 "Regime change or nuclear disarmament? What Trump wants in Iran")
US President Donald Trump has pushed the United States to the brink of war with Iran. However, there’s little clarity on what is America’s long-term goal, if a war ensues.
In recent days, US President Donald Trump has ordered a huge build-up of military forces in and around Iran. Warships and dozens of fighter planes have been redeployed to West Asia.
In turn, Iran has also threatened to take necessary action against the US if it is attacked.
Fearing the worst, India has advised its nationals to leave the Islamic Republic as soon as possible. In its advisory, the Embassy of India asked its citizens to “leave Iran by available means of transport, including commercial flights”.
What are Trump’s options?
Last Thursday, Trump 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’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Trump has repeatedly emphasised that he prefers diplomacy, but only if any agreement covers Iran’s nuclear work, its ballistic missiles, and its support for groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran has ruled out accepting those terms.
The United States and Iran recently held two rounds of indirect talks in Oman and Switzerland. There’s been little progress during the prior discussions. Talks set to resume on 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’s the reason behind the move?
Donald Trump has frequently maintained that US attacks on uranium enrichment facilities effectively destroyed Iran’s 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 ‘help’ the Iranian people, but did not act.
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.
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.
How powerful is the US military presence in West Asia?
West Asia has witnessed an influx of US military, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, nine destroyers, and three frigates.
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 carrier, the United States has sent a powerful force of dozens of warplanes to the West Asia, and tens of thousands of US troops are stationed across the West Asia.
These are potential targets for attack by Iran.
To what end?
According to Richard Haas, who previously led the Council on Foreign Relations, the impact of a conflict of any scale or duration on Iran’s leadership is still uncertain.
Writing recently on Substack, Richard Haas said the situation could strengthen the regime just as much as weaken it, adding that it’s impossible to know what would follow if it fell.
US 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 the operation in Venezuela, which the United States attacked on January 3 as it captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro.
She said Iran has more diffuse centres of power and a “decapitation strike” could end up “really unleashing a mess inside of Iran.”
With inputs from agencies
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