Regime change, all-out war or a nuclear deal: What could happen if Trump strikes Iran?
Donald Trump has renewed his threat of military action against Iran, urging the Islamic Republic to make a ‘deal’ or face the consequences with a “massive armada” already en route to the region.
The US president said on Wednesday that time was running out for Tehran to avoid a repeat of last summer’s strikes against the country’s nuclear facilities, warning this time would be “far worse”.
The US has been seeking a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear programme even after claiming to have totally destroyed it in a bombing campaign last June. However, officials fear the programme was not destroyed and that the regime has been reconstituting it. Iran denies trying to make a bomb, but says it is open to talks.
The decision to move a carrier strike group to the region gives Trump a wider range of options than he had earlier this month, when he vowed to come to the rescue of anti-government protesters being brutally killed and targeted by the regime.
But US bases and partners in the region will be fearing an Iranian retaliation after regime officials threatened an ‘unprecedented’ response if provoked. The Independent looks at what is likely to happen next in Iran.
Trump has been deliberating how to attack Iran for weeks, according to officials. But the range of options – from a coordinated cyber attack to strikes on nuclear facilities – has been limited by the recent dispersal of US military assets around the world.
Washington has fewer options than it did when it struck key Iranian sites last summer, using B-2 bombers from Missouri alongside 125 military aircraft, decoys in the Pacific and missiles from a submarine. But the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group – flanked by destroyers and hosuing up to 65 aircraft – lends credibility to his recent threat.
The US could use limited strikes against military bases and nuclear sites to press Iran to make a deal. This would limit civilian casualties, but could also see Iran try to save face with limited retaliatory strikes against US bases in the region.
With recent memory of Iran hitting back at Israel and the US base in Qatar last year, Saudi Arabia and the UAE said this week they would not let the US use their airspace or territory to attack Iran, limiting options.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said a US attack on Iran would warrant an “unprecedented” response against the US and Israel.
“Any military action by #us—from any origin and at any level—will be considered the #start_of_war, and its response will be immediate, #all_out, and unprecedented, targeting heart of #TelAviv and all those supporting the aggressor. [sic]” he wrote on X this week.
Experts say Iran may not have the resources to prosecute a major regional war, but will likely be forced into a response. Last June, Tehran launched missiles at a US military base in Qatar in response to a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign. All of the missiles were intercepted and there was no casualties.
Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the Wall Street Journal: “Both Saudi and the U.A.E. have been targets of attacks by Iran and their proxies. A degraded and less threatening Iranian regime is in their interests, but they worry about regional unrest and Iranian retribution and don’t want to be the tip of the American spear.”
This time, the US is believed to have far fewer interceptor missiles needed to respond to an attack. In July, the Guardian reported that the US only had around 25 per cent of the Patriots it needed after depleting stockpiles.
