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President Trump is weighing perhaps one of the most consequential decisions yet of his presidency: direct U.S. involvement in a Middle East war.

The president on Tuesday signaled he is considering joining Israel in bombing Iran to deal a permanent blow to its nuclear program.

It marks a major shift for the president, who only days ago insisted the U.S. would not join Israel in its attacks on Tehran.

Following a Situation Room meeting and conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump is considering strikes among a range of other options, hours after he publicly pressed Iran to accept his terms for a nuclear deal.

Israeli officials said Tuesday that Israel will achieve its objectives against Iran within a week or two, and continued to pound Tehran with airstrikes overnight. Iran, meanwhile, is preparing missiles for a potential counterattack on U.S. bases in the region.

The road ahead is complicated, The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, not least because there are stark differences within Trump’s base over the merits of getting involved in foreign conflicts in Iran or anywhere else.

The end goal of U.S. strikes is also unclear: Would the White House limit itself to striking Iran’s nuclear site — or seek to provoke a wide-ranging regime change by targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Tuesday, Trump called for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and raised the possibility of U.S. strikes against Khamenei.

“He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote on social media.

The New York Times: How Trump shifted on Iran under pressure from Israel.

As the U.S. military positions itself to potentially join Israel’s assault, perhaps the biggest question facing Trump is whether the U.S. will drop bunker buster bombs, known as GBU-57, on Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, a move Iran hawks say is necessary to eliminate Tehran’s nuclear threat.

Israel does not possess such a bomb, The Hill’s Laura Kelly reports, believed to be the only armament capable of destroying the highly protected nuclear plant buried deep in an Iranian mountain, nor the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber to drop it from. Trump has publicly urged Iran to accept his terms for a nuclear deal, but Netanyahu has shown no interest in negotiating after launching Israel’s largest military operation ever against the regional rival.

That has former and current Israeli officials pressing the U.S. to enter the conflict. Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told CNN on Monday that Trump has “the option to change the Middle East and influence the world.”

Civilians in both countries are reeling from repeated missile barrages. In Israel, people have taken shelter in stairwells and bomb shelters, and are coping with Tehran’s ability to penetrate the country’s sophisticated defense shield. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem remains closed until Friday. Many Iranians reacted with fear and dismay at Trump's instruction to “immediately evacuate Tehran.”

▪ The New York Times: The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said it had information suggesting that two centrifuge production facilities in Iran had been hit.

▪ The Hill: Trump supporters are divided over the possible use of the “bunker buster” in Iran.

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© The Hill