Top national security officials informed President Trump that the U.S. military is prepared to strike Iran as early as Saturday. No final decision has been made.

The discussions, which took place in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday, reflect the administration's posture toward a regime that has spent years racing toward nuclear weapons capability while taunting the United States on social media. Two carrier groups are converging on the region. The Pentagon has begun repositioning personnel out of the Middle East, moving them primarily to Europe or back to the United States over the next three days in preparation for potential Iranian military action.

This is not saber-rattling. This is logistics.

The Military Picture

The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group is already stationed in the region. The USS Gerald Ford carrier group, as of Wednesday, was off the coast of West Africa and heading toward the Middle East. All deployed military forces are expected to be in position by mid-March, CBS News reported.

Meanwhile, Iran warned pilots on Wednesday to avoid the country's southern airspace on Thursday, citing rocket launches. The Pentagon, when contacted by CBS News on Wednesday afternoon, said it had no information to provide.

The quiet from official channels tells its own story. When the military goes silent and starts moving people, the planning is serious.

Khamenei's Provocation

On Tuesday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted an AI-generated image on X depicting the USS Gerald Ford at the bottom of the ocean. He accompanied it with a statement:

The US President constantly says that the US has sent a warship toward Iran. Of course, a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware. However, more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea.

This is the leader of a theocratic regime that enriches uranium to 60% purity, a short technical step from weapons-grade levels, publishing fantasy propaganda about sinking an American aircraft carrier. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran is the only country in the world enriching to that level without possessing a nuclear weapon.

That status quo is what the administration is working to resolve, one way or another.

Diplomacy First, But Not Forever

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made clear Wednesday that the administration sees both tracks as live. She acknowledged there are "many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran," but noted that diplomacy remains the president's preferred starting point. She also referenced last June's joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran's nuclear facilities, calling it "a very successful operation in June that targeted Iran's nuclear facilities."

That 12-day war, waged alongside Israel, reportedly caused severe damage to Iran's nuclear program, according to intelligence assessments. It also demonstrated something the foreign policy establishment spent years denying was possible: that military force could meaningfully set back Iran's nuclear ambitions.

On the diplomatic front, Iranian and American negotiators held mediated talks in Geneva on Tuesday that lasted several hours. No follow-up date has been set. Leavitt was candid about the distance between the two sides:

We're still very far apart on some issues. I believe the Iranians are expected to come back to us with some more detail in the next couple of weeks, and so the president will continue to watch how this plays out.

She also delivered a line that doubles as both an invitation and a warning:

Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump and with his administration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to visit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in approximately two weeks for further discussions. Trump told Netanyahu during a December meeting at Mar-a-Lago that the president would support Israeli strikes on Iran's ballistic missile program if a deal between Washington and Tehran could not be reached.

The Leverage That Matters

For decades, the Western approach to Iran's nuclear ambitions has followed a depressingly familiar script:

• Negotiate a deal that Tehran violates at its convenience
• Impose sanctions that the regime circumvents through intermediaries
• Express "grave concern" at the UN while centrifuges spin
• Repeat

The nuclear deal, which Iran exploited as a runway to ramp up enrichment after the U.S. withdrew, was the crown jewel of this approach. It bought time, but not for us. Iran used that time to push enrichment to 60% purity and develop its ballistic missile program while the international community congratulated itself on diplomacy.

What changed the calculus was last June. The joint strikes proved that the "military option" was not a theoretical deterrent gathering dust in a Pentagon briefing room. It was real, it was executable, and it worked. That reality now underpins every conversation happening in Geneva and every calculation being made in Tehran.

Diplomacy without credible force behind it is just conversation. Diplomacy backed by two carrier groups, a proven willingness to act, and a president who has already authorized strikes once before is something else entirely.

What Comes Next

The administration has constructed a clear decision framework. The Iranians have roughly two weeks to return with substantive proposals. Rubio visits Netanyahu on a parallel timeline. Military assets reach full positioning by mid-March. Every piece moves toward the same window.

Leavitt declined to discuss whether any potential strike would be coordinated with Israel, which is the kind of non-answer that answers the question for anyone paying attention.

The regime in Tehran has a choice. It can negotiate seriously with an administration that has already demonstrated it will act, or it can keep posting AI images of sunken carriers while its nuclear infrastructure sits in the crosshairs. Khamenei can bluster about weapons that sink warships. The president has the actual warships.