US president Donald Trump has said he is close to deciding whether to launch “a massive attack” against Iran, on a scale larger than strikes already witnessed during the months-long conflict with Tehran.Speaking to the Axios news site Trump said: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”Trump made his remarks on Thursday as oil prices once again surged past the symbolic $100 for a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark.The US president acknowledged that such a decision would have consequences but said he had not yet made a final determination, saying Israel “would join in two minutes if I ask them to” before adding: “We don’t need anybody.”Trump’s comments followed the earlier threat of “major military punishment” against Iran and the Houthis, after the Iran-backed Yemeni militia’s attacks on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea.Underlining the sense of a region increasingly approaching an abyss, the United Nations secretary general António Guterres told the security council that the Middle East was being pushed to the “edge of the unimaginable” amid mounting fears over the trajectory of the conflict.“The situation is getting out of control. It is teetering on the edge of the unimaginable. The region is being pulled into an ever-widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next,” Guterres told a security council meeting.In a separate development, Trump clarified on Thursday that an announced agreement that Saudi Arabia would get US help with its civilian nuclear programme would require the kingdom to normalise relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords, a move Saudi Arabia has long resisted until there is demonstrable movement on Palestinian rights and statehood.It emerged later that Trump had not spoken to Saudi Arabia about the new condition.[ Why has the US done a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia?Opens in new window ]The Houthi attacks threatened a second major maritime route connecting the Suez Canal to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. It also comes amid reports that Iran had sent military advisers and drone parts to the Houthis 10 days ago.Ships had begun turning back from sailing through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait earlier this week after the Houthis had announced a blockade of Saudi ports, most notably the Red Sea port of Yanbu, which Riyadh has been using to ship oil to Asia during the conflict between the US and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.US president Donald Trump speaks to reporters in Delaware, on Wednesday. Photograph: Kenny Holston/The New York Times