Report: Trump set to extend Iran war for weeks

Donald Trump charged his top military officials with crafting a plan to seize Iran’s nuclear material, and what they created may be one of the most daring and dangerous missions ever. The operation, which would heavily rely on US special forces like Navy SEALs or Army Rangers – both of which are already in the Middle East – calls for hundreds or thousands of boots on the ground in Iran to capture its nuclear material. The Pentagon’s plan for the President calls on these operators to capture nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium, according to multiple officials, who added the extraction plan could take weeks if green-lit.

Trump originally said Operation Epic Fury would last six weeks max, but the proposed plan could extend that timeline well beyond that. As of Thursday, the war has been raging for 4 weeks and 5 days. In his speech to the nation Wednesday night, Trump said the Iran war would be over ‘very shortly,’ and he also promised the US would hit Iran ‘extremely hard’ over the next ‘two to three weeks’ if needed. This operation would also involve flying in heavy excavation equipment, building a runway for heavy cargo aircraft and extracting the highly radioactive material – much of which is buried under rubble after US and Israeli strikes.

Insiders would expect the operation to excavate the uranium, which Trump has called ‘nuclear dust,’ to take weeks, and that while doing so, US forces would be exposed to attacks from Iranian forces. Trump was briefed on the dangerous plan within the last week after he requested a proposal from the military. ‘This would be one of, if not the largest, most complicated special operations in history,’ Mick Mulroy, a retired CIA and Marine officer, told the Washington Post. ‘It’s a major risk to the force.’The plan underscores the administration’s adamance to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – even if the enriched components are buried deep underground and US special forces may come under fire.

‘It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the Commander in Chief maximum optionality,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said of the plan. ‘It does not mean the President has made a decision.’ After the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow in June 2025, many of the Islamic Republic’s enrichment capabilities were buried under tons of concrete. In order to access the nuclear material at Isfahan, ‘you have to get excavation equipment, break through the concrete and the lead shield … and then you somehow have to get to the bottom of this silo and remove the containers full of nuclear material and fly them out,’ sources familiar with the plan told the Post.

Several officials noted the plan is feasible, and special forces are trained for these types of missions, though it would be exceptionally dangerous and would expose the operators to Iranian attacks. The plan would likely kick off with targeted strikes on Iranian defenses to create a safe path for soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne and Rangers to parachute into the nuclear sites to set up a secure perimeter. Then, engineers would need to quickly craft an airstrip to ensure that excavation equipment and more could be brought in for soldiers to begin digging out the nuclear material.

The logistics behind the mission would be daunting and require scores of soldiers, pilots, mechanics, drivers, refuelers, resuppliers and even potentially civilian nuclear experts to help mentor the troops as they handle the dangerous material. Food, water and gasoline would all need to be sent in at a steady pace to keep operations going around the clock. The operation would be akin to setting up a forward operating base deep within enemy territory while US forces dig up and then fly out any discovered uranium. But blasting through reinforced concrete rubble to gain access to the radioactive ‘dust’ would be grueling work and full of treacherous pitfalls.Commandos may be forced to do all this work while wearing restrictive protective equipment and air filtration systems.

In addition, determining exactly where the nuclear material is has been difficult, and US forces tasked with its discovery could face challenges without obtaining detailed layouts of the facilities. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has roughly 970 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90 percent, and the process of going from 60 to 90 would take a matter of days. Trump has repeatedly stated that Iran was either weeks or days away from having nuclear weapons. ‘We haven’t seen big movements,’ showing Iran is trying to unearth the material, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has said. He noted there may have been trucks or cars visiting the bombed sites, but ‘ not bulldozers digging things out.’