Dark clouds loom over Iran as Tehran braces for the last round of talks with the US in Geneva on Thursday. While this could be Iran’s ‘last-ditch’ effort to avert a war, reports hint that Tehran is operating under the notion that US military strikes are “inevitable and imminent”.
While the negotiating teams led by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and special envoy Steve Witkoff, as well as US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, meet in Geneva, the chances of an agreement remain unclear. Iran has expressed willingness to reduce uranium enrichment as part of a draft nuclear proposal, but refuses to transfer its enriched stockpile abroad.
Meanwhile, the US military build-up in the region shows no signs of abating, as more F-16s have arrived at the US base at Diego Garcia to protect the outpost against Iranian retaliation. Over the past 24 hours, transport planes, refuelling planes, and a passenger plane have also arrived at the same base in the south.
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Satellite imagery from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean reveals the buildup of aircraft at the base, including cargo and refuelling support aircraft, as well as the F-16CM fighters that have been deployed there from Misawa Air Base in Japan. This is important to avoid Iranian long-range attack drones and missiles.
Over the past 24 hours, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) has stated that there have been several movements of American Naval forces, including the destroyer "Michael Murphy", which is part of the strike group of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. Besides Murphy, the destroyer "John Finn" has arrived in the area of operations in the Arabian Sea and joined the vessels of that strike group. Destroyers "Santa Barbara" and "Tulsa" left the Persian Gulf and are now in the northern Arabian Sea, and the "Delbert Black", which has been anchored in Eilat in recent weeks, left the Red Sea and also arrived in the northern Arabian Sea.
Iranian preparation
According to a report by the New York Times, Iranian officials are operating on the assumption that U.S. military strikes are “inevitable and imminent,” and are working to ensure the system survives whatever might be coming, even if its leadership doesn’t.
It also quotes analysts who say that the current Iranian leadership views giving in to the US demands to drop the nuclear programme as riskier than going to war. This would “encourage the US to go for the jugular”. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sees uranium enrichment as “a pillar of the regime itself.” Naturally, Iranians see the war as “almost inevitable”.
There are also reports that Iran has ramped up loading oil onto tankers at its main export terminal, which is seen as a bid to secure crude before any potential disruption to exports. Shipments from Iran’s Kharg Island terminal surged to about 20.1 million barrels over February 15–20, nearly triple the volume handled in the same period a month earlier and equivalent to more than 3 million barrels a day, Bloomberg reported.
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