Trump weighs sending US ground troops into Iran to seize uranium stockpiles

President Trump is now weighing whether to send US ground troops into Iran to locate and physically seize the country's uranium stockpiles. It is the most consequential decision of the conflict so far, and the internal debate inside the administration is not settled. The current air campaign has struck more than 7,000 targets, but bombs cannot pick up enriched uranium and carry it out of the country. If the objective is to prevent Iran from ever building a nuclear weapon, air power alone may not be enough.

Iran is estimated to have accumulated enough highly enriched uranium to produce several nuclear devices if it chose to weaponize. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in early 2025 that Iran had stockpiled approximately 275 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, well above the 20 percent threshold that defines high enrichment but below the 90 percent level needed for a weapon. Getting from 60 percent to weapons-grade is technically possible in weeks with functioning centrifuges. Some of those centrifuge facilities may have survived the air strikes.

Why air strikes alone cannot solve the uranium problem

Striking a known nuclear facility from the air is one thing. Finding and neutralizing dispersed uranium stockpiles is another. Iran has had years to develop contingency plans for exactly this scenario. Enriched uranium can be moved, divided into smaller quantities, and stored at locations that do not appear on any satellite image. US and Israeli intelligence have good coverage of declared and suspected sites, but the gap between what is known and what might exist is what makes military planners cautious.

A ground operation would give US forces the ability to search facilities, secure materials, and verify destruction in ways that no air strike can. The problem is everything else that comes with putting soldiers on Iranian soil. Iran has a population of 87 million people, significant irregular military forces, and terrain that ranges from dense urban areas to mountainous regions that historically make occupation extremely costly.

What a ground operation would actually require

Military planning documents for a ground incursion into Iran, some of which date back to contingency work done during the George W. Bush administration, estimated that securing Iran's nuclear sites and key population centers would require between 500,000 and 1,000,000 troops. The US currently has approximately 1.3 million active-duty military personnel in total. A deployment of that scale would be the largest American military operation since World War II and would require a mobilization that the all-volunteer force is not currently sized to provide without a draft.

A more limited special operations-focused mission, targeting specific uranium storage locations rather than attempting broad territorial control, is the option being discussed more seriously inside the Pentagon. That kind of operation carries lower troop numbers but extremely high risk per soldier, given that Iranian forces would be actively defending those sites and the locations themselves may not be precisely known in advance.

The divide inside the administration

Senior officials are not aligned on this. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not publicly endorsed a ground operation, focusing instead on sustaining the air campaign and securing the $200 billion emergency supplemental from Congress. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has been more open to discussing ground options, arguing that the strategic goal of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be achieved through air power alone if the uranium has been dispersed.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Christopher Cavoli has reportedly expressed concern in internal meetings about the logistical and casualty risks of a ground incursion, according to two congressional members who were briefed. The military's professional leadership does not oppose the mission on political grounds, but they are responsible for telling the president what the realistic cost in lives and resources would be. That number is very high.

Congressional reaction to the ground troop option

Congress has not yet voted on an Authorization for Use of Military Force for the current air campaign. A ground invasion would require either a new AUMF or a presidential determination that existing legal authority covers it. Neither path is smooth. Senate Democrats have already blocked consideration of the $200 billion supplemental request absent a formal war authorization vote. A ground operation announcement, without congressional sign-off, would almost certainly trigger a constitutional confrontation.

Republican support in Congress is not monolithic either. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has said publicly that any ground deployment without a congressional declaration of war would be unconstitutional and that he would pursue legal action to prevent it. Several other Republican senators from states with large military bases have expressed concern about deployment timelines and force readiness.

How Iran would likely respond

Iran's response to a ground incursion would not be limited to conventional military resistance inside its own borders. Iran has proxy forces across the region with the capability to attack US troops and assets in Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf. Hezbollah, despite significant degradation in 2024, still maintains rocket and missile capabilities that could be directed at Israel simultaneously with any US ground operation inside Iran.

Russia has warned through diplomatic channels that a ground invasion of Iran would be treated as a destabilizing act requiring a Russian response, without specifying what that response would entail. China has made similar statements at the UN Security Council. Neither country has military treaty obligations to Iran, but both have supplied Iran with weapons systems and have an interest in preventing a US military precedent of occupying a sovereign nation to remove nuclear material.

The decision timeline

Trump has not set a public deadline for the ground troop decision, but the operational window has practical limits. Sustaining the current air campaign while simultaneously planning and staging a ground operation requires pre-positioning troops and equipment in the region, a process that takes weeks and cannot be concealed from Iranian intelligence. If the administration is seriously considering a ground option, the pre-positioning would need to begin soon for it to be executable within the current conflict timeline.

The next major decision point will likely come when the Pentagon presents its formal briefing on ground options to the president, which congressional sources expect to happen within the next ten days.