The US military is in the midst of its largest build-up of forces in the Middle East in decades, in preparation for some sort of military action in Iran. Military officials say strikes could come as early as this weekend and some US personnel are being evacuated from the region.
Diplomacy isn’t officially over yet. Talks were held in Geneva, Switzerland, this week between the Trump administration’s representatives — all-purpose foreign envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — and senior Iranian officials in hopes of striking a deal that will address US concerns about the country’s nuclear program, among other issues, and provide Iran with sanctions relief.
Early this week, there seemed to be some diplomatic progress, when Iran and the United States said they had agreed on “guiding principles” for ongoing nuclear talks, and the Iranians are reportedly preparing a response to US demands by the end of the month, but some US officials, talking to Axios’s Barak Ravid, have dismissed the talks as a “nothingburger” and have put the chance of war at 90 percent. (There’s an ongoing debate on next steps within the administration, so these comments can also be read as strategic messaging by the hawks in Trump’s orbit.)
Trump does not appear to have made a final decision about whether to take military action and what form it would take, suggesting on Thursday that he would make up his mind in the next 10 days. As is often the case with this administration, the range of possible actions is wide, but for the moment, the military build-up is moving much faster than the diplomatic track and an attack of some kind seems likely. (Trump’s 10-day deadline should also be taken with a grain of salt: Last June, Trump said he would give Iranian nuclear talks two weeks, then ordered airstrikes on the country four days later.)
If war does come again, we don’t know exactly what it will look like, but all indications are it will be a larger and more extensive campaign than what we saw last summer, or than most Americans are probably prepared for. And at the moment, both sides seem dangerously confident they would prevail.
Here are a few key questions to keep in mind for the days ahead:
What has the US military been up to in the Middle East?
Trump first threatened new military action against Iran in January, promising “help is on the way” when protests over economic conditions broke out throughout the country and were brutally repressed by Iran’s theocratic regime. Trump ultimately held off at the time at the urging of regional allies, as well as some of his own advisers, when it became clear that the US military — at the time engaged in major operations around Venezuela — didn’t have sufficient assets in the region to deter Iranian counterattacks.
Analysts suggest this is enough firepower for an engagement lasting multiple weeks, not just a few hours or days.
That is no longer the case. The United States has deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region, each with three destroyer escorts, as well as half a dozen other surface ships and — almost certainly — nuclear submarines whose locations are not disclosed. Dozens of aircraft, including F-22 and F-16 fighters jets and surveillance planes, have been deployed around the Middle East as well — the greatest concentration of airpower in the region since the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It has also worked to replenish air defense batteries that were depleted by Iranian missile and drone strikes during June’s “12-day war.”
In short, analysts suggest this is enough firepower for an engagement lasting multiple weeks, not just a few hours or days.
Why is this happening? What does America want from Iran?
This is something of a moving target. Trump’s threat to Iran in January was in response to the massacre of protesters. But the protests have now largely subsided, and it’s too late to rescue the thousands who were massacred.
The main discussions concern Iran’s nuclear program. Though this program was severely degraded by US airstrikes in June, (Trump proclaimed it “obliterated”) the Trump administration is calling for Iran to abandon nuclear enrichment entirely, the process that can be used to create material for weapons. Iran, which maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful, is insisting on its right to enrich, though it has indicated a willingness to make some concessions, such as diluting its stock of near-weapons grade enriched uranium.
The United States has also sought to expand the talks to encompass issues including Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for regional proxy groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis. Iran has been extremely resistant to this. For all the focus on nuclear weapons, Iran’s ballistic missiles may end up being the crux of this crisis: They’re a particular concern for Israel, which is in range of them. But Iran also views them as a core component of its ability to defend itself.
Some of the impasse between the two sides is due to core disagreements, but some is political style. Observers say the Iranians seem to be seeking a painstakingly negotiated, highly technical agreement along the lines of the 2015 JCPOA it reached with the Obama administration, which Trump later pulled out of. Whereas Trump is looking for a quick and declarative political win.
Then, of course, there’s the question of whether the United States seeks not to make a deal with the Islamic Republic, but to eliminate it. Trump said last week that regime change in Iran is “the best thing that could happen.” Many Iranians would surely agree, though the president did not elaborate on what he envisioned replacing the regime.
What would the war look like?
Americans may assume that war, if it comes, would look something like June’s “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a relatively brief series of strikes that was resolved quickly. That will probably not be the case.
The June war was a primarily Israeli operation, with the US joining in to attack three Iranian nuclear facilities a week in, when it was already clear that the Israelis were having military success and Iran’s retaliation was limited.
This time around, the United States would be in the driver’s seat from the start, though Israel would almost certainly be involved. And reporting suggests the administration has a more extensive operation in mind.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the options Trump has been presented with by military briefers include a “campaign to kill scores of Iranian political and military leaders, with the goal of overthrowing the government…as well as an air attack that would be limited to striking targets including nuclear and ballistic-missile facilities.” Both types of campaigns could potentially last for weeks. Of course, the reality could well turn out quite different: Ahead of the US intervention in Venezuela, few predicted that the United States would simply capture the country’s president while leaving most of its regime in place.
In June, Iranian retaliation against US forces in the Middle East was limited and telegraphed in advance. That may not be the case this time, as Iran’s leaders may feel they’re in an existential fight for survival that requires a stronger response.
Though its nuclear program may be in shambles, the regime has worked diligently since last summer to reconstitute its ballistic missile deterrent, meaning retaliatory strikes against US bases, as well as Israel and US allies in the Gulf are likely. How much damage it is really capable of inflicting is an open question, though Israel was reportedly running dangerously low on interceptors by the end of the 12-day war and may have sustained more casualties if the conflict had lasted longer. Iran also last week conducted exercises that temporarily shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil chokepoint through which 31 percent of the world’s sea-born crude flows.
Trump has clearly grown more confident about using military force, but Iran’s calculation may be that he has little tolerance for a long, drawn-out, messy conflict. In Trump’s more than five years as president, one thing we have not yet seen is how he would respond to a conflict with a significant number of US casualties.
What do other countries think?
Though the Israeli government was reportedly concerned in January about the state of their air defenses, they now appear to fully support military action and are highly skeptical that a satisfactory diplomatic deal can be reached. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, deeply unpopular heading into elections later this year, would no doubt much rather keep the public focused on the destruction of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs than the swirling questions about his handling of the October 7 attacks.
As for other regional countries, the picture is more mixed. During the Obama administration and Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states pushed for a maximally hawkish position on Iran. Today, while they would no doubt prefer an end to the Islamic Republic, they’re less enthusiastic about war, due to concerns about Iranian retaliation as well as the regional destabilization that could result from a collapse of the Iranian regime. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have said they will not allow the United States to use their airspace for an attack on Iran, though that may not spare them from Iranian retaliation.
The UK is also reportedly preventing the US from using its airbases for an attack on Iran, including the strategically located base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, prompting an angry outburst from Trump early this week.
As for Iran’s few allies, it conducted joint naval drills with Russia’s military this week, but it’s hard to imagine Moscow doing much to come to Tehran’s aid if war begins.
The administration is very unlikely to ask Congress for an authorization to use military force against Iran, or to present a detailed legal rationale for doing so. Given that Iran’s nuclear program is, according to the administration’s own assessments, nowhere close to producing a weapon, and given that the United States is not in range of Iranian missiles, it would be hard to make the case that it constitutes the type of imminent threat that would allow the president to order military action without congressional authorization.
Past administrations, including Trump’s after Midnight Hammer, have argued that military operations that are limited in scope and duration don’t constitute “war” in the constitutional sense and don’t require authorization. Many legal scholars don’t buy that, but even if you do, it would get harder to justify it if the war turns out to be the kind of expansive operation reportedly under discussion.
In Congress, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) are planning to move next week to force a vote on a resolution that would require the administration to seek congressional authorization, but previous efforts to do this under the Trump administration have not been successful. In all likelihood, congressional oversight of the president’s ability to wage war is about to be further watered down.
In fairness to Trump, in each of his previous military engagements, dating back to the strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in his first term, he has been able to defy critics who warned he was risking a dangerous quagmire. But if he is really contemplating an operation as extensive as what has been reported in recent days, or pursuing the overthrow of the Iranian state itself, this suggests he may be growing confident to the point he’s considering just the sort of war he has lambasted previous presidents for getting involved with.
Both sides now appear dangerously confident about their prospects heading into a conflict: The United States in its ability to inflict damage on Iran at will without significant blowback; Iran in its ability to make the conflict so painful for the United States that it can inflict a strategic defeat rather than hastening its own demise after a year that has left it severely weakened, economically, politically, and militarily
The confidence on both sides may end up getting a lot of people killed.
