Senior White House officials will consider intensifying military action against Iran after the November 3 midterm elections, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing four people familiar with internal discussions.
No decision has been made on returning to full-scale conflict, but top aides to US President Donald Trump are pushing to keep the war relatively contained until the election as Republicans defend narrow majorities in Congress.
“We are keeping the pressure on Iran,” one White House official said. “But November is a priority.”
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are among the senior officials supporting efforts to keep the conflict relatively quiet until November, two White House officials told Reuters.
The sources said containing the war could limit its impact on Republican midterm campaigns and give the US military time to replenish depleted munitions. High gasoline prices have also contributed to public dissatisfaction with the conflict.
“The timetable has changed,” one senior White House official said. Another added: “The calendar is driving Iran.”
Reuters reported in August that the US military had used “virtually all” of its stock of some long-range precision missiles. The Pentagon, however, said the military had “everything it needs to execute” its mission.
The sources said Washington was focusing for now on intensifying economic pressure through sanctions and its naval blockade, seeking concessions in future negotiations that months of military action had failed to secure.
Trump warned on Tuesday that further Iranian action would bring a stronger US response.
“If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings,” he wrote on Truth Social.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales defended the administration’s strategy, saying: “President Trump has destroyed Iran’s military capabilities and is crippling what’s left of its abysmal economy with the most powerful naval blockade in world history and crushing sanctions.”
“The President will continue to advance America’s interests at home and abroad and will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” she added.
The program, codenamed C430L, began in 2023 and continued during this year's war with the United States and Israel, the FT said.
Its main focus is a ramjet propulsion system that would allow a cruise missile to sustain flight at several times the speed of sound, reducing the time available for US and allied defenses to detect and intercept it.
“For the Iranians, this would give them a qualitatively new strategic weapon system that could threaten US Navy vessels,” Jim Lamson, a former CIA military analyst focused on Iran, told the FT.
Iran has built and flight-tested the propulsion system, but there is no evidence that a Russian-assisted supersonic cruise missile has entered service, the newspaper said.
Russian technical support
The FT said Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport arranged the program with missile developer NPO Mashinostroyenia.
Russian engineers made repeated trips to Iran before a contract was signed with Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics in November 2023, according to records reviewed by the newspaper.
By 2025, Russian specialists were analyzing Iranian flight-test data and advising Tehran on the ramjet's fuel system, combustion stability, air intake and engine nozzle.
“This is the transfer of a highly strategically sensitive military technology from Russia that the Iranians have wanted to acquire for decades,” Fabian Hinz, a senior analyst with Conflict Armament Research, told the FT.
“A programme like this would require political clearance from the very top in Russia,” he said.
The Kremlin, Rosoboronexport, NPO Mashinostroyenia and the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment from the FT.
Potential naval impact
Supersonic cruise missiles combine high speed with low-altitude flight, making them harder for air and missile defenses to detect and engage quickly.
That could be particularly significant in the Persian Gulf, where the United States and its regional allies operate advanced land- and sea-based defenses.
Hinz said Russian engineering support could be especially valuable because it would help Iran solve technical problems rather than simply provide finished weapons.
“Getting a 60-year-old engineer to fly over and problem-solve, using their experience, is hugely valuable,” he said.
The FT said the program continued into 2026, with Russia preparing technical reports and both sides discussing a further phase of development.
A June 2026 Rosoboronexport letter showed talks were still under way over that next stage, though it was unclear whether it had begun.
Deeper military ties
The program points to a deeper form of military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, with Russia helping Iran acquire the know-how to develop an advanced weapon system of its own.
Iran previously supplied Russia with Shahed attack drones used in Ukraine and helped Moscow establish domestic production.
The FT has also reported that Russia agreed to supply Iran with Verba shoulder-fired air defense systems, while Tehran acquired a high-resolution Chinese satellite later used to monitor US military facilities in the region.
“If the Russians are able to help the Iranians fix their technical problems, I think this would be one of the more impactful areas of Russian military-technical assistance to Iran in recent years,” Lamson said.
After Iran launched missiles at US bases in Jordan in response to an American strike on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump promised another response.
“We’re going to hit them hard,” Trump told Fox News. “There will be a response.”
At the same time, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a different measure of who has the advantage.
“I would think that they are lashing out kinetically because they are losing economically,” Bessent said, arguing that Tehran is feeling the effects of Washington’s expanding pressure campaign.
Iran’s economy does not have to collapse, he said. “We just have to have the regime come to their senses.”
That leaves a central question hanging over the latest exchange: can Iran’s military retaliation actually improve its position as economic pressure mounts?
“Keep firing on Jordan, keep firing on Kuwait and Bahrain and UAE, but does that solve your problem at home?” Kamran Bokhari, Strategic Forecaster and Senior Resident Fellow with the Middle East Policy Council in Washington, told Iran International.
Bokhari believes Washington has little incentive to escalate into a larger war when it can respond to specific Iranian actions while maintaining the blockade and economic pressure.
“Keep the blockade,” he said. “If they try to mine, do what they did yesterday, but don’t escalate anything, and just keep the pressure up on the economic front.”
In that scenario, Iran retains the ability to retaliate, but its attacks do little to relieve the broader pressures facing the Islamic Republic.
Can economic pressure lead to something bigger?
Ali Dadpay, an Iranian American economist from Texas, said Washington’s stated objective is to change the Islamic Republic’s behavior rather than openly pursue regime change.
“Right now, they officially and legitimately say change of behavior,” Dadpay said.
But he argued that the economic deterioration Iran is experiencing could ultimately produce a more consequential outcome than Washington’s stated goal.
Dadpay pointed to the Soviet Union, East Germany and communist Poland as examples of political systems that collapsed without being invaded by a foreign power.
“A similar set of socio-economic factors can create a similar outcome,” he said of Iran.
Dadpay also said the combination of military and economic pressure could alter calculations among groups within the Islamic Republic and push the system toward what he described as a “new equilibrium.”
The immediate question is how far Washington is prepared to go with that economic pressure.
Max Meizlish, a former senior policy adviser at the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said a key test will be whether the US targets financial institutions facilitating Iranian trade with China.
Iran may still have oil to sell. The bigger question is whether Tehran can get paid. Unless financial channels through Hong Kong, the UAE and elsewhere are constrained, Meizlish said, “the regime is still going to have pathways for rearming itself.”
The pressure reaches ordinary Iranians
The expanding campaign is also having consequences beyond the regime. On August 24, OFAC suspended General License G, which had permitted certain educational services and academic exchanges involving Iranians.
ETS told Iran International it has since paused TOEFL and GRE testing inside Iran. Iranian nationals can still take the tests outside the country.
Dadpay called the impact on testing a “side effect” of the broader restrictions. Meizlish said the administration may be trying to prevent regime-linked individuals from using educational opportunities abroad.
But he acknowledged the wider cost.
“There could be an unintended effect here where ordinary Iranians are caught in the crossfire, so to speak,” Meizlish said.
Iran’s missiles have shown Tehran can still strike back. What remains unclear is whether those attacks can ease the pressure building on the Islamic Republic — or whether Washington’s economic squeeze can change the regime’s behavior without increasingly hurting the Iranians it is meant to pressure Tehran on behalf of.
