“I don’t actually believe the threat has diminished,” the top commander of American forces in the Mideast said. “I believe the threat is very real.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have worsened since President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and several world powers, and reinstated sanctions on Tehran. Last month, in response to what American officials characterized as an imminent threat, the U.S. announced it would rush an aircraft carrier and other assets to the region.On Thursday, United Nations ambassadors from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Norway told U.N.
The general said the U.S. is showing enough force to “establish deterrence” without “needlessly” provoking its longtime adversary. “We’re working very hard to walk that line.”“We’ve taken steps to show the Iranians that we mean business in our ability to defend ourselves,” he said, referring to the accelerated deployment to the Gulf area of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, four Air Force B-52 bombers and additional batteries of Army Patriot air-defense systems.
Speaking at the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, McKenzie said he also has repositioned surveillance aircraft to more closely monitor the situation in the Gulf and in Iraq, where the U.S. has 5,200 troops on the ground, and has given Iran a “new look” by introducing more aerial patrols by land- and carrier-based fighters.
More recently, those missiles, which were deemed a potential threat, were offloaded, officials have said.“I hesitate to say that deterrence has been established,” he said. The general said he — not the White House — initiated the May 5 moves to accelerate the deployment of the Abraham Lincoln carrier group and to dispatch B-52 bombers.
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