The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations inside Iran, with thousands of U.S. Marines slated for deployment to the Middle East to conduct raids alongside Special Operations forces and conventional infantry, according to a Washington Post report citing sources familiar with the plans.
Officials have been discussing the plans for weeks. It was not clear where the troops would land.
The preparations come as American military operations in the region entered their second month on Saturday, following the joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iranian military facilities and officials on Feb. 28. Those attacks eliminated Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and approximately 40 senior leaders, fundamentally reshaping the strategic landscape in the Middle East.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the Pentagon's work as contingency planning, not a foregone conclusion. She told the Washington Post:
"It's the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the Commander in Chief maximum optionality. It does not mean the President has made a decision."
That distinction matters. The military prepares options. The president decides. What the Pentagon is doing is exactly what a functioning defense apparatus should do when a hostile regime has been decapitated and the diplomatic window is narrowing: giving the commander in chief every tool available, as New York Post reports.
Roughly 10,000 American troops were being considered for deployment to the Middle East last week. Nearly 5,000 Marines and sailors are already deployed, along with roughly 2,000 members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. The force posture is serious, and it signals that Washington is not interested in letting Tehran run out the clock.
President Trump made his position unmistakable on Thursday, posting a series of warnings on Truth Social directed at Iranian negotiators. He called on the regime to "get serious soon" about negotiating an end to the conflict, adding pointedly, "before it's too late."
Trump did not mince words about the state of play at the negotiating table:
"The Iranian negotiators are very different and 'strange.' They are 'begging' us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal.' WRONG!!!"
The frustration is understandable. A regime that lost its supreme leader and dozens of senior officials, that has been "militarily obliterated" by Trump's own assessment, is still posturing in public as though it holds cards. That kind of negotiating theater works when the other side lacks resolve. It does not work when thousands of Marines are staging in the Gulf.
Trump closed with a warning that left no room for ambiguity:
"They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won't be pretty!"
The president has not publicly acknowledged the Pentagon's specific proposal or indicated whether he would approve any portion of it. But the message is coherent: diplomacy is the preferred outcome, and the military option is real.
One of the most strategically significant elements of a potential ground presence involves Kharg Island, the critical hub for Iranian oil exports. Alex Plitsas, a former Pentagon official and Atlantic Council fellow, explained the logic of an American presence there:
"It's like taking a chess piece off Iran's board and putting another bargaining chip in your pocket."
Control of Kharg Island would accomplish two things simultaneously. It would cut the regime off from the oil revenue that funds its operations, and it would prevent Tehran from targeting the critical infrastructure itself in a scorched-earth response. That is not escalation for its own sake. It is leverage with a purpose.
For years, foreign policy voices insisted that Iran could only be managed through careful accommodation: the JCPOA, sanctions relief, patient multilateral dialogue. The theory was that the regime would moderate if given enough incentives. It didn't. Iran expanded its proxy network, accelerated its nuclear program, and destabilized the entire region. The Feb. 28 strikes did more to change Tehran's behavior in a single day than a decade of diplomatic carrots.
The pattern here is familiar to anyone who has watched this administration operate. Diplomatic engagement is genuine, but it does not exist in a vacuum. It exists inside a framework where the alternative is clearly, publicly, unmistakably worse for the other side. That is how leverage works. You don't get a deal by hoping your adversary acts in good faith. You get a deal by making the cost of refusal unbearable.
Iran's remaining officials face a straightforward choice. They can negotiate seriously with a president who has already demonstrated willingness to use overwhelming force, or they can keep "looking at" proposals while the 82nd Airborne settles in across the Gulf.
The Pentagon is doing its job. The president is doing his. The only question left is whether Tehran has anyone rational enough to do the math.