🔮 Where are the B-2s Going?
Is Yemen a Warmup for Iran?
The “Signal scandal,” Trump officials talking Yemen war plans on a consumer chat app, is fading into the backdrop.
The market thinks it’s unlikely that either Mike Waltz (who added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the group) or Pete Hegseth (who dropped military info in the chat) will lose their jobs soon.
While both seem safe for now, the scandal has catapulted Waltz and Hegseth to most likely to exit the Trump administration this year.
Waltz is in hotter water compared to Hegseth. Why?
Trump has been calling the scandal a “witch hunt,” yet reports have surfaced that behind the scenes, Trump is more concerned that Waltz had a critical journalist’s contact info than the security breach.
What are the B-2s Doing?
Nuño Sempere of the Sentinel risk forecasting project has warned that the US may be preparing for a strike on Iran. Here’s where the situation stands:
Why The US Might Bomb Iran Soon
B-2 Buildup. The US now has at least three B-2s stationed at Diego Garcia. We now know, thanks to the Hegseth texts, that F-18s were used to strike the Houthis in Yemen. If the US can strike Yemen with cheaper, non-stealthy aircraft, why do they need so many B-2s in the neighborhood?
Bunker Busters. B-2s are stealth aircraft optimized for delivering big bombs into contested airspace. They are the only plane that can carry the 30,000 lb bunker busters that would likely be used against Iran’s nuclear sites. With Israeli ground troops re-entering Gaza and Hezbollah largely wiped out in Lebanon, it’s unlikely these are targets. Iraq and Syria are relatively quiet. So the only obvious target left for B-2s in the region is Iran.
Israel. Reports suggest that Biden was restraining Israeli actions against Iran. It’s possible that Trump is less inclined to restrict an Israeli first-strike and is positioning assets to back Israel if they do so.
Chatter. From Israeli hawks, to Lindsey Graham cheering on a strike, to Ron Paul warning against hitting Iran, there has been more chatter on all sides of the issue in recent days.
Updated Intel Assessment. In a “posture assessment” released yesterday, Stratcom warned that Iran’s nuclear breakout time may now be under one week.
Trump Deadline. On March 19, Axios reported that Trump, in a letter to Ali Khamenei, gave Iran a two-month deadline to negotiate a nuclear deal, and his later comments have included military threats. Trump gave little public warning of his strikes against the Houthis, so a surprise Iran strike could be part of a pattern of Trump’s less restrained second term vibe.
Why The US Might Not Bomb Iran Soon
Groundhog Day. B-2s make great props. The above tweet from 2024 illustrates how presidents love to use the planes to say American means business. Showing off the assets doesn’t necessarily mean they’re about to be used, and making military threats to Iran over its nuclear program is a tradition dating back to the George W. Bush years.
Yemen Flex? Competitive forecaster Ben Shindel, in DMs with The Oracle, suspects that the B-2s could also be a show of force to Yemen’s Houthis, even if they are operationally unnecessary.
Exit the Ayatollah? Shindel also noted the elevated odds for the 85-year old Khamenei to be out as Supreme Leader of Iran this year, and thinks the pressure “could be an attempt at influencing a successor that is more open to the West.”
The Tulsi Factor. Iran hawks have been hitting Tulsi Gabbard for her recent Senate testimony that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” and her recent DNI assessment (PDF) also contained less alarmist language than the Stratcom report.
What Markets Say
Trump’s letter to Khamenei reported March 15 looks to have increased the odds of a nuclear deal to 🔮 27% in 2025. So far, there are no reports of direct US-Iran negotiations, but this morning an advisor to Iran’s supreme leader stated Tehran is open to “indirect talks.”
Also on Polymarket, there is a 4% chance for a US strike in the remaining Days of March, but a better barometer for US-Iran tensions is probably the “Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz in 2025” market.
War analysts believe that choking off the oil coming through this waterway would be the most likely Iranian response to an attack by the West. This market has been on a steady uptrend since Trump took office.
So we are left with a paradox: odds for a deal are rising, but so are odds of war. The market thinks the situation is coming to a head.
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Excellent post, thank you!
Axios reported yesterday that, "In recent days, the U.S. military sent several B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean in a deployment a U.S. official said was 'not disconnected' from Trump's two-month deadline."
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/27/iran-us-nuclear-talks-trump-letter
For this reason, the reasons discussed in the article, and other reasons, it seems pretty clear to me that the primary purpose of the B-2 buildup in Diego Garcia and the orders to deploy the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to the Middle East is to counter Iran, rather than the Houthis. And the main focus of any military operation against Iran would be Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Whether any military operation will proceed against Iran is another question, of course. Trump's letter to Ayatollah Khomeini purportedly gives the country two months to complete a nuclear deal, but how much wiggle room will there be? Does the Trump administration plan to attack Iranian sites no matter what, and are they setting the bar unrealistically high for Iran so that they can have an excuse to bomb the country? Will they be able to achieve some agreement that allows Iranian leaders to save face? Or will their terms be too humiliating for Iranian politicians to accept? Given the personalities and political pressures involved on both sides, I think it's a bit more likely than not that the situation will not be resolved peacefully.
The market for "US-Iran nuclear deal in 2025?" is currently at 28%. This means that the market thinks it's likely that either the two-month deadline Trump gave to Iran for completing a nuclear deal is not a real deadline (perhaps starting negotiations would be acceptable), Trump's threat of military action is a bluff, or the US will attack Iran. I do think it's possible that the threat of military action could be ended if Iran starts some form of negotiations that are acceptable to the Trump administration, and Iran could drag those out ad infinitum if given the chance. However, I don't think the threat of attack is a bluff. If the market for "Will Iran close the Strait of Hormuz in 2025" is any indication, it seems likely that the market would think there's roughly a 25%-40% chance that the US will launch a serious attack on Iran. And then I'd guess that the market would think there's an approximately 30%-45% chance (maybe up to 70%, as the Polymarket question goes through the end of 2025) that the US will back off the upcoming deadline, probably as long as some kind of talks are in progress. It's just not clear to me how we can get from the current situation to talks under conditions that are acceptable to both governments and allow Iranian politicians to save face.
It would be close to impossible to complete a nuclear agreement in the two months the Trump administration is giving Iran. So it's not completely clear to me what the Trump administration really has in mind and what's going to happen. But I give it a 60% chance (and posted that near the end of my twitter thread two days ago) that we will see the US attack Iran before the end of April.
Just wrote an in depth analysis on the recent US military buildup in Diego Garcia. Check it out! 👇🏻
https://open.substack.com/pub/opedd/p/muscle-memory-is-trump-about-to-light?r=jw7u4&utm_medium=ios