WASHINGTON, Feb. 19– U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing an initial limited military strike on Iran aimed at pressuring Tehran into accepting a nuclear deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the deliberations.
If authorized, the strike could come within days, targeting a few military or government sites, said the report. It added that if Iran still refuses to comply with the U.S. nuclear demand, the Trump administration would respond with a broad campaign against Iranian government facilities, potentially aimed at toppling the “Tehran regime”, said the report.
Trump hasn’t yet decided to order an attack at any scale, though he is considering options ranging from a weeklong campaign of attacks to force “regime change” to a smaller-scale wave of strikes targeting Iran’s government and military facilities, said the report.
On Thursday, Trump told reporters that Iran has 10 to 15 days to reach a deal over its nuclear program, warning that otherwise “really bad things” would happen to the country.
He refused to answer what the goal of a potential U.S. military strike. “Regime change” in Iran is “the best thing that could happen,” the president said last week.
A Trump adviser has estimated a “90 percent chance” of strikes within weeks if talks fail, Axios reported Wednesday, noting the U.S. raid could involve a large-scale, weeks-long campaign, potentially conducted jointly with Israel.
Trump has ordered a large-scale military buildup in the Middle East. It’s widely thought that the build-ups make it hard for Trump to back down without Iran’s major concessions.
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford was approaching Gibraltar on Wednesday as it made its way from the Caribbean to join the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in waters near Iran, local media reported. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
