Donald Trump is much closer to sending US troops to invade Iran than people realize.
In recent days, US officials and other close allies have privately briefed Trump that if he wants to achieve what he says he wants to achieve in his illegal war – including “unconditional surrender” by the Iranian government – then he is going to have to deploy ground troops to Iran, four knowledgeable sources in or close to the Trump-Vance administration tell Zeteo.
Trump, the sources say, has been receptive to these ideas, and he and others around him have been leaning toward sending in the troops. While no final decision has been made yet, internal momentum at top levels of the government is rapidly headed in that direction.
According to the sources, administration officials and allies have told Trump that attacks from the air are not enough to accomplish Trump’s stated ideas of victory – though, to be fair, the president and his team are constantly changing how they would define a “victory” in their Iran war, which began with no clear mission and no coherent strategy beyond removing Iran’s top leaders and bombing the country, in partnership with Israel.
In multiple conversations over the past few days, several of these officials and outside advisers have told the president that a more limited, smaller deployment of special forces will almost certainly not be enough, and that he’d need to send further ground troops to get what he wants.
“He likes the idea of special forces,” a Trump administration official tells Zeteo. “But they’re telling him he has to go bigger to end this once and for all.”
Some Republicans close to Trump have assured him – however flimsily – that this kind of troop deployment could be achieved without creating the type of Iraq War 2.0-style quagmire in the Middle East that the president and his top officials have long publicly railed against.
None of the sources said anything about the Trump White House seeking congressional authorization before sending in the troops.
If Trump were to put boots on the ground, it is unclear how large a troop deployment he’d ultimately go for.
First Appeared on
Source link
Leave feedback about this