Trump raises the stakes in Iran by weighing deployment of US ground forces

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Donald Trump’s openness to deploying troops inside Iran, including special forces to seize Tehran’s enriched uranium, has raised new concerns in Washington about deeper US involvement in the war.

The US president has never ruled out the possibility that he might have to deploy some ground forces to Iran in addition to targeting the Islamic republic with a barrage of air strikes since the conflict began on February 28.

But, at the weekend, Trump signalled that dispatching American forces into Iran under certain circumstances was actively under consideration.

On Saturday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he would send troops only for a “very good reason” and if Iran’s military were “so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level”.

He added that sending in troops to secure enriched uranium stockpiles in Iran was something that could be done “later on”, though the US would not do it “now”.

Trump administration officials insist that Trump would never take any options off the table and that the Iran war plan does not at the moment involve the deployment of ground troops.

But the president’s openness to the potential use of ground forces has stoked worries in Washington among both Democrats and some Republicans that Trump is planning to expand America’s involvement at a time of rising concern over high oil prices and confusion over the war’s aims.

“When you start putting boots on the ground, and those boots on the ground may need reinforcement, that starts looking like a longer-term conflict,” Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, said on CNN on Sunday, urging Trump to seek congressional authorisation for the war.

“Let’s just be straight up with the American people . . . I believe that some of the reasons why you may see some hesitancy among voters right now is they’re just not clear what we’re doing and how long we’re going to be doing it,” he added.

An NBC poll released on Sunday found that 54 per cent of registered voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, compared with 41 per cent who approved. Some 52 per cent said the US should not have launched the war, while 41 per cent said it should have.

Democrats have criticised the White House for failing to abide by its campaign pledge not to launch new conflicts around the world.

The remains of six members of the military killed in Kuwait were brought back to the US on Saturday during a “dignified transfer” at Dover air force base in Delaware attended by Trump.

“We are deeply saddened right now by the loss of six brave and heroic servicemen and women who have already lost their lives,” Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, told NBC on Sunday.

“The American people deserve answers from the administration as to how we are going to actually move forward in a way that makes America safer, not more vulnerable.”

A seventh death, which resulted from an attack on US troops in Saudi Arabia, was announced on Sunday.

Axios reported over the weekend that US and Israeli officials had been discussing special forces operations in Iran to secure uranium stockpiles, but it was not clear if this would be a US, Israeli or joint operation. A US defence official said they “won’t speculate on hypothetical situations or future operations”.

When asked about the report on Sunday, Trump told ABC: “Everything is on the table. Everything.”

Meanwhile, Michael Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, said securing the enriched uranium was “an objective we have to accomplish”.

“The first thing we have to do is create a situation we’re going to be able to get to that enriched material and remove it, and that has to reach a point where there’s less kinetic activity on the ground. It’s obviously on our radar screen and we’re going to take care of it,” he told CBS.

Even a limited use of US ground troops in Iran would raise the stakes of the war for Trump from a domestic political perspective, as even some non-interventionist segments of the Republican Party have been baulking at the war.

“The price of gas has gone up $0.47 and the price of diesel has gone up $0.83 in 10 days due to war with Iran. And waging war costs American taxpayers about $1bn per day, which comes out to $10 per family per day, or $100 since the war began. This isn’t America First,” Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has often sparred with Trump, wrote on X on Sunday.

John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, told Fox on Sunday that he did not expect Trump to send ground troops.

“If he sends in troops, the thud you hear will be me face planting because I fainted,” Kennedy said.

“I think this will all take a matter of weeks. And after we are done, it’ll be up to the good people — and they are good people — of Iran to try to overthrow these knobheads who are in charge now.”