U.S.: CARRIER MOVE MEANT TO EASE TENSIONS WITH IRAN
A day after the Pentagon abruptly ordered the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, U.S. officials defended the move, calling it a “de-escalatory” signal to Tehran.
The decision by acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller marked a reversal of a weekslong muscleflexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking U.S. troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf and was meant to avoid stumbling into a crisis in President Donald Trump’s waning days in office, Pentagon officials said.
U.S. intelligence reports indicate that Iran and its proxies may be preparing a strike as early as this weekend to avenge the death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard.
Senior Pentagon officials said Miller assessed that dispatching the Nimitz now, before the anniversary this Sunday of Soleimani’s death in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, could remove what Iranian hard-liners see as a provocation that justifies their threats against U.S. military targets. Some analysts said the return of the Nimitz to its home port of Bremerton, Wash., was a welcome reduction in tensions between the two countries.
Miller’s order overruled a request from Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of American forces in the Middle East, to extend the deployment of the Nimitz and keep its formidable wing of attack aircraft at the ready.
In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran on Twitter, and in November top national security aides talked the president out of a preemptive strike against an Iranian nuclear site. It is unclear whether Trump was aware of Miller’s order to send the Nimitz home.
The Navy had sought to limit more extensions to the carrier’s already lengthy deployment, but commanders believed the warship would stay at least another several days to help counter what military intelligence analysts considered a growing threat.
Pentagon officials said they had sent additional land-based fighter and attack jets, as well as refueling planes, to Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries to offset the loss of the Nimitz’s firepower.
On Friday, the top commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said his country was fully prepared to respond to any U.S. military pressure amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.
“Today, we have no problem, concern or apprehension toward encountering any powers,” Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said at a ceremony at Tehran University commemorating the anniversary of Soleimani’s death.
Also on Friday, Tehran notified international inspectors that it was about to begin producing uranium at a significantly higher level of enrichment at Fordo, a plant that is deep under a mountain and thus harder to attack.