The Trump administration and its domestic political allies are laying the groundwork for a possible confrontation with Iran without the explicit consent of Congress — a public relations campaign that was already well under way before top officials accused the Islamic Republic of attacking a pair of oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman.

Over the past few months, senior Trump aides have made the case in public and private that the administration already has the legal authority to take military action against Iran, citing a law nearly two decades old that was originally intended to authorize the war in Afghanistan.

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In the latest sign of escalating tensions, National Security Adviser John Bolton warned Iran in an interview conducted last week and published Monday, “They would be making a big mistake if they doubted the president’s resolve on this.” Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced on Monday evening that the U.S. was deploying an additional 1,000 troops to the region for “defensive purposes.” And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to Tampa, home of Central Command, on Monday evening to huddle with military officials to discuss “regional security concerns and ongoing operations,” according to a State Department spokeswoman.

The developments came as Iran announced it was on course to violate a core element of its nuclear deal with major world powers, exceeding the amount of enriched uranium allowed under the agreement in 10 days unless European nations intervened to blunt the economic pain of American sanctions. And they came as U.S. officials promoted video footage and images showing what they say were Iranian forces planting explosive devices on commercial oil tankers.

Yet even as the president’s hawkish advisers have highlighted Iran’s alleged bad behavior, administration officials privately stressed that direct military action remained highly unlikely absent an Iranian attack on an American ship or an American citizen. The president, who campaigned against getting the U.S. bogged down in unnecessary foreign wars, is considered the primary internal obstacle to a counterattack, officials said, noting that Trump continues to press for an improved nuclear deal.

Still, to the alarm of Democrats and some Republicans, Pompeo has suggested that if the administration does take military action, it might rely on the 2001 congressional bill that greenlighted America’s military response to the 9/11 attacks to strike Iran. Asked Sunday by CBS host Margaret Brennan whether the administration believed it had the authority to initiate military action, Pompeo would say only, “Every option we look at will be fully lawful.”

And Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a close ally of the administration, urged the president to attack Iran outright — adding that he didn’t need permission from Congress. “Unprovoked attacks on commercial shipping warrant a retaliatory military strike,” Cotton told Brennan. “The president has the authorization to act to defend American interests,” he said.

But in a sign of some unease among other Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told POLITICO that she expected to discuss the legitimacy of that justification — and of military retaliation itself — with her Senate colleagues this week.

Trump has sent conflicting messages about his own intentions — one day signaling his desire to negotiate with the clerical regime in Tehran, the next dismissing Iran as unready for serious talks. “While I very much appreciate P.M. Abe going to Iran to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” Trump tweeted last Thursday, “I personally feel that it is too soon to even think about making a deal. They are not ready, and neither are we!”

“The regime in Tehran is testing American patience with violence in the Gulf,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “The administration now has to weigh its options.”

In some of Pompeo’s recent pronouncements, many on the left, and a few on the right, see the Trump team paving a path to war.

In April, the State Department named the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization, a legal designation that some fear could be used to link the elite paramilitary force with al Qaeda. Later, Pompeo also said Iran had “instigated” a May 31 suicide attack on a U.S. convoy in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban claimed credit for the incident.

Pressed by CBS’s Brennan on Sunday, Pompeo reiterated the claim. “[W]e have confidence that Iran instigated this attack,” he said. “I can’t share any more of the intelligence. But I wouldn’t have said it if the intelligence community hadn’t become convinced that this was the case.”

The secretary of state’s efforts to link Iran and al Qaeda and to terrorism more broadly have become a flashpoint in multiple congressional hearings this spring — and they have taken on renewed significance given the growing possibility of a military confrontation between the two countries.

“It’s not surprising that you have a kind of revisitation of the AUMF because here you have what looks like the potential for a kind of real escalation,” said Dennis Ross, the veteran Middle East negotiator, referring to the 2001 bill that authorized military action against any national or individual involved in the 9/11 attacks.

“In the 2001 AUMF, there’s actually no real relationship to this,” Ross added. “It certainly didn’t name Iran and there comes a point where many in Congress want to have oversight over getting into a shooting war with Iran.”

As the president’s senior national security advisers huddled on Monday to consider how to respond to Iran, it was unclear how close the U.S. was inching to military action. Schanzer, for one, cast skepticism on an unattributed report in the Jerusalem Post on Monday that the U.S. had drawn up plans for a limited bombing campaign against an Iranian nuclear facility.

A senior administration official said Monday that the goal of the administration’s maximum pressure policy remains forcing the regime back to the table to negotiate a new and improved nuclear deal.

Iran has thus far been careful to avoid attacks on American vessels — an internal administration red line that would force a military response, this official said. Administration allies including FDD’s chief executive, Mark Dubowitz, said that while he expects U.S. sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to increase, it is less clear whether military action will result absent a direct attack against an American ship or an American citizen.

The president himself is caught between competing impulses: his disdain for the 2015 deal the Obama administration struck with Iran and his desire to strike a contrast, on the one hand, and his reluctance to get into another war in the Middle East on the other. He has long been more skittish than his hawkish advisers about ratcheting up tensions, but he sent a blunt warning to Iran’s leaders last month that “If they do anything it would be a very bad mistake.”

Last week, two lawmakers — Trump ally Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Democrat Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) — said that Pompeo had invoked the 2001 AUMF in a closed-door briefing with lawmakers about Iran, suggesting the administration could use it as a legal justification for war.

“We were absolutely presented with a full formal presentation on how the 2001 AUMF might authorize war on Iran,” Slotkin said. “Secretary Pompeo said it with his own words.”

Exiting an earlier closed-door briefing on May 21 by acting defense secretary Shanahan, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told reporters, “What I heard in there makes it clear that this administration feels that they do not have to come back and talk to Congress in regards to any action they do in Iran.”

The Trump administration’s case against Iran has rested in part on the argument that it has supported al Qaeda. Announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2017, for example, Trump said that the country “supports terrorist proxies and militias,” including al Qaeda.

“Iran’s connection to al Qaeda is very real,” Pompeo told lawmakers in April. “They have hosted al Qaeda, they have permitted al Qaeda to transit their country. There is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republican of Iran and al Qaeda. Period. Full stop.”

When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pushed Pompeo in that hearing to pledge that the administration would not rely on the 18-year old war authorization to attack Iran, the secretary demurred, saying that he would “prefer to leave that to the lawyers.”

“I can tell you explicitly you have not been given power or authority by Congress to have a war with Iran and in any kind of semblance of a sane world you would have to come back and ask us before you go into Iran,” Paul retorted.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who was the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF back in 2001, included an amendment repealing the provision in the defense appropriations bill currently being debated on the House floor. Her legislation would repeal the AUMF eight months after the appropriations bill becomes law, providing time, she has argued, for Congress to properly debate and vote on a replacement bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last month that the administration could not rely on the 2001 law to take military action in Iran, and more than 100 House Democrats followed up on her remarks by penning a letter to the president making a similar case.

“They cannot call the authorization, AUMF, the authorization for the use of military force that was passed in 2001, as any authorization to go forward in the Middle East now,” Pelosi said at a press conference in May.

Several Democratic presidential candidates have made similar comments. “If the administration wants to go to war against Iran, then the Constitution requires them to come to Congress to ask for an authorization for the use of military force,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), told The Intercept on Friday, calling it “Constitutional Law 101.”

In his campaign’s maiden foreign policy speech, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg argued for repealing and replacing the 2001 law in order to narrow its scope — an idea that has gained traction among some Democrats.

Some Republicans, however, say the administration could respond without getting a stamp of approval from Congress, drawing comparisons to the Reagan administration’s decision in 1987 to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attacks in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war. Because U.S. law prohibits the use of Navy ships to escort foreign vessels, the Kuwaiti ships flew American naval flags.

“Reagan ended up sinking about half the Iranian Navy,” said Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration. “Admittedly, it was a small navy, but they noticed.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to reporting.

Facebook’s impending move to offer a digital currency will create a new regulatory minefield for a company whose privacy practices have already provoked attacks from lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe.

The closely guarded yet much-discussed cryptocurrency initiative, code-named “Project Libra,” could become a major e-commerce tool for Facebook users across the social network’s suite of services, from Instagram to messaging. But as with other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, the new Facebook coin could become a tool for money launderers and terrorist financiers, a risk that has drawn the attention of lawmakers and regulators.

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The project is expected to be unveiled on Tuesday, where more details will be released.

A Facebook equivalent of Bitcoin could allow users to buy products from popular Instagram influencers more quickly and easily than with cash — while remaining within the company’s social media domain. And importantly for Facebook shareholders, the company could make money off a fee for every processed transaction.

“Facebook could use cryptocurrency as a payment mechanism to remove friction across its various services,” analysts at Merrill Lynch said in a June 14 report. “We see the launch as an important initiative for the company as it builds out a more private messaging ecosystem with e-commerce capabilities.”

The global coin is initially expected to be available in about 12 countries, including the U.S. and the U.K. Using the digital asset would not require a bank account, and its value would be tied to a group of established, state-backed currencies such as the dollar and the pound sterling, according to media reports. The operation would be based in Switzerland.

But with this big step into the tightly regulated world of finance, the company will expose itself to a type of regulatory intrusion that is not common in its traditional realm of online media. Chief among the concerns, according to experts, are the possibilities that Facebook’s global coin could be exposed to money laundering using the company’s main website and its sister platforms WhatsApp and Instagram.

“Facebook coin will do for money laundering what Facebook did for fake news — likely lead to an explosion in terrorist financing,” said Charlie Delingpole, CEO of Comply Advantage, an anti-money laundering consultancy.

Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney met Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to discuss these plans in April, according to the Guardian.

The following month, U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the top two members of the Senate Banking Committee, wrote to Zuckerberg to ask about how Facebook’s cryptocurrency system would work.

“What outreach has there been to financial regulators to ensure it meets all legal and regulatory requirements?” the senators asked in their May 9 letter. A spokeswoman for Crapo said the senator has not received a response from Facebook.

The Trump administration has viewed digital currencies warily.

Last month, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department is monitoring cryptocurrencies in its effort to shut off funds for illicit activities.

Earlier this year, another Treasury official said cryptocurrencies are tools — like cocaine and Rolls Royces — that criminals increasingly use to store value and are a “tremendously high” concern for U.S. national security and sanctions enforcement.

A congressional hearing in the House or Senate to demand answers from Facebook executives about how its cryptocurrency product would work is likely in the months ahead, said lawyers involved in the digital assets sector who declined to be named to speak freely about the company.

A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment.

In the European Union, which already has stringent regulations for payments companies, a new package of rules is taking effect next year, just as Facebook will need to build momentum for its coin product.

The Fifth European Anti-Money Laundering Directive, or AMLD5, kicks in on Jan. 10, bringing in stricter requirements on identifying the beneficiaries of transactions and collecting and sharing information, including for operators of digital assets and prepaid cards.

Fines for alleged AML misconduct have run into the tens of billions of dollars over the years for banks around the world.

“Certain regulators, some of whom have been fundamentally opposed to cryptocurrency and Bitcoin since Day One, will absolutely view [Facebook’s] global coin as a tool that could potentially be used for money laundering,” said Jay Zhou, chief marketing officer of Loopring, an open-source protocol for building decentralized exchanges. “It will be up to Facebook to prove them wrong.”

With a cryptocurrency product, Facebook will need to comply with the same money transmission laws that apply to banks and companies such as Western Union.

As part of its regulatory checklist, Facebook is likely to need a “BitLicense” from New York state, said Sarah Brennan, a partner at law firm Lippes Mathias in Buffalo, N.Y.

BitLicenses, awarded by the state Department of Financial Services, have been handed out to conventional cryptocurrency firms such as Circle Internet Financial and the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Trust Co. But any business that wants to do digital currency transmissions is likely to need New York’s permission.

Facebook has talked with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about its proposed digital currency, the Financial Times reported earlier this month. The company will also need to speak with the SEC if it wants its coin to be traded by people separately from the company’s platforms. The SEC would seek to regulate Facebook’s coin as a security if the product is designed to be transferred to third-party digital wallets, Brennan said.

An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.

Facebook will want its coin to be available widely, Brennan said. “It is a much more compelling product from a business perspective,” she said. “It looks like they are certainly planning that. You get nowhere if you are offering that as salary to your employees and they can’t redeem that for anything outside Facebook.”