President Donald Trump has been briefed on Pentagon options to resume major combat operations against Iran and is leaning toward renewed strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday — even as the timeline U.S. officials describe for any resumption points past the November 3 midterm elections.
The options put before the president, according to the report, include strikes on Iran's nuclear and underground facilities, attacks on bridges and other infrastructure, and operations to seize Iranian-controlled islands. No final decision has been made.
U.S. officials said preparations are being made for a possible resumption of operations after the midterms. That timing would carry the decision past the elections that decide control of Congress — the vote the president's party is fighting to hold — while Iran keeps pressing Washington in public almost daily.
The same reporting says American warships in the Middle East are preparing for potential strikes in the coming weeks, and that Washington has evacuated personnel from some military bases in the region in anticipation of an Iranian attack. Sailors aboard the USS George Washington strike group have been shown preparing for a possible escalation in the fighting. No White House or Pentagon statement confirming or denying the report had been issued.
The report landed on the same day Iran's top military commander, Major General Ali Abdollahi, warned that Iran will under no circumstances allow United States military vessels to enter the Persian Gulf, and days after the United States ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Washington could absolutely strike Iran as soon as this weekend. Iran's Revolutionary Guard has also claimed, without independent verification, that two supertankers struck naval mines near the Strait of Hormuz.
The war between the United States and Iran began on February 28. Iranian forces have restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz since the fighting started, Washington has answered with a counterblockade of Iranian ports, and negotiations between the two sides have remained stalled for months while each side threatens the other.
For now the decision sits where the report places it: the options are briefed, the leaning is toward renewed combat, and the preparations point past November 3 — with Iran vowing that no American warship will enter the Gulf and the strait still the point where the war is most easily reignited.
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