Trump says Iran wants to meet as U.S. fires more strikes; analysts warn of 'forever war' risk

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran wants to meet and make a deal, as the U.S. military announced that it launched attacks against Iranian targets for the second time in 12 hours.

But Iran has publicly maintained its combat-ready posture, and defense analysts told CNBC they see no clear path to a settlement of the renewed hostilities between Washington and Tehran.

"We received a call just as I was coming here that they want to meet," Trump said in a Fox Business interview before participating in a roundtable event in Pennsylvania on defense and innovation.

"They always want to meet," he said of the Islamic republic, insisting that its military capabilities have been largely depleted — a claim that he has made in similar terms for months.

"They're nasty people, but they want to make a deal," Trump said.

Around the same time, U.S. Central Command said in an X post that at 3 p.m. ET, its forces "launched operations for a second wave of strikes today against Iran."

"The strikes are targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz," CENTCOM said.

The U.S. had already attacked Iran around 6 a.m. ET, hours after Trump warned that military strikes would intensify next week if Tehran does not cooperate in peace talks.

Those attacks ended at 7:30 a.m. ET, CENTCOM said, adding that precision munitions had been launched against Iran's coastal defense systems, and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island.

The Tunb Islands are small islands located in the Persian Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz.

Recent statements from Iranian officials portray Tehran as being prepared to keep fighting, but still open to the possibility of diplomacy.

"We have never welcomed war, and we will not, but we must always be prepared for battle," Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a translated statement reported in Iranian state media.

"In addition to this, we must also use the tools of diplomacy and negotiation to achieve and solidify our national interests," said Ghalibaf.

CENTCOM had carried out prior rounds of strikes against Iran in recent days. Tehran, meanwhile, has launched attacks on multiple Gulf countries.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, Trump hinted that the conflict was more likely to intensify than de-escalate as a fragile ceasefire agreed last month continues to fracture.

"We're going to hit them very hard tonight," he said. "We're going to hit them hard tomorrow night. We're going to hit them really hard the night after."

He added that U.S. forces would go on to target key Iranian infrastructure next week without a diplomatic breakthrough.

"Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants," he said. "Next week comes the bridges. We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate."

Trump threatened to impose a 20% levy on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week, before abandoning that demand on Tuesday. The president said the Gulf states would invest in the U.S. as repayment instead.

The escalation in fighting comes after the U.S. launched strikes on dozens of Iranian targets last week, in retaliation for commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz coming under attack.

Trump subsequently said the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was "over."

Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday morning, as concerns about safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz – a critical oil shipping route in the Middle East – lingered. Front-month global benchmark Brent crude futures held above the $85 per barrel mark.

Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday, Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at international shipping body BIMCO, said the current situation is "not easy" for the industry to navigate.

"All these messages going back and forth and changing direction completely just adds to the confusion and the complexity of the whole situation," he said. "If you take a step away and look at it from above, then the overall environment we're looking at is increased uncertainty, increased risks, and with that comes higher prices."

Mike Rosenberg, a management professor at IESE Business School, told CNBC over email on Wednesday morning that "it seems we are no closer to a settlement" to end the conflict.

"The current return to war makes it clear that the terms of the Islamabad Memorandum, signed by Trump on 14 June, were unrealistic at the time," he said. "As long as both sides seek an agreement that allows them to claim victory, I cannot see a positive outcome any time soon."

Rosenberg said that the best the U.S. can hope for now is "a new version of the joint plan of action that Obama and his team developed years ago," which he added will be difficult for Trump to accept.

"The Trump administration underestimated Iranian resolve and has no easy way out," he said. "The most likely outcome is some kind of permanent ceasefire negotiated by Pakistan without any nuclear guarantees, and it is likely that the administration will avoid making that agreement before the mid-term elections."

Andreas Böhm, a lecturer in international affairs at Switzerland's University of St. Gallen, said the conflict was "tricky" to resolve and risked becoming a drawn-out, yearslong war.

"Trump is stuck in a mess of his own (and Israel's) making and can't find a face-saving way out of it, while the Iranians assume they are still in conflict and are therefore trying to maximize their gains and risk overplaying their hand," he said in an email. "This might result in a long-time low-level conflict and therefore one of the forever-wars Trump pledged to end. Each side will try to raise the costs for the respective other until it will become prohibitive."

Böhm, a specialist in Middle East affairs, told CNBC that Trump had "started the war without a goal," making it difficult to predict what might come next.

"Without a strategy, it is not clear what he aims to achieve," he said. "[Trump] can't open the Strait of Hormuz by force other than an operation of a scale that he will be unable sell to the American public. If he starts a broader war on infrastructure in Iran, the retribution will hit energy infrastructure in the Gulf."

The only way out of the conflict now was through diplomacy, said Böhm, but he added that this would now be "much more difficult."

"There might be some narrow runway where negotiations regarding Hormuz might land, but broader arrangements must come to terms with the fact that there is now a different reality," he said. "We can't go back to before to this war."