Soldiers arrive on the coast: US President Trump is considering deploying ground troops in Iran. (archive image)image: IMAGO/Thomas Brégardis / Ouest-France
Is Donald Trump sending ground troops to Iran? The US President does not want to commit himself publicly, but a possible operational plan already exists.
03/11/2026, 04:38Mar 11, 2026, 4:41 a.m
Nilofar Breuer / t-online
It was one of the central war goals that US President Donald Trump propagated several times at the beginning of the attacks against Iran: an end to the alleged threat from Iranian nuclear weapons. The USA and Israel in particular accuse Tehran of being on the verge of building a nuclear bomb. The regime rejects this but insists on its right to use nuclear technology for civilian purposes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now raising suspicions in particular about an underground facility: According to this, Iran is currently storing almost half of its uranium, enriched to up to 60 percent, in Isfahan. The tunnel complex was the only target that did not appear to have been severely damaged in the attacks by Israel and the USA on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, said IAEA chief Rafael Grossi on Monday in Paris. According to diplomats, Isfahan has long been used as a storage facility for the material, which could be made weapons-grade relatively easily. This assessment could now reignite the discussion about the use of ground troops in Iran.
After the so-called Twelve-Day War in June last year, Trump actually declared that the Iranian nuclear program had been destroyed. US forces used stealth bombers and bunker-busting bombs. At the time, Trump said he was convinced that he had successfully prevented the construction of Iranian nuclear bombs. Iran’s enrichment facilities were “completely destroyed” and “obliterated” by the “Midnight Hammer” operation it ordered. However, experts doubted this.
Uranium in Iran could be enough for ten nuclear weapons
According to the IAEA, Iran is currently the only country without its own nuclear weapons that is enriching uranium to 60 percent – well above the level necessary for the civilian use of nuclear power. Grossi put the current inventory in Isfahan at “just over 200 kilograms”. At the time of the attacks in June, Iran had a total of more than 440.9 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. If enriched further to 90 percent uranium, the amount would theoretically be enough for ten nuclear weapons.
“It is generally assumed that the material is still there,” said Grossi, referring to Isfahan. Neither the IAEA nor other observers discovered any signs in satellite images that the material had been misplaced. A certain amount is also suspected in the enrichment plant in Natans. The facilities in Natans and Fordo have been considered destroyed or seriously damaged since June.
Possible deployment of US ground troops in focus
Is this latest assessment by the IAEA enough for the US President to now send ground troops to Iran? After all, Trump said last Saturday on board the presidential plane Air Force One that he wasn’t ruling it out – and added that there had to be a “very good reason”. To secure the Islamic Republic’s enriched uranium, “we may do that at some point,” Trump continued.
A look at Isfahan in the summer of 2025: The Iranian regime may be enriching uranium at the plant.Image: keystone
There are now indications that the US government has long been looking for a way out of the war. However, Trump recently said that he was still a long way from making a decision about sending ground troops to Iran. «We haven’t made a decision about it. “We’re not quite there yet,” Trump told the New York Post newspaper when asked about reports about a possible deployment.
Trump’s special forces were apparently prepared
As the military portal “The War Zone” reports, US and Israeli special forces have been actively preparing for an attack on underground facilities like the one in Isfahan for years. They have already identified several options as to how they could proceed to neutralize the stock of enriched uranium in Iran.
«The first question is: Where is it? The second question: How do we get there and how do we gain physical control of it?” said an unnamed US official, according to US news media Axios. “And then the decision would be up to the president and the War Department, CIA, whether we want to physically transport it or dilute it on site.” In addition to the military special units, experts, possibly from the IAEA, would also be deployed in the operation, he also said.
Iran as a nuclear threat? US argument is not proven
The position of the USA and Israel is that Iran poses a nuclear threat. In fact, Tehran has not provided the IAEA with information about the whereabouts of the uranium since last year’s attacks and has barred inspectors from access to the bombed sites. The IAEA emphasizes that it has no credible evidence of a coordinated nuclear weapons program by Iran.
The military portal “The War Zone” had already outlined exactly this scenario last June. At that point, the USA and Israel were considering launching such an attack with ground troops.
“US special forces are ideally suited to quickly and discreetly penetrate a target area and steal items of interest from an object such as a nuclear facility in Iran,” it said at the time. If the items in question are too large to be transported by the special forces, they could, depending on the type, be destroyed on site or secured until a larger follow-up group arrives.
“Conventional support troops and interagency units with special capabilities could also accompany the special forces during initial raids,” according to “The War Zone.” In addition, the special forces are also well positioned to help intercept nuclear material if the Iranian regime tries to get it out of the country.
Nuclear danger? US special forces play through scenarios
According to the military portal, behind the US special troops are the “Tier One” units as well as the “Delta Force” of the US Army and the “SEAL Team Six” of the US Navy. In regular exercises, they train how weapons of mass destruction can be combated – and run through scenarios about what chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological dangers can arise.
The US Special Operations Command was appointed in 2016 as the lead agency responsible for combating weapons of mass destruction. According to “The War Zone,” conventional US military units as well as employees of the US Department of Energy are also taking part in the exercises.
It is currently unclear whether Israeli forces would also take part in a possible ground troop deployment in Isfahan. They have experience, as examples from the past show. According to “The War Zone,” Israeli troops destroyed an underground missile factory in Syria in September 2024 that had been built with support from Iran. The emergency services were on site for around two and a half hours and during this time they placed 300 kilograms of explosives on the site. That alone was a clear signal to Iran that its underground facilities were not invulnerable.
Deployment poses immense challenges
However, military experts also emphasize that there are enormous concerns about how exactly the special forces will bring hundreds of kilograms of uranium from Iran – even if it is at a single location. Containment containers in which the uranium is likely stored made the material being transported even heavier and bulkier.
Even with neutralization on site, there are still unanswered questions. According to “The War Zone,” it takes a lot of time and resources to dilute nuclear material, for example. To render it useless for weapons, fissile material cannot simply be detonated to destroy it. Instead, highly enriched uranium can be mixed with less enriched uranium. And the longer the units take, the more time the Iranian regime has for a military response. After all, protecting nuclear facilities is the regime’s top priority.
As Axios reports, ground troops would likely not be deployed to Iran’s uranium enrichment camps until Tehran’s military no longer poses a serious threat to US-Israeli forces. On the other hand, according to “The War Zone”, ground troops are also needed to intercept Iranian groups as soon as they try to relocate or steal the enriched uranium. After all, an air attack on vehicles carrying uranium carries the risk that the nuclear material will spread uncontrollably. In the end, the consideration of a possible deployment of ground troops could decide whose security is more important to the USA: that of its soldiers or that of the population.
Sources used: