Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis said Thursday he sees a 2 in 3 chance President Trump strikes Iran.
“I think it’s a close call for the president,” Stavridis told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “The Situation Room,” in an interview highlighted by Mediaite. “At this point, Pamela, I would say there’s a 2 in 3 chance he will go ahead and strike.”
“I think there’s a 1 in 3 chance he’ll give it a bit more time and see how diplomacy plays out. You can make a case on either side of that decision,” he added.
President Trump and his administration have mulled the possibility of stepping into the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, which kicked off a week ago. The president has hinted multiple times in the last week at possible U.S. participation.
The president is expected to come to a conclusion on whether to go ahead with direct action against Iran within two weeks, the president said Thursday in a message given by a spokesperson.
“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiation that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go in the next two weeks,” Trump said in a statement read aloud by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Thursday polling from The Washington Post found that nearly half of Americans, 45 percent, said they would not back U.S. intervention in Iran.
The two Middle Eastern countries have traded tit-for-tat strikes for several days, which also prompted the collapse of nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
The Trump administration began talks with Iran in April, holding five rounds of negotiations throughout the spring.
This conflict also broke out amid already heightened tensions in the region over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, which started in late 2023.
