All of those forces remain in place, giving Trump options for additional actions if the ceasefire fails, a former U.S. special operations soldier who has close ties to Trump’s Pentagon tells TIME.
“Let us be clear: a ceasefire is a pause, and the joint force remains ready, if ordered or called upon, to resume combat operations with the same speed and precision,” Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on April 8.
Trump and others in the Administration have discussed the prospects of an attack on Iran’s principal oil depot at Kharg Island or a ground operation to seize parts of the strait’s coastline inside Iran. Trump also requested an audacious, if unlikely, military plan for an aerial assault deep inside Iran to dig up enriched uranium buried under rubble by previous U.S. strikes, and then fly the uranium out of the country.
The 82nd Airborne and the Marines could be used to seize small areas inside Iran, experts tell TIME, but would not be able to hold territory for long on their own, especially against Iran’s arsenal of cheap, short-range, low-flying Iranian drones. Those drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), have proven able to slip past expensive and sophisticated American anti-missile systems.
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