As President Donald Trump considers whether the U.S. will strike Iran — likely the most important decision of his second term, one that could remake the landscape of the Middle East — allies and adversaries are taking sides, both at home and abroad.
“I may do it. I may not do it,” Trump told reporters outside the White House earlier today. “Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
The president openly admired the effectiveness of Israel’s initial airstrikes against Iran, even though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly launched his strikes to interrupt Trump’s nuclear diplomacy with Tehran.
But after being rebuffed in April when he sought Trump’s approval for a joint operation against Iran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu could be on the verge of persuading an American president to provide the B-2s to deliver the 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of penetrating the concrete fortress believed to conceal Tehran’s most dangerous stockpile of nearly-weapons-grade uranium, based on new Israeli intelligence. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC today that conflicts with a briefing to Congress this week that the U.S. intelligence has not changed: Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon.
Israel’s argument is that it’s now or never. It has decapitated two of Iran’s proxies — Hezbollah and Hamas — and toppled the Assad regime in Syria, and its retaliatory strikes last year eliminated many of Iran’s air defenses. Israel’s air force could damage Iran’s above-ground nuclear sites and missile bases if it struck now, before Iran repairs its defenses, but can’t eliminate the nuclear threat without U.S. bombs and bombers to reach the most critical underground facility.
That has created a political tug-of-war for the heart and mind of Trump, who has publicly yearned for the Nobel Prize, seeing himself as a peacemaker who could bring Iran back into the community of non-terrorist nations and avoid another “forever war.” Fighting that vision is his competing impulse to join Israel in eliminating the nuclear threat once and for all. And Tehran’s leaders clearly misjudged how patient Trump would be with their refusal to compromise in the negotiations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin remains on the sidelines, preoccupied with his own war. Jordan’s King Abdullah II and French President Emmanuel Macron strongly oppose U.S. involvement. Trump has been consulting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Gulf’s most influential leader.
At home, the MAGA base is divided, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., leading the hawks and a growing cohort of Republican isolationists — even in Trump’s Cabinet — opposed. Most prominently, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted a highly produced anti-war video on her official X account, reportedly infuriating her boss.
Critics worry about unintended consequences of military action, repeating former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s rueful warning before the U.S. war in Iraq. It’s like the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you own it
Amid escalating global tensions, Trump struggles to be a ‘peacemaker,’ by Peter Nicholas, Peter Alexander, Jonathan Allen and Dan De Luce