February 23, 2026

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The Region Girds for U.S.-Iran Conflict

(Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/U.S. Navy via AP)

Nearly two months after President Trump vowed to intervene militarily to support a major uprising in Iran, regional leaders are bracing for the fallout from a potential U.S. strike on Iran, whose timing, scope, duration, and outcomes remain uncertain. The Iranian uprising subsided in mid-January in the face of violent suppression by regime security forces, but Trump has kept a range of military options "on the table" that might blunt the broad range of threats to U.S. and regional security posed by Iran’s leadership. Initially lacking sufficient U.S. forces in position to achieve broad goals against Iran, in late January, Trump accepted the counsel of regional leaders who argued that U.S. military action would ignite a regional conflagration without necessarily altering Iran’s political structure. Trump and his team have since sought — through diplomacy backed by the threat of force — to use Iran’s weakness to obtain significant concessions which would permanently reduce the strategic challenges posed by Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its Axis of Resistance coalition. However, each side insists that the other accept its red lines in negotiations, and regional leaders assess that Trump will take military action against the Islamic Republic at some point.

The U.S. buildup Trump ordered to expand his options has also, to an extent, constrained his choices. Regional leaders assess that, having positioned the largest U.S. force in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Trump will be compelled to follow through on his threats to strike unless Iran capitulates to his demands that it dismantle its nuclear and missile infrastructure. Hoping to avoid that outcome, regional leaders, including in the Sultanate of Oman, which is mediating U.S.-Iran talks, are pushing Tehran and Washington to bend their respective red lines to reach an agreement. A source familiar with the talks told Axios media last week that Omani and Qatari officials told Iran and the U.S. in recent days that any deal must enable both sides to claim victory and, if possible, also be something that Gulf countries and Israel can live with. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi echoed those comments in an interview with U.S. news outlets on Friday, saying any agreement: “…should be a win-win deal. This is the difficult part. It needs to accommodate both sides' interests and concerns."

A steady stream of conflicting accounts provides the region’s leaders with cause for optimism that a deal will be reached or, alternatively, that U.S. military action is imminent. On Thursday, amid Iran’s continued rejection of the Trump team’s demand that Iran agree to terminate uranium enrichment inside Iran (“zero enrichment”), Trump told reporters Iran has 10-15 days to make a deal. On Friday, Trump confirmed at a meeting of officials at the White House that he is considering a limited military strike to pressure Iran into a deal, telling reporters, “I guess I can say I am considering that.”  On Saturday, however, Axios media quoted one unnamed U.S. official saying that if an Iranian counterproposal includes "small, token (uranium) enrichment," and includes detailed proof that its program poses no threat, the U.S. will “study it.” The report, along with other accounts, suggested that Trump might be willing to drop his red line on zero enrichment. U.S. officials stressed that Iran’s counterproposal must be "very detailed" and prove that the Iranian nuclear program will be "benign." The prospects for the negotiations might become clearer if and when the two sides reconvene for more talks late this week in Geneva — a meeting conditioned on the U.S. receiving Iran’s counterproposal.

There is a high bar for Iran’s counteroffer to clear to satisfy Trump. Experts assess that Trump must obtain an agreement that is far stricter than the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA), which permitted Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent purity and whose constraints sunset after a set number of years. Trump exited the JCPOA during his first term, and he would undoubtedly be sharply criticized for accepting what amounts to a U.S. re-entry into that pact.  Most of the ideas Iran has presented in two rounds of talks thus far in 2026 — a three to five- year enrichment suspension or placing its enrichment activities under joint regional control — were rejected by the U.S. in 2025 or failed to permanently block all pathways to a nuclear weapon.

Adding to the region’s uncertainty is the wide range of the military options Trump reportedly has been presented — from a one-off, narrowly-focused strike to a multi-week or month campaign against hundreds of targets. And reports about which option is favored at any given time seem to fluctuate rapidly. One report last week quoted an unnamed Trump adviser as asserting Trump is considering a one-time “decapitation” strike to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son and key adviser Mojtaba. The option seems to suit Trump’s preference for dramatic, one-time actions that avoid embroiling the U.S. in a sustained conflict. Assessing that Trump might prefer this option, reports on Sunday indicated Khamenei has formally named his key aide, Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker and now the head of the Supreme National Security Council, to run the government in the event of his death.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump might be weighing a limited initial strike against a few military or government sites. The salvo would be intended to pressure Tehran to accept U.S. terms for an accord, but fall short of a full-scale attack that could inspire major Iranian retaliation. The report adds that if Iran still refused to comply with Trump’s directive to end its nuclear enrichment, Trump would escalate to a broad campaign against regime facilities — potentially aimed at toppling the Tehran regime. Other reports suggest Trump might order a naval quarantine of Iran’s oil exports — a mission, considered an act of war under international law, that Iran is certain to challenge militarily. However, no published reports indicate that the Trump team is deploying to the region the U.S. ground forces that experts assess would be needed to ensure the regime is ousted. Any extended U.S. campaign against Iran is likely to prompt Congress to demand that Trump seek a congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). It is not certain whether there is sufficient political support in Congress at this point to enact such legislation. Congressional support for action might increase, however, if the regime uses significant violence against new student-led protests in Iran that began Saturday.

No matter which option Trump chooses, Iran is likely to use its arsenal of several thousand short-range ballistic missiles to retaliate — most likely against Arab Gulf state military facilities and possibly energy infrastructure targets. In a letter on Thursday to the United Nations Secretary General, the head of Iran’s UN mission wrote that if Iran was attacked, then “all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets,” and that the “United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences.” Iranian retaliation would put the 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops currently stationed at 13 military bases across the Middle East at risk. To improve force protection, Pentagon officials have moved significantly more air defense batteries to the region to protect the bases where U.S. troops are deployed. The New York Times reported Saturday that U.S. planners have emplaced a significant portion of their additional aircraft deployments, including the F-35, at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan — presumably to be beyond reach of Iran’s shorter-range weaponry. The base also has new air defenses. In an effort to try to insulate themselves — and to prod Washington to focus on diplomacy — virtually all of the Gulf states have publicly stated U.S. forces would not be permitted to use bases in their territory to attack Iran.

Iran is also certain to unleash medium-range ballistic missile barrages on Israel, whether Israel joins a U.S. attack or not. Anticipating some of Iran’s Axis of Resistance partners might join Iran’s retaliatory strikes, Israel has stepped up its attacks on Lebanese Hezbollah missile commanders and launch command sites in the eastern Bekaa Valley over the past several days, presumably to blunt Hezbollah’s ability to assist Iran. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have also apparently retained a significant stockpile of Iran-supplied missiles and would likely target Israel and U.S. ships in the Red Sea in the event of a U.S.-Iran conflict. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to visit Israel later this week to try to more closely align the U.S. and Israeli strategies toward Iran.