Inside the Oval Office this week, after a crowd of jostling reporters departed into the Rose Garden, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz tried to get a solution from President Donald Trump: how, precisely, did he envision the war with Iran ending?
Despite some urgent by the chancellor, the reply from the president — as it has been because the battle started per week in the past — wasn’t fairly clear, in keeping with an individual acquainted.
As the US military operation in opposition to Iran shifts into a brand new part following final Saturday’s opening salvo, how the war ends stays the top question for many officers, lawmakers and US allies.
In briefings with lawmakers and congressional employees in latest days, Pentagon officers have leaned into the US military mission being narrowly targeted on destroying Iran’s ballistic missile launchers, individuals who attended the briefings mentioned, somewhat than on concentrating on Iranian nuclear amenities or taking out regime figures or military personnel. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has spoken dismissively of repeating the “nation building” workout routines of previous administrations.
At the identical time, Trump has supplied much more expansive targets that seem to increase past the military’s acknowledged remit. On Friday, he lumped within the “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” of Iran’s present regime as an extra requirement for the war to conclude.
The obvious disconnect has solely fueled questions on the place the battle, which is already broadly unpopular amongst Americans, is headed. In conversations with their US counterparts, Arab and European officers say they haven’t detected what precisely Trump’s endgame seems like, or if it exists in any respect.
Emerging from briefings with senior administration officers this week, lawmakers equally professed little understanding of how Trump will know he has achieved all his targets in Iran, or whether or not he has a plan for what comes afterward. Some lawmakers additionally appeared unnerved by the truth that Hegseth wouldn’t rule out placing US troops on the bottom in Iran.
The US has up to now rejected Iranian overtures to start talks that might suss out methods to finish the battle. Iranian intelligence despatched phrase this week to the US it could possibly be ready to open talks on how one can finish the war, in keeping with folks aware of the oblique messages, however US officers say there have been no negotiations underway and that potential “off-ramps” are unlikely to materialize within the close to time period.
“Since this thing went kinetic, we’ve had a number of reach-outs,” a senior Trump administration official mentioned this week, placing the variety of nations at practically a dozen. “It’s not dissimilar to what we had before, people wanting to see if they can help solve it, and we’ve talked to them.”
To date, that has not resulted in any strong trade of messages between the United States and Iran. “We’re not using anyone as an interlocutor. This is a military action, and it’s got to run its course,” the official mentioned.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, mentioned Trump alone would decide when Iran was in a state of “unconditional surrender.”
“What the president means is that when he, as commander in chief of the US Armed Forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not,” she instructed reporters on Friday within the White House driveway.
“Frankly,” she went on, “they don’t have a lot of people to say that for them, because the United States and the state of Israel have completely wiped out near more than 50 leaders of the former terrorist regime, including the supreme leader himself.”
Trump mentioned he expects to be closely concerned in selecting Iran’s subsequent chief. But US intelligence businesses have lengthy warned it’s troublesome to evaluate the result of a regime change state of affairs, and a few US and European officers don’t see a transparent possibility for changing the present regime.
Multiple sources mentioned Trump seems content material with permitting an Iranian authorities led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — an identical mannequin to what the administration utilized in Venezuela in changing Nicolás Maduro along with his Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
“It’s gonna work very easily. It’s going to work like did in Venezuela,” Trump told NCS’s Dana Bash in a short cellphone interview on Friday.
But that possibility dangers putting in a probably extra excessive energy middle — one thing Trump steered earlier this week would quantity to the “worst case scenario.” US and international officers have additionally forged doubt on the viability of creating some type of coalition authorities, believing that possibility may rapidly flip Iran right into a failed state akin to Iraq within the early 2000s, sources mentioned.
“We’ve heard…mixed messages about what the strategy is here, what the endgame is here, and how we’re going to get out of Iran,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the highest Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, mentioned this week. “No one in the free world misses the ayatollah,” the New Hampshire Democrat mentioned. “But what is not clear is how long this is going to go on, the extent to which it’s escalating.”
And throughout the board, the Trump administration has not clearly articulated an finish sport or an off-ramp, in keeping with 4 sources from allied nations.
“We have no idea what they actually want to accomplish when this war is over. It doesn’t seem like Trump even knows,” mentioned one European diplomat.
That has fed issues the war may drag on for weeks or months — a timeline the president, in lots of phone calls to information retailers this week, hasn’t explicitly shrugged off.
Instead, Trump has targeted on the quick successes, together with degrading Iran’s missile capabilities, sinking its ships and taking out its senior leaders.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, instructed reporters on Wednesday that as the war enters a brand new part, the US will start “striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory and (create) additional freedom of maneuver for US forces.”
Caine additionally claimed that Iran’s ballistic missile launches have plummeted by 86% because the operation started, and that their one-way assault drone launches are down 73%. One individual aware of the matter, nevertheless, mentioned these drops can largely be attributed to the US’ destruction of Iranian command and management facilities within the opening hours of the war.
But whereas the US military is narrowly targeted, there’s additionally an growing recognition amongst military planners that destroying Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would wish to provide a nuclear weapon, would require US forces on the bottom to seek out, exfiltrate and destroy it since it’s buried so deeply underground — out of attain even of US bunker-buster bombs, sources mentioned.
There are not any plans for that proper now, so sources mentioned the administration has steered away from discussing it.
At the identical time, the Trump administration has quietly tried to enlist the assistance of Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish opposition teams. For months, the CIA has been in discussions with a number of Iranian Kurdish teams about finishing up a possible floor offensive supposed to assist foment a well-liked rebellion contained in the nation, a number of sources instructed NCS.
The CIA is working to arm a few of these teams and the US has mentioned offering air-support for Kurdish floor forces in the event that they had been to launch an offensive, NCS previously reported.
Discussions between the CIA and Iranian Kurdish teams have additionally included political proposals for if the regime finally does collapse, in keeping with Amir Karimi, co-chair of the PJAK, which is likely one of the Kurdish teams in talks with the US.
PJAK is supportive of the US-Israeli operations however has strengthened to the CIA that overthrowing the regime can’t be finished by military drive alone, Karimi instructed NCS in an interview this week. The group has additionally instructed the CIA it needs a political relationship with the US and Trump administration — which incorporates having a say in who would finally turn into Iran’s subsequent chief.
“We believe it is a legitimate war, however we want support for forces on the ground who are fighting for democracy in Iran. This is not something that can be done by bombardment alone,” Karimi mentioned, including that the US may assist unite Kurdish teams to allow them to combat the regime collectively.
Trump seems to be working to try this, holding a number of calls with the leaders of Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish teams in latest days. But throughout no less than two latest calls, he’s grown pissed off with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders — who’re keenly conscious that collaborating in a US-backed offensive carries vital dangers — telling them to “pick a side,” in keeping with a supply aware of the discussions.
Karimi additionally mentioned his group has made clear to the Trump administration they don’t imagine anybody from outdoors Iran ought to be “helicoptered in to lead this fight,” and voiced robust opposition to any efforts that contain backing exiled Iranian activist Reza Pahlavi, the son of the final shah, within the quick or long run.
Trump himself downplayed him as an possibility earlier this week, saying, “It would seem to me that somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate.”