Iran has chosen to "step back and recalculate" after making preparations for an apparent attack against U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, but it is too early to conclude the threat is gone, the top commander of American forces in the Mideast said.
In an interview with three reporters accompanying him to the Gulf, Gen. Frank McKenzie said he remains concerned by Iran's potential for aggression and he would not rule out requesting additional U.S. forces to bolster defenses against Iranian missiles or other weapons.
"I don't actually believe the threat has diminished," McKenzie said Thursday. "I believe the threat is very real." McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, and other military officials are trying to strike a balance between persuading Iran that the U.S. is prepared to retaliate for an Iranian attack on Americans, thus deterring conflict, and pushing so much military muscle into the Gulf that Iran thinks the U.S. plans an attack, in which case it might feel compelled to strike preemptively and thus spark war.
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.
The US also blamed Iran for last month's attacks on oil tankers in a United Arab Emirates port.
On Thursday, United Nations ambassadors from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Norway told U.N. Security Council members that investigators believe those attacks were led by a foreign state using divers on speed boats who planted mines on the vessels. They did not name Iran.
Earlier, the Saudi ambassador to the U.N., Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, said Saudi Arabia also blames Iran for the sabotage.
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Iran has consistently dismissed allegations that it was involved in the recent attacks on the oil tankers or was preparing to attack American troops in the region. In Baghdad, McKenzie told reporters from The Associated Press and two other media organizations that U.S. redeployments to the Gulf have "caused the Iranians to back up a little bit, but I'm not sure they are strategically backing down." The general said the U.S. is showing enough force to "establish deterrence" without "needlessly" provoking its longtime adversary. He said he is confident in the moves he has made.
"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.
Trump, speaking beside French President Emmanuel Macron in Caen, France, said U.S. sanctions are crippling Iran's economy, possibly yielding a diplomatic opening. "And if they want to talk, that's fine," Trump said. "We'll talk. But the one thing that they can't have is they can't have nuclear weapons."
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. He said the intelligence on Iranian threats in the first days of May was "compelling" and that the threats were "advanced, imminent and very specific."