“President Trump is at a make-or-break moment with Iran,” Politico reports.

“Tehran said Monday it will soon take steps that likely violate the 2015 nuclear deal Trump himself abandoned, an announcement that came just days after the U.S. accused the Islamist-led country of sabotaging international oil tankers. The Pentagon announced Monday that it is sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East for ‘defensive purposes.’ In Europe, meanwhile, leaders are starting to acknowledge that they may have to walk away from the nuclear agreement or devise a new one.

“The confluence of events will test Trump’s weak appetite for military action, his ability to rally allies he has frequently snubbed and his seriousness about actually striking the better deal with the Iranians that he once promised. Along the way, Trump must win over officials well-aware of his history of misstatements and uneasy about relying on U.S. intelligence when a potential new Middle East war could result.”

Associated Press: “Iran will break the uranium stockpile limit set by Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in the next 10 days, the spokesman for the country’s atomic agency said Monday while also warning that Iran could enrich uranium up to 20% — just a step away from weapons-grade levels.”

“The deal steadily has unraveled since the Trump administration pulled America out of the accord last year and re-imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, deeply cutting into its sale of crude oil abroad and sending its economy into freefall. Europe so far has been unable to offer Iran a way around the U.S. sanctions.”

“Iran’s foreign minister warned the U.S. on Monday that it ‘cannot expect to stay safe’ after launching what he described as an economic war against Tehran, taking a hard-line stance amid a visit by Germany’s top diplomat seeking to defuse tensions,” the AP reports.

Wall Street Journal: “The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said he may recommend a return to a larger U.S. military presence in the area after concluding that the deployment of this aircraft carrier and other capabilities helped curtail Iranian threats.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports Qatar’s foreign minister warned Iran and the U.S. are locked in “stalemate” and both parties need to compromise to avoid a “miscalculation” triggering a conflict.

“President Trump and his aides have sent a dizzying, seemingly conflicting set of messages to Iran in recent weeks, ordering more troops to the Middle East and a carrier to the Arabian Sea as military threats even while declaring that Washington is seeking new negotiations, not war,” the New York Times reports.

“Yet it appears Mr. Trump wants to play the role of neither conqueror nor courtier, walking a fine line between military threats and diplomatic outreach but committing to neither. At various points, he has warned that there is ‘always a chance’ of conflict with Iran while urging negotiations — with no visible plan to make them happen.”

Key takeaway: “As with so much about Mr. Trump, his diplomatic overtures to Iran amount to little more than performance.”

“The top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East says he believes the Iranians or their proxies may orchestrate an attack at any moment,” NBC News reports.

Said Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie: “I think the threat is imminent. We continually evaluate our force posture in the region.”

Iran’s top diplomat told ABC News his country will not be intimidated by President Trump’s “art of the deal pressure” by using economic sanctions to push Iran to negotiate a new nuclear deal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif also said that “there will be consequences” if the United States keeps up its economic pressure campaign against Iran’s people.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told CNN that his country won’t negotiate with President Trump unless the U.S. shows Tehran “respect” by honoring its commitments under the disputed nuclear deal.

“The intelligence that caused the White House to escalate its warnings about a threat from Iran came from photographs of missiles on small boats in the Persian Gulf that were put on board by Iranian paramilitary forces,” the New York Times reports.

“Overhead imagery showed fully assembled missiles, stoking fears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps would fire them at United States naval ships. Additional pieces of intelligence picked up threats against commercial shipping and potential attacks by Arab militias with Iran ties on American troops in Iraq.”

President Trump dismissed last night’s New York Times story on the administration’s internal debate over sending 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter Iran as “fake news,” Politico reports.

But, he added: “Would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we won’t have to plan for that. If we did that we would send a hell of a lot more troops than that.”

“At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons,” the New York Times reports.

“The revisions were ordered by hard-liners led by John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. It does not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require vastly more troops.”

“The development reflects the influence of Mr. Bolton, one of the administration’s most virulent Iran hawks, whose push for confrontation with Tehran was ignored more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush.”

“The U.S. is deploying a carrier strike group and a number of bombers to the Middle East to serve as a deterrent to Iran based on new intelligence that suggests allied interests and American forces could be imperiled,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

In a closed-door meeting with Iranian-American community leaders last Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is “not going to do a military exercise inside Iran” to expedite a regime change, Axios reports.

“Pompeo also sought to distance the Trump administration from a controversial Iranian resistance group that has welcomed John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani as speakers in a private capacity.”

President Trump designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a “foreign terrorist organization” as part of an effort to increase international pressure on the country, the AP reports.

“It’s an unprecedented move because the U.S. has never before used the designation for an entire foreign government entity.”

Washington Post: “The designation of the Revolutionary Guards Corps marks the first time Washington has branded a foreign military a terrorist group. While the designation will have little immediate impact, it runs counter to warnings from U.S. military and intelligence officials that other nations could use the designation as a precedent against U.S. action abroad.”

“The Trump White House has accelerated a secret American program to sabotage Iran’s missiles and rockets, according to current and former administration officials, who described it as part of an expanding campaign by the United States to undercut Tehran’s military and isolate its economy,” the New York Times reports.

“Officials said it was impossible to measure precisely the success of the classified program, which has never been publicly acknowledged. But in the past month alone, two Iranian attempts to launch satellites have failed within minutes.”