President Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled he is in no hurry to strike a deal with Iran, as Washington pivots from all-out war to a sustained campaign of economic pressure.

After 40 days of heavy bombing followed by two more weeks of daily attacks, the United States is now leaning on a naval blockade to compel Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restore normalcy to global oil markets. The strait is the world's most important oil chokepoint: roughly a fifth of the petroleum liquids consumed globally each day transits the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, and only part of that volume can be rerouted through overland pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran has threatened to close the passage in past standoffs, and the "Tanker War" of the 1980s showed how attacks in the Gulf can drive up shipping and insurance costs without halting flows outright.

Tehran, however, is preparing to switch to attack mode if there is no diplomatic progress — a move that could pull the U.S. back into major combat just as vulnerabilities have emerged in its own military.

Iran has shifted from a defensive stance to a "fully offensive" one, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, citing the stalemate with the U.S. in talks. Unless Washington implements the June ceasefire deal within a few weeks, Iran will launch a "timely and precise" attack to break the blockade, the official warned.

"Iranian entities must be prepared to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region, as Iran will be ready to make decisions and take action on difficult decisions," the official added.

The threat follows a recent reorganization of Iran's military toward a more aggressive footing, as factions within the government abandon hopes for negotiations. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Arab intelligence detected preparations for a wider war, including the deployment of Iranian commanders, weapons, and intelligence to regional militias aligned with the regime.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also drawn up plans for further escalation, the report added, such as sabotaging internet cables in the Persian Gulf, fomenting unrest in neighboring states with large Shia populations, and even a potential ground assault in Kuwait.

"There is also a widespread view in Iran that the main war has not yet begun," Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, a Tehran-based defense analyst close to the Iranian government, told the Journal. "What we have seen so far is increasingly interpreted through the lens of 'salami-slicing' tactics—limited, incremental escalation designed to weaken capabilities before a larger confrontation."

Although Iran's conventional forces were decimated by the U.S.-Israeli bombardment earlier in the war, its tactical situation has improved recently. Iran has developed new missiles that are better at evading air defenses, making U.S. military assets and allied oil infrastructure around the region more vulnerable.

The U.S. military, for its part, has expended much of its interceptor stockpile, which is now so low that it reportedly factored into Trump's decision to call off a major reescalation of the war. That is a constraint that cannot be fixed quickly: interceptors such as ship-launched SM-3s and land-based Patriot and THAAD batteries cost millions of dollars apiece and take years to manufacture, so stockpiles burned through in combat cannot be rapidly rebuilt. Sustaining the naval blockade has also strained American forces: the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is struggling with mental health and supply issues amid a record-long time at sea. Another carrier is on the way to take its place, but other ships performing blockade operations are likely facing similar logistical concerns.

The conditions could be ripe for Iran to test U.S. resolve. And given the harm the U.S. blockade was causing, Iran was not expected to stand idly by — especially now that it has more military leverage to exploit. The immediate questions for the coming weeks are whether Washington moves to implement the June ceasefire terms within the window Tehran has set, whether the incoming carrier arrives in time to relieve the Lincoln, and whether Iran acts on any of the IRGC's escalation options — each of which carries different risks of pulling American forces back into direct combat.

Majidreza Hariri, head of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce, recently admitted the U.S. blockade will eventually inflict more economic damage than actual war. To avoid this, he urged the regime to do whatever it takes to end the blockade, "whether through negotiation, supplication, threats, or even war."

"We must also eliminate the perception in the U.S. that it can resort to such an action whenever it wants, and make it understand that the consequences of such a move could be severe," Hariri added.