Former Trump official: 'I think we are gearing up for a strike' on Iran nuclear site
A former Middle East envoy in President Trump's first administration said Wednesday that he believes the United States is preparing to strike Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment facility in the coming days.
"What I can see is the military maneuvers are getting in place," Brett McGurk told CNN's Pamela Brown on Wednesday. "I think we are gearing up for a strike ... a U.S. military strike."
Iran's secretive Fordow nuclear plant is located deep in a mountain south of Tehran, requiring the use of a so-called "bunker buster" bomb to hit.
Tehran maintains that its nuclear program's objectives are peaceful, but Fordow has drawn scrutiny over the country's ambitions.
McGurk, who also held senior national security positions under former Presidents George W. Bush, Obama and Biden, said it will take a few days for the U.S. "to have everything in place," leaving little time for diplomatic solutions to prevent the strike.
"I would try to use that time to see if Iran is prepared to take a diplomatic off-ramp," he said. "I think we have a few days here, hopefully."
But McGurk also acknowledged Trump has given Iran few options to negotiate a retreat from its nearly week-long military conflict with U.S. ally Israel.
"I've been very struck by — since the president said unconditional surrender, that just leaves very little room for diplomacy," he said.
Trump has repeatedly stressed that he wants "unconditional surrender" from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to prevent the U.S. from stepping in.
The ayatollah, meanwhile, has pushed back vowing "irreparable damage" to the U.S. if the country gets involved.
"I know a lot about the risks here," McGurk, now a CNN global affairs analyst, said. "They're not insignificant."
McGurk warned that "alignment with Israel" on the purpose of any U.S. mission will be "really critical" to prevent a prolonged war.
"We're the only ones that can take out the Fordow facility, and we need alignment on the objectives," he said. "The objective here is the nuclear program and the missiles, and then that's it — we're not going to have mission creep; this is going to be end of the military campaign."
"You need alignment with the Israelis on that before we do that," McGurk added.