Is America about to attack Iran?

“Amassive armada is heading to Iran,” warned Donald Trump on January 28th. Two weeks ago America’s president promised Iranian protesters that help was coming, only to back down. Since then the scale of the bloodshed inflicted by Iran’s regime has become clearer. hrana, a human-rights monitor in Washington, has confirmed over 6,300 deaths. The real toll may be as high as 30,000, according to opposition sources. Now Mr Trump has switched his focus to Iran’s nuclear programme, missile production and foreign policy. If it refuses to make a deal, he said, the next attack would be “far worse” than the raids on Iran’s nuclear sites last year.

That is a credible threat. The centrepiece of the armada is the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft-carrier that is thought to have reached the Gulf of Oman, whence its fighter jets could easily hit Iran. The carrier also hosts electronic-warfare aircraft which can jam Iranian radars, and arrives with three destroyers, each of which carry land-attack cruise missiles and systems that can intercept Iranian missiles.

America has pushed other military platforms into the region, too. Satellite images show new air-defence systems deployed to al-Udeid air base in Qatar, where America’s Central Command has its regional headquarters (and which was targeted by Iran last summer). f-15e fighter jets, used to destroy Iranian drones heading for Israel in 2024, have been sent to Jordan. Two weeks ago Israel lobbied against military strikes, in part because it was vulnerable to Iranian attack. America is now in a stronger position to parry any Iranian retaliation. Yet there have been few public signs of a surge in cargo-plane flights that would accompany new deployments of Patriot and thaad batteries, which might be used to shoot down Iranian missiles.

Plane-watchers who track transponder signals have noted several other telling developments. A surge of refuelling tankers has arrived at al-Udeid. Search and rescue (sar) aircraft—of the sort needed to find downed pilots—have been heading east. There has also been a sharp increase in activity by American surveillance aircraft capable of tracking Iranian radars, intercepting communications and mapping Iranian forces, as well as by planes that serve as airborne communications relays and could support SAR missions. Both, argues Steffan Watkins, who follows planes and ships using public data, are a “sure sign the bombing will be soon.”

What, precisely, is in Mr Trump’s cross-hairs is less clear. Diplomats set out several scenarios. One is symbolic strikes, perhaps against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has led the recent repression. That would allow Mr Trump to say he had enforced his red line without shaking the regime’s grip on power.

An alternative would be much broader strikes intended to topple the regime by killing its leaders. Arab and European governments are sceptical that this would work. It would probably require many days or weeks of bombing. That, in turn, would demand an even larger deployment of firepower than is in place today. And it would almost certainly prompt a larger war, in which Iran might target American and allied bases in the Gulf. Israel might spy an opportunity to inflict heavy damage on Iran’s growing missile force. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, wary of such a conflict, have refused to let their airspace be used for a military strike on Iran.

A final scenario put forward by Western officials is a hybrid operation. This would see America take out some Iranian leaders—including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader—before reaching an understanding with the rump regime, as it did in Venezuela.

Of course, there is still the possibility that America and Iran cut a deal that prevents an attack. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, has said that any agreement would need to address Iran’s nuclear programme, its missile stockpile and its network of regional proxies. Yet Iran’s leaders will not have forgotten the two-week deadline for a deal that Mr Trump set in June. Three days later, he bombed the country. ■