President Donald Trump is weighing the possibility of sending special operations forces into Iran to physically secure or destroy the country's highly enriched uranium stockpiles.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump confirmed a ground operation has not been ruled out, though he indicated such a move would not come immediately.
"Right now we're just decimating them, but we haven't gone after it. But something we could do later on. We wouldn't do it now."
Breitbart reported that the revelation, drawn from multiple reports Saturday, including from Axios and The New York Times, signals that the administration views air strikes alone as potentially insufficient to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat.
The question isn't whether force is on the table. It's how far that force extends.
Iran holds roughly 450 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, according to the Axios report. American intelligence agencies warn that stockpile could be converted to weapons-grade fuel within weeks. That timeline should clarify why the administration isn't content to negotiate over tea.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio hinted at the scale of the challenge earlier this week during a congressional briefing when asked whether Iran's uranium would be secured.
"People are going to have to go and get it."
Six words that say more than most diplomatic statements manage in six pages. Rubio's candor reflects a reality that years of inspections, agreements, and polite international pressure have failed to address: Iran's nuclear material exists in physical space, and removing the threat means physically removing the material.
A U.S. official told Axios the operational questions are straightforward but enormous. "The first question is, where is it?" the official said. "The second question is, how do we get to it and how do we get physical control?"
Semafor reported Friday that the possibility of a special operations raid on Iranian nuclear facilities "has long been studied," referencing plans developed by U.S. Central Command.
The sites in question include the Isfahan nuclear complex and facilities at Fordow and Natanz, some of which were struck during last year's U.S.-Israeli air campaign.
Jonathan Hackett, a former Marine Corps interrogator and special operations specialist, told Semafor that missions involving the seizure of fissile material from hostile territory are exactly the kind of scenarios elite units like the Army's Delta Force train for.
"They practice that. They're proficient at that."
This isn't theoretical. The United States maintains forces specifically prepared for this class of operation. The infrastructure for planning exists. The intelligence architecture exists. What's being discussed is not whether it's possible, but whether the moment demands it.
Trump acknowledged the risks but framed any potential ground operation as something that would follow sustained degradation of Iranian military capacity.
"I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn't be able to fight at the ground level."
The sequencing matters. Air dominance first, then ground action if necessary. That's doctrine, not improvisation.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reinforced the posture in a statement to Axios.
"President Trump wisely keeps all options available to him open and does not rule things out."
For years, the phrase "all options are on the table" functioned as diplomatic wallpaper. Previous administrations said it while everyone understood the only real option was another round of negotiations, another set of concessions dressed up as agreements, another decade of kicking the can.
The difference now is that the war is entering its second week, strikes are already underway, and the president is publicly discussing ground operations on the record. The phrase has weight again.
The reports also indicate that U.S. and Israeli officials have held discussions about securing Iran's nuclear material, with Axios reporting on the joint planning dimensions.
The involvement of scientists from organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency has been mentioned as part of potential mission frameworks, underscoring that this isn't simply a military raid but a complex operation requiring technical expertise to handle enriched material safely.
Iran's nuclear ambitions are not new. What's new is the convergence of factors that make a purely diplomatic resolution increasingly implausible:
The foreign policy establishment spent decades treating Iran's nuclear program as a problem to be managed rather than solved.
The 2015 deal was the pinnacle of that philosophy: pay Iran to slow down, hope for the best, and declare victory on the Sunday shows. The uranium kept enriching. The centrifuges kept spinning. The timelines kept shrinking.
Now the administration confronts the inheritance of that approach: a country with enough enriched material to cross the nuclear threshold in a matter of weeks, buried in hardened facilities designed specifically to resist the kind of air campaign that has already been waged.
Officials say the objective is preventing Tehran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. That goal is either serious or it isn't. If it's serious, then the conversation Trump is having publicly is the one every honest national security professional has been having privately for years.
There is a clarifying honesty in Rubio's formulation. People are going to have to go and get it. Not sanction it away. Not inspect it into compliance. Not negotiate its theoretical future disposition in a Geneva conference room. Go and get it.
Four hundred and fifty kilograms of highly enriched uranium does not respond to diplomatic language. It responds to physical custody. The administration appears to understand that, and is planning accordingly.
Whether the mission ultimately happens depends on conditions that are still developing. But the fact that it is being studied, discussed openly, and not ruled out represents a fundamental shift in how the United States talks about, and potentially deals with, the world's most dangerous nuclear problem.
The enrichment clock doesn't pause for deliberation.
