Outside the Beltway

Trump Preparing For War With Iran

You’re going to be finding out over the next, maybe, 10 days. 10 to 15 days, pretty much, maximum.

James Joyner · Friday, February 20, 2026 · 1 comment

WSJ (“Trump Weighs Initial Limited Strike to Force Iran Into Nuclear Deal“):

President Trump is weighing an initial limited military strike on Iran to force it to meet his demands for a nuclear deal, a first step that would be designed to pressure Tehran into an agreement but fall short of a full-scale attack that could inspire a major retaliation.

The opening assault, which if authorized could come within days, would target a few military or government sites, people familiar with the matter said. If Iran still refused to comply with Trump’s directive to end its nuclear enrichment, the U.S. would respond with a broad campaign against regime facilities—potentially aimed at toppling the Tehran regime.

The first limited-strike option, which hasn’t been previously reported, signals Trump might be open to using military force not only as a reprimand for Iran’s failure to make a deal, but also to pave the way for a U.S.-friendly accord. One of the people said Trump could ratchet up his attacks, starting small before ordering larger strikes until the Iranian regime either dismantles its nuclear work or falls.

A limited strike would lead Iran to walk away from negotiations, at least for a significant period, a regional official said, especially when officials in Tehran are currently formulating their response to U.S. demands.

It couldn’t be determined how seriously Trump is considering the option after weeks of deliberations, though senior aides have repeatedly presented it to him. Discussions of late have focused more on larger-scale campaigns, officials said.

On Thursday, Trump said he would decide his next moves on Iran within 10 days. Later he told reporters his timeline was a maximum of about two weeks. “We’re going to make a deal or get a deal one way or the other,” he said.

WaPo (“Trump appears ready to attack Iran as U.S. strike force takes shape“):

The Trump administration appears ready to launch an extended military assault on Iran, current and former U.S. officials said, as the Pentagon amasses an immense strike force in the Middle East despite the risks of U.S. combat fatalities and American ensnarement in an extended war.

The arsenal, under assembly for weeks, is awaiting the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its accompanying warships, officials familiar with the matter said, after military leaders last week extended their deployment and ordered the ships to the region from the Caribbean Sea. The vessels were approaching the Strait of Gibraltar on Thursday, making an attack possible within days, said these people, who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military planning.

President Donald Trump, speaking Thursday morning at an event in Washington, was ambiguous about what he might do. “Maybe we’re going to make a deal. Maybe not,” he said at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace. “You’re going to be finding out over the next, maybe, 10 days.” Later in the day, he framed the timeline as “10 to 15 days, pretty much, maximum.”

Trump’s top national security advisers met in the Situation Room on Wednesday to discuss the Iran situation, and they were told that the U.S. forces that have been deployed to region will all be in place by mid-March, a U.S. official familiar with the issue said.

[…]

The United States, backed by ally Israel, would have an “overwhelming advantage” militarily over Iran, said Daniel B. Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and senior Pentagon official during the Biden administration. The warships in or nearing the Middle East join a sprawling array of combat power already in position, including dozens of fighter jets, air-defense capabilities and other weapons.

But a major conflict with Iran poses grave risks, Shapiro said, including ballistic missiles capable of killing U.S. troops in the region, a network of proxy forces across the Middle East that could quickly turn any attack into a far wider and deadlier war, and the potential for significant disruption to maritime shipping and the global oil market.

“They’ll definitely take terrible damage from combined U.S.-Israeli strikes,” said Shapiro, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, referring to Iran. “But that doesn’t mean it ends quickly, or clean — and they do have some ability to impose some costs in the other direction.”

At NYT, David Sanger observes, “As Trump Weighs Iran Strikes, He Declines to Make Clear Case for Why, or Why Now.”

With two carrier groups and dozens of fighter jets, bombers and refueling aircraft now massing within striking distance of Iran, Mr. Trump is threatening another attack. He is doing so without providing assessments about the urgency of the threat or any explanation of why he needs to strike again after claiming the nuclear sites he targeted had been “obliterated.”

Though Mr. Trump is largely fixated on the nuclear weapons program, at various moments he and his aides have cited a range of other rationales for military action: protecting the protesters that Iranian forces killed by the thousands last month, wiping out the arsenal of missiles that Iran can use to strike Israel, and ending Tehran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Then there is the question of whether military force, the hammer Mr. Trump reaches for so quickly, can even accomplish those ends. Most of Iran’s near-bomb-grade uranium is already buried from the last strike, in June. And it is not clear how airstrikes would immediately aid protesters around the country or persuade Iran to stop funding terror.

Mr. Trump has never consistently described his goals, and when he talks about them it is usually in a haze of brief, offhand comments. The president has given no speeches preparing the American public for a strike on a country of about 90 million people, and sought no approval from Congress. He has not explained why he has chosen this moment to confront Iran instead of, for example, North Korea, which in the years after Mr. Trump’s failed negotiations in the first term has expanded its nuclear arsenal to 60 or more warheads, by U.S. intelligence estimates, and is working to demonstrate they can reach the United States.

[…]

[N]one of the allies appear to be joining with the United States in military planning, except for Israel. Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, held a phone conversation with Mr. Trump on Tuesday, and according to The Times of London, Mr. Starmer refused to let Mr. Trump use British airfield facilities at the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean or a Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire to conduct any operations against Iran. British officials did not confirm or deny the report, but the next day, Mr. Trump issued a blast against Britain’s pending deal for a 100-year lease on the Diego Garcia base.

At least the British were aware of Mr. Trump’s plans. Senior officials representing several of the United States’ closest NATO allies said at the Munich Security Conference last weekend that they had gotten almost no details of American plans from Washington. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive military issues.

Several of them expressed deep skepticism that the United States could make a compelling case that military action was needed.

In fact, Mr. Trump may well be ignoring one of the first rules of the “Powell Doctrine,” the lessons born of the Vietnam War and developed by Colin Powell when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“The essence of the post-Vietnam consensus on the use of force is that the political objective must be clearly articulated,” said Robert S. Litwak, a political scientist at George Washington University who has written extensively on negotiating with Iran. “With Iran, Trump is again breaking with that consensus by offering multiple rationales for this preventive military action, from nonproliferation to protecting protesters to regime change.”

Given that the administration claims that MIDNIGHT HAMMER “obliterated Iran’s nuclear program” in last month’s National Defense Strategy, the urgency to reach a deal is less than apparent. While administration officials have apparently outlined “red lines” to Iranian negotiators, they have not been made public.

All indicators are that Trump envisions accomplishing his goals, whatever they might be, with airpower alone. That’s incredibly optimistic.

First, as WSJ reports (“Iran Is Getting Ready for War With the U.S.“), the regime has spent the eight months since the joint US-Israeli campaign hardening their defenses:

Iran’s leaders want to reach a nuclear deal with the U.S., but they are also rushing to prepare for war in case talks between the countries fail.

Tehran is deploying its forces, dispersing decision-making authority, fortifying its nuclear sites and expanding its crackdown on domestic dissent. The moves reflect its leaders’ belief that the survival of the regime itself is at stake.

Domestically, the Islamic Republic is more vulnerable than it has been in decades. Its leaders are facing widespread popular discontent over the worsening economic picture and the mass killing of protesters last month. Meanwhile, the U.S. has deployed two aircraft carriers and a host of other warships and jet fighters to the region in preparation for a possible attack.

“Iran is facing its worst military threat since 1988,” when the eight-year war with Iraq ended, said Farzan Sabet, an analyst on Iran and Middle East security at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland. “Iran is preparing for strikes by putting its security and political leadership on high alert to prevent decapitation and to protect its nuclear facilities.”

Iranian officials have presented some concessions in pursuit of a nuclear deal, but Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday the offers have fallen short of the red lines set by the U.S., which wants Iran deprived of the ability to make a nuclear weapon. While Iran’s foreign minister publicly said the talks had made progress, the government now fears that the gap between what Tehran is willing to offer and what Washington is willing to accept may be unbridgeable, an Iranian official said.

Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s National Security Council, said while Iran doesn’t want war, it is ready if one starts.

“We reviewed our weaknesses and addressed them,” he said in an interview aired Sunday on Al Jazeera. “If war is imposed on us, we will respond.”

Iran’s leaders are preparing for an attack that could disrupt its chain of command. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier this month announced plans to revive its so-called “mosaic defense” strategy, which gives commanders the autonomy to issue orders to their units. The strategy is designed to make the Islamic Republic more resilient to foreign attacks.

Iran is flexing its military muscle as best it can, sending the message that its armed forces have the capability of disrupting the global oil trade and of hitting U.S. interests across the Middle East.

Naval units of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard were deployed this week to the Strait of Hormuz. The strategic waterway connects the Persian Gulf to the wider Indian Ocean and around a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through it.

[…]

Iran has also been conducting work at its nuclear sites to better protect them from strikes, according to satellite imagery published and analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank based in Washington.

The satellite images show that Tehran has been hardening and strengthening tunnel entrances at its Isfahan site—where Iran is believed to have kept much of its highly enriched uranium and which was heavily damaged by U.S. and Israeli attacks last June—and at a deep underground tunnel complex in what is known as Pickaxe Mountain.

Second, to the extent the goals include regime change or even protecting demonstrators, simply blowing things up would seem to cause more problems than it solves. We tried toppling a regime without having a replacement plan in Libya; that didn’t work out well. (Granted, our replacement plans in Afghanistan and Iraq failed as well.)

Third, the regime sees itself and the Islamic Republic as one and the same. They’re likely to pull out all stops to survive. We’re amassing a huge armada, including two aircraft carriers, in the region. What happens if one gets hit?

Given that we’ve been building up our forces in the region for weeks, there is clearly no exigency requiring the President to forgo consultation with the Congress and, indeed, obtaining an Authorization to Use Military Force. And, given that a MIDNIGHT HAMMER style surprise is clearly not a possibility here, there’s certainly no reason not to make a case to the American people that war is necessary.