Iran Watch

US President Donald Trump may be prepared to abandon the pursuit of a formal nuclear agreement with Iran if Tehran fully reopens the Strait of Hormuz, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Rather than insisting on a full and final nuclear agreement, Trump’s administration could accept the restoration of shipping through the key oil chokepoint as the basis for ending its military campaign in the region and extending the existing ceasefire, the report states.

The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, reported that Trump has spent weeks preparing the ground for such an outcome and has privately told senior aides that he could walk away without obtaining a new nuclear agreement with Tehran.

Iran has presented a long list of conditions for reopening the waterway, including billions of dollars in payments, an end to the US naval blockade, the withdrawal of American forces from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen Iranian assets.

Published on
02/08/2026 – 8:10 GMT+2

US President Donald Trump has announced he is cancelling a new attack on Iran after Tehran and a number of unspecified Middle Eastern countries asked the US to postpone strikes as the “perimeters of a deal” had been agreed.

“This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He added that he had called off strikes subject to “rapidly” making a deal but warned that US forces remained “locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Malicious cyber activity affected technology at water systems in at least seven states this week, including Minnesota and Michigan, forcing some utilities to switch to manual operations as state and federal authorities dig into who is behind the attack, CBS News has learned.

Investigators are probing to determine whether the activity is the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. officials and sources familiar with the incident. Sources cautioned that since they had not definitively attributed the attack, their assessment could change as additional technical evidence is collected. They are also probing whether the actor could have attempted to appear Iran-based as a way of stirring the pot amid the ongoing U.S. conflict with Iran.

The FBI reported incidents in “at least seven states” but didn’t identify them. On Saturday, Michigan joined Minnesota in reporting cyberattacks on the state’s water systems but an official said all systems were operating “safely.”

Dale George, the director of communications at the state’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, told CBS News in a statement that the state received “a small number of reports from Michigan communities indicating activity consistent with what federal agencies described.”