US president-elect Donald Trump is considering several options to prevent Iran from developing its own nuclear weapons. They are one of them preemptive air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilitiesThe Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. TASR reports on this based on a report by the Times of Israel portal.
According to the WSJ, Trump is working on a so-called “maximum pressure strategy 2.0”. It would mean resuming the policy of tough sanctions against Iranwhich Trump pushed during his first term in office when he withdrew from a 2015 deal that had Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Four informed sources said Trump was considering two possible strategies. The first assumes that the United States will increase military pressure on Iran by sending a large number of American troops, planes and ships to the Middle East. The plan calls for the sale of advanced weapons to Israel, including bunker busting bombs, which would strengthen the offensive capabilities of the Israeli military and enable the disabling of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The second option is the threat of military force combined with tough US financial sanctions, which could undermine the Iranian economy. As the WSJ writes, it could push the government in Tehran to settle the crisis diplomatically.
According to the WSJ, Trump is looking for options to prevent a new war, including one that would involve the U.S. armed forces. The WSJ’s sources noted that discussions about Iran’s nuclear program have intensified, but so far they are all in the early stages.
It is not clear which option Trump – who said he would he tries to avoid the third world war – he chooses. In an interview with Time magazine published on December 12, he said that The US could go to war with Iran, and that’s also because Tehran is preparing plans to kill him. “Anything can happen. This is a very volatile situation,” Trump said.
Iran renewed its nuclear program in 2019a year after the Trump-led United States withdrew from the nuclear deal with it. However, Tehran still adhered to the agreement signed with other states to a certain extentbut finally withdrew from it completely in January 2020 after Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was killed in Baghdad in a Trump-sanctioned missile attack.
