At a meeting of President Donald Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack US forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.The revisions were ordered by hard-liners led by John Bolton, Mr Trump’s national security adviser. It does not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require vastly more troops, officials said.The development reflects the influence of Mr Bolton, one of the administration’s most virulent Iran hawks, whose push for confrontation with Tehran was ignored more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush.It is highly uncertain whether Mr Trump, who has sought to disentangle the United States from Afghanistan and Syria, ultimately would send so many US forces back to the Middle East.It is also unclear whether the president has been briefed on the number of troops or other details in the plans. On Monday, asked if he was seeking regime change in Iran, Mr Trump said: “We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake.”[[gallery-0]] There are sharp divisions in the administration over how to respond to Iran at a time when tensions are rising about Iran’s nuclear policy and its intentions in the Middle East.Some senior US officials said the plans, even at a very preliminary stage, show how dangerous the threat from Iran has become. Others, who are urging a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions, said it amounts to a scare tactic to warn Iran against new aggressions.European allies who met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said that they worry that tensions between Washington and Tehran could boil over, possibly inadvertently.More than a half-dozen US national security officials who have been briefed on details of the updated plans agreed to discuss them with The New York Times on the condition of anonymity. Spokesmen for M
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