US to send 1,500 more troops to Mideast amid Iran tensions

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of about 1,500 additional US troops and military hardware to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran.
The troops will serve “mostly in a protective capacity,” Trump said as he departed the White House for Japan.
The president’s decision comes after his administration said it had evidence Iran is threatening possible attacks on American interests or allies in the region. The administration earlier expedited the deployment of a carrier battle group to the Middle East along with a Patriot missile battery and additional bombers.
“We’re going to be sending a relatively small number of troops to the Middle East,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens.”
The troops are meant to bolster forces already in the region working on missile defense, surveillance, and keeping shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf open, according to a Pentagon notice sent to congressional defense committees and obtained by Bloomberg. They’ll also provide engineering and fire support, the notice said.
It wasn’t immediately clear where in the region the troops would be sent, though the US has military bases in places including Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq.
While people familiar with the decision called the deployment “initial,” it falls far short of Trump’s statement that in the event of hostilities with Iran he would be willing to send many times more than 120,000 troops suggested in a New York Times report. The president has repeatedly signalled that he is open to talks with Iran’s leadership, though he’s suggested officials in Tehran need to reach out to him first.
The troop decision follows comments by Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that the Pentagon was focused on having “the right force protection” in the region.
“Our job is deterrence. This is not about war,” Shanahan told reporters. “We have a mission there in the Middle East: freedom of navigation, you know, counterterrorism in Syria and Iraq, you know, defeating al-Qaeda in Yemen, and then the security of Israel and Jordan.”
Iran has threatened to abandon the multi-nation nuclear deal of 2015 that remains in place despite Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement a year ago.
Iran is now threatening to resume enriching uranium beyond levels permitted in the 2015 accord as a way to push France, Germany, the UK and the European Union to do something to relieve the effects of US sanctions.
As the US and Iran have each made moves in recent weeks, questions have been raised about the escalating threats. Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committee, asked on CNN this month, “Who’s provoking who?”
“Are they reacting because they are concerned about what we’re doing, or are we reacting because we’re concerned what they’re doing?” asked King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. “And that raises my second concern, which is miscalculation.”