The U.S. military told the White House it could launch strikes on Iran as early as this Saturday. Top national security officials have told President Trump the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as Saturday, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond this weekend, sources familiar with the discussions told CBS News. Trump has not yet made a final decision about whether to strike.

That readiness is the product of weeks of buildup: Trump's armada has grown to include two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, hundreds of fighter jets and multiple air defense systems. More than 150 U.S. military cargo flights have moved weapons systems and ammunition to the Middle East, and just in the past 24 hours, another 50 fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s, headed to the region.

While Tehran's supreme leader spent Tuesday threatening to sink those ships, the man who could order them into action sat in the Situation Room weighing his options.

The Situation Room and the stalled talks

Top national security officials from the administration met on Wednesday in the White House Situation Room to discuss the situation in Iran. According to The U.S Sun, Trump was also briefed by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on their indirect talks with Iran the day before. Kushner and Witkoff had met with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for three hours in Geneva on Tuesday.

While both sides said the talks "made progress," the gaps are wide and U.S. officials aren't optimistic about closing them. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the distance between the two sides:

We're still very far apart on some issues.

The U.S. is demanding that Iran forgo uranium enrichment on its soil and has sought to widen negotiations to include non-nuclear issues, such as Tehran's missile stockpile. Iran insists the talks cover only its nuclear program. That is not a gap. That is a canyon.

Vice President JD Vance told Fox News the talks "went well" in some ways, but "in other ways it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through." Vance warned that Trump reserves the ability to say when diplomacy has "reached its natural end."

Leavitt made the administration's posture clear. Diplomacy comes first, but the table has a limit:

There's many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran.

She followed that with a message that left little room for misinterpretation:

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

Khamenei's bluster from Tabriz

While American negotiators extended an olive branch in Geneva, Iran's supreme leader chose a different register. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is a formidable weapon but said it isn't invulnerable.

He wasn't finished. Khamenei added: "The US President keeps saying that they have the strongest military force in the world. The strongest military force in the world may at times be struck so hard that it cannot get up again."

This is the same regime that killed thousands of its own citizens in the streets just weeks ago. Protests began on December 28, 2025, sparked by a currency collapse and persistent hyperinflation, but quickly turned into nationwide anti-regime demonstrations, prompting Tehran's violent crackdown. Human rights organizations and insiders in Iran have reported that anywhere from 6,000 to 30,000 are feared killed. Authorities have also detained tens of thousands across the country.

A regime that wages war on unarmed civilians and then threatens to sink American aircraft carriers is not projecting strength. It is performing it for a domestic audience that watched its neighbors being gunned down in the streets.

The armada assembles

The numbers tell a story that Khamenei's rhetoric cannot answer.

The USS Gerald R. Ford and its escort ships are scheduled to join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf. Analysts suggest the Ford could reach a position within operational or strike range of Iran by approximately February 20, 2026. That is today.

The force already in theater is formidable:

• The Navy now has 12 surface combatants in the area, including the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and its three Arleigh Burke-class escorts, three independently deployed destroyers in the CENTCOM region, two in the Mediterranean, and three Littoral Combat Ships.
• More than 30,000 U.S. service members are stationed across Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates, with Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems repositioned to counter Iran's ballistic missile and drone threats.
• F-35, F-22, and F-16 fighter jets have been steadily moved from locations across Europe and the U.S. to bases in the Middle East. Long-range bombers in the U.S. have also been on a higher-than-usual alert status for weeks.

A senior U.S. official confirmed: "The president has ordered the continued buildup in the region, including the arrival of the second carrier group. Full forces should be in place by mid-March."

Taken together, the force now assembling in the Middle East, combined with the Israel Air Force's capabilities, would be enough for a major operation that could last weeks, not days.

Iran fires missiles into the Strait of Hormuz

Tehran is not limiting its provocations to speeches. Iran temporarily closed parts of the Strait of Hormuz as semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported live fire exercises in the vital waterway, through which 20% of the world's oil passes.

The move is a rare, perhaps unprecedented shutdown of the strait, a signal from Iran of the potential fallout to the world economy if the United States goes through with threats to attack. Iran announced the drill, dubbed "Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz." The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported a live missile test Tuesday morning, saying missiles launched from inside Iran and along its coast had struck their targets in the Strait of Hormuz.

The strategic implication is obvious. Iran wants the world to know it can threaten global energy markets if attacked. About 13 million barrels per day of crude oil transited the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, accounting for roughly 31% of global seaborne crude flows. But the actual disruption was minimal. Iran's temporary live-fire drills caused minor delays to inbound shipping, with no major trade disruption, according to industry experts.

This is the Iranian playbook: threaten economic chaos while hoping the West blinks. Iran hasn't carried out repeated threats to close the strait altogether since the 1980s, even during last year's military strike. The exercise was theater. The question is whether anyone in Washington is still impressed by it.

The regime's weakness is the real story

Behind the missile launches and the bluster sits a regime in crisis. Another factor that may convince Trump the time to strike is now is the perceived weakness of the Iranian regime after the massive protests and the damaging Israeli and U.S. strikes last year.

Consider the timeline:

• Trump came close to striking Iran in early January over the killings of thousands of protesters by the Iranian regime. The protests emerged over economic grievances, with some protesters demanding regime change. Trump threatened to hit Iran if they killed protesters.
• Security forces cracked down hard, with many reports putting the death toll in the thousands. The regime also blocked internet access to its citizens and closed its airspace.
• Iran faces still-simmering anger over its wide-ranging suppression of all dissent. That rage may intensify as families of the dead begin marking the traditional 40-day mourning for their loved ones.

A regime that must slaughter its own people to survive is not a regime that can credibly threaten to sink a supercarrier. Khamenei's words were aimed at the crowd in Tabriz, not the Situation Room.

Diplomacy or force: the clock is ticking

One source cautioned that Trump has privately argued both for and against military action and polled advisers and allies on what the best course of action is. That is deliberation, not indecision. The president who ordered Operation Midnight Hammer last June with three days' notice is not someone who hesitates when the moment arrives.

Last June 19, the White House set a two-week window for Trump to decide between further talks or strikes. Three days later, he launched Operation Midnight Hammer. The current diplomatic window looks strikingly similar. Leavitt said the Iranians are "expected to come back to us with some more detail in the next couple of weeks."

One Trump adviser put the odds bluntly: "Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks."

Trump has repeatedly said he wants a new nuclear deal with Tehran, but the president and his allies have at times also suggested they would like to see regime change, suggesting any new military operation could go well beyond nuclear targets. The Israeli government is preparing for war and advocating for a comprehensive operation, far beyond the pinpoint strikes considered back in January. Officials from both countries expect a much broader U.S.-Israeli campaign than the one last June.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on February 28 to discuss Iran. That meeting will either be the final diplomatic coordination before action or the beginning of a new negotiating phase. Either way, it marks a deadline the Iranian regime should take seriously.

The window and the will

The current oil market may offer a strategic window for Trump to strike Iran. Markets are well-supplied, prices are relatively low, demand growth is modest, and Iran's proxy capabilities are weakened. Proxy forces including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels in Yemen have been weakened by recent fighting, raising questions about their ability or willingness to assist Tehran.

The military assets are in place. The diplomatic runway is shortening. The Iranian regime is weaker domestically than it has been in decades. And a supreme leader who responds to the arrival of two carrier strike groups by bragging about weapons that can sink them is not a man negotiating from strength.

Trump's military and rhetorical buildups make it hard for him to back down without major concessions from Iran on its nuclear program. You don't move two aircraft carriers and hundreds of aircraft into position unless you plan to use them.

Tehran has weeks, at most, to decide whether it wants a deal or a confrontation with the full weight of American military power. The carriers are moving. The jets are repositioning. The Situation Room meetings are getting longer. Every signal points in one direction. The only question left is whether Iran's leaders are paying attention.