What comes next? Three attack scenarios as U.S. sends thousands more troops to Middle East
A satellite view of Qeshm Island in Hormozgan Province, Iran, within the Strait of Hormuz region on January 17, 2026.
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The U.S. is preparing to send thousands more troops to the Middle East, prompting speculation about a ground attack on Iran amid conflicting accounts of peace talks.
The Pentagon is reportedly preparing to send about 3,000 troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, alongside two Marine Expeditionary Units, to assist military operations in Iran. CNBC has contacted the White House and is awaiting a response.
Military experts said that the number of additional troops being deployed to the region appears to be consistent with plans for discrete and time-limited operations — rather than a sustained ground campaign.
It puts two strategic Iranian islands in the spotlight and raises questions about a potential move to seize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear materials.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis estimated that there were likely only around 4,000 to 5,000 “trigger pullers” or ground troops.
“That is enough to seize a small target for a period of time. You’ve got to understand, even the 82nd Airborne Division, it’s an immediate reaction force to provide very quick reaction on the ground but only in advance of something bigger coming in behind that,” Davis, a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
“I have seen no evidence that any kind of a force of size has been even considered, much less alerted, prepared, equipped, trained up that you would need to go … That takes months of time to do.”
Qeshm Island, Kharg Island and nuclear materials
Davis said that, from the limited number of ground troops being deployed, there were three possibilities that the U.S. could theoretically execute.
The first possibility is seizing Qeshm Island, which sits “in the horseshoe bend of the Strait of Hormuz,” Davis said.
Qeshm Island, off Iran’s southern coast, is the largest island in the Persian Gulf. Located near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, the arrow-shaped island has emerged as a potential U.S. target amid reports that anti-ship missiles, mines, drones and attack craft are being kept there in underground tunnels.
Davis said the second target could be Iran’s Kharg Island, the centerpiece of Iran’s oil industry, while a third scenario is a raid to capture over 400 kilograms of reprocessed material, provided the U.S. can locate this and it is sufficiently concentrated to make a raid viable.
Often referred to as its “oil lifeline,” Kharg Island is a coral island located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran.
It is estimated that around 90% of the country’s crude exports pass through it before tankers then travel through the Strait of Hormuz. The island’s economic importance to Iran makes it particularly vulnerable to the threat of military action, although analysts say seizing it would likely require a ground troop operation, which the U.S. has previously appeared reluctant to undertake.
“The overall idea is to deny Iran’s capabilities to use those islands,” Kevin Donegan, retired vice admiral and former Commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, told CNBC’s “Morning Call” on Wednesday.
“A lot can come at you from mines and missiles and cruise missiles … but a lot of that has been eliminated already or significantly degraded. So, the mission is absolutely executable. The real question is how long will it take to do it and when can flow be restored,” he added.
One of Tehran’s top lawmakers said Wednesday that they were anticipating a potential attack from “Iran’s enemies” to try to occupy one of Iran’s islands.
“All enemy movements are under the full surveillance of our armed forces,” Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said on X, according to a Google translation.
“If they step out of line, all the vital infrastructure of that regional country will, without restriction, become the target of relentless attacks,” he added.
The U.S. forces aren’t for fighting prolonged land wars
Ruben Stewart, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank, said the number of U.S. forces preparing to be deployed was not consistent with a sustained ground campaign.
“What is notably absent are the heavy armoured units, logistics depth, and command structures required for a prolonged land war. In practical terms, this is a force that can act quickly and selectively, but not one that could sustain operations deep inside Iran or over an extended period,” Stewart told CNBC by email.
“Seizing Kharg Island is technically feasible but escalatory, given its centrality to Iran’s oil exports. By contrast, securing Iran’s nuclear material would be the least realistic with this force as it would require a far larger, sustained ground presence,” he added.
A man holds an Iranian flag showing the faces of Iran’s late and new Supreme Leaders Ali and Mojtaba Khamenei along Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran on March 25, 2026.
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The relatively limited level of deployment was perhaps best understood as a tool of coercive leverage, Stewart said, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to increase its bargaining power and signal that it has options if diplomacy fails.
The White House has said that Trump has been engaged in “productive” talks with Iran over the last three days, adding that the military operation in Iran was “ahead of schedule.”
Iran, however, has repeatedly denied holding talks with Washington.