And this week, three officials said, the Navy is expected to start moving an aircraft carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, as protection against unforeseen events.
The show of force comes as the Trump administration draws US troops to three Centcom combat zones: Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. The Pentagon’s message to Iran appears to be a warning against exploiting the situation, rather than a direct threat. But the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program is in the background.
Iran has also signaled its steadfastness – as well as its willingness to relaunch diplomacy with the new administration of President-elect Joe Biden. Tehran’s potential threat was highlighted this month by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, which reported that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium is now 12 times the level allowed by the nuclear deal. 2015, which Trump abandoned in 2018. The IAEA has said Iran is also adding more advanced centrifuges to speed up enrichment.
Iran was hoping to wait for Trump’s presidency, and this theme was reinforced last week by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. He said Iran would revert to 2015 limits if the new administration also returns to the deal. “It doesn’t need negotiations and doesn’t need conditions,” he said.
Anti-Iranian hawks in the United States and Israel see the window closing on the possibility of a pre-emptive US-Israel strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Likely supporters of such an attack include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some hard-line officials around Trump. Netanyahu has often said that the potential Iranian nuclear threat is an existential problem for Israel and that the chance to land a punch could expire on January 20.
“There must be no going back to the previous nuclear deal. We must stick to an uncompromising policy to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons, ”Netanyahu told an Israeli audience this week.
Trump considered a strike on Iran earlier this month but decided not to. Worried about IAEA reports that Iran was increasing its uranium stockpile, Trump called for military options on November 12. He has been dissuaded from taking action by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials. Trump has decided that it would be unwise to launch a new war with unpredictable consequences during his last two months in office. But several officials say this possibility is not entirely ruled out and, as one official said, “we are not out of the woods yet.”
Skeptics of the attack on Iran include senior officers from the United States and Israel, who fear a chain reaction that would worsen the situation for all parties. A former senior defense official warns that the idea of a “clean, limited surgical strike” on Iranian nuclear facilities is folly; war doesn’t work that way. U.S. intelligence agencies are also warning that despite disturbing IAEA reports, Iran remains several months away from being able to deploy a bomb.
Several insiders point out that Trump does not want a new conflict in the Middle East that undermines what he sees as his legacy of stopping “endless” wars there. But curbing Iran’s nuclear program has also been one of his main problems, and he would likely like to step up the pressure further before stepping down.
Elliott Abrams, Trump’s special envoy to Iran, highlighted non-military options in his comments this week: “Throughout December and January, there will be sanctions that deal with weapons, that deal with weapons of mass destruction, which deal with human rights. . . . So it will last a few more months, until the end. “
Confrontation with Iran is the unpredictable X factor of national security. Until the day of the inauguration, the danger of an American or Iranian strike remains on the table – a minimal possibility but still real. Starting a war without provocation is never wise, but especially not for a divided country on the brink of political transition.
