Challenges posed by Iran’s expanding nuclear program and its support for regional armed factions, particularly the Houthi (Ansarallah) movement in Yemen, will test Trump’s stated intent not to initiate armed conflict in the region.
Publicado en Soufan Center, el 9 de enero de 2025
- The Trump team is exploring options against Iran that stop short of undertaking air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
- Trump and his national security aides will likely support a European-led effort to “snap back” UN sanctions lifted in 2016 to implement the multilateral Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA).
- The incoming administration has expressed support for a negotiated solution with Iran on all outstanding issues, but the gaps between the two sides will be difficult to bridge.
In recent weeks, various reports have surfaced that outgoing president Joe Biden and incoming president-elect Donald Trump have separately held discussions with their teams about scenarios for a major U.S. military strike to try to cripple Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The accounts coincided with numerous reports that Israeli and U.S. intelligence are closely watching Iran’s nuclear program for signs that indicate the country seeks a “breakout” to construct a nuclear weapon.
Israel has already signaled it will act to prevent an Iranian breakout by adding Iran’s Parchin military complex to its target list in a late October airstrike that responded to Iran’s missile barrage earlier that month. Israeli jets sought to destroy sophisticated equipment that would be needed to design and test a nuclear explosive device. The reported U.S. meetings, as well as Israeli actions, illustrate that the multiple threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran – to the region, the U.S., and the global community – are likely to test Trump’s stated intent to resolve ongoing conflicts and not initiate any new U.S. armed action in the region.
The accounts of U.S. consideration of military action against Iran’s nuclear program reflect new information suggesting Iran might see developing a nuclear weapon as a means of restoring Iran’s deterrent against both Israel and the U.S. Iran’s national security has centered on supplying and assisting a network of armed allies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria, pro-Iranian Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthi movement (Ansarallah) in Yemen – as well as Iran’s missile and armed drone arsenal – to project power throughout the region and deter U.S. or Israeli attacks.
The setbacks Israel has delivered to Hamas and Hezbollah, the fall of the Assad regime, and the failure of Iran’s missile barrages to deter Israel from attacking key Iranian facilities have caused Iranian leaders to search for strategic alternatives. Outgoing National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in mid-December: “You can look at the public statements of Iranian officials, which have changed in the last few months as they have been dealt these strategic blows, to raise the question: Do we (Iranian leaders) have to change our doctrine at some point? The fact that that’s coming out publicly is something that has to be looked at extremely carefully.»
Adding fuel to U.S. and Israeli alarm about Iranian intentions, in December, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told Reuters in December that Iran is “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, closer to the roughly 90 percent level that is weapons-grade. It already has enough 60 percent-enriched uranium to make four nuclear bombs, according to the agency.
At the same time, press accounts suggest the Trump team is evaluating options that would pressure Tehran without necessarily triggering a regional war. Some Trump aides reportedly oppose preventative U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as certain to provoke a significant response from Tehran. As an alternative, Trump is said to be weighing sending additional U.S. forces, ships, and warplanes to the region. Among the reasons Trump may be more open to authorizing military action against Iran, than he reportedly was during his first term, are Iran’s alleged covert operations to assassinate him during the 2024 presidential campaign. Iran has also been widely cited – and sanctioned – by U.S. officials for attempting to interfere in U.S. elections and for plotting to assassinate Iranian dissidents living in the U.S. In an interview with Time Magazine published in mid-December, Trump said of a potential war with Iran, “Anything can happen. It’s a very volatile situation.” At the same time, he has repeatedly said he does not seek conflict with the Islamic Republic.
Some experts assess the Trump team might decide to address the threat from the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen before moving against Iran itself. Despite many strikes since early 2024 by the U.S. and Israel, the Houthis continued to launch ballistic missiles and armed drones against U.S., Israeli, and commercial shipping targets. The Houthi challenge to global shipping through the Red Sea presents the Trump team not only with an immediate challenge, but also the opportunity to work closely with U.S. allies in the Gulf that represent the pillars of U.S. defense strategy for the region. Yet, the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), might be reluctant to join any U.S. action that would re-engage them in a ground war in Yemen or provoke the Houthis to resume missile and drone strikes on Saudi and Emirati infrastructure targets.
Aware that Trump might be actively considering military options against Iran, Tehran is seeking to avoid providing justification for a strike or added forms of pressure. Iran agreed to hold nuclear talks next week with France, the United Kingdom, and Germany (the “E3”) in Geneva, according to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi. The talks appear to represent an Iranian effort to blunt a European-led effort to reinstate all UN sanctions on Iran that were lifted to implement the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA). A sanctions “snap-back” is a mechanism provided for in the UN Security Council resolution that endorsed the JCPOA, that comes into effect in the event any party to the accord finds Iran in violation of its provisions. Tehran calculates that the incoming Trump administration will support the sanctions snap-back as part of Trump’s plan to reprise the “maximum pressure” campaign his first term pursued against Iran.
A sanctions snap-back comports with the views of several incoming officials, including National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who have advocated pressuring Tehran primarily through sanctions. Waltz and others around Trump have argued that a key to weakening Tehran is to reduce its exports of oil to China, which buys the overwhelming majority of the approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil per day that Iran sells. Asserting it only enforces sanctions authorized by the United Nations, China has refused to cooperate with the U.S.-led sanctions reimposed on Iran after the first Trump administration exited the JCPOA in 2018. But, a formal reinstatement of UN sanctions would restore a binding commitment on all UN member states to avoid transactions with Iran’s energy and other economic sectors. Reliance on sanctions would represent an alternative to military action likely to attract support not only from Waltz but also from Trump himself and other of his advisors who lean more isolationist, such as Vice President J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, nominated to be director of national intelligence (DNI).
Some Iranian leaders, who see few prospects to head off either a U.S. or Israeli strike and seek to derail a snapback of all UN sanctions, advocate testing Trump’s repeated calls for a U.S.-Iran negotiated solution on all outstanding issues. Those in Tehran advocating this approach point to Trump’s statement during the election campaign in September that: “We have to make a deal [with Iran], because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.” Iranian supporters of a deal with the U.S. assess that Trump might view a negotiated settlement with Iran as a means of enabling U.S. officials to focus on what many Trump associates see as the far greater long-term threat from China, and to extricate the U.S. from extensive involvement in the Middle East. However, a wide variety of reports suggests that the Trump team is likely to demand extensive concessions from Tehran in any new agreement, including the full dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment capability and the curbs on Iran’s support for its regional allies. Iran has refused these demands for decades, rendering any U.S.-Iran deal highly unlikely.