WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump confronts what may be his presidency’s most challenging military decision: whether to deploy American ground forces into Iran to secure approximately 970 pounds of enriched uranium that Tehran could potentially weaponize for nuclear bombs.
While Trump has provided varying justifications for initiating the conflict with Iran, he has consistently maintained that a key goal in partnering with Israel militarily is guaranteeing Iran will “never have a nuclear weapon.”
The commander-in-chief has remained more cautious regarding how extensively he’s prepared to pursue his commitment to eliminate Iran’s weapons program permanently, including capturing or eliminating the weapons-grade nuclear materials in Tehran’s possession.
Intelligence suggests most of this material lies trapped beneath debris from a mountainous facility devastated during U.S. airstrikes Trump authorized last June, which he claimed had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Nuclear specialists describe this as a dangerous, complex mission requiring substantial American troop deployment into Iranian territory — a perilous and politically sensitive undertaking for the Republican commander-in-chief, who has promised to avoid entangling America in prolonged, bloody Middle Eastern wars that continue haunting the nation’s collective memory.
Simultaneously, congressional leaders and analysts worry that Iranian hardliners surviving the current fighting will feel more compelled than before to develop nuclear weapons as protection against future American and Israeli attacks, making control of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile even more crucial. This material could enable Iran to construct up to 10 nuclear devices if they choose to weaponize their program.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut expresses deep concern that Trump has set the country on a course requiring troops inside Iran for what he describes as the president’s disorganized and unclear goals.
“Some of the objectives that he continues to espouse simply cannot be achieved without a physical presence there — securing the uranium cannot be done without a physical presence,” stated Blumenthal, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Trump’s Republican supporters emphasize that strategies exist for handling the enriched uranium. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch of Idaho referenced Wednesday “a number of plans that have been put on the table,” though he refused to provide specifics.
Other lawmakers recognized the challenges of sending troops into Iran.
“No one has given me a briefing on how you would do it without boots on the ground,” explained Senator Rick Scott of Florida, an Armed Services Committee member. “It doesn’t mean you can’t. But no one’s ever briefed me about it.”
Scott emphasized that leaving the stockpile untouched isn’t acceptable: “I think it would be helpful to get rid of it.”
Nearly three weeks into fighting that has killed hundreds, strained international relationships, and damaged the world economy, Trump and his senior advisors have remained deliberately vague about their uranium stockpile discussions.
“I’m not going to talk about that,” Trump responded last week when questioned about the enriched uranium. “But we have hit them harder than virtually any country in history has been hit, and we’re not finished yet.”
Later that same day in Kentucky, Trump seemed to suggest the airstrikes had already eliminated the danger. “They don’t have nuclear potential,” he declared.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth informed reporters this week that the administration sees no benefit in revealing “what we’re willing to do or how far we’re willing to go” while maintaining “we have options, for sure.”
Richard Goldberg, former National Security Council director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction during Trump’s initial presidency, believes capturing or destroying the enriched uranium is achievable if the president chooses that path.
American and Israeli military forces have been progressing toward establishing conditions — specifically, complete aerial dominance — that would enable special operations teams trained in destroying centrifuges and handling nuclear materials to execute such a mission if Trump decides to proceed.
However, a ground deployment would prove far more challenging than other recent high-profile rapid insertion missions, such as January’s capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro or the May 2011 assassination of Osama bin Laden, Goldberg noted. The probable requirement to clear debris for accessing uranium containers adds additional complexity, necessitating heavy construction machinery.
“But if you actually own the airspace and you can have close air support and drones and everything else up in the sky for pretty wide perimeter, presumably you could do a lot,” said Goldberg, currently a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington research organization.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi informed Washington reporters this week that most enriched uranium likely remains at the three Iranian nuclear installations bombarded last year by American forces.
“The impression we have … is that it hasn’t been moved,” Grossi stated, explaining that the majority sits under rubble at Iran’s Isfahan installation while smaller quantities remain at the destroyed Natanz and Fordow sites hit during last year’s American attacks.
During Wednesday Senate testimony, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s prepared statement indicated that American strikes on Iran had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment operations and buried underground installations.
Gabbard reported that the U.S. monitors whether Iranian leadership attempts restarting their nuclear program but noted they haven’t tried rebuilding nuclear enrichment capabilities. She added that the religious authority governing Iran’s government has been weakened by Israeli leadership strikes but continues functioning.
Brandan Buck, senior foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, estimated that extracting or diluting the enriched materials would likely require over 1,000 soldiers at each Iranian location and considerable time to finish.
Conversely, failing to secure the enriched uranium carries its own dangers. Should Iran’s hardliners retain power along with enriched materials, they’ll now possess stronger motivation for building nuclear weapons.
“Trump has put himself between a rock and a hard place,” Buck observed. “Throughout this, he has had maximalist aims, but he’s wanted to maintain minimal effort in order to keep the costs low.”
