The weird thing here is that buying the shares themselves to exploit the potential for the short squeeze, in itself makes a short squeeze more likely, no?

But yeah, it's possible if you have that intent in your mind, somehow it makes it illegal, the laws don't always make sense and I'm not an expert here.

I am pretty confident that large traders do this all the time though, have the intent to cause a short squeeze. But I wouldn't be shocked if there's something illegal that traders do all the time anyway (without advertising it on the internet!).