President Donald Trump appears poised to escalate the war against Iran after the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran broke down earlier this month in an effort to beat down Iranian hardliners.

The American president, who was open to signing a deal with the Iranian regime to end the conflict, says he disappointed by Tehran’s failure to negotiate in good faith. The ceasefire — agreed to under a Memorandum of Understanding — collapsed after Iran’s military resumed attacks against commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

After hostilities resumed, the United States has launched attacks against Iran for nearly two weeks straight. Iran has retaliated by launching missiles and drones at U.S. regional allies and at American military bases. The latest strikes killed four U.S. service members at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

President Trump said on Thursday that he is not ready to negotiate a new ceasefire with Iran as he contemplates increasing the intensity of attacks.

“We’re doing very well against the Islamic Republic of Iran, we’re doing extremely well,” Trump said at the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday. “They would like to do something, but I say they’re not ready yet.”

He added, “They need more of the same,” likely referring to the ongoing U.S. military campaign and economic pressure.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that while some Iranian negotiators are begging to make a deal to end the war, the leadership often soon breaks its promises or wants to change the terms. He said the U.S. will continue to make Iran “pay a very heavy price” for refusing to play ball.

“The problem with Iran is every time they make a deal, the people in charge either break it or they want to change it,” Rubio told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in the Philippines on Thursday.

“So it looks like they’re not ready to make a deal, so they’re going to continue to pay a price, and every night the price gets higher and higher,” he added.

Iranian leaders reportedly rejected the latest ceasefire offer from the Trump administration, per The New York Times.

Both Trump and Rubio have pointed to the “sick people” and “radical clerics” running Iran as primary obstacles to a negotiated settlement to the war that achieves the main American demands, such as denuclearization and free movement in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the paramilitary group of hardliners dedicated to preserving the Iranian revolution, are widely considered to be the most influential force in the country, especially with the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Steve Yates, Senior Research Fellow for China and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation, told Just the News that ramping up attacks on the IRGC would open the door for more successful negotiations.

“[We] are going to have to go heavy on the Revolutionary Guard,” Yates said on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “[We] might have a prospect of negotiating something that could stick if the Revolutionary Guard is really degraded profoundly.

“But ultimately […] I think they’re going to keep maximum pressure in place and hit very hard on the Revolutionary Guard and see if that gives the people of Iran what they need to feel it’s safe to step forward and impose their will,” Yates said.

President Trump is currently considering ramping up attacks on Iran and restarting the major combat operations that dwindled during the ceasefire, Axios reported on Thursday.

“I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” Trump told the outlet. He also argued that the Iranian leadership has not “received enough pain yet” to spur honest negotiations.

In recent days, the United States military has surged forces, equipment, and medical supplies to the Middle East, indicating that the president may be gearing up to authorize such operations.

Trump’s Republican Party seems to be standing behind him, even as public opinion of the war remains negative.

Though the U.S. House of Representatives recently approved a resolution to restrict President Trump’s war powers in Iran, only four Republicans voted alongside their Democratic colleagues. A similar measure failed to pass the Senate on Thursday.

Even as the president has struggled to secure an end to the conflict he launched in February, many Republican lawmakers are still lining up behind him, arguing that he should finish what he set out to do—primarily ensuring that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and reining in its terrorist proxy groups.

“I think it’s critically important that you finish the job that you set out to accomplish,” Rep. Cammack, R-Fla., told Just the News.

“In this case, we know that Iran, while they export terror the way countries export goods, and they are willing to kill their own people when it comes to the reign of terror that they have built over the course of four decades, and that means us addressing also their terror organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis,” she continued.

“We need to make sure that not only are we protecting our American servicemen and women who have died at the hands of the Iranian terrorist regime, but that we are dismantling the terror network that they have built around the globe and have established in cells here in the United States,” Cammack added.

Senator Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., delivered a speech to the Senate on Thursday, arguing that Iran started the war by supporting regional terror networks for decades. “President Trump is the only president in my lifetime who refuses to kick the problem to another generation of American soldiers. There can be no equivocation with these murderous lunatics,” he said. “It’s time to finish the job.”

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