US military buildup in Middle East intensifies but to what end? | US foreign policy
As the US military buildup in the Middle East intensifies with the arrival of a second aircraft carrier strike group, Donald Trump said it will become clear within “probably 10 days” whether he will reach a nuclear deal with Iran.
Speaking at the opening meeting of the Peace Council in Washington DC, the US president emphasized that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and stressed that “bad things will happen” if the country continues to “threaten regional stability”.
Giving a possible timeline, Trump said: “Maybe we’ll make a deal, but you’ll probably find out in the next 10 days.”
White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Iranian officials in Geneva to discuss Iran’s nuclear enrichment program; The nuclear enrichment program was delayed but not eliminated following the bombing of the United States and Israel during the 12-day war last June.
Following the diplomatic meeting, Iran promised to respond within two weeks to US demands that it completely abandon enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief; this was roughly consistent with Trump’s discussed timeline.
But last summer, Trump gave himself two weeks to decide whether to bomb Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment facility at Fordow, and within days hit it with B-2 stealth bombers.
Experts say there is already a sufficient US military presence in the Middle East to launch an aerial bombardment campaign against Iran, potentially alongside Israel, but it is less clear what this would accomplish.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships in the strike group have been in the Arabian Sea for about a month with a squadron of nine aircraft, including F-35 Lightning IIs and F/A-18 Super Hornets.
A second carrier strike group, led by USS Gerald R Ford, was last confirmed to be in the Atlantic west of Morocco on Tuesday. The ship is expected to proceed through the Strait of Gibraltar towards the Eastern Mediterranean on a journey that will last several days.
Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, sailed from the Caribbean Sea last month, where the warship was involved in the capture of Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro from a fortified compound during a night raid.
Matthew Savill, director of military science at the Royal United Services Institute, said carrier strike groups together could carry out “several hundred strike sorties a day for several weeks, a greater intensity than during the 12-day war.”
Even without Ford, planes flying from Lincoln could carry out 125 or more bombing missions per day; This would allow the United States to begin attacking government and military facilities in Iran with airstrikes if Trump chooses to attack.
Aviation experts have tracked a massive movement of military aircraft towards the Middle East as the United States increases pressure on Iran. Six E-3 Sentry AwacsThe missiles, which are critical for real-time command and control operations, are deployed at the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, transported from the United States and Japan.
“But the question is: What is all this savings for?” said Savill. The massive deployment of air and sea assets suggests the U.S. military is giving Trump the option of launching a wide-ranging bombing campaign beyond an effort that might focus on Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and other senior figures.
Last month, Trump promised “help is on the way” to people protesting the Iranian regime, but the US military presence was limited at the time. Now that warships and warplanes were available and the protests were bloodily suppressed, the US leader began to focus on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Options include a new bombing campaign to counter the already broken weapons program. This could include targeting the Kazma Mountain complex near Natanz and Taleghan 2 in Parchin, two nuclear facilities not targeted in the 12-day war.
experts in november Institute for Science and International Security He concluded that Iran “does not have the ability to significantly enrich uranium or build a significant number of gas centrifuges” after the war.
However, the location and status of the 440 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium in Iran’s possession remains unclear. Theoretically, Iran has enough uranium to make 10 nuclear weapons if it can be enriched to over 90% and weaponized.
Israel is pressuring the United States to focus on Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is considered the country’s most powerful military threat. Iran is estimated to have approximately 2,000 ballistic missiles in its stockpile and up to 25 launch bases across the country; six of these were not attacked by Israel in June.
Iran lacks capable air defenses, which were easily suppressed by the Israeli army in the short summer war; This means that Iran’s best available form of defense would be to counterattack. On Tuesday, Khamenei threatened to send US warships “to the bottom of the sea”.
It is difficult to completely knock down a barrage of ballistic missiles, even with the advanced air defense systems used by the United States and Israel, and there were signs that Iran had increased its accuracy in the summer conflict.
According to the Jewish National Security Institute of America, only 8% of Iranian missiles were passing through at the start of the 12-day war, but on June 22, two days before the end of the war, 10 of 27 missiles hit Israel.
The United States is increasing its air defenses in the region in case Iran responds by attacking Israel, other allies in the Middle East or its own regional bases.
Satellite images show the deployment of a Patriot air defense system at Al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the regional headquarters of US Central Command. US destroyers near Cyprus can target ballistic missiles heading towards Israel.
The UK had already indicated to the US that it would not allow air bases such as RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire or Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to be used by B-2 bombers; but he and other western countries may step in to defend their allies in the Middle East.
Last month the RAF’s 12 Squadron redeployed to Qatar; Typhoon jets are ready to operate in self-defense in the event of an attack on the Gulf country.
