As President Donald Trump weighs whether to join Israel’s strikes on Iran — including using bunker-busting bombs to target nuclear facilities deep underground — a discussion is underway among his top officials over how the US can strike those targets without becoming embroiled in a full-scale war, sources familiar with the matter said.
For Trump, trying to avoid prolonging the
conflict that began last Thursday has become a top imperative. While
he is receptive to arguments, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, that only the US can decisively end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he is
deeply wary of becoming bogged down in the type of foreign conflict he vowed to
avoid, the sources said.
Over the weekend, some US allies received word that the
Trump administration was planning to wait and see what the Israelis
accomplished during the first week of their operation against Iran’s nuclear
program before making a decision on getting
involved with US military
assets, two European diplomats said.
A day ahead of that deadline, Trump said he had not made a
final decision on how to proceed, and in conversations with US allies on
Wednesday, administration officials did not definitively lean in one direction
or the other, the diplomats said. Trump has reviewed attack plans for Iran but
is holding off to see if Tehran steps back from its nuclear program, a person
familiar with the matter told CNN.
“I like to make the final decision one second before it’s
due,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “Especially with war, things change with
war. It can go from one extreme to the other.”
As the president mulls his options, he has said he does not
believe a US strike necessarily means a complete US intervention in a foreign
war, a source familiar with the matter said. And people close to Trump have
argued that decisive strikes are different from broader action that could prolong
the conflict.
“America might just drop a few MOAB’s on Fordow,
destroy the last nuclear asset, and then leave,” David Friedman, Trump’s
ambassador to Israel during his first term, wrote on social media. MOAB refers
to a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.”
“The air space already is clear,” Friedman went on. “How is
that being dragged into anything?”
As Trump keeps his options open, the administration
continues to hear from allies who are urging against offensive US involvement.
The range of reasons include the possibility of Iran seeking to block the
Strait of Hormuz, potentially upending the global flow of oil, and Iran
potentially choosing to race toward developing a nuclear weapon after any US
strike, two sources familiar with the discussions said. Iran has vowed to
retaliate if US forces join Israel in attacking.
“If the Americans decide to get involved militarily, we have
no choice but to retaliate wherever we find the targets necessary to be acted
upon,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said in an
interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “That is clear and simple. Because we
are acting in self-defense.”
One model for action that Trump’s allies have discussed
privately in recent weeks is his 2020 decision to assassinate top Iranian
commander Qasem
Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport using a MQ-9 Reaper
drone. The strike, while still a serious escalation that drew reprisals from
Iran, did not cause all-out war.
Trump administration officials have discussed the Soleimani
strike as a counter to theories arguing that a US strike would lead to
“uncontrollable escalation,” said sources familiar with the conversations.
Trump has publicly ruled out, for now, killing Iran’s
supreme leader.
Trump’s top national security officials have made a
conscious effort to try to get on the same page as they present options for the
president.
“My job, our job, chairman and I, at all times is to make
sure we, the president, has options and is informed of what those options might
be and what the ramifications of what those options might be,” Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate panel Wednesday.
Trump’s CIA director, John Ratcliffe, has been among those
who Trump has leaned on in recent days, both ahead of the Israeli strikes and
as the president has considered his next steps.
Ratcliffe was present at a Camp David retreat on June 8,
shortly before Israel’s first attack, where he briefed Trump on the latest
intelligence related to Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s likely next move,
according to a source familiar with the discussion.
The retreat at Camp David was not originally intended as a
meeting focused on intelligence, as evident by fact that Ratcliffe and Trump’s
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were not initially invited,
according to a senior administration official. Ratcliffe made the trip at the
last minute, the official said, and briefed the president on the rapidly
evolving situation.
Another key voice in Trump’s ear has been Gen. Michael
Kurilla, commander of US Central Command. In recent weeks, some US military
leaders, including Kurilla, have requested more resources to defend and support
Israel as it continues to trade fire with Iran, according to two sources
familiar with the matter.
“[Kurilla] would want to be prepared for the most
challenging contingency,” said one of the sources familiar with the matter,
referring to his push for positioning US assets in the Middle East in support
of Israel.
Kurilla, a staunch supporter of Israel, has for months been
pushing Hegseth and Trump to move a growing number of military assets into the
Middle East in preparation for a conflict with the potential to metastasize –
either between the US and Iran’s proxies, including the Houthi rebel group in
Yemen, or between Israel and Iran.
Whether Trump can strike Iran while avoiding becoming drawn
into a quagmire is a matter of debate. Some Iran experts warn a drawn-out
confrontation could last the duration of Trump’s presidency and exact a heavy
toll on American lives and resources at Israel’s behest.
“Any attack by the US will lead to full-scale attack by the
Iranians against US bases in the region, and a full-scale war between the US
and Iran,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in
Washington, DC, told CNN.
Tehran may not be able to sustain a long fight with the US,
but it won’t be an easy war for Washington either, he said.
Many of Trump’s otherwise-staunch supporters have also
questioned whether it is possible to launch strikes in Iran without getting
ensnared in a generational conflict.
“First and foremost, this is not our war. This is Iran’s
war. The president of the United States is commander-in-chief of our forces. He
listens to all of us that work in the national security lane,” said Sen. Jim
Risch of Idaho, the Senate Foreign Relations chairman who met with Trump at the
White House on Wednesday.
“I think he has done a masterful job of threading a very,
very difficult needle,” Risch said a day before his meeting with the president.
Another Senate Republican who spoke to Trump this week, Sen.
Josh Hawley of Missouri, said he “would not” be comfortable if the US took
offensive action against Iran.
“I don’t want us fighting a war. I don’t want another
Mideast war…I’m a little concerned about our sudden military buildup in the
region,” Hawley said a day after his conversation with Trump.
The risk of retaliation from Iran is strong enough that even
before Trump makes a decision, the US military began making contingency
preparations that account for the possibility of Iranian retaliation against US
forces if Trump does move forward with a strike, according to a source familiar
with the planning.
After frequent conversations with Netanyahu, during which
the Israeli leader has made clear Israel needs US aid to complete its ultimate
goal of wiping out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the president acknowledged
Wednesday that US involvement would help speed up the process for Israel’s
success.
“We’re the only ones that have the capability to do it, but
that doesn’t mean we’re going to do it at all,” Trump said.
But he also affirmed his pledge to avoid a “long-term war.”
“I only want one thing: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,”
he said. “That’s it. I’m not looking long term, short term. And I’ve been
saying that for 20 years.”
CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.
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