ASPEN, Colo. — Robert O’Brien, who served as national security advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term, said on Wednesday that the U.S. should target Iran’s oil infrastructure with the goal of choking off its economy — and predicted that the president is moving in that direction.

The former national security advisor said on a panel at the Aspen Security Forum that Trump had been “very, very generous” with Iran but he believes that Trump’s “patience” with Iran is running thin. The next steps, he predicted, would be for the U.S. to “hit them hard” and “finish the job” by targeting sites connected with Iran’s oil infrastructure, including the facilities at Kharg Island, in order to deprive Iran of its ability to produce and export oil.

“Without oil, they’re nothing. With oil, the regime thinks if they can survive, they can just buy more kit,” O’Brien said. “I think President Trump will finish the job. The Iranians are using the old playbook of extend, pretend and snowball. … They’re dealing with a whole new administration with Donald Trump. They don’t understand it, and I think that they’ll pay a heavy penalty for their lack of understanding.”

The first Trump administration’s strategy of maximum pressure through economic sanctions is “not enough” without strikes on Iran’s oil production, he continued.

O’Brien said that cutting short Iran’s oil exports would be the skeleton key to deafening the regime — cutting off its ability to build missiles, support terrorism or rebuild its nuclear program, and said that the U.S. could “turn them into a ‘stan, turn them into a nonentity” and prevent it from ever rebuilding.

The former national security advisor acknowledged that targeting Iranian oil production would hurt the world economy, but made the case that there are other oil producers that would be able to fill the gap with the right support, including Venezuela, Guyana and Mozambique, along with increased production in the U.S.

Asked after the panel by Jewish Insider about how he views the future of Israel policy among conservatives — and about comments by Vice President JD Vance accusing Israel of running a cover influence campaign to undermine the Iran deal and of having ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — O’Brien insisted that support for Israel among conservatives, including Vance, remains strong.

O’Brien said he hadn’t heard Vance’s comments but called him a “supporter” and “friend of Israel.” He added that Trump is “a very good friend of Israel. President Trump has Jewish grandkids, I mean, so he cares deeply about it. He got the Abraham Accords for us and sent me to Jerusalem many times. And I can tell you, after Oct. 7, he was very concerned about Israel and has remained so ever since. No better friend to Israel than President Trump.”

He argued that recent polling indicates that support for Israel remains strong among Republicans in general, even among young people, and predicted that issues among “some conservatives — or people who claim to be conservatives” will not “hold.”

“Those of us who value the partnership, love our Jewish friends, our Israeli colleagues, just need to be forthright and stand up for Israel,” O’Brien said. “Israel, I’ve always said throughout my career, is a canary in the coal mine. If people are attacking Israel, the next country they’re going to attack is America, and so we need to stand strong with our allies in Israel, stand strong with Jerusalem, and I think it’s going to be a relationship that lasts long into the future.“

Stephen Hadley, who served as national security advisor in the Bush administration, said on the panel that the U.S. “can do better in terms of an outcome” with Iran, urging the administration to “stop chasing after the Iranians for an agreement on the nuclear issue,” adding that the U.S.’ operations have done significant damage to Iran’s nuclear program and can hit Iran again if it attempts to reconstitute the program.

It’s a similar strategy to that outlined by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also a Bush administration alumnus, a day prior at the Aspen conference.

Hadley said the U.S. should be open to nuclear talks if Iran seeks them out — but with the preconditions of no enrichment and no financial paydays for Iran.

He said that with continued sanctions, facilitation of trade along the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz, strikes on Iranian capabilities threatening trade in the strait and assistance to countries in the region to diversify their export channels in the longer term, the U.S. could erode Iran’s ability to hold the global economy hostage and reach a stable situation.

“Hopefully, someday an Iranian regime will come forward and decide that their pursuit of nuclear weapons and support for Hezbollah and the like has been a dead end, and they will join the countries in the region to try to build a more prosperous and secure Iran for their people,” Hadley said. “If that happens, great. If it does not happen, the kind of arrangement I think I’ve described will protect our interests, protect the interests of our allies. “

At the same time, he emphasized that regime change through air power alone is likely off the table.

“[Trump] has to be clear that his objectives are consistent with the tools and means he has at his disposal,” Hadley said. “I think that’s a mistake he made in Iran initially when he was talking about regime change.”

Former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy, who served under President Barack Obama, praised the U.S.’ Operation Midnight Hammer last June as “very targeted, very specific and very effective” — something few Democrats said at the time.

She contrasted her praise of that operation to the war this year, which she said started with unclear objectives, priorities and strategy, a lack of appreciation of the risks and a failure to appreciate the Iranian regime’s durability.

“I don’t know how this is going to conclude,” Flournoy said. “But the most likely outcome is we’re going to have a new normal. Even if the Strait opens, Iran is still going to have a few drones, a few mines to jerk the chain of the international economy when it’s unhappy.”

She said that, even if one agrees with the objectives of the war, “the way it’s been done has not paid enough attention to managing the risks, having a clear strategy, and ensuring you want to translate the military campaign into political outcomes.”

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that negotiations with Iran had reached a breakthrough and that he expected there to be a signing, possibly in Europe, in the coming days. With the diplomatic developments, Trump said he would cancel planned strikes against Iran, and call off an operation to take control of Kharg Island.

“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

In the Oval Office, the president said the deal was “in pretty final shape” and predicted that it would “get done over the next few days.” He also claimed that the agreement would ultimately deliver on his assurance that Iran would be prevented from having nuclear weapons and open up the Strait of Hormuz.

“The signing of the agreement will be in Europe, perhaps during the weekend,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon. “I won’t be able to be there, but Vice President [JD] Vance and the [White House special] envoy [Steve] Witkoff will.”

Trump also said that Iran’s supreme leader had approved the deal. However, Iranian state media and a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry have reportedly asserted that Trump’s claims that Iranian leadership had provided approval are “speculative” and that “nothing has been finalized.” 

The president spoke with the Emir of Qatar following the announcement and also with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Reports indicated that Netanyahu was initially surprised by the statement. However, after the conversation between the two leaders, the Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu “expressed his appreciation” for the framework and the inclusion of key objectives related to Iran’s nuclear program and support for terrorism. 

The U.S. and Iran have reportedly closed vital gaps on three main issues that have prolonged diplomatic efforts, including the protocol for releasing Iranian frozen assets, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. 

The announcement came after two days of tit-for-tat strikes between the U.S. and Iran. Earlier on Thursday, Trump warned that the U.S. would hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and threatened to seize Kharg Island, which handles roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports.

The pressures of the global oil market restrained Israel from bombing Iran’s Kharg Island oil facilities and Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facilities, an energy policy analyst argued at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday.

“There was some measure of security that came from the fact that we’re in a global oil market and we’re all in this together,” Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, said on a panel on energy security. “If Iran had tried to do that, it would have imposed pain on itself, it would have imposed pain on China, it would have imposed pain on Gulf countries it was trying to keep on its side.”

Meghan O’Sullivan, the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said on the same panel that the Gulf states’ work to develop both oil and renewable energy sources place them in a key role in the global AI race.

“The Gulf, particularly, I would say, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are really playing into this in a very significant way that I think will really accrue to their geopolitical and economic advantages,” O’Sullivan said, discussing renewable energy development. “They’re in the midst of managing an uncertain but somewhat inevitable energy transition, and they’re thinking about what are the other sources of strength in their economy.”

She said the Saudi energy transition in particular is designed “to really drive home to places, particularly the United States, that they have the advantage when it comes to energy, and the energy needs for AI.”

O’Sullivan said that Saudi Arabia’s continued development of both oil and alternative energy sources has allowed it to provide “guaranteed, low-price energy” to support AI development.

“This is part of the reason why President [Donald] Trump, when he went to visit the Gulf in May, was able to get agreement on some deals that would actually place the heart of American AI advantage in the Gulf,” she said.