The United States, which currently has about 70,000 troops across the Middle East, is dispatching 1,500 additional troops and a dozen fighter jets to the region in the coming weeks to counter “an escalating campaign by Iran to plan attacks against the US and its interests there”.
US President Donald Trump gave this information to reporters even as he cleared the sale of $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, saying there is a national emergency because of tensions with Iran.
Before leaving for Japan, Trump said that ‘small’ deployments would include a squadron of 12 fighter jets, manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft, and a number of military engineers to beef up protection for forces.
“We are going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective,” the president said. “Some very talented people are going to the Middle East right now and we’ll see what happens.”
Now talking tough, now sending a more conciliatory message, Trump has been insisting he is open to negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
On Friday he seemed to downplay the prospect of conflict when he spoke at the White House. “Right now, I don’t think Iran wants to fight and I certainly don’t think they want to fight with us,” he said prompting a senior Iranian military commander to state that he hoped that “rational Americans” would rein in Washington’s “radical elements” and prevent a war.
Trump swept aside objections from Congress and used an emergency legal loophole to move ahead with the sale of $8bn in precision-guided munitions and other military support to Saudi Arabia, citing threats the kingdom faces from Iran.
The Trump administration informed congressional committees on Friday that it will go ahead with 22 military sales to the Saudis, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, infuriating lawmakers by circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of such sales.
The wide range of products and services that would be provided to the three countries include Raytheon precision-guided munitions (PGMs), support for Boeing Co F-15 aircraft, and Javelin anti-tank missiles, which are made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin Corp, all the defence equipment that members of Congress had been blocking.
The law requires Congress to be notified of potential arms sales, giving the body the opportunity to block the sale. But the law also allows the President to waive that review process by declaring an emergency that requires the sale be made “in the national security interests of the United States.”
US lawmakers had blocked about $2 billion in arms sales to the kingdom for more than a year. Last month, Trump vetoed legislation that would have ended US military assistance for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
For arms sales to Saudi Arabia, President Ronald Reagan had also used the emergency exemption in the 1980s and both Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush used it for sales before the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq war.