The Pentagon is boosting military assets in the Middle East. The U.S. Navy has redirected the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, according to multiple reports.
The general suspicion is this is a prelude to another strike on Iran. President Donald Trump has suggested multiple times over the last few weeks that he is considering ordering another strike on the Persian nation. This time, his justification would be the Islamic regime’s brutal treatment of protesters.
Iranian authorities have been trying to quell nationwide unrest that started in December. Iranians citizens have been experiencing economic hardships due to rising costs. But the scope of legitimate protests has been hard to gauge. Iranian authorities have pulled the plug on the internet inside the country, and it’s almost a certainty that U.S.- and Israel-backed agitators are on the ground fomenting unrest.
American and Israeli officials have made it clear they want the current regime overthrown in Iran. Ironically, as we pointed out in a recent article, the current government Iranian government is in power because of U.S. intervention in 1979, when we helped overthrow the Shah.
More recently, Trump appears to have tabled the idea of military intervention. He said he learned that “the killing has stopped” inside Iran. Nevertheless, the White House has made clear that all options remain on the table.
Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar, have been urging the president not to strike Iran. Their argument is that it would cause economic issues and regional instability. The only regional ally egging the Trump administration to hit Iran is Israel.
For now, the United States is relying on a fresh set of sanctions to punish Iran.
But there’s no telling what will happen. Moving carrier strike groups into the area is usually a reliable tell that the War Department is preparing something war-like. And Trump has shown to be good at using the element of surprise. When the United States hit Iran last summer, it did so as negotiations were ongoing.
Advisors have told the president that “a large-scale strike against Iran was unlikely to make the government fall and could spark a wider conflict,” according to reports. The United States would need more assets in the region to protect U.S. forces, as well as Israel, from retaliation. Of course, if those forces weren’t there to began with, we wouldn’t need more assets to protect them.
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