THE NEW YORK TIMES: As Donald Trump considers second Iran attack, it could be deadlier than the first

President Donald Trump is considering committing the United States to another military campaign against Iran, a decision that carries the risk of igniting a conflict that could prove to be longer, deadlier and far more dangerous than last year’s 12-day war.

In June, the United States joined a campaign against Iran that Israel had begun, and Trump gave the military a specific goal: to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and set back Tehran’s ability to one day make a nuclear weapon. Within days of the US strikes, all sides agreed to a ceasefire. There were no American casualties.

Now the Pentagon is in the midst of the largest military build up in the Middle East in two decades, and Trump is considering a far more expansive operation — this time led by US forces — without saying publicly what he hopes to achieve.

Would a campaign once again be focused on Iran’s nuclear sites? Would there be additional strikes to eviscerate Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, which Iran has insisted it would not give up through negotiation?

Or could Trump’s goal be something he has often said was dangerous folly: using the military to remove a government in the Middle East from power? A war for regime change could lead to untold civilian deaths in Iran and a wider conflict across the region.

The president told reporters Friday that he was weighing a limited military strike to pressure Iran into a deal.

“I guess I can say I am considering that,” he said at the start of a meeting with governors at the White House.

The ambiguity around Trump’s aims could, according to some US officials and Middle East experts, be particularly dangerous, as it may lead Iran’s government to see a US-led offensive as an existential threat.

As a result, Iran could escalate the conflict against the United States and Israel in ways it did not during the attacks in June or after the US military assassinated Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, in 2020.

In a letter Thursday to the United Nations secretary-general, the head of Iran’s U.N. mission said that if Iran was attacked, then “all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets,” and that the “United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences.”

That could put the 30,000 to 40,000 US troops currently stationed at 13 military bases across the Middle East at particular risk. Pentagon officials have been scrambling to move more air defence batteries to the region to protect the bases. In June, Iran launched a volley of missiles against U.S. troops at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, but Iranian officials privately warned U.S. and Qatari officials in advance.

This time could be different, as a senior Pentagon official acknowledged earlier this week. US troops could be at much greater risk, he said, if the United States — not Israel — initiates this round of strikes.

Israel, of course, could still take on the brunt of any Iranian retaliation. During the conflict in June, Iran launched hundreds of long-range missiles at government, military and civilian targets in Israel. Israeli military officials said they succeeded in intercepting more than 80 per cent of the missiles, yet the barrage still did extensive damage and killed several dozen Israeli civilians.

The Iranian missile attacks forced Israel to begin conserving its supply of interceptors, and some Israeli officials in recent weeks have warned that a much longer conflict could strain the country’s ability to defend cities in Israel.

Iran faces its own risky calculus if it considers a full-scale retaliation against U.S. troops or Israeli cities, something that would be an “enormous gamble for a regime whose paramount goal is survival,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

It could lead Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to escalate further than originally planned — to make the ultimate goal of the war to bring down Iran’s government.

The formidable array of American ships, jets, bombers, drones, surveillance aircraft and air defense units headed to the Middle East is the most tangible evidence that the Pentagon sees the prospect of war lasting beyond 12 days.

“This looks like positioning for a much longer conflict,” said Katherine Thompson of the Cato Institute, who was a senior policy official at the Defense Department during the first year of the Trump administration. The Pentagon appears to be “anticipating an Iranian response that could be a significant risk to American bases in the region,” she said.

But even with advanced planning, Thompson said, the Pentagon is always aware that it has a finite supply of missile interceptors to protect its bases or Israeli cities — and that a protracted conflict could force difficult decisions. “The ability of the United States to sustain a prolonged defence of its forces and basing in the region, while also supporting Israel’s defence, is a major concern,” she said.

A second US military official said that US Central Command is keeping two aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East at a considerable distance from Iran, to protect them from becoming a target. Officials also noted that it was difficult to hit an aircraft carrier traveling at speed with a ballistic missile. In addition, the carriers are escorted by destroyers, which have the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Hundreds of troops have now been evacuated from Al Udeid base in Qatar, Pentagon officials said, and there have been evacuations at the cluster of US bases in Bahrain that house the Navy’s 5th Fleet. There are also US troops at bases in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

At least publicly, Trump administration officials insist that they remain committed to seeing if there is a diplomatic end to the standoff, one that could see Iran agreeing to new restrictions on its nuclear program. Privately, however, they say it is difficult to see what Iran may offer in the near term that could dissuade Trump from committing to another military campaign.

During his first 13 months in office, Trump has ordered seven military attacks in other countries, and he has been emboldened by the successful outcome of the military’s most recent operation — the commando mission in Venezuela in early January that captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and brought them to the United States.

Trump’s confidence is reflected in his blustery rhetoric aimed at Iran, pledging in one social media post in late January that “the next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”

That day, Iran’s mission to the U.N. responded with a warning of its own.

“If pushed,” it said in a statement, Iran “will defend itself and respond like never before!”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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