Responding to reporters following Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejection of his calls for unconditional surrender, President Trump said, “You don’t know that I am going to even do it. You don’t know. I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” as America’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford set sail for the Mediterranean Sea.
Several other US warships have left a US naval base in Bahrain as part of increased military movements around Iran, it was reported on Wednesday.
Aerial refueling tankers have also been sent to the region: More than 30 US Air Force aerial-refueling tanks took off from American bases and headed east across the Atlantic this week, Middle East Monitor reported.
On Monday, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier left the South China Sea and set off for the Middle East which would position it to attack Iran from the east.
In another sign that something major is about to kick-off, one of America’s “doomsday planes” made a flight to Joint Base Andrews in Washington, DC Tuesday night as President Trump weighs whether to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The New York Post reported an E-4B Nightwatch – which was designed to protect the Secretary of Defense and other national security officials and keep the government operating in the time of nuclear war – was spotted by flight trackers, and made a long, winding route to the capital.
The aircraft left Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday and landed in Maryland at 10 p.m. after skirting the coast and looping around the border of Virginia and North Carolina, data from flight tracking site FlightRadar showed.
Other signs of potential U.S. involvement in the war include reports that at least four B52H Stratofortresses, which can carry nuclear weapons or other precision-guided munitions, were spotted on a southern tarmac at Diego Garcia on Monday.
A C-17 Globemaster III troop and cargo transport plane is also at the base, according to an Agence France-Presse analysis, as well as six jets likely to be KC-135 airborne refueling tankers.
Other open-source reports have identified at least six B-2 stealth bombers at Diego Garcia.
In practice, Diego Garcia is mainly used by the US, but the fact that it is ultimately a British base means that the government of the United Kingdom would have to approve its use for an attack on Iran, noted the UK’s Guardian. The US is thought likely to want to request the use of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus for its air tankers, used to refuel B-2 bombers.
Similar permission would also be required if the US wanted to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, where B-2s are based in Europe, though this is considered a less likely option for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Refusal by the UK would not prevent an attack on the deep-lying nuclear enrichment site at Fordow because it is possible for the B-2 bombers to strike from their home base in Whiteman, Missouri, but it would be interpreted as a lack of British support for the attack, observed the UK’s Guardian.
However, even as President Trump arranged American forces to participate in the war to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Members of the House and Senate are moving to limit his ability to do so.
CBS News reported Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said in a post on X Tuesday, "This is not our war," announcing that he had introduced a measure under the 1973 War Powers Resolution to block U.S. strikes. "Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution."
Massie's resolution aims to force the president to seek congressional approval before entering a war with Iran and would terminate the use of U.S. armed forces against Iran without Congress' expressed approval. It's cosponsored by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who urged "every member to go on record" in a post on X on Monday.
The privileged resolution would force a vote on the matter within a number of days. The House is currently on recess, but leaders will be forced to engage with the push upon their return. The vote would put Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, in a difficult position, given his strong support of Israel and the president.
CBS News further reported Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, is leading an effort in the Senate and introduced a similar resolution on Monday that forces a vote on requiring Mr. Trump to get congressional approval or a formal declaration of war to attack Iran, unless the U.S. is defending itself against an imminent attack.
Top Trump allies outside of Congress have pleaded their case in recent weeks directly to the president and on social media for why the U.S. should avoid engaging in any dispute between Iran and Israel. On another side, other Trump allies are arguing it is in the president’s interest to take a more aggressive posture toward Iran.
That has taken on different forms, including those cheering on Israel and urging U.S. support for its ally as Israeli forces strike Iran, as well as those pressing for Trump to more directly go on offense against Tehran, observed Brett Samuels in an article for The Hill.
Among those advocating for non-intervention the loudest voice has been Tucker Carlson, an outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, going as far as to call out by name individuals he claimed were “warmongers” in the president’s ear.
The former Fox News host voiced frustrations after Israel late last week launched missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and killed multiple top Iranian military officials. Carlson wrote that Trump was “complicit in the act of war” and said what occurs next in the region “will define Donald Trump’s presidency.”
Those comments did not sit well with Trump, who derided Carlson as “kooky” in a social media post, noted Mr. Stephens.
On the other side commentator Mark Levin has emerged as the leading voice for more action by the United States. Levin, a Fox News host who Trump watches and cites regularly, has also pushed back on the notion that pushing back on Iran amounts to a betrayal of the MAGA movement.
“There’s nothing new or good about isolationism, which, in a word, is appeasement,” Levin wrote in a New York Post op-ed published Monday. “The isolationists tell us that to oppose this is to be a warmonger and anti-MAGA,” Levin added. “No, they’re not MAGA. But we’ve seen their like before.”
Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder and a figure with significant influence in Trump’s orbit, essentially made the case late Monday that the president knows best and won’t alienate his base, whatever he decides.
“He is not an isolationist. He is willing to use violent and precise force against our enemies…if and when necessary,” Kirk told Jesse Waters on Fox News.
“President Trump understands his base extraordinarily well. He knows that his base does not want another Iraq, does not want Libya, does not want a civil war or bedlam where the United States is left carrying the bag,” Kirk added, according to Brett Stephens’ reporting. “But also President Trump has been morally clear for a decade, Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.”
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George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry formerly a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
- Trump foreign policy
- Iran policy
- Israel
- Iran nuclear weapons
- Five new missile bases
- Steve Witkoff
- Tasnim News Agency
- Qassem Basyar missile
- Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari
- Dismantle nuclear program
- Obama Iran nuclear deal
- Full dismantlement
- Iranian enrichment
- JCPOA
