More than 60 attack aircraft were spotted on satellite imagery on Friday at Muwaffaq Salti, a US base in Jordan, roughly triple the number of jets normally stationed there. At least another 68 cargo planes have landed at the base since Sunday. The buildup is the clearest signal yet that the military option against Iran is not hypothetical.
President Trump told reporters Friday he was considering military action to pressure Iranian officials to negotiate the terms of the country's nuclear program.
"You're going to be finding out over the next, maybe, 10 days."
He later extended the maximum timeline to 15 days. Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace, Trump said the US would "maybe" make a deal with Iran. The word carried the weight of a condition, not a commitment.
Diplomacy on a Short Clock
According to the Daily Mail, indirect negotiations between Iranian and US officials in Geneva on Tuesday lasted about three and a half hours. Iran's top negotiator reportedly offered a "set of guiding principles." A US official, speaking anonymously, told the Washington Post there were "still a lot of details to discuss."
That's diplomatic language for: nothing is close.
Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that Iran was expected to provide additional information on negotiations "in the next couple of weeks." She described diplomacy as the president's "first option" but pointedly refused to rule out military action, saying there were "many reasons and arguments" on the table.
"I'm not going to set deadlines on behalf of the president of the United States."
The refusal to set a public deadline is, in itself, a form of pressure. Iran cannot run out the clock if it doesn't know where the clock stops.
The Buildup Speaks for Itself
Satellite images from January already showed some aircraft at the Jordanian base. What changed is scale. The current count of more than 60 attack aircraft, confirmed by flight tracking data reviewed by the New York Times, represents a posture that goes well beyond routine deployment. Anonymous Jordanian officials told the Times that American planes are deployed at the base as part of a defense agreement between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Trump's top national security advisors met in the Situation Room on Wednesday to discuss Iran. That meeting, reported by the Washington Post via an anonymous US official, coincided with Leavitt's public remarks. The synchronization is worth noting. You don't convene the Situation Room for posturing.
One unnamed European diplomat warned that conflict could become "extended" and "bloody."
"And it could bring more countries, either deliberately or by miscalculation, into the war."
European diplomats have been issuing warnings like this for decades. The warnings have not once produced a workable alternative to the problem they describe. Iran's nuclear ambitions did not slow under the JCPOA. They accelerated after it. Diplomatic "engagement" without credible force behind it is a letter with no signature.
Why Force Is Credible This Time
The difference between a bluff and a strategy is whether you move assets. Sixty-plus attack aircraft and 68 cargo planes are not a bluff. They are logistics. They are pre-positioning. They are the kind of commitment that changes the calculation in Tehran.
For years, American policy toward Iran oscillated between sanctions that squeezed without resolving the issue and negotiations that yielded no results. The Obama-era deal paused one visible track of Iran's nuclear program while funding the regime's regional ambitions with billions in unfrozen assets. The result was a more dangerous Iran, not a less nuclear one.
Trump's approach inverts the model. Diplomacy remains on the table, but the table sits next to an airfield in Jordan with triple the normal aircraft complement. That is not escalation for its own sake. It is the restoration of a basic principle: negotiations work when the alternative to agreement is worse than agreement itself.
What Comes Next
Sources briefed on the military operations have noted that the Olympics pose a roadblock for potential military action, though no further specifics were provided. The timeline, then, may be shaped as much by the calendar as by Tehran's willingness to talk.
Trump has given Iran a window. Ten days, maybe fifteen, maybe a couple of weeks, depending on which statement you anchor to. The ambiguity is deliberate. What is not ambiguous is the presence of more than 60 warplanes in Jordan, a number that did not exist there a month ago.
Iran can negotiate, or Iran can find out what those planes are for. The choice, for once, is genuinely theirs to make.
