Update 6/12/2025: Israel began preemptive strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities Thursday night.

Ahead of a sixth round of nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran scheduled for Sunday, the Islamist regime threatened to attack American military bases in the Middle East if Washington takes military action against Tehran’s nuclear program. The threat comes as the U.S. began evacuating embassy personnel from the region in the event of an Israeli strike on Iran.

On Wednesday, Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh declared that if failed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program result in conflict with the U.S., “all U.S. bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries.”

In the backdrop of these comments, tensions continued to escalate between Iran and America, which has backed Israel in its position that the Islamist regime cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons for fear they will be used against the Jewish state. Iran has previously vowed multiple times to destroy Israel. On Thursday, President Trump stated that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel “could happen.” “I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” the president said. “Look, it’s very simple, not complicated. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Last week, reports emerged that Tehran has likely amassed enough enriched uranium to produce approximately 10 nuclear warheads.

Meanwhile, the U.S. ordered a partial evacuation of non-emergency government personnel from its embassy in Iraq. Other embassies near Iran have also “been ordered to hold emergency action committees and report back to DC on their risk-mitigation plans,” according to Fox News. U.S. troops in the region have reportedly not been ordered to leave, however.

Lawmakers like Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) say that Iran remains single-minded in its mission to achieve a nuclear weapon regardless of its gestures to engage in talks aimed at deescalating its nuclear program.

“[W]e should not be surprised by Iran’s posture and … the stage of where the talks are at this point,” he asserted during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Wednesday. “What they’re doing is they’re just playing for time, as they always do. … They have absolutely no intention of changing course. And unfortunately, much of the world has characterized, including the United States, their nuclear program as something other than a weapons program. It is specifically and only a weapons program. … I would say the Iranians have no intention whatsoever of walking back from their nuclear ambitions, and it’s going to take something more than talk to get them there.”

Perry, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Select Subcommittee on Intelligence, further emphasized that Iran’s leadership cannot be trusted due to their strict adherence to ideological Islamist extremism. “You can’t trust them because their doctrine requires that they lie to advance the cause of Allah. … There’s no reason for them to enrich for what they can buy on the open market. And the only reason they want to continue to do it is to continue with their weapons program under the guise of a civilian program.”

Perry went on to postulate that while Iran’s military capabilities should be taken seriously, they do not pose as big a threat to U.S. bases as their rhetoric suggests.

“[T]hey have been diminished more so than ever during the six months of the Trump administration, more so than they have been over the last five years,” he noted. “[T]heir proxies have been decimated. They have lost ground in Yemen, in Syria, and, of course, with Israel. So they are at [their] most enfeebled state, probably in the last 20 years militarily. … [I]f there is a strike to bring them into line with national norms and to avert the possibility of a terrorist nuclear attack, that’s going to also, at the same time, decimate their ability to deliver any conventional attack of any size on American interests or on Israeli interests. I think they know that, and I’m sure that’s part of the calculation for any preemptive strike that might be being considered right now.”

Perry further observed that Tehran’s Islamist regime has become shaky on a number of levels.

“The regime is teetering,” he contended. “[T]hey’re at their weakest point in decades now, not only militarily, certainly economically, but also as a governing body. The Iranian people, many of them, [are] seeking their freedom and don’t want to live under this oppressive theocratic dogma. … Look, there have been plenty of sparks … whether it was the Biden administration or the Obama administration just disregarded the will of the Iranian people to throw off the shackles of tyranny. But that spark still exists there. … [T]he Iranian regime is really gambling with their future by walking into this space.”

Perry concluded by urging President Trump to tread lightly while carrying a big stick in dealing with Iran. “President Trump right now needs caution [and] resolve and patience, but he should push this to the maximum limit. Maximum pressure will either get the Iranians to back down or will likely end up in regime change.”