Trump Privately Discussing Iran Ground Troops as Reports Suggest Operatives Already Inside

Discussion inside the Trump administration about deploying U.S. ground troops to Iran is intensifying, according to new reporting, as intelligence claims suggest Western operatives may already be operating covertly inside the country.

The discussions come as the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, has so far remained primarily an air campaign. A ground deployment would mark a significant escalation, but officials say any potential move would likely involve a small contingent of specialized troops rather than a large-scale invasion.

Trump has signaled publicly that he is not ruling out the possibility. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground,” the president said in an interview with the New York Post last week. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”

Alongside the reports about potential troop deployments, intelligence reporting has suggested Western operatives may already be operating covertly inside Iran. The Daily Mail reported yesterday that British intelligence officers are working with French and American counterparts inside the country to locate suspected chemical weapons sites that Israeli intelligence identified as potential storage locations for nerve agents. 

According to the report, the teams are searching for hidden stockpiles believed to have been dispersed across multiple locations despite heavy Israeli and U.S. airstrikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure. The claims, attributed to unnamed security sources, have not been independently verified.

NBC News on Friday reported that Trump has discussed the possibility of sending a small number of American troops into Iran with aides and Republican officials outside the White House. The officials said the conversations have focused on limited missions rather than a full invasion.

Possible tasks discussed in those conversations include securing Iran’s uranium stockpiles or protecting nuclear-related facilities if the Iranian regime weakens or collapses. Analysts warn that large quantities of enriched uranium remain buried at Iranian nuclear sites and could become vulnerable during instability.

Analysts say the term “boots on the ground” does not necessarily mean a large occupation force. Instead, it could involve small special-operations missions targeting specific sites or materials.

“You could envision them doing some sort of special operations insertions if there were targets that they absolutely needed to take out or reduce but didn’t lend themselves to bombardment,” said Joel Rayburn, a former Trump administration official and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Securing nuclear material could also be a priority if the Iranian regime weakens. “You don’t want it to become a failed state nuclear bazaar,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The White House has pushed back against the NBC report’s characterization of Trump’s discussions. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the report relied on sources outside the administration’s national security decision-making circle. “This story is based on assumptions from anonymous sources who are not part of the President’s national security team and are clearly not read into these discussions,” Leavitt said.

Iranian officials have responded defiantly to the possibility of American ground forces entering the country. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is prepared for such a scenario. “We are waiting for them,” Araghchi said in an interview with NBC News on Thursday. “We are confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.”

Araghchi also said Iran had not asked for a ceasefire and insisted the country was ready to face any escalation. “We have prepared ourselves to confront with any scenario,” he said.