The US appears to be moving closer to joining Israel’s conflict with Iran with a possible attack on the country’s key nuclear facilities, including the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility hidden deep inside a mountain.
"Trump is increasingly warming to using U.S. military assets to attack Iranian nuclear facilities and is moving away from the idea of a diplomatic solution to the crisis," two officials familiar with the ongoing discussions told CNN.
"I may or may not. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this, Iran has a lot of problems and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction," Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
Iran experts warn that a U.S. attack on Iran could drag it into a quagmire even more difficult than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a protracted conflict that could drag on throughout Trump's presidency and exact a heavy toll in American lives and resources at Israel's behest.
“Any attack by the US would lead to a full-scale attack by the Iranians on US bases in the region and a full-scale war between the US and Iran,” Trita Parsi, vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, told CNN.
“Tehran may not be able to sustain a long fight with the US, but it will not be an easy fight for Washington either,” Parsi said.
“Iran is a very large country, which means the United States will have a large number of targets to hit to eliminate Iran’s ability to strike back. This will happen when there is no widespread support within Trump’s own camp for a war with Iran,” he said.
Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN that a US attack on Iran would open a “Pandora’s box” and “will likely consume the rest of President Trump’s presidency.”
"When you open this Pandora's box, we have no idea where things are going. Trump has come back from the brink of war with Iran in the past, he has the ability to do it again," Geranmayeh said.
