Fox News host Mark Levin argued for the White House to deploy “specialized” U.S. ground troops in Iran to secure Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpiles, shortly after President Donald Trump urged members of the public to tune into his show late Saturday.
The U.S. has sent thousands of elite soldiers and Marines to the Middle East in recent days, widely seen as a sign the White House could greenlight select ground operations on Iranian soil and escalate the conflict with Tehran.
Trump has not yet approved ground operations in Iran, according to U.S. media reports.
“Why would we need troops on the ground? Well, there’s a lot of reasons—and we wouldn’t need 300,000 of them. It’s this uranium,” Levin said during an episode of the network’s Life, Liberty & Levin show.
Trump had encouraged the public to watch Levin’s show hours earlier, saying Levin would “discuss the importance of hitting Iran, HARD” during the broadcast.
The U.S. says American and Israeli strikes on Iran, now in their fifth week, are necessary to dismantle Tehran’s nuclear and missile capabilities.
Thousands of American munitions have pummeled Iran’s military sites, but international experts say the Islamic Republic still has more than 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, close to what Tehran would need to make destructive nuclear weapons.
However, it is very difficult to locate where Iran has stored its uranium stockpiles, and Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has said military operations to remove nuclear material from the country would be “very challenging.”
Although no final decision has been made, the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of operations on the ground in Iran, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.
U.S. Special Forces would likely lead raids alongside infantry troops rather than carry out a full-scale invasion, anonymous U.S. officials said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Pentagon’s job was “to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality.”
“It does not mean the president has made a decision,” Leavitt told the Post.
U.S. Marines on board the USS Tripoli arrived in the Middle East on Friday, the U.S. Central Command said in a brief statement on Saturday.
The Tripoli is an amphibious assault ship that functions essentially as a small aircraft carrier. It ferries troops, helicopters and advanced fighter jets to wherever they are needed.
The Tripoli travels with two other warships and thousands of Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.
But even when paired with thousands more Marines and paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division currently en route to the Middle East, this is still a relatively small force, indicating the U.S. may opt for limited raids in Iran, rather than a full-scale invasion.
Trump is “not talking about sending regular Army infantry in by the hundreds of thousands,” Levin said. “The men he’s talking about—the units he’s talking about—they are specialized.”
“Many of them are trained for a moment like this,” Levin added.
It is not clear how Marines, paratroopers and Army personnel would be used against Iran, but analysts point to operations to seize Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz, the vital trade route Iran has successfully threatened in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli attacks.
Trump has also threatened to “take out” Kharg Island, a tiny patch of territory north of the Strait that accounts for 90 percent of Tehran’s oil exports, “at any time.”
The Axios outlet reported in early March that the U.S. and Israel had already discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its highly enriched uranium stockpile at a later stage.
Trump, zigzagging between threats of punishing attacks on Tehran and declaring he is negotiating with Iran, has publicly played down the potential for U.S. troops deploying on the ground.
Sending in U.S. troops is likely to be an unpopular prospect among Trump’s core voter base. The administration has insisted it does not want to fall into a “quagmire” in the Middle East, while memories of U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan remain fresh.
A total of 13 U.S. service personnel have died in the war with Iran so far, with more than 300 injured. Ground operations would very likely push this count higher.
Trump told reporters on March 20 he is “not putting troops anywhere,” but quickly added: “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
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