Here's Donald Trump's endgame in Iran
Zero enrichment. One nuclear site. Amid escalating threats, with incalculable risk
The United States now appears at the cusp of a development scarcely conceivable just days ago: direct involvement in bombing Iran.
President Donald Trump has begun by dropping something else: hint after unsubtle hint that the U.S. might assist Israel in attacking unspecified targets in its conflict with Iran.
He's told people to flee the Iranian capital; posted an all-caps demand on social media for, "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER"; and said he knows where the supreme leader is hiding but won't kill him — for now.
The implied threat is obvious — that the U.S. could send its bombers and bunker-busters to burrow Iran's most secretive nuclear site, the mountain facility at Fordow, into oblivion.
There's also a longer-term threat that this conflict could keep escalating until it risks the survival, both literal and figurative, of the Iranian regime.
So what is Trump doing?
One clue came in an unusually long tweet from his vice-president. JD Vance specifically mentioned uranium enrichment: Iran can end it the easy way, he said, or the hard way, and, if it ends up being the latter, the U.S. military might help.
The prevailing consensus among experts interviewed by CBC News is that the current preferred option in Washington is non-participation.
That remains Plan A, in the view of a 34-year CIA veteran who spent a decade as the national intelligence manager for Iran at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
"It's clear the Trump administration would prefer to see a situation where Israel's attacks compel Iran to return to negotiations with serious concessions — driven by a desire to save the Islamic Republic," said Norman Roule, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington.
"However, it's not yet clear if Iran's leaders believe their situation is so dire they must do so."
Plan B: More escalation
And that's why the U.S. government is actively seeking to instil a sense of desperation in Tehran, ramping up the pressure on Tuesday, said another analyst.
Kamran Bokhari predicted that Israel will hit increasingly vital infrastructure like communications, oil and water supplies.
It is also targeting hardline factions of Iran's security establishment — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij — shifting the balance of power to the less-ideological, pre-revolutionary military.
"It moves up the escalatory ladder," said Bokhari, a Georgetown University professor and senior director for Eurasian security and prosperity at a Washington think-tank, the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.
Washington's preferred plan, he said, is that Iran end uranium enrichment and fully open the Fordow site to international monitoring. If that doesn't happen, Bokhari said, the U.S. may destroy Fordow, as the Israelis continue targeting the Iranian leadership.
"A last resort — that's what it is," he said of using U.S. B-2 planes to drop massive ordnance penetrator bombs on the heavily fortified underground facility.
Regime change risks
The current message to Iran, he said, is: "We're not trying to bring your regime down. We don't want anarchy in your country." But if this continues, anything is possible.
That's the plan, at least.
The problem with plans foisted by foreigners in the Middle East is they have a track record of occasionally exploding into uncontrollable chaos.
Ali Vaez said the Iranian leadership might see its severely degraded nuclear program and race to build the bomb with whatever assets it has left.
The project director for Iran at the International Crisis Group said he can't imagine the Iranians making major concessions while they're being bombed. It sets a brutal precedent, inviting additional bombing, for additional objectives, whether regime change or ending Iran's missile program.
"A regime in Tehran that sees the choice before it as surrender or fight may opt for the latter, expanding the conflict by targeting U.S. interests, assets and allies," Vaez said.
Even if the Islamic regime collapses, he said, there's no guarantee which path Iran will take: a swift transition like Syria in 2024, or a deadly, destabilizing power struggle in the heart of a volatile region, à la Libya post-2011 or Iraq post-2003.
"It would not be the first time that impressive gains by the U.S. and its allies have eventually ended in grief," Vaez said.
How the U.S. got here
He blames Trump for what he calls the original sin: withdrawing from the Obama-era Iran deal. That pact allowed some enrichment, but not enough to build a bomb.
It's unclear whether Iran was days, or months, or years away from a bomb. It depends who you ask. The Israelis insisted it was potentially imminent; U.S. intelligence less so.
One possible source of confusion is the improvement in centrifuges. Newer generations like the IR-7, IR-8 and IR-9, reportedly being tested by Iran, are dozens of times more efficient at enriching uranium than versions being used a few years ago.
Meanwhile, in a little-noticed assessment, U.S. intelligence officials recently estimated that within a decade, Iran might have 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the continental United States.
Needless to say, U.S.-Iranian relations have been perilous for decades. Just last year, the U.S. Department of Justice charged someone with plotting to kill Trump on behalf of Iranian officials. The charges were laid during the Biden administration.
Three Iran analysts interviewed for this story agreed that Trump legitimately wanted to negotiate a new nuclear deal in recent months. They agreed that talks had languished. One said it was a stretch to even call them a negotiation — more like meetings to set ground rules for negotiations. Trump grew frustrated.
They also agreed that Trump had a shift in posture. For months, he actively pushed back against Israel's desire to strike Iran, then stopped.
Where analysts differ is whether Trump explicitly encouraged it.
After all, just last week he'd said he didn't want Israel attacking, as he still hoped diplomacy might work. Now he's cheering on the Israelis.
Analysts differ on Trump's approach
Vaez of the International Crisis Group said he suspects there was an element of miscommunication. The president had told his Israeli counterpart, in April and May, that he was ardently opposed. Then in June, he expressed frustration at the pace of talks. "Netanyahu took that as a green light," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bokhari doesn't share that view. He believes the U.S. president was more explicit, and more hawkish, than that.
He said Trump concluded the Iranians were dragging things out, stringing him along, in the belief he was bluffing about real consequences in the absence of a deal.
Trump wanted to reassert leverage, Bokhari said, without being directly involved in any attack, as he'd promised his MAGA base to avoid foreign wars.
"But you have Israel ready to do it," he said. "[Trump] said, 'OK, and let's see what you can do.' And the idea was, 'Well, if you [Iran] weren't willing to talk, if you weren't willing to compromise, then now are you ready to talk after being hit?' ... That strategy is playing itself out."
Trump certainly set some conditions. For example, U.S. officials are telling reporters that the U.S. president nixed an Israel plan to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"[Trump would have said to Israel], 'Let's agree on what you're going to hit.' 'This is not open-ended.' 'How much time do you need?'" Bokhari said.
"You know, all the logistical stuff that needs to be figured out. Target sets and no-go areas and so on and so forth."
Now Trump is warning: This could still get worse.
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