Tehran is weighing targets beyond US assets while its Qatar-brokered peace plan faces long odds, officials tell Reuters.

Iran is preparing a broader and more forceful response in case the United States resumes large-scale military attacks, while continuing a diplomatic push that Iranian officials privately doubt will succeed, Reuters reported on Thursday.

What Iran is planning. Three senior Iranian officials and a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters that commanders are reviewing plans to widen the list of potential targets. Instead of limiting a response to US-linked assets, Tehran is considering countries that support American military operations and, possibly, places outside the Middle East. Two of the officials said Iran has told allied groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq to be ready to support it. Fox News, reporting on the same story, described the guidance as a coordinated response stretching from the Strait of Hormuz to US interests in the region and beyond. Planning has intensified since President Masoud Pezeshkian returned from the UN General Assembly in New York last week.

The diplomatic track. At the UN gathering, Tehran passed a proposal to Washington through Qatari mediators. According to Iranian authorities, it calls for an end to the fighting, a lifting of the US blockade on Iranian ports, the release of at least $12 billion in frozen funds and a waiver of oil sanctions. Reuters says the plan could reopen the Strait of Hormuz and halt hostilities across the region within seven days. President Trump said he rejected it. Iranian state media, however, reported that a US response reached Tehran through Qatar on Tuesday and is being studied. Reuters has also reported that the two sides discussed a phased arrangement to reopen Hormuz and end the blockade, citing sources.

Even so, one Iranian official told Reuters that an agreement remains very unlikely, even if Iran does not reject the American reply outright and indirect contacts go on.

Why Tehran is under pressure. Reuters notes that Iranian leaders are also asking whether the economy can withstand a long confrontation under a US blockade that has cut off oil exports, a key source of revenue. Since the war began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes, the conflict has moved between lulls and fresh fighting, killing thousands of civilians and weakening Iran’s military and economy, according to Reuters. International Crisis Group analyst Hamidreza Azizi said, as quoted by Cyprus Mail, that Tehran is unsure whether Trump will launch a major new campaign or limit himself to strikes on individual sites, including nuclear ones.

What it means. Our analysis: Iran appears to be using two messages at once. Publicly and through Qatar it signals openness to a deal, while privately it tells Washington that a renewed campaign would cost more than the last. Warnings of this kind are a classic form of deterrence, but they also raise the risk of miscalculation. The picture is already tense: on Saturday, the UK maritime agency UKMTO reported new attacks on oil tankers in the strait (see our report on the Hormuz tanker attacks), and Al Jazeera says three US aircraft carriers are expected near Iran by the end of November. The war’s earlier phases are covered in our story on Iran’s seven-day plan to reopen Hormuz.

Why it matters for readers. The Strait of Hormuz normally carries about a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas, so any new escalation can quickly feed into fuel prices in the US, Canada and Europe. See also: Oil rises above $105 as US–Iran diplomacy shows little progress.

What to watch next: whether Tehran formally answers the US reply, any new strikes, and further incidents in the strait. We will update this article as events develop.

Sources: Reuters, “Iran readies harder retaliation if attacked as diplomacy faces long odds” (1 October 2026); Fox News live coverage (1 October 2026); Cyprus Mail (1 October 2026); Al Jazeera (3 October 2026).