Name: Trump prepared to strike Iran by this weekend: Sources
Uploaded: 2026-02-19T17:21:21.000Z
Duration: 8 min 4 s
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The US Military is prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, sources are telling cnn.

But President Trump, who has privately argued for and against strikes, has yet to make a final decision on what to do.

This comes amid a significant US Military buildup in the region with another aircraft carrier strike group on the way and Iran bracing for possible strikes as new satellite images show rapid fortification at several Iranian nuclear facilities with concrete and large amounts of soil being used to bury key sites out.

Now, Seth Jones, former adviser to the commanding General of U.S. special Operations Forces in Afghanistan.

So, Seth, the military is ready to go, clearly, or they're very close to being so there are significant assets in the region.

With this other aircraft carrier strike group on the way, do you think it is more likely than not that the US Will attack Iran?

Well, Brianna, the fact that we've got now two carrier strike groups that will be available in the region, and

And so I think with without a breakthrough in diplomatic negotiations, which we have not seen, that I do think there that we're seeing a higher risk of the US Conducting strikes.

And of course, that that then leads to this question about what's the US Objective here?

I suspect that the US Objective is probably going to be limited to things like nuclear facilities, potentially Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sites, rather than bigger objectives like regime change.

It doesn't look like it's going to ever put any in.

So I think that's sort of where we sit right now.

So when you talk about what that looks like compared to the strikes that the US Conducted on Iran's nuclear facilities this last summer, are you talking about sites in Tehran or are you talking about sites well outside these nuclear facilities?

So I think it's important to go back to the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who talks about war as being a continuation of politics or policy by other means.

So I think really the question here is what's the US Political objective with Iran right now?

If it is largely about about targeting Iran's nuclear sites, then I think we'll see something that's somewhat close to Operation Midnight Hammer.

But the US Is probably also going to have to go after Iranian air defense capabilities, which the Israelis had already taken care of by the time those bombers conducted strikes.

If the US Wants to go after Iran's missile capabilities or partner forces or even start targeting some of the forces that are cracking down on protesters, then you're going to see a bigger target set list.

And so again, this all comes back to the administration's political objectives here.

You mentioned regime change in your expectation.

Is that a needle that is easily threaded?

I mean, is there a way that the US Objective could, in a way they could overachieve, for instance, what they may be trying to do?

How do they make sure they don't do that?

Well, I think partly it's going to be the target set list that the administration starts going after.

So if again, they're just nuclear sites like the ones you just showed on the satellite imagery, those are pretty limited objectives.

But if, if we see those Tomahawks, for example, going after Islamic Revolutionary Guard sites or basage sites or other key political targets, for example, decapitation strikes against Iranian political leaders, that starts to move up the escalatory ladder and starts to look much more like weakening the regime and potentially regime change.

But again, there are huge risks if the administration goes down that road.

Meanwhile, Iran's state media reports that Iran and Russia will stage a joint naval drill in the region beginning tomorrow.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, ranking member on the Intelligence Committee.

Yeah, look, I think the president has now conducted a military attack on Caracas, which went flawlessly.

And he's conducted a military attack on the tunnels, you know, the nuclear infrastructure in Iran that also went flawlessly.

So right now the president believes that he can do this stuff without much risk, which is, by the way, a very dangerous frame of mind because there's a lot of risk involved.

I think that both the United States and the Israelis are aware of the fact that the Iranians are doing carefully what they can to sort of restore what was damaged in the initial attacks.

They're doing what they can to restore it.

Yeah, yeah, look, they're clearing tunnels, they're restoring electricity.

They're doing stuff in tunnels that we can't see.

So, I mean, I think they're probably doing everything they can to try to rebuild what was destroyed a number of months ago.

So when you say imminent, is it this week?

The president, remember, the president, will be satisfied with something that is cinematic, that makes a big boom and destroys and breaks a lot of stuff.

He doesn't care so much about the longer questions of regime change, which are much more challenging.

So, which raises the question, what would be the objective of a US Action against Iran I mean, if it's not regime change.

Well, remember, this is President Trump, so his objective would be to do something which thrills people cinematically, right?

I mean, this is what the president does, right?

He appoints people to his cabinet who look good, who play the part.

So, you know, he will be very satisfied with a lot of explosions and a lot of broken stuff in Iran that doesn't lead to regime change.

And in fact, you know, I have a lot of Iranian diaspora folks in my district, and

they say, you know, we really hope, especially since Donald Trump told the protesters that we would be there, that he is there.

The question is, what does it mean to be there?

Regime change can't happen just from the air.

You might break enough stuff that the regime collapses.

The probability of that is pretty low, though.

So when you start talking about regime change, you start looking at Iraq, you start looking at Afghanistan, where we actually had a lot of troops on the ground.

And that's a place where the President has never gone.

I mean, he was telling protesters to take over government facilities, to get the names of people who were attacking them.

we've done this, we did this in Iraq, right, when a US President sort of said, you know, rebel to the Shiites under Saddam Hussein.

And they did, and they got brutally murdered, and we did not show up for them.

And there's a long and ugly history of this.

So, you know, again, presumably the President, when he said that, he didn't appreciate the fact that they believed that we would be there in force, not just dropping bombs on battleships, because we can do that really easily without a lot of risk.

But anyway, when the President said that, it really worried me because a lot of people could wind up dead in terms of an operation over in the skies over Iran.

I mean, Israel, the US had pretty much, by the time the US Struck, they had freedom of movement in the skies over Iran.

As you might imagine, in a matter of months, the Iranians have worked pretty hard to rebuild their air defenses.

this is why your question about, is an attack imminent, is, you know, the clock is ticking, right?

Every day that goes by, the Iranians improve their air defenses and make a raid that much more dangerous.

And again, the president has gotten lucky, right?

He's done these military actions without significant casualties on the US Side.

And even if Donald Trump doesn't appreciate all of this sort of, you know, chessboard stuff, the Israelis sure do.

Congressman, Jim, hobbies, it's always good to talk to you.