Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, President Donald Trump’s top military adviser, has been building possible strike options for weeks and briefed Trump several times ahead of today’s strikes.
Those options have included everything from a quick bombings aimed at a select group of nuclear sites to massive air campaigns hoping to force regime change and obliteration of the Iranian military.
However, Caine has voiced a high degree of uncertainty about the consequences of those options. As recently as last week, when Caine was part of a White House Situation Room briefing that went three times longer than scheduled, Caine was unable to predict what the result of a regime change operation would be, sources said. Caine had seemed more confident several months ago about the success of such a mission in Venezuela, whose leader was captured by the US military in a swift and decisive operation in January.
In separate Pentagon meetings, Caine has been vocal about the potential downsides of launching a major military operation targeting Iran, raising concerns about the scale, complexity and potential for US casualties of such a mission, CNN previously reported.
Caine, however has been carefully managing his relationship with Trump and how much advice and guidance he offers the president while trying to retain his influence.