Many of Trump’s remaining options in Iran risk heavy casualties with dubious chances of success | CNN Politics

President Donald Trump is weighing several options for dramatically escalating the war against Iran should his latest push for diplomacy fail. While the military campaign has heavily focused on bombing the country so far, Pentagon officials preparing for a next phase of war have drawn up scenarios for deploying troops to seize various targets within Iran, according to more than half a dozen people familiar with the discussions. Yet not only would those scenarios risk heavy casualties, there’s also little guarantee they would successfully end the conflict. The internal game-planning has taken on growing importance as Trump plots the next stage of his Middle East campaign — and as economic and political pressure builds on him to find a decisive way to end the war. Yet even as he orders thousands more soldiers to the region, Trump has waffled on whether to further intensify the conflict, wary that a misstep now would turn the war into an increasingly bloody and prolonged endeavor. “They’re defeated, they can’t make a comeback,” Trump said of Iran during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday. “They now have a chance to make a deal. But that’s up to them.” Trump has made clear