The military is considering several options for how to respond if the ongoing U.S.-Iranian negotiations crumble and Tehran pursues a nuclear weapon, according to the top U.S. general overseeing the Middle East.

The Trump administration has held several iterations of talks with Tehran in recent weeks, though it’s unclear how much progress the two sides have made in bridging the gaps in their respective positions over that time.

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President Donald Trump has said the U.S. will not allow Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon, and has not ruled out using military force if diplomacy fails. He told Fox News on Tuesday that Iran is acting “much more aggressively” in the negotiations.

U.S. Central Command leader Gen. Michael Kurilla told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that he has provided Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Trump with “a wide range of options” for how to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, and he affirmed those plans include the use of U.S. troops.

Kurilla noted that he’s in favor “of having a negotiated settlement that prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon because of the consequences of [such a] conflict.”

A day earlier, the president acknowledged that the two sides remain stuck on the issue of uranium enrichment.

“They’re just asking for things you can’t do,” Trump said on Monday. “They don’t want to give up what they have to give up. They seek enrichment. We can’t have enrichment. We want just the opposite, and so far they’re not there.”

The Iranians have rapidly increased the amount of enriched uranium in their possession, according to a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. As of May 17, Iran had amassed about 900 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60%, an increase of almost 50% from their last report issued in February. Getting the uranium from 60% enrichment to 90% enrichment, which the IAEA uses as the benchmark for weapons-grade uranium, would only require “mere steps,” Kurilla said in his written testimony.

It only takes about 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms, of 90% enriched uranium to construct a simple nuclear weapon.

“Should the Regime decide to sprint to a nuclear weapon, it is estimated that current stockpiles and the available centrifuges across several enrichment plants are sufficient to produce its first 25kg of weapons grade material in roughly one week and enough for up to ten nuclear weapons in three weeks,” he added in his written testimony to the committee.

The most recent meeting of U.S. and Iranian officials held their most recent round of talks in Muscat, Oman.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that the U.S. proposal “is not acceptable to us,” and said they will present a counterproposal once it’s finalized.

Israel wants to take out Iran’s nuclear program, though Trump has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give diplomacy a chance for success before carrying out a military attack.

Iran is in a vulnerable position after many of its proxies in the region have suffered significant blows over the last year and a half, since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that put the entire region on a war footing.

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Israel subsequently conducted ground offensives in Gaza and Lebanon targeting Hamas and Hezbollah, U.S. forces in the region have engaged in conflicts with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, while both the U.S. and Israel have exchanged attacks on the Yemen-based Houthis. Iran has also carried out two massive missile barrage attacks targeting Israel that were largely thwarted by Israel and allied air defenses.

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has also been a significant blow to Iran, in part because having allies in Iraq and Syria had given Iran a direct land route from its borders to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was widely considered to be Tehran’s top proxy before the outset of the war.