote of Iran’s leadership, “not to become friends, but to serve a common interest of defusing the dangers of nuclear arms races and bringing stability to a Middle East that has been scarred by generations of war and terror.”
Iran’s top religious seminary authority criticized US President Donald Trump on Friday, calling his recent remarks in Saudi Arabia politically worthless and saying his order to kill Qassem Soleimani reflected the true character of his policies.
“Trump is the same person who gave the order to kill Soleimani, and with that act, he revealed his true character,” the statement from the Management of the Islamic Seminaries said. “His nonsense has no political value.”
Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020, a move Trump openly acknowledged ordering.
Trump, speaking in Riyadh earlier this week, sharply criticized Iran’s government and praised Arab states for their development. “The biggest and most destructive of these forces is the regime in Iran,” he said. “Instead of building their nation, they tear the region down.”
He said Iran’s actions in Syria, Lebanon, and beyond had caused “unthinkable suffering,” and accused its leaders of turning “green farmland into dry deserts” while enriching themselves. Trump added he still wants a deal with Iran, but warned, “If Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch … we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure.”
Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons but will continue to use and expand its nuclear capabilities, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Friday during a visit to Indonesia.
“Iran will never go toward building a nuclear weapon,” Ghalibaf said. “But using nuclear capacity is our right.”
He added that Iran would continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. “We use this knowledge in medicine, agriculture, and the environment,” he said. “Today, the most advanced centrifuges are built by the creative youth of Iran.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Member States (PUIC) in Jakarta, Ghalibaf said Iran’s nuclear progress is a source of pride and should benefit the Islamic world.
“This nuclear capacity belongs to all the Islamic world,” he said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday the United States has offered a limited window for diplomacy with Iran for a peaceful resolution on its nuclear program, but warned that the decision now rests with Iran’s Supreme Leader.
“In the end, the decision lies in the hands of one person, and that's the Supreme Leader in Iran, and I hope he chooses the path of peace and prosperity, not a destructive path, and we'll see how that plays out,” Rubio said in an interview from Turkey.
He emphasized the US distinction between the Iranian establishment and its people. “Our problem is not with the Iranian people. The Iranian people are peaceful people, an ancient civilization and culture we admire greatly. Our problem is with a clerical regime that is behind every problem in the region.”
Rubio blamed Tehran for backing regional instability. “Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the militias that have conducted attacks out of Iraq and Syria, they all track back to the Iranian regime. Syria, all the instability in Syria tracks back to the Iranian regime.”
“It’s a regime that every day and every Friday chants, you know, death to Israel, death to America. We have to believe them when they say that,” he added. “A regime like that can never have nuclear weapons.”
Rubio pointed to the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which showed Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium grew from 182 kilograms to 275 kilograms in early 2025.
“They are fairly close. Too close for comfort, to a nuclear weapon,” Rubio said in an interview from Turkey. “Once you're at 60, you're 90% of the way there. You are, in essence, a threshold nuclear weapons state, which is what Iran basically has become.”
US and Iranian officials have held four rounds of talks since President Donald Trump took office. Both sides have described the negotiations as “constructive” so far.
