Trump has now ordered the assembly of a massive armada in the waters off Iran. But what might he order these mighty forces to do?
Trump’s geopolitical goals are ambiguous and keep changing by the day. Does he want Iran to end its nuclear enrichment and missile program, or does he want to topple the regime?
At a Thursday negotiating session in Geneva, the American side will make one last pitch for a “diplomatic” solution—an ultimatum to end all nuclear enrichment and capability. The Iranians have said they will never agree to this.
According to The New York Times, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization that inspects Iran’s nuclear facilities, has proposed a fig leaf: allow Iran to keep a tiny nuclear capacity solely for medical isotope purposes. That 60-year-old program dates all the way back to the Shah’s regime. It was the fruit of President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program that promoted non-military uses of atomic energy. Both sides could claim victory.
But even if Iran were to accept this and agree to destroy all other nuclear capability, it’s not at all clear that this would be enough for Trump, who is fairly slavering over the opportunity to deliver a devastating military strike. Possible targets included the headquarters of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, nuclear enrichment sites, and Iran’s ballistic missile program.
The main thing holding him back is the concern that this time, the Iranians might retaliate in a serious way against Israel and against U.S. forces in the region and create an inconclusive ongoing war.
In the previous two U.S. and Israeli assaults on Iran, the Iranian response was deliberately restrained. Following the U.S. military strikes of June 22, 2025, against three critical Iranian nuclear facilities and Israel’s assassination of top military officials, Tehran’s response was carefully limited. Iranian drones and missiles killed 29 people in Israel. Iran has the capacity to kill many more if it were to use its most advanced missiles.
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A deal might be more in Trump’s political interest. A devastating military strike less so, especially if it were followed by a messy war. The next step would be either an invasion, which would be the kind of entanglement Trump campaigned against, or an effort involving special forces to try to decapitate the regime.
But this is not the sort of regime dependent on a single leader. The regime’s power is layered and very difficult to overthrow. And while there is widespread political opposition, especially since the vicious government reaction to the protests of last December and January, in which the police and the military killed at least 7,000 people, the hated Americans would not be welcomed as liberators.
One force for restraint is that Trump’s top negotiators, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his chief regional envoy, his real estate and golfing buddy Steve Witkoff, are on the pragmatist/opportunist end of the Trump camp. They tend to reinforce his penchant for making big threats and then making a deal.
Another source of restraint is that all of the other regional powers whose support Trump needs are opposed to having a war in their region. That includes Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, places where Trump, his family, and his allies have business interests.
You might think that all of these net-net calculations would produce a deal rather than military action. But that calculus leaves out Trump himself, his impulsivity and vanity. He thinks of the military armada as his personal toys and he loves playing soldier. He has just suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court and he needs to show strength.
A deal to effectively end Iran’s nuclear capacity would show strength, but the domestic political benefits would have a short half-life. A war would run the risk of dragging on and on. According to Quinnipiac, 70 percent of those sampled oppose U.S. military action against Iran, while only 18 percent support it.
A rational actor would opt for a diplomatic solution. But this is Trump.
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