The US is deploying a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East in response to troubling “indications and warnings” from Iran and to show the United States will retaliate with “unrelenting force” to any attack, agencies have reported.
With tensions already high between US and Iran, a US official said the deployment has been ordered “as a deterrence to what has been seen as potential preparations by Iranian forces and its proxies that may indicate possible attacks on US forces in the region.” However, the official said the United States was not expecting any imminent Iranian attack.
The national security advisor John Bolton said the US action was in response to a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran. However, it was unclear what Iranian actions Bolton was referring to.
“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or regular Iranian forces,” Bolton said in a statement.
The Guardian reported that the tone of Bolton’s declaration looked likely to escalate tensions in the region, and “it comes days after the Iranian government expressed concern that Bolton and other hawks were seeking to draw the Trump administration into a new war.”
In a written statement, Bolton said the ships and planes were intended “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from Washington, DC, said the move was an “unusual one” especially because of the statement by Bolton. “There are more questions than answers in that short statement,” he said.
“It’s not unusual for aircraft carriers to be deployed to the Middle East to be a deterrent to Iran. But what makes this different is Bolton putting out a statement specifying Iran. It’s almost a provocation.
“That’s unusual for the US to do that when they deploy big military assets like these.”
Washington has said it will stop waivers for countries buying Iranian oil, in an attempt to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero. It has also blacklisted Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.