WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has privately expressed serious interest in deploying US troops on the ground inside Iran, according to two US officials, a former US official and another person familiar with the conversations.
Trump has discussed the idea of deploying ground troops with aides and Republican officials outside the White House, saying Iran’s uranium is safe in postwar Iran and that the U.S. and the new Iranian regime will cooperate on oil production the same way the U.S. and Venezuela have, the sources said.
The president’s comments expressing serious interest in deploying ground forces did not focus on a large-scale ground invasion of Iran, but rather on the idea of a small contingent of U.S. forces used for specific strategic purposes, U.S. officials, a former U.S. official and people familiar with the discussions said. Trump has not taken any decisions or given any orders related to ground forces, he said.
“This story is based on assumptions from anonymous sources who are not part of the president’s national security team and cannot be read clearly into these discussions,” White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has always, wisely, kept all options open, but if anyone tries to say he’s in favor of one option or the other, he’s proving he has no real seat at the table.”
Publicly, Trump has not ruled out putting US “boots on the ground” in Iran, although the war so far has only included air operations. His private discussions on the issue show that the president is perhaps more willing to consider taking further action than his public comments on the matter. Any deployment of American forces inside Iran could increase the scale and scope of the war — and increase the risks to American forces.
Since the war began on Saturday, six US troops have been killed and 18 wounded in counterattacks by Iran, the Pentagon said.
Trump has privately explained to aides and Republican officials outside the White House that his ideal outcome in Iran is similar to the emerging dynamic between the U.S. and Venezuela after U.S. special forces captured Nicolas Maduro in January, according to current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official. In post-Maduro Venezuela, the US supported the new president, Delsey Rodríguez, under the condition that Trump implements policies deemed favorable to the US, with the US benefiting from Venezuela’s oil production.
“I don’t have the yips when it comes to boots on the ground,” the president said in an interview with the New York Post this week. As other presidents pushed the shoes on the floor, he said, “I say ‘maybe they’re not needed,’ (or) ‘if they’re needed’.”
Foreign policy experts offered various scenarios in which the president could choose to deploy US forces on Iranian soil.
“You can imagine them making some sort of special operations deployment if there were targets that they needed to eliminate or reduce completely but didn’t lend themselves to bombing,” said Joel Rayburn, a former Trump administration official and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “It’s the kind of thing where you adapt, attack the target or attack, and then you get out.”
But such a scenario is different than what most Americans envision when they think about deploying ground forces or putting “boots on the ground,” Rayburn said, and so far he hasn’t seen the conditions emerge that would require that step.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Washington, DC-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said U.S. forces on the ground could be used to mirror Venezuela or help monitor Iran’s holdings to facilitate a dynamic between the U.S. and Iran in the event of the fall of the Iranian regime. its nuclear sites.
“You don’t want to be a failed state nuclear bazaar,” Taleblu said of Iran.
Nate Swanson, senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, DC, said the U.S. may rethink its military options if Iran “thinks it can win its war.” Such a scenario could lead the president to deploy ground troops to Iran or opponents of the Iranian regime. Trump is considering whether to arm opponents of the administration.
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Trump indicated that he is not considering a ground invasion of Iran seriously at this time. He said he wants a new leadership in Iran that he approves of, and said he expects the war that began Saturday to last four to five weeks, leaving open the possibility that it could continue indefinitely.
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Wednesday that US ground forces remain an option on the president’s desk but are “not part of the plan for the timing of this operation.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghi told NBC News’ Tom Lamas on Thursday that Iran is ready for US ground troops. “We are waiting for them,” said Araghchi, “we are confident that we can face them and it will be a great tragedy for them.” “We have prepared ourselves to face any scenario,” Araghchi said.
