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White House Reviews Military Plans Against Iran, in Echoes of Iraq War

The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last week in the Persian Gulf. As a precaution, the Pentagon has moved an aircraft carrier and more naval firepower to the gulf region.Credit...U.S. Navy, via Associated Press

WASHINGTON — At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.

[To follow new military deployments to the Middle East, sign up for the weekly At War newsletter.]

The revisions were ordered by hard-liners led by John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. They do not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require vastly more troops, officials said.

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John Bolton Wants Regime Change in Iran. What’s His Alternative?

Tensions between the United States and Iran have sharply increased. John Bolton, the national security adviser, has long pushed for regime change in Iran. One of his chosen replacements is the dissident group Mujahedeen Khalq, known as M.E.K.

“There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs and that opposition is centered in this room today.” Months before he became President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton spoke at the annual gathering of an Iranian dissident group known as the Mujahedeen Khalq or the M.E.K. “The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change. And therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself.” It’s no secret that Bolton has long been a hardline foe of the Iranian government. “And that’s why before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran. Thank you very much.” Even though Bolton’s 2019 prophecy hasn’t come true yet the administration has escalated tensions between the two countries this year, even hinting at the use of force. “We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake if they do anything. I’m hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. We’ll see what happens with Iran.” Bolton believes the M.E.K. is a viable alternative to Iran’s government. So what is the M.E.K.? It’s a dissident group and its primary mission is to overthrow the regime in Iran. A 2011 State Department estimate said the group had between five to 13,000 members. Most M.E.K. members are Iranian exiles living in Europe and the U.S. Many experts believe it has little support inside Iran itself. They often stage demonstrations against Iran’s human rights record and its cleric-run state. It’s often described as a cult. The U.S. State Department says it calls for forcing spouses to divorce and weekly ideological cleansing sessions. It was led by Massoud Rajavi but he’s been missing since 2003. And so his wife, Maryam Rajavi, has become the de facto leader. Until 2012, the United States considered it a terrorist organization. M.E.K.‘s tactics have shifted over the years. But it has been known to use violence to achieve its goals. M.E.K. started in Iran in the 1960s. In the 1970s, it carried out anti-regime activities against the shah right up until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. And then it targeted Ayatollah Khomeini’s government too. But it didn’t stop there. During this time it was also suspected to be behind the assassination of six Americans and the bombings of American companies in Iran. The group eventually moved to Iraq and tried to destabilize the Iranian regime from there. But after Saddam Hussein was toppled the country grew too dangerous for them, even with U.S. troops present. “M.E.K. was still a pretty undesirable group. But then we did not want to watch it be slaughtered in Iraq.” Today, Bolton isn’t the only public figure to find common cause with the M.E.K. Rudy Giuliani, former D.N.C. chair Ed Rendell and Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao have spoken at or attended M.E.K.’s national conference. The group also has an aggressive lobbying arm and seems to have deep pockets. “The amusing thing is that the M.E.K. will try to buy pretty much anyone and they, you know, I was approached to do events in support of the M.E.K. I know a number of other former government officials who found them truly detestable also were approached. You know, it’s really something to have someone on the phone offering you $15,000 or $20,000 to appear at a panel discussion because that doesn’t happen for former diplomats every day.” Bolton hasn’t said who he’d like to see take over in Iran since he became national security adviser. “Our policy is not regime change.” But he’s continued the aggressive messaging. “So Ayatollah Khamenei, I don’t think you’ll have many more anniversaries to enjoy.” If past statements are any guide, M.E.K.’s most powerful advocate is now within earshot of the president. “I had said, for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran.

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Tensions between the United States and Iran have sharply increased. John Bolton, the national security adviser, has long pushed for regime change in Iran. One of his chosen replacements is the dissident group Mujahedeen Khalq, known as M.E.K.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The development reflects the influence of Mr. Bolton, one of the administration’s most virulent Iran hawks, whose push for confrontation with Tehran was ignored more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush.

It is highly uncertain whether Mr. Trump, who has sought to disentangle the United States from Afghanistan and Syria, ultimately would send so many American forces back to the Middle East.

It is also unclear whether the president has been briefed on the number of troops or other details in the plans. On Monday, asked about if he was seeking regime change in Iran, Mr. Trump said: “We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake.”

There are sharp divisions in the administration over how to respond to Iran at a time when tensions are rising about Iran’s nuclear policy and its intentions in the Middle East.

Some senior American officials said the plans, even at a very preliminary stage, show how dangerous the threat from Iran has become. Others, who are urging a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions, said it amounts to a scare tactic to warn Iran against new aggressions.

European allies who met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said that they worry that tensions between Washington and Tehran could boil over, possibly inadvertently.

More than a half-dozen American national security officials who have been briefed on details of the updated plans agreed to discuss them with The New York Times on the condition of anonymity. Spokesmen for Mr. Shanahan and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment.

The size of the force involved has shocked some who have been briefed on them. The 120,000 troops would approach the size of the American force that invaded Iraq in 2003.

Deploying such a robust air, land and naval force would give Tehran more targets to strike, and potentially more reason to do so, risking entangling the United States in a drawn out conflict. It also would reverse years of retrenching by the American military in the Middle East that began with President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq in 2011.

But two of the American national security officials said Mr. Trump’s announced drawdown in December of American forces in Syria, and the diminished naval presence in the region, appear to have emboldened some leaders in Tehran and convinced the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that the United States has no appetite for a fight with Iran.

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Since John R. Bolton became the national security adviser in April 2018, he has intensified the Trump administration’s policy of isolating and pressuring Iran.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

Several oil tankers were reportedly attacked or sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates over the weekend, raising fears that shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf could become flash points. “It’s going to be a bad problem for Iran if something happens,” Mr. Trump said on Monday, asked about the episode.

Emirati officials are investigating the apparent sabotage, and American officials suspect that Iran was involved. Several officials cautioned, however, that there is not yet any definitive evidence linking Iran or its proxies to the reported attacks. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman called it a “regretful incident,” according to a state news agency.

In Brussels, Mr. Pompeo met with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, cosignatories of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as well as with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini. He did not speak to the media, but the European officials said they had urged restraint upon Washington, fearing accidental escalation that could lead to conflict with Iran.

“We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side,” said Jeremy Hunt, the British foreign secretary.

The Iranian government has not threatened violence recently, but last week, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would walk away from parts of the 2015 nuclear deal it reached with world powers. Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement a year ago, but European nations have urged Iran to stick with the deal and ignore Mr. Trump’s provocations.

The high-level review of the Pentagon’s plans was presented during a meeting about broader Iran policy. It was held days after what the Trump administration described, without evidence, as new intelligence indicating that Iran was mobilizing proxy groups in Iraq and Syria to attack American forces.

As a precaution, the Pentagon has moved an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers, a Patriot missile interceptor battery and more naval firepower to the gulf region.

At last week’s meeting, Mr. Shanahan gave an overview of the Pentagon’s planning, then turned to General Dunford to detail various force options, officials said. The uppermost option called for deploying 120,000 troops, which would take weeks or months to complete.

Among those attending Thursday’s meeting were Mr. Shanahan; Mr. Bolton; General Dunford; Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director; and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence.

“The president has been clear, the United States does not seek military conflict with Iran, and he is open to talks with Iranian leadership,” Garrett Marquis, a National Security Council spokesman, said Monday in an email. “However, Iran’s default option for 40 years has been violence, and we are ready to defend U.S. personnel and interests in the region.”

The reduction of forces in the Middle East in recent years has been propelled by a new focus on China, Russia and a so-called Great Powers competition. The most recent National Defense Strategy — released before Mr. Bolton joined the Trump administration — concluded that while the Middle East remains important, and Iran is a threat to American allies, the United States must do more to ensure a rising China does not upend the world order.

As recently as late April, an American intelligence analysis indicated that Iran had no short-term desire to provoke a conflict. But new intelligence reports, including intercepts, imagery and other information, have since indicated that Iran was building up its proxy forces’ readiness to fight and was preparing them to attack American forces in the region.

The new intelligence reports surfaced on the afternoon of May 3, Mr. Shanahan told Congress last week. On May 5, Mr. Bolton announced the first of new deployments to the Persian Gulf, including bombers and an aircraft carrier.

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Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which was designated a terrorist group by the Trump administration last month.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

It is not clear to American intelligence officials what changed Iran’s posture. But intelligence and Defense Department officials said American sanctions have been working better than originally expected, proving far more crippling to the Iranian economy — especially after a clampdown on all oil exports that was announced last month.

Also in April, the State Department designated the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization over objections from Pentagon and intelligence officials who feared reprisals from the Iranian military.

While much of the new intelligence appears to have focused on Iran readying its proxy forces, officials said they believed the most likely cause of a conflict will follow a provocative act, or outright attack, by the Revolutionary Guards’ navy. The Guards’ fleet of small boats has a history of approaching American Navy ships at high speed. Revolutionary Guards commanders have precarious control over their ill-disciplined naval forces.

Part of the updated planning appears to focus on what military action the United States might take if Iran resumes its nuclear fuel production, which has been frozen under the 2015 agreement. It would be difficult for the Trump administration to make a case that the United States was under imminent nuclear peril; Iran shipped 97 percent of its fuel out of the country in 2016, and currently does not have enough to make a bomb.

That could change if Iran resumes enriching uranium. But it would take a year or more to build up a significant quantity of material, and longer to fashion it into a weapon. That would allow, at least in theory, plenty of time for the United States to develop a response — like a further cutoff of oil revenues, covert action or military strikes.

The previous version of the Pentagon’s war plan included a classified subset code-named Nitro Zeus, a cyberoperation that called for unplugging Iran’s major cities, its power grid and its military.

The idea was to use cyberweapons to paralyze Iran in the opening hours of any conflict, in hopes that it would obviate the need to drop any bombs or conduct a traditional attack. That plan required extensive presence inside Iran’s networks — called “implants” or “beacons” — that would pave the way for injecting destabilizing malware into Iranian systems.

Two officials said those plans have been constantly updated in recent years.

But even a cyberattack, without dropping bombs, carries significant risk. Iran has built up a major corps of its own, one that successfully attacked financial markets in 2012, a casino in Las Vegas and a range of military targets. American intelligence officials told Congress in January that Iranian hackers are now considered sophisticated operators who are increasingly capable of striking United States targets.

Since Mr. Bolton became national security adviser in April 2018, he has intensified the Trump administration’s policy of isolating and pressuring Iran. The animus against Iran’s leaders dates back at least to his days as an official in the George W. Bush administration. Later, as a private citizen, Mr. Bolton called for military strikes on Iran, as well as regime change.

The newly updated plans were not the first time during the Trump administration that Mr. Bolton has sought military options to strike Iran.

This year, Defense Department and senior American officials said Mr. Bolton sought similar guidance from the Pentagon last year, after Iranian-backed militants fired three mortar rounds or rockets into an empty lot on the grounds of the United States Embassy in Baghdad in September.

In response to Mr. Bolton’s request, which alarmed Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, the Pentagon offered some general options, including a cross-border airstrike on an Iranian military facility that would have been mostly symbolic.

But Mr. Mattis and other military leaders adamantly opposed retaliation for the Baghdad attack, successfully arguing that it was insignificant.

Edward Wong and David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington, and Steven Erlanger from Brussels.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: White House Reviews Iran Plan For 120,000 Troops if Attacked. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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