\nIran has also threatened to take necessary action<\/a> against the US if it is attacked.<\/p>\n
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD<\/p>\n
Fearing the worst, What are Trump\u2019s options?<\/p>\n Last Thursday, Trump has repeatedly emphasised that he prefers diplomacy, but only if any agreement covers Iran\u2019s nuclear work, its ballistic missiles, and its support for groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran has ruled out accepting those terms.<\/p>\n The United States and Iran recently held two rounds of indirect talks in Oman and Switzerland. There\u2019s been little progress during the prior discussions. Talks set to resume on Thursday in Switzerland.<\/p>\n Trump is \u201csurprised\u201d that Iran has not \u201ccapitulated,\u201d given the massive US military buildup, his envoy Steve Witkoff has said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration most likely aims for a limited conflict that reshapes the balance of power without trapping it in a quagmire,\u201d said Alex Vatanka, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington.<\/p>\n Vatanka said Iran is now expecting \u201ca short, high-impact military campaign that would cripple Iran\u2019s missile infrastructure, undermine its deterrent, and reset the balance of power after the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s the reason behind the move?<\/p>\n Donald Trump has frequently maintained that US attacks on uranium enrichment facilities effectively destroyed Iran\u2019s nuclear programme. Things changed with the January protest movement in Iran, which security forces put down with a huge loss of life. He threatened several times to intervene to \u2018help\u2019 the Iranian people, but did not act.<\/p>\n Trump boasts often of having brought peace to West Asia, citing the oft-violated ceasefire he engineered in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. And he has argued that regime change in Iran would strengthen what he calls a dynamic toward peace in the region.<\/p>\n STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD<\/p>\n But Democrats are worried that Trump is leading America into a violent mess and demanding that he consult Congress, the only body in the United States with the authority to declare war.<\/p>\n How powerful is the US military presence in West Asia?<\/p>\n West Asia has witnessed an influx of US military, including the aircraft carrier More warships are on the way. The world\u2019s largest vessel, the US aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, was photographed sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar to enter the Mediterranean on Friday.<\/p>\n Besides the many planes parked on the aircraft carrier, the United States has sent a powerful force of These are potential targets for attack by Iran.<\/p>\n To what end?<\/p>\n According to Richard Haas, who previously led the Council on Foreign Relations, the impact of a conflict of any scale or duration on Iran\u2019s leadership is still uncertain.<\/p>\n Writing recently on Substack, Richard Haas said the situation could strengthen the regime just as much as weaken it, adding that it\u2019s impossible to know what would follow if it fell.<\/p>\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing late last month that no one really knows what will happen if Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader falls \u201cother than the hope that there would be some ability to have somebody within their systems that you could work towards a similar transition.\u201d<\/p>\n STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD<\/p>\n Arab monarchies in the Gulf that have close relations with Iran have warned Trump against intervening, fearing they might be targeted in reprisal attacks and wary of any destabilization in the region.<\/p>\n Mona Yacoubian, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently told AFP that Iran is much more complex than the operation in Venezuela, which the United States attacked on January 3 as it captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n She said Iran has more diffuse centres of power and a \u201cdecapitation strike\u201d could end up \u201creally unleashing a mess inside of Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n With inputs from agencies<\/p>\n Home<\/a>Explainers<\/a>Regime change or nuclear disarmament? What Trump wants in IranEnd of Article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump has pushed the United States to the brink of war with Iran. However, there\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,153946,153947,153950,42,87,43,40,38,41,39,153949,153948],"class_list":["post-305993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-donald-trump-iran-attack","tag-donald-trump-likely-to-attack-iran","tag-donald-trump-on-attack-on-iran","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-possible-attack-on-iran","tag-us-possible-strike-on-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIndia has advised its nationals to leave the Islamic Republic<\/a> as soon as possible. In its advisory, the Embassy of India asked its citizens to \u201cleave Iran by available means of transport, including commercial flights\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nTrump<\/a> indicated that he would determine within 10 to 15 days whether to authorise military action against Iran if talks on a nuclear agreement do not succeed. According to news website Axios, Trump has an array of options that he can use to neutralise the region, including a direct attack on Iran\u2019s supreme leader,
\nAli Khamenei<\/a>.<\/p>\nIran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran. File image\/Reuters<\/p>\n
\nUSS Abraham Lincoln<\/a>, nine destroyers, and three frigates.<\/p>\nIn this handout photograph released by the US Navy, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) sails in the Arabian Sea on February 11, 2026. File image\/Reuters<\/p>\n
\ndozens of warplanes<\/a> to the West Asia, and tens of thousands of US troops are stationed across the West Asia.<\/p>\n