President Donald Trump's threats to attack Iran provide little detail on what the long-term US goal would be in the event of a sustained or even brief conflict.
Trump sent warships and dozens of fighter planes to the Middle East and has several options to choose from that could destabilize the region.
Will Trump order surgical strikes targeting Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the backbone of the clerical regime in power, try to take out its missile program -- as Israel wants him to do -- or even try to force regime change in Tehran?
Iran has threatened severe reprisal if it is attacked.
- What are the options? -Â
Trump said Thursday he would decide in 10 or 15 days whether to order strikes on Iran if no nuclear deal is reached.
The news outlet Axios has reported that Trump was presented with an array of military options that include a direct attack on Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Trump has said many times he prefers a diplomatic route leading to an agreement that addresses not only Iran's nuclear program but also its ballistic missile capability and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran has said no to making such concessions.
The United States and Iran recently held two rounds of indirect talks, in Oman and Switzerland. They have not brought the two sides' position closer, with talks set to resume Thursday in Switzerland.
Trump is "surprised" that Iran has not "capitulated" given the massive US military buildup, his envoy Steve Witkoff has said.
"The Trump administration most likely aims for a limited conflict that reshapes the balance of power without trapping it in a quagmire," said Alex Vatanka, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Vatanka said Iran is now expecting "a short, high-impact military campaign that would cripple Iran's missile infrastructure, undermine its deterrent, and reset the balance of power after the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025."
- What is the justification? -Â
Trump has insisted US forces destroyed Iran's nuclear program in attacks targeting uranium enrichment facilities.
Things changed with the January protest movement in Iran that security forces put down with huge loss of life.Â
Trump threatened several times to intervene to "help" the Iranian people, but did not act.
Trump boasts often of having brought peace to the Middle East, citing the oft-violated ceasefire he engineered in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.Â
And he has argued that regime change in Iran would strengthen what he calls a dynamic toward peace in the region.
But opposition 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.
- US firepower in the region? -Â
The US military now has 13 warships stationed in the Middle East: the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived late last month, nine destroyers and three frigates.Â
More warships are on the way. The world's largest vessel, the US aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, was photographed sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar to enter the Mediterranean on Friday.
Besides the many planes parked on the aircraft carriers, the United States has sent a powerful force of dozens of warplanes to the Middle East, and tens of thousands of US troops are stationed across the Middle East.
These are potential targets for attack by Iran.
- To what end? -Â
Richard Haas, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said it is not clear what impact a conflict of any duration and scale would have on Iran's government.
"It could just as easily strengthen it as weaken it. And it is impossible to know what would succeed this regime if it were to fall," Haas wrote recently on Substack.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing late last month that no one really knows what will happen if Iran's Supreme leader falls "other than the hope that there would be some ability to have somebody within their systems that you could work towards a similar transition."
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.
Mona Yacoubian, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently told AFP that Iran is much more complex than Venezuela, which the United States attacked January 3 as it captured its leader Nicolas Maduro.
She said Iran has more diffuse centers of power and a "decapitation strike" could end up "really unleashing a mess inside of Iran."
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