By Robbie Gramer, Laurence Norman and Anat Peled

The U.S. intensified military preparations for a possible war with Iran as the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford approached the Middle East on Friday, a day after talks between American and Iranian negotiators failed to achieve a breakthrough on Tehran's nuclear and missile programs.

The Ford was sailing toward Israel, adding a second carrier to the armada of American naval and air power in the region. The U.S. has for the first time deployed high-end F-22 jet fighters to an air base in Israel for potential combat and moved aerial tankers to Israel's main commercial airport near Tel Aviv.

The U.S., meanwhile, is withdrawing nonessential personnel and diplomats' families from two of its embassies in the Middle East in preparation for possible retaliatory strikes by Tehran should war break out.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, sent an email to embassy staff Friday telling them there was no need to panic but if they wanted to leave Israel, they "should do so TODAY," according to a U.S. official. It follows orders for a partial evacuation of U.S. Embassy personnel in Lebanon on Feb. 23.

The timing of any military action against Iran remains unknown. Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to visit Israel on Monday to brief Israeli leaders on the Iran talks.

Other countries are taking precautions in case of a war. The U.K. said on Friday it had temporarily withdrawn embassy staff from Iran because of the security situation. Canada and China advised their citizens to leave Iran immediately. Foreign embassies in Israel have made contingency plans for Iranian strikes, according to local diplomats. Australia instructed the dependents of diplomats in Israel and Lebanon to leave and offered voluntary evacuations for diplomats' families in Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Senior Trump administration officials have said they are open to a diplomatic solution to avoid war with Tehran if it makes meaningful concessions to halt its nuclear program.

President Trump, who has threatened to take military action if a deal isn't reached, said Friday that the U.S. and Iran weren't close to an agreement. He reiterated his view that Tehran doesn't need to enrich uranium.

"They should make a deal, but they don't want to quite go far enough and it's too bad. Look, we've been playing with them for 47 years," Trump told reporters. "Every month there's something else. You can't put up with it too long. We're not happy with the negotiation."

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner led indirect negotiations with Iran in Geneva on Thursday that ended without any breakthroughs. The foreign minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi, said the talks had made progress. The minister visited Washington on Friday to meet with Vice President JD Vance, a U.S. official said.

Busaidi later told CBS that Iran was prepared to make important concessions to reach a deal.

Those included diluting its current stockpile of material, which includes 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, enough to fuel around a dozen nuclear weapons. More significantly, he said, Iran would agree not to stockpile any enriched uranium in the future under a deal. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was able to build a stockpile of 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium -- less than would be required to fuel a nuclear weapon.

"This is something completely new," he said. "If you cannot stockpile material that is enriched, then there is no way you can actually create a bomb."

He also said Iran might allow U.S. inspectors to accompany United Nations atomic-agency inspectors under a deal.

Israel and Senate Republicans have consistently called for a deal to stop Iran from enriching.

Iranian and U.S. officials are supposed to meet in Vienna starting Monday for detailed discussions on possible sanctions relief for Tehran if there is a deal -- and on the precise steps Iran could take under a deal to limit its nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a fresh meeting with U.S. negotiators could follow later in the week. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vance said on Thursday that any U.S. military action wouldn't lead to a drawn-out war. "The idea that we're going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight -- there is no chance that will happen," he told the Washington Post in an interview.

Trump told reporters on Friday that, if he decides to strike, a prolonged conflict was "always a risk."

The U.N.'s atomic agency on Friday expressed heightened concerns in its latest reports about Iran blocking its inspectors' access to several sites connected to Iran's nuclear activities.

The reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency, circulated to its member states and seen by The Wall Street Journal, come after U.S. officials have suggested Iran might be trying to reactivate its uranium-enrichment activities again, although they have provided no evidence of that.

Iran isn't thought to be currently enriching. Satellite imagery suggests that Iran has been hardening entrances to its nuclear sites in case of attack. Iran's main nuclear sites were heavily damaged in strikes by the U.S. and Israel during a short war last June.

The IAEA expressed particular concern about Iran's activities around a tunnel complex at its Isfahan nuclear site, where the agency said near weapons-grade enriched uranium has been stored. Any effort to move the uranium could heighten the crisis, sparking fears that Tehran was seeking to hide it. The IAEA said it has asked Iran for an inventory of material now at the site.

The agency has said it thinks Iran's fissile-material stockpiles remain at the sites that were hit by the U.S. and Israeli strikes last summer. The agency also expressed growing concern about a lack of information about and access to a different site in the Isfahan area where Iran previously said it planned to enrich uranium.

Write to Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com, Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 27, 2026 17:41 ET (22:41 GMT)

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