War plans revised amid Iran tensions
Secretary of State Pompeo crashes Brussels meeting of EU diplomats for Tehran talks
The United States has revised its war plans for the Middle East in the midst of rising tensions with old adversary Iran.
An updated plan, discussed at a meeting of top Trump Administration national security aides last Friday, includes sending as many as 120,000 troops to the region should Iran attack US forces or increase work on nuclear weapons, the New York Times reports.
It says the revisions were ordered by “hard-liners” led by national security adviser John Bolton, an anti-Iran hawk.It does not call for a land invasion of Iran.
The New York Times says it is “highly uncertain” whether US President Donald Trump, who has sought to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Syria, would send so many US forces back to the Middle East.
The 120,000 troops would approach the size of the US force that invaded Iraq in 2003. Such a force would give Tehran more targets to strike, and potentially more reason to do so, risking entangling the US in a drawn out conflict, the New York Times reports.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo crashed a meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday to push for a united transatlantic front against Tehran and its nuclear programme. But he failed to bend attitudes among leaders who fear the US and Iran are inching toward war.
Pompeo’s last-minute decision to visit the European Union capital, announced as he boarded a plane from the US, set up a confrontation between the top US diplomat and his European counterparts, who have been scrambling to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in the wake of the US withdrawal last year.
At least one, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, said he feared that
unintentional escalation from the US and Iran could spark a conflict — an unusually bold statement that appeared to assign equal culpability to Washington and Tehran.
The visit came on a day that the Saudi Foreign Ministry said two of its oil tankers and a Norwegian ship were damaged over the weekend near the Gulf, in what it claimed was an “act of sabotage.”
A statement from Thome Ship Management, the owners of the Norwegian-flagged vessel, said an “unknown object” had created a hole in the hull of one of its ships, the MT Andrea Victory. Photographs of the ship show a hole just above the waterline.
Neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates produced photographs to support claims that Saudi tankers had incurred “significant damage”. The incidents did not cause casualties or oil spills, according to a statement by Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih.
The countries stopped short of assigning blame, but the incidents occurred at the same time and in the same place off the coast of the UAE only days after the US dispatched warships and bombers to the area to deter alleged threats from Iran.
Navy Commander Rebecca Rebarich, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said that the Defence Department is providing assistance with the investigation, but she said she had “nothing additional to provide at this time.” Scott Truver, a Washington-based naval analyst, said his best assessment is that the ship was struck with some sort of a floating mine that explodes upon contact. They are typically about 45kg each and can be emplaced by rolling them off the side of a small-surface vessel or power boat.
“It can be done so surreptitiously,” said Truver, who has studied mines for decades. “They’re very insidious. Once they’re put in the water, they’re very hard to detect and hard to defeat.”
Asked about the damage to the ships, Trump seemed to implicate Iran. “It’s going to be a bad problem for Iran if something happens, I can tell you that,” he said. “They’re not going to be happy. They are not going to be happy people, okay?”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the shipping incidents as “alarming and regrettable” and said they would have a “negative effect” on shipping safety and maritime security, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency.
The Trump Administration has called for “maximum pressure” on Iran. The EU’s chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini, reached for a different extreme after meeting with Pompeo. “The most responsible attitude to take,” she said, “should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side.”