Post by Admin on May 6, 2019 18:32:34 GMT
US deploys aircraft carrier and bombers after 'troubling indications' from Iran
National security adviser John Bolton says any Iranian attack on US or its allies will be met with ‘unrelenting force’
The US is sending an aircraft carrier and a bomber taskforce to the Middle East in response to a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran, the national security adviser, John Bolton, has said.
It was not immediately clear what Iranian actions Bolton was referring to in his comments on Sunday night. There have been no recent incidents in the Persian Gulf where US and Iranian navies are routinely in close proximity and the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was already bound for the Gulf a month before Bolton made his announcement.
Asked for clarification on Monday, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was vague, but suggested the US anticipated a threat from an Iran-backed group in the region.
“I don’t want to talk about what underlays [sic] it, but make no mistake. We have good reason to want to communicate clearly about how the Iranians should understand how we will respond to actions that they may take,” Pompeo told reporters on the way to a meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland.
“It is absolutely the case that we’ve seen escalatory action from the Iranians, and it is equally the case that we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests,” he said. Pompeo added that if attacks came from “some third-party proxy, whether that’s a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hizbullah, we will hold the … Iranian leadership directly accountable for that”.
CNN quoted unnamed officials on Monday as saying there was “specific and credible” intelligence that Iranian forces and proxies were targeting US forces in Syria, Iraq and at sea, with “multiple threads of intelligence about multiple locations”.
Bolton’s declaration came a few 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”.
“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,” the statement said.
Rotations of aircraft carrier “strike groups” and bomber fleets happen routinely. At present there are none in the US Central Command region, which encompasses the Middle East and Afghanistan. The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, left its base in Norfolk, Virginia, on 1 April and was due to sail to the Mediterranean for exercises and then on to the Gulf. Defence officials were quoted in US media on Monday as saying the carrier’s passage was now being expedited
The US withdrew its B-1 bombers from the Middle East in March for maintenance and upgrades amid concerns the bomber force was overstretched. It was unclear from the announcement whether the B-1s would be sent back, or B-52 bombers sent in their place.
While such changes in global deployment are made regularly, it is rare for the announcement of such deployments to be made by a national security adviser rather than the Pentagon.
“A carrier into CentCom is not unusual and was likely routine and long planned,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former state department and Pentagon official, now a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security in Washington. “The inflammatory language from Bolton is unusually provocative but my guess is just an opportunity to try to intimidate the Iranians. Nothing more.”
Bolton has been pushing for a tougher stance by the US towards North Korea, Venezuela and Iran. Before taking his White House position, he argued that bombing Iran was the only way to stop it acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Last May, the Trump administration walked out of a multilateral agreement with Iran by which Tehran accepted strict curbs on its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Since then the US has threatened sanctions against any companies or individuals around the world doing business with Iran, and has sought to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has certified that Iran continues to meet its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, and other parties to the agreement, the UK, France, Germany, European Union, Russia and China, also insist they will honour its terms, despite US pressure.
During a visit to New York last month, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, warned that what he called a “B Team” consisting of Bolton, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Emirati crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed and his Saudi counterpart Mohammed bin Salman, were seeking to goad the US and Iran into a conflict.
“We don’t believe that President Trump wants confrontation. But, we know that there are people who are pushing for one,” Zarif told the CBS programme, Face the Nation. “I think the US administration is putting things in place for accidents to happen. And there has to be extreme vigilance, so that people who are planning this type of accident would not have their way.”
Tehran has said it would respond to US sanctions and has hinted it is considering steps that would violate restrictions imposed on its nuclear programme by the 2015 deal.
Bolton gave no details of the alleged “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran. Mark Dubowitz, the head of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies who has long supported a tough approach to Iran, argued that Hamas rocket attacks against Israel could have been orchestrated by Iran as part of a campaign against the US and its regional allies.
“Actually, ‘intimidating’ the regime in Iran by promising overwhelming force in response to intel that they may be considering striking US assets or allies is called deterrence and could help dissuade them,” Dubowitz wrote on Twitter.
National security adviser John Bolton says any Iranian attack on US or its allies will be met with ‘unrelenting force’
The US is sending an aircraft carrier and a bomber taskforce to the Middle East in response to a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran, the national security adviser, John Bolton, has said.
It was not immediately clear what Iranian actions Bolton was referring to in his comments on Sunday night. There have been no recent incidents in the Persian Gulf where US and Iranian navies are routinely in close proximity and the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was already bound for the Gulf a month before Bolton made his announcement.
Asked for clarification on Monday, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was vague, but suggested the US anticipated a threat from an Iran-backed group in the region.
“I don’t want to talk about what underlays [sic] it, but make no mistake. We have good reason to want to communicate clearly about how the Iranians should understand how we will respond to actions that they may take,” Pompeo told reporters on the way to a meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland.
“It is absolutely the case that we’ve seen escalatory action from the Iranians, and it is equally the case that we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests,” he said. Pompeo added that if attacks came from “some third-party proxy, whether that’s a Shia militia group or the Houthis or Hizbullah, we will hold the … Iranian leadership directly accountable for that”.
CNN quoted unnamed officials on Monday as saying there was “specific and credible” intelligence that Iranian forces and proxies were targeting US forces in Syria, Iraq and at sea, with “multiple threads of intelligence about multiple locations”.
Bolton’s declaration came a few 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”.
“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,” the statement said.
Rotations of aircraft carrier “strike groups” and bomber fleets happen routinely. At present there are none in the US Central Command region, which encompasses the Middle East and Afghanistan. The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, left its base in Norfolk, Virginia, on 1 April and was due to sail to the Mediterranean for exercises and then on to the Gulf. Defence officials were quoted in US media on Monday as saying the carrier’s passage was now being expedited
The US withdrew its B-1 bombers from the Middle East in March for maintenance and upgrades amid concerns the bomber force was overstretched. It was unclear from the announcement whether the B-1s would be sent back, or B-52 bombers sent in their place.
While such changes in global deployment are made regularly, it is rare for the announcement of such deployments to be made by a national security adviser rather than the Pentagon.
“A carrier into CentCom is not unusual and was likely routine and long planned,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former state department and Pentagon official, now a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security in Washington. “The inflammatory language from Bolton is unusually provocative but my guess is just an opportunity to try to intimidate the Iranians. Nothing more.”
Bolton has been pushing for a tougher stance by the US towards North Korea, Venezuela and Iran. Before taking his White House position, he argued that bombing Iran was the only way to stop it acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Last May, the Trump administration walked out of a multilateral agreement with Iran by which Tehran accepted strict curbs on its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Since then the US has threatened sanctions against any companies or individuals around the world doing business with Iran, and has sought to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has certified that Iran continues to meet its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, and other parties to the agreement, the UK, France, Germany, European Union, Russia and China, also insist they will honour its terms, despite US pressure.
During a visit to New York last month, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, warned that what he called a “B Team” consisting of Bolton, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Emirati crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed and his Saudi counterpart Mohammed bin Salman, were seeking to goad the US and Iran into a conflict.
“We don’t believe that President Trump wants confrontation. But, we know that there are people who are pushing for one,” Zarif told the CBS programme, Face the Nation. “I think the US administration is putting things in place for accidents to happen. And there has to be extreme vigilance, so that people who are planning this type of accident would not have their way.”
Tehran has said it would respond to US sanctions and has hinted it is considering steps that would violate restrictions imposed on its nuclear programme by the 2015 deal.
Bolton gave no details of the alleged “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran. Mark Dubowitz, the head of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies who has long supported a tough approach to Iran, argued that Hamas rocket attacks against Israel could have been orchestrated by Iran as part of a campaign against the US and its regional allies.
“Actually, ‘intimidating’ the regime in Iran by promising overwhelming force in response to intel that they may be considering striking US assets or allies is called deterrence and could help dissuade them,” Dubowitz wrote on Twitter.
