CENTCOM is asking military analysts to propose fresh ways to pressure Tehran and punish it, in a sign of the limited — and potentially unpalatable —options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms, CNN reported on Monday.
“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” an officer in US Central Command’s intelligence branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message.
A second source also said that a senior US military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.
Military officials said the crowdsourcing-style query was unusual. Hoping to find an alternative, an official at CENTCOM kicked off the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had a better idea. The second source said CENTCOM is looking at everything, acknowledging it needs to reevaluate the strategy.
“US Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,” Captain Timothy Hawkins, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, said in a statement. “Admiral Cooper, in particular, reaches out to members of our great team, regardless of rank, to achieve the highest levels of operational performance possible.”
The email preceded Trump’s threat to launch new strikes against Iran, only to call them off over the weekend on the basis of reaching a deal.
For weeks, the US has hammered Iran with air strikes designed to degrade its ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table, but there’s still no sign of a deal.
According to CNN, Trump has been weighing intensifying the military campaign, potentially by relaunching intense strikes on Iran’s remaining nuclear facilities, while two sources familiar with the planning say the military has been actively preparing to launch strikes on Pickaxe Mountain and other Iranian sites believed to contain either nuclear material or equipment.
But the two sources said even with America’s most powerful conventional weapons, missiles and bombs alone are unlikely to achieve much because the facilities are buried deeply underground. To destroy them, the US would likely need to use ground troops — a tremendous risk that Trump has been unwilling to take. Eighteen US service members have been killed in the fighting so far.
Also, Trump has been considering strikes akin to a “fireworks” display, another source told CNN, which could hit either the same or similar sites as those targeted a year ago, in the hopes of a symbolic victory that would allow him to exit the war without actually accomplishing one of his initial aims: ridding Iran of its nuclear program.
The president’s most senior military adviser, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, has acknowledged publicly that bombing alone is unlikely to accomplish all Trump’s previously stated objectives for the war.
“Air power has its limits,” Caine told lawmakers last month.
Options for escalating the conflict have been presented to Trump for months and debated at length, and more military assets have flowed to the region in anticipation of a go-ahead from the president. One plan conceived by CENTCOM would involve heavy bombardment over the course of one or two weeks to take out Iran’s missile capabilities, US officials said.
Trump could escalate by putting American boots on the ground or accept a dangerous status quo: endless rounds of strikes and counterstrikes with Iran that are likely to cost further American lives and leave the Strait of Hormuz in a state of constant peril that could resemble the “forever wars” he has criticized.
