WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is assembling what it described as the largest U.S. force of warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, adding aircraft carrier strike groups as President Donald Trump warns of possible military action against Iran if negotiations over its nuclear program fall apart.
In the weeks leading up to the buildup, the White House and defense officials have put pressure on Tehran in both the diplomatic track and the prospect of force. Trump has said, “It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal,” adding that “Otherwise bad things happen,” in remarks cited by the AP.
The AP reports that the Navy is expanding its carrier presence after at-sea deployments shifted from the South China Sea. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three guided-missile destroyers have been in the Arabian Sea since the end of January, and a strike group that brought about 5,700 additional service members to the region is described as bolstering a smaller force that included a few destroyers and three littoral combat ships already operating there.
Two weeks later, Trump ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford, described as the world’s largest aircraft carrier, along with three destroyers and more than 5,000 additional service members to head to the region. The AP says those moves would raise the Navy’s presence to at least 16 ships, dwarfing an 11-ship fleet that had been stationed in the Caribbean Sea until the Ford’s departure.
The expanded posture also includes additional air power arriving through the region and European bases, according to AP reporting based on flight-tracking. The AP says Military Air Tracking Alliance analysts observed “more than 100” fighter jets—spotted heading toward the Middle East—including F-35s, F-22s, F-15s and F-16s. The same tracking group also reported seeing more than 100 fuel tankers and more than 200 cargo planes heading into the region and toward bases in Europe in mid-February.
AP reporting also cites U.S. official information offered on anonymity for details on sensitive movements, saying 12 F-22 stealth fighter jets were moved to a base in Israel. In addition, satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the AP of Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan showed more than 50 aircraft, nearly all described as likely linked to the U.S. buildup, with the AP noting that there could be more aircraft in hangars.
Analysts said the overall force mix is meant to handle retaliation as well as any initial strikes. Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, warned that it would be “very hard for the Trump administration to do a one-and-done kind of attack in Iran this time around,” explaining that “Because the Iranians would respond in a way that would make all-out conflict inevitable.”
Other defense analysts described the posture as substantial while not involving a major ground deployment. Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said it is important to note the U.S. is not deploying a major ground force, and Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution said the current military buildup is technically the region’s largest since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, even though past wars involved far larger resources. O’Hanlon also said the forces now in place are designed both for attacking targets in Iran and for defending against retaliation, pointing out that the U.S. could use long-range B-2 bombers if it intended only to strike what remained of Iran’s nuclear program after a June attack.
The AP’s reporting connects the present buildup to last year’s pattern of air defense preparation and missile activity. The AP says that activity is similar to last year when U.S. officials moved air defense hardware such as a Patriot missile system ahead of what analysts expected to be an Iranian counterattack after June bombings of three nuclear sites, after which Iran launched more than a dozen missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar days later.
Vaez said Iran is unlikely to limit its response in the way it did after U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities last June, when Iran had signaled timing and methods of retaliation enough for U.S. and Qatari air defenses to be ready. “They have now come to the conclusion that the only way that they can stop this cycle is to draw blood and to inflict significant harm on the U.S. and Israel, even if that comes at a very high price for themselves,” Vaez said, in the AP report.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the AP that Iran is still believed to have ballistic missiles that can strike enemies in the region. He also said, “The Islamic Republic may think that would be a deterrent to Trump, whereas in reality, that might be an inducement to move the president from a limited operation to a larger one,” describing a concern that the response calculus could broaden the scope of any U.S. action.
Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.