A little drumbeat can go a long way in foreign policy. However, too much of it may end up being flagged at you. And this is where America finds itself after a two-month standoff with Iran. President Donald Trump has ordered a massive military buildup in the Middle East, the largest in two decades by some measures. However, he seemed unwilling to order a risky strike. Nor have his threats yet forced Iran to negotiate a deal that would prevent this from happening. Now he was faced with a difficult choice: either order the attack anyway, or retreat embarrassingly.
This crisis, the latest of many in America’s tortured history with the Islamic Republic, began in late December when a wave of protests erupted in Iran. Trump warned the regime against killing demonstrators. He said that if that happened, America would come to their rescue. The regime ignored him and killed at least 7,000 people, and perhaps several thousand more. However, America was in no place where it could attack: it did not even have an aircraft carrier in the area.
It is no longer so restrictive. The USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the Arabian Sea in late January. A second aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, was sent to the area last week. It passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on February 17 and is scheduled to arrive within days. Meanwhile, dozens of warplanes flew across the Atlantic this week, from F-35s, the newest fighter jet in the US arsenal, to E-3s used for airborne surveillance. They were accompanied by a number of air refueling planes.
America has not deployed such an airborne arsenal in the Middle East since its invasion of Iraq in 2003. When it bombed Iranian nuclear facilities last summer, it was a one-off: seven B-2 bombers circled the globe from Missouri, and a submarine fired cruise missiles from nearby Iran. The current deployment indicates that it is planning a larger and more sustained attack.
The buildup continues even as diplomats try to negotiate an agreement. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s multi-purpose envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, have held two rounds of indirect talks with Abbas Araqchi, the Iranian foreign minister. Their second meeting was held in Geneva on February 17. It ended without a breakthrough. Araqchi said that the negotiators reached “a general agreement on some guiding principles.”
In an interview with Fox News later that day, J.D. Vance sounded somber. He added: “The president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to acknowledge and work within.” This pessimism was notable coming from the vice president, who hails from the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement and has been generally optimistic about diplomacy with Iran.
It is still unclear exactly what kind of deal the administration wants. At a minimum, any new agreement would have to limit Iran’s nuclear program, which before last summer’s strikes had enriched more than 400 kilograms of near-weapons-grade uranium. Some of Trump’s Republican allies want diplomacy to go much further: They believe Iran should also agree to impose tough limits on its ballistic missile arsenal and end its support for militias across the Arab world. This is what Israel prefers as well.
As always, Trump’s statements are difficult to parse. Within one week, he said he wanted to reach an agreement that would stop Iran’s missile program. And that he can only accept a nuclear agreement; And it might be better to just drop the system.
The negotiators did not set a date for a third meeting. The Americans say they are waiting for the Iranians to submit a detailed proposal within the next two weeks. The State Department says Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to visit Israel on February 28. These timelines indicate that a US strike is not imminent. However they can be scammed. In June, Trump suggested he would allow two weeks for diplomacy before deciding whether or not to attack Iran. The B-2s arrived two days later.
Pentagon planners presented him with a number of options. The first is an attempt to assassinate Iran’s political and military leadership. It is difficult to overthrow a regime from the air, but America is certainly capable of destabilizing it, especially since it is already suffering from protests and the economic crisis. This may include attempting to attack sites linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the regime’s imperial guard. A more limited campaign would focus on air strikes against Iran’s remaining nuclear facilities and ballistic missile sites.
However, none of this is likely to be decisive. The Iranian opposition is disorganized and divided; There is no guarantee that strikes on the regime will lead to better government. In fact, Trump no longer cites the protests — which ended more than a month ago — as a justification for the strike. Meanwhile, any damage to Iran’s nuclear or missile programs may only be temporary. A lack of clarity about long-term goals appears to be one reason why Trump has been reluctant to order an attack.
However, Iran did not seize the opportunity to find a diplomatic solution. Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, may bet that it is better to try to accommodate the American attack rather than make major concessions. The goal is not to reach an agreement, but to use diplomacy to delay the strike.
However, time may be running out. Trump is not known for his patience. He may have been encouraged by the successful raid last month to arrest Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, although an attack on Iran would be an entirely different matter. Nor can he maintain the massive US military buildup indefinitely. Ford, for example, has already been deployed for about eight months (a typical deployment lasts about nine months). On February 19, Trump said that the world would find out “probably within the next 10 days” how the crisis would end. Perhaps the moment of reckoning will come soon.
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