We're in the "misdirection phase" of the buildup to a strike on Iran. While Donald Trump has almost certainly decided to go to war, when, how, and where the blows will fall are being kept very close to the vest.
Since the idea of total surprise is off the table, Trump has taken to scattering clues all over the place to try to wrong-foot Tehran and make them concentrate their defenses precisely where the United States will not strike.
At the inaugural meeting of Trump's Board of Peace, the President was coy about his plans.
“Maybe we’re going to make a deal. Maybe not,” he said, referring to the ongoing negotiations to keep Iran from reconstituting its nuclear program and end its ballistic missile program.
“You’re going to be finding out over the next, maybe, 10 days,” he said. Later on, he described the timeline as “10 to 15 days, pretty much, maximum.”
On the other hand, another leak from the National Security Council (NSC) claims that NSC advisors were told that all U.S. forces deployed for the operation against Iran will be in place by "mid-March," according to the Washington Post.
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will be on station in the Arabian Sea this weekend, at the earliest. That makes Trump's 10-15 day timeline very flexible.
"Trump hasn’t yet decided to order an attack, officials said, though he is considering options ranging from a weeklong campaign of attacks to force regime change to a smaller-scale wave of strikes on Iran’s government and military facilities," reports the Wall Street Journal.
The greatest armada assembled since the beginning of the Iraq War is not going to engage in "a smaller-scale wave of strikes." Anything less than using most of the 300 planes, more than a dozen guided missile destroyers, attack helicopters, and electronic warfare assets available to Trump will seem a waste. It may also give Tehran the opportunity to declare a "victory" of sorts (not that many will believe that) if the regime survives an attack.
Iranian officials have threatened to respond with maximum force to any level of American strikes. In a series of social-media statements Tuesday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said his forces could sink a U.S. aircraft carrier and hit the American military “so hard that it cannot get up again.”
Iran is already wary of Trump’s diplomatic timelines. Last year, the White House said it would give Iran two weeks to make a similar nuclear deal. But just days later, B-2 bombers attacked three Iranian nuclear sites, setting back the country’s nuclear work.
Analysts note that what Trump is considering now is far larger and riskier than that one-and-done assault.
“They’ll definitely take terrible damage from combined U.S.-Israeli strikes,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and senior Pentagon official during the Biden administration. “But that doesn’t mean it ends quickly, or clean — and they do have some ability to impose some costs in the other direction.”
Israel is expected to join the U.S. in any attack whose goal is regime change. Anything short of that, and Israel's participation is questionable. It's doubtful Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would risk the kind of massive Iranian retaliation that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been warning about for the last few weeks. Iran still has hundreds of ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel and U.S. bases all over the Middle East.
Whatever happens, the U.S. military buildup has worried U.S. allies in the region.
“Some actors may have favored targeted strikes to add pressure on Iran,” said the diplomat, referring to officials from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “… But an extended conflict will be bloody, and it could bring more countries, either deliberately or by miscalculation, into the war.”
No other country is foolish enough to take on the combined firepower of Israel and the U.S. Iranian proxies, including Hezbollah, Shia militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen, are not going to follow Tehran over a cliff to destruction. Iran is alone.
Netanyahu is eager for the United States to launch a major attack on Iran, and in a speech Sunday he put forward his own conditions for any U.S. agreement with Tehran. Any deal must ban all enrichment of uranium and dismantle “the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place,” Netanyahu told the annual conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. It should also require that all enriched uranium leave Iran, restrict Iran’s ballistic missile program and impose sustained inspections of Iran’s civilian nuclear program, he said.
Middle East experts have said Iran is unlikely to agree to all of Israel’s demands and it views them as a breach of Tehran’s ability to defend itself.
Khamenei sounds delusional in recent days, taking to social media to taunt the U.S. and Trump.
“The Americans constantly say that they’ve sent a warship toward Iran,” he said in one message Tuesday. “Of course, a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware. However, more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea.”
Iran has several anti-ship missiles, some of them highly advanced. The Fattah-2 is a hypersonic missile unveiled in early 2026. It is reportedly capable of Mach 5 speeds with a 1,400 km range and mid-flight maneuverability designed to bypass advanced missile shields like the Patriot or Arrow 4. However, military analysts don't believe the missile is ready for deployment and has never been tested on a live target.
U.S. carriers have strong defenses, and it's doubtful any conventional weapon could penetrate the screen of destroyers surrounding them. Khamenei is spouting delusional propaganda.
I don't think Trump will wait 10 or 15 days to attack. Before the end of February, we'll be at war with Iran.
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