Rachel Abrams: From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is the Daily.

Rachel Abrams: For weeks, the United States has been building up an enormous military presence around Iran, even as negotiators from both countries plan to meet later this week in the hopes of finding a diplomatic off-ramp to the escalating tensions.

Rachel Abrams: Now, as President Trump signals a potential attack, our colleague David Sanger explains what the president hopes to achieve through military action and why he's chosen this moment.

Rachel Abrams: It's Tuesday, February 24th.

Rachel Abrams: David Sanger, welcome back to the Daily.

David Sanger: Rachel, great to be with you.

Rachel Abrams: The last time we talked about Iran on the show, we were in the middle of this brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters who were protesting the regime. And at the time, there was a huge question about whether the United States would take some kind of military action. That obviously did not happen.

Rachel Abrams: But in the weeks since, we have seen this massive military buildup in the region. So, David, can you just start by describing what that buildup looks like and what we understand about what exactly is going on in this moment?

David Sanger: Well, Rachel, the buildup is the largest we've seen in the Middle East since the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2003.

Rachel Abrams: Wow.

David Sanger: There are two aircraft carriers in the region, the Abraham Lincoln and the Gerald R. Ford, which has come back from Venezuela. There are fighter jets, refueling capability, bombers. They are all taking up positions from Jordan all through our bases in the region.

Rachel Abrams: And meanwhile, there's the last gasp of a diplomatic track underway. On Thursday, we expect that the Iranians will be meeting with the two main American negotiators, uh, Steve Witoff and Jared Kushner, to present a package that might satisfy President Trump's demands. But the president has made clear that he is thinking of everything from a limited strike on Iran to what could be a much larger military action that could take days or weeks.

Rachel Abrams: You mentioned that the president has made demands. What are those demands exactly? Like what does the United States want right now and what are they trying to achieve either through these talks or through any kind of potential military action?

Rachel Abrams: You know, there's a bit of a murkiness on this issue. Usually, when presidents get to a situation like this, they're pretty clear about what it is they are seeking, but in this case, the president has not been clear.

Rachel Abrams: The president's offered a dizzying array of rationale for the military action that we may see. Donald Trump is urging Iranians to keep protesting, saying,

Donald Trump: "If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue."

David Sanger: He's talked about supporting the protesters. Of course,

David Sanger: we talked about Hamas and we talked about disarmament.

David Sanger: He's talked about cutting off support for the proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas. There's nothing that would do more good for this part of the world than for Iran's leaders to renounce terrorists, stop threatening their neighbors, quit funding their militant proxies. And

David Sanger: he's talked about taking out Iran's missile capability, the missiles that can reach Israel. These are all conventional weapons, but they pose a big threat to a major American ally. And then, of course, there's the one big reason he keeps returning to. You can't have peace in the Middle East if they have a nuclear weapon. And they can't have a nuclear weapon.

Rachel Abrams: And that is going after the remnants of Iran's nuclear portfolio.

David Sanger: I hope they're not trying to build up again because if they are, we're going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.

Rachel Abrams: The nuclear portfolio, we should mention, which the president had previously claimed that the US had wiped out back in the summer.

David Sanger: That's right, Rachel. And you know, just to wind back the clock for a moment, you may remember that in June there was a 12-day war that the Israelis initiated against Iran,

Rachel Abrams: right?

David Sanger: And that it ended with a US attack on the three major nuclear enrichment sites that Iran has built up over the decades. And these were three sites that only the US Air Force had the capability with bunker busters to get down deep enough to try to destroy. And in the course of doing that, they ended up burying under the rubble Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium that was enriched to a purity just shy of what you would need to make a nuclear weapon. And just to be clear, after the US conducted that whole campaign, what would be left now to hit through some kind of military action?

Rachel Abrams: Well, there are still targets. There are places where the Iranians have made nuclear centrifuges, the machines that spin at at supersonic speeds and produce uranium. You could wipe out some of those targets. David, the last time that the United States took a military action against Iran, it was in close coordination with Israel, which is obviously our biggest ally in the region. They have grave concerns about Iran's nuclear and missile programs. What do we know about Israel's involvement this time around?

David Sanger: Well, we know that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been talking frequently to President Trump. He came for a visit about two weeks ago and what little leaked out from that session indicated that the Israeli government was quite concerned that the US wasn't paying enough attention to the missiles. And it's the missiles that can reach Israel that actually pierced the missile defenses last time and struck some civilian targets and killed some Israelis. And you know, at the same time, the president has got some people in his ear, including Iran hardliners in Congress saying, "You will never have an opportunity like you've got right now."

David Sanger: That Iran and Ayatollah Hami have never been weaker.

David Sanger: They're economically on the ropes. There are protests in the streets. People are sick of their government and the repression surrounding it. and that after the war in June they have never fully recovered militarily. Just take the moment to push them over the cliff. So the president may have in the back of his mind a great desire to seize the moment.

Rachel Abrams: But at the same time this is risky business.

Rachel Abrams: This is a country of 90 million people. They have considerable ability not only to strike back with missiles, but with a terror network that runs throughout Europe and to some degree has shown some capability to operate inside the United States. They've got significant cyber capabilities as well. So, it's hardly guaranteed that this is going to be a like one night attack like you saw in June when they went after the nuclear sites. It's very possible that the Iranians could respond. The US then escalates. The Iranians then escalate and you're into a bigger conflict than anyone wants to see happen in the Middle East.

Rachel Abrams: Okay. So, it sounds like there are a lot of people in the president's ear right now. There's Netanyahu. There are the Iran hawks in Congress. But one thing that I think has been very top of mind, at least since the protests in January, is regime change and how a lot of these goals that you mentioned that the administration could be considering right now could lead to that depending on what kind of military action they take. Is that part of the calculation here?

David Sanger: We have to assume that it's one of the biggest parts of the calculation, but the fact of the matter is the president has stopped just short of that. And when the topic came up with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and some Senate testimony last month, he said, "Well, this would be big and complicated and we'd have to give a lot of thought to what that would look like." Well, a little late to come to the conclusion we have to think that through. The fact of the matter is the government of the United States has been thinking about regime change in Iran for decades.

Rachel Abrams: Right?

David Sanger: So, there are a couple of big questions here, Rachel. The first is, can you bring about regime change with an air campaign? It's not clear at all that that's necessarily going to work. Second, if it does work, what's the assurance that the government that would come in would be any friendlier to the United States? It could just be another repressive regime. And the other risk, of course, is that this could just escalate into a much larger regional conflict, which would be entirely understandable if the Iranians decided that the regime was at risk and they were going to throw everything into the retaliation.

Rachel Abrams: We'll be right back.

Rachel Abrams: David, when we think about a potential military strike in Iran and what that might mean for regime change, I am of course reminded about the recent action that the US took in Venezuela when it removed the president Nicholas Maduro. My sense is at least that that really caused other countries to sit up a little straighter in the face of US pressure. And so I wonder whether that is coming into play here at all with how the US is interacting with Iran in this moment.

David Sanger: Well, Rachel, I think it's definitely part of the calculation. I mean, first of all, there is a just overall similarity to the gunboat diplomacy here, right? You mass a naval fleet off a country's coast. You issue a set of demands. And if the demands are not met, you then use that military force to compel the country to change the way you want it to change.

Rachel Abrams: Mhm.

David Sanger: But there's also a real difference here as well because in Venezuela, it was a very targeted operation. They were aiming for one guy, Maduro. And when they pulled him out of there and sent him off to the Brooklyn detention center, they left the rest of his government fully in place. In Iran,

David Sanger: it seems very unlikely that that model would work. First of all, it's a much larger country. It's 90 million people. Second, it's a lot more complex. It's a lot better armed. It's got air defenses that Maduro never had. It's got a population that may go along with the removal of the government, but also has bitter memories of CIA efforts to bring about coups in Iran in the 1950s.

David Sanger: And finally, if the US was successful, it's not clear that you could leave the existing government in place the way they have in Venezuela. You'd have to take out that entire structure run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. You'd have to eliminate almost all of those loyalists to Ayatollah Hominee. So it's not clear that you would have someone in place to go run the country and to respond to those American demands.

Rachel Abrams: Okay. So given the fact that a military action would be extremely complicated in Iran, what would a more quote unquote limited strike look like that the United States is actually considering?

David Sanger: It's a good question because there are all kinds of targets. They could go after the besiege, which is the local militia groups that have been used to put down the protesters.

Rachel Abrams: Mhm.

David Sanger: That way at least the president could say he's making good on his commitment. They could go after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And you may remember that back in 2020 in his first term, President Trump ordered a drone strike on the head of the Kuds force, the most elite part of the Iranian military, and managed to kill him. So you could imagine more attacks on the leadership of the IRGC. You could imagine attacks that were just limited to those missiles and missile sites and the launchers that Israel's most worried about. But all of those would gain mostly a tactical advantage.

Rachel Abrams: If the government didn't change, the military leaders will get replaced. Eventually, Iran will build more missiles or buy them. So the real question is, are you just mowing the lawn or are you bringing about real change?

Rachel Abrams: How concerned is Iran about all of this or any of this?

David Sanger: Well, Rachel, the Iranians have made it pretty clear they're deeply concerned. I mean, first of all, we've seen them burying and reinforcing some nuclear related sites or suspected nuclear- related sites that hadn't been hit back in June. Second, they've moved a good number of their missiles and other arms to the borders where they could more easily reach American bases or Israel to make the point that they're going to get some shots off if they get attacked. Thirdly, there's the strange action by Ayatollah Hami, who is 86 years old and presumably has some succession plans anyway, but as we've reported in the Times, he's deepened those in recent times. So, the Supreme Leader is clearly aware that the US may be going for regime change and he wants an insurance policy against that. These are all the kind of preparations we've not really seen the Iranians take at this level before.

Rachel Abrams: At the same time though, of course, there are these diplomatic talks. What kind of off-ramp, if any, is being considered right now so that we do not see this kind of escalation?

David Sanger: Well, the talks have been stymied a bit by the problem that the US is demanding that there is no uranium enrichment. In other words, that Iran get completely out of the business of making any nuclear fuel. And there's an interesting idea that's been floated, which is to allow the Iranians to have a very limited enrichment capability purely for medical and medical research related purposes. It's got a nice humanitarian tone to it. It would be basically allowing the Iranians to produce fuel for a small research reactor that's been in Tran since 1967 when in one of those great ironies of history, the United States gave the reactor to the Sha of Iran.

Rachel Abrams: And it's used mostly for production of pharmaceuticals. It's useful for cancer treatments and so forth. And this would allow the Iranians to say, "We're still enriching." And allow the United States to say, "We've stopped all their nuclear weapons activity." But it's not clear the Iranians will give up that much capability. And it's not clear that President Trump would accept any continued enrichment of any kind for any purpose. Given all of that, David, is it possible that the military buildup that we've seen is not necessarily an alternative to diplomacy, but actually something that the president is using to sort of strengthen his hand diplomatically? Like, could he be using this threat of the military action as leverage to push for a diplomatic solution at the talks later this week?

David Sanger: It's very possible. That's the diplomacy part of gunboat diplomacy. Of course, the flip side of that, Rachel, is if you have spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars assembling a huge force off a country's coast, the temptation to go use that is extraordinarily high. And if his real goal here is regime change, then he may not really be that interested in a diplomatic solution because a diplomatic solution would, if anything, bolster the existing regime. It would remain in place.

Rachel Abrams: Just to take a step back here, the United States has viewed Iran as a threat for many, many years. So on the one hand, it makes sense that it would continue to be a priority. But on the other hand, during the second Trump administration, the United States has really kind of laid out this worldview of spheres of influence, which we've talked about a lot on the show. The idea that the great powers can carve up the world and consider sections of it to be under their own purview. We've seen from the US side that that has meant the Western Hemisphere. So, I wonder where you feel like the Middle East fits into that worldview.

David Sanger: Rachel, you're exactly right. This does not fit comfortably into the president's national security strategy that came out in November. On the one hand, as you suggest, American presidents have been pushing back on Iran and the Iranian nuclear program for decades. Ever since the Iran hostage crisis, right, which came right after the Iranian revolution in 1979, the United States has sabotaged the Iranian nuclear program. Over the years, it's mounted some of the most sophisticated cyber attacks in history against Iran's nuclear infrastructure. So, there's always been a consistent effort to push back the day when Iran could get a nuclear weapon. And if you view it that way, then President Trump in what he's doing today is escalating and expanding what has been a long running American policy across Democratic and Republican administrations.

David Sanger: But if you view it in the context of his national security strategy, well, Iran isn't exactly in the Western Hemisphere, right? And so he may just be seeing a moment to deal with a longtime adversary that is going through a period of remarkable military, economic, and political weakness. And I think that's really what's happening here. It's not as if the Iranians are in a position right now to attack us, right? Their nuclear program has been buried. Their economy is at a point of near collapse. They are not about to go out of their way to pick a conflict with the US.

David Sanger: Instead, the president might be engaging in what legal and diplomatic historians call a preventive war. A war where we are strong, our adversary is weak, and so we're going to hit them now because we've got a good chance. That is in international just war theory considered to be an illegal use of force. That may not stop the president. The president may believe that he'll go down in history as the one who solved America's long running conflict with Iran that goes back to 1979. But if the president decides to take military action in the next few days or weeks, I suspect that historians will look back at this moment as a war of choice, not a war of necessity.

Rachel Abrams: David Sanger, thank you so much as always.

David Sanger: Thanks, Rachel. Great to be with you.

Rachel Abrams: We'll be right back.

Rachel Abrams: Here's what else you need to know.

Rachel Abrams: Today, Mexican authorities appear to have restored order in multiple cities after the killing of a major cartel leader set off a wave of violence that left at least 62 people dead.

Rachel Abrams: Mexico's most powerful criminal organization, the Heliscoco New Generation Cartel, unleashed the chaos after its leader, Nessio Ogera Cervantes, or Elmeno, died in a military raid on Sunday in Western Halisco State.

Rachel Abrams: and British police arrested the former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandlesson, following accusations that he had passed on confidential information to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Rachel Abrams: The move comes just days after the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, on suspicion of the same offense and months after Mandlesen was fired once the extent of his friendship with Epstein was revealed.

Rachel Abrams: Today's episode was produced by Carlos Brito, Nina Feldman, and Claire Tennis Getter. It was edited by Maria Burn, and Mark George. Contains music by Marian Lozano, Alicia Bitup, and Rowan Nemisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Special thanks to Eric Schmidt and Mark Misetti.

Rachel Abrams: That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.