The United States came within weeks of launching a high-stakes ground operation inside Iran to seize its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, before President Donald Trump intervened to suspend the mission, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning. The revelation, which surfaced on Friday, centres on an urgent and secret visit by General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, on 19 May. Caine abruptly departed a meeting of senior NATO officials in Brussels to receive classified briefings on the proposed operation, a journey that underscored how close the administration had come to authorising a mission described by one source as carrying “lots of risk”.

Details of the plan, as reported by sources in Washington and confirmed across several international news organisations, envisaged American ground troops entering Iran to forcibly remove roughly 440 kilogrammes of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. The material is dispersed across heavily fortified underground complexes at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo. Military planners assessed that securing these sites would require a substantial force and carried the near-certainty of significant US casualties, a prolonged conflict, and severe Iranian retaliation that could destabilise the global economy. The Pentagon declined to comment on the operational preparations, but the urgency of Caine’s trip and the sensitivity of the briefings indicate the military was ready to present Trump with executable options.

Viewed from Tehran, the episode has been framed as a demonstration of American hesitation in the face of Iran’s deterrent capability. Iranian media reports emphasised that Trump halted the plan primarily out of concern for massive human losses and the likelihood of a fierce Iranian response that would extend any conflict. In the broader Middle East, analysts note that a ground incursion of this nature would have marked a dramatic departure from the air-strike and sabotage campaigns that have characterised the long shadow war between the two nations. The Jerusalem-based perspective highlights that the operation was in an “advanced” stage of planning, suggesting that the institutional appetite for decisive action against Iran’s nuclear programme remains strong within parts of the US defence establishment.

The episode lands at a delicate moment in US-Iranian diplomacy, with parallel reports indicating that negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear stockpile are ongoing. Trump’s decision to pause the military option, while leaving it on the table, signals a preference for coercive diplomacy backed by a credible, if currently restrained, threat of force. Analysts in London observe that the leak of such sensitive planning may itself serve as a calibrated warning to Iran about the lengths Washington is prepared to go, even as it reinforces the president’s image as a leader reluctant to entangle the US in new ground wars. The coming weeks will test whether the spectre of a mission that was nearly launched concentrates minds at the negotiating table or deepens mutual mistrust.