Washington, Jerusalem, and Tehran are on edge as talks intensify regarding a possible kinetic attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Military action could happen at any time, or President Trump, as his wont, is escalating tensions in order to deescalate, sources say. 

The Mideast “could be a dangerous place,” the president told reporters Wednesday night as he and the first lady entered the Kennedy Center for a showing of “Les Miserables.” “We’ll see what happens. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, we won’t allow it,” he said. Mr. Trump has made that vow often in the past, but now it seems to carry a new meaning. 

Earlier in the week Mr. Trump huddled with his top national security advisers, while Prime Minister Netanyahu conducted two meetings this week with his military advisers. Could such consultations mean that an attack is imminent, or are they a ploy to ensure Iran becomes more flexible in talks?

An Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, writes that pro-regime social media accounts are highlighting an X posting by a former American ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro. They claim that the war talk is nothing but “Trump’s psychological operation to pressure.” 

Yet, Mr. Ben Taleblu tells the Sun it could also be true that Mr. Trump is using the tensions to push Tehran to make concessions in negotiations that for now seem stuck. Mr. Trump is adamant that Iran will have no right to enrich uranium on its soil, while Supreme Leader Khamenei claims enrichment is an Iranian right. 

On Wednesday the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, authorized the evacuation of military dependents from Bahrain and other American Mideast bases. American embassies at Baghdad, Bahrain, and Kuwait were preparing for possible evacuations. The U.S.  Central Command and other branches of the administration “maintain a constant state of readiness,” a source told the Sun. 

“These steps don’t necessarily mean military action is imminent,” Mr. Shapiro writes on X. “Still time for talks, it takes time to move people out. But these are steps that it would make sense to take as part of preparations, and to show seriousness,” he writes, adding that they also provide “important leverage in nuclear talks.”

A scheduled meeting between Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steven Witkoff, and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, which was in doubt all week, will now take place in Oman on Sunday. Tehran is expected to reply to a Witkoff proposal for a deal. Islamic Republic officials have threatened to strike Israeli targets if attacked, including the Jewish state’s nuclear facilities. They also say they would go after American assets in the region. 

“Iran must never be permitted to enrich uranium or develop any nuclear capability,” Mr. Witkoff told a Jewish organization, Hatzolah, Wednesday night. A nuclear Iran represents “an existential threat to Israel, as does an Iran with a large amount of missiles. That is as big an existential threat as the nuclear threat, and this is an existential threat to the United States and the free world.”

In a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors at Vienna Thursday, America and three European powers passed a resolution that censured Iran for violating its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Tehran announced, in response, that it would install advanced centrifuges at an undisclosed new site, but could it have additional plans?

“I wonder if the U.S. and Israel have picked up on intelligence that Iran plans to take a step that crosses a red line in response” to the censure resolution, the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, writes on X. Such a red line could include enriching uranium to a bomb-level purity of 90 percent, or a decision to expel the IAEA inspectors, he writes.

If Israel or America have received intelligence of that kind, it could be “motivating these movements,” Mr. Brodsky writes. Yet, he too tells the Sun that the added tensions could be an American attempt to pressure Iran to compromise in diplomacy. 

Senior officials at Jerusalem have told their Washington counterparts that Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear sites only if and when Mr. Trump decides that negotiations have reached a dead end, according to several reports in the Israeli press. The president said on Monday that he had a “good talk” with Mr. Netanyahu, but neither side is disclosing whether they have coordinated military moves, or decided to ratchet up tensions to add pressure on Iran.