Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, writing in Axios warns the Trump administration “is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize,” a war that could begin very soon. “A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.”
“The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that’s much broader in scope—and more existential for the regime—than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran’s underground nuclear facilities,” writes further. “Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency. With the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.”
But what Ravid’s sources were telling him anonymously, Vice President JD Vance was, in effect, saying publicly. “One thing about the negotiation I will say this morning is in some ways that went well,” he said on Fox News a few hours after the Geneva talks. “They agreed to meet afterwards but in other ways it was very clear that the president has set some redlines. That the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through so we will keep on working at but of course the president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end. We hope we don’t get to that point but if we do that will be the president’s call.”
One of the “redline” that Vance was talking about was that Iran must not have nuclear weapons. Not mentioned however is that the U.S. intelligence assessment since 2007 has been that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified to Congress last year that that assessment has not changed.
The upshot of both the Axios report and Vanec’s remarks to Fox News is that Trump can decide to go to war based on his own impatience at Iran’s refusal to give up its rights under the UN Charter and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
