As American President Donald Trump is on the brink of a war on Iran that has been decades in the making, the US military buildup ongoing in the Middle East is aimed at “inflicting serious damage on Iran,” military analyst Dmitry Drozdenko tells Sputnik.
Trump urges #Iran to strike a “meaningful” deal as a huge American military build-up takes shape in the Middle East amid US threats of action against Tehran.“US escalation is driven by the recognition that neither Israel’s Iron Dom nor patriot defense system can curtailed Irankiran missiles.
No doubt Donald Trump is now seen as a bigger threat to global peace than even Russia by some of America’s former allies. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors can fully neutralize Iran’s missile arsenal,” says the pundit. The US has been the biggest threat to global peace for a good number of decades. They are the world's terrorists.
Meanwhile, Trump, at Board of Peace meeting, says US must make 'meaningful deal' with Iran, 'otherwise bad things happen'. Maybe we are going to make a deal, You are going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days. We may have to take it a step further (military)
A second American aircraft carrier — the USS Gerald R. Ford — is heading toward the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran, accompanied by destroyers and aircraft being redeployed from missions in the Caribbean region, a U.S. ABC News reported.
As negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program continue, American aircraft carriers are at the forefront of a major U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. The Ford is expected to join the USS Abraham Lincoln in the region, the latter having arrived there late last month.
The Ford briefly transmitted its location off the coast of Morocco on Wednesday as it approached the Mediterranean Sea, according to data from the MarineTraffic website. The carrier's location was visible for around two hours.
Also visible on the FlightRadar24 website on Wednesday were two C-2A Greyhound aircraft, which in recent months have been operating off the carrier. The aircraft transmitted their locations off the coast of Portugal, around 230 miles from the Ford's position.
The Ford is being accompanied by four destroyers as it sails east toward the Middle East.
Three of the destroyers are part of the Ford’s carrier strike group that have accompanied the carrier since it first deployed in June, the fourth destroyer had previously been a part of President Donald Trump's administration’s surge of military forces in the Caribbean, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News.
Each of the destroyers is armed with air defense systems that can shoot down incoming missiles and drones, plus Tomahawk cruise missiles that can be used to strike targets up to 1,000 miles away.
F-35 stealth fighter jets are among the U.S. assets heading toward the Middle East, including some that had been deployed to Puerto Rico ahead of the U.S. operation to depose Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
A spokesman for the Vermont National Guard confirmed to ABC News that the 158th Fighter Wing received a change in mission from U.S. Southern Command -- which oversees operations in the Caribbean, Central and South America -- but did not disclose their new deployment area.
In late January, online flight trackers noted a dozen F-35 fighters taking off from Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico and landing on the Azores islands in the mid-Atlantic, on their way to the Middle East.
Key Iranian nuclear personnel and facilities were targeted by Israeli and American forces during an intense 12-day conflict in June. But the strikes failed to resolve long-standing U.S. and Israeli grievances related to Tehran's nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal and its support for regional proxy groups.
U.S. and Iranian representatives met in Geneva, Switzerland, this week for talks regarding a possible deal related to Tehran's nuclear program and its enrichment of uranium. Trump has demanded that Iran commit to "zero enrichment," a proposal rejected by Iranian officials.
U.S. officials briefed on the negotiations said Iran indicated a willingness to suspend its nuclear enrichment for a certain amount of time, anywhere from one to five years
The U.S. is also weighing lifting financial and banking sanctions and the embargo on its oil sales, according to a U.S. official.
Following the talks in Geneva, Iran is expected to submit a written proposal aimed at resolving the tensions, a senior U.S. official confirmed to reporters on Wednesday. It is unclear when the written proposal will be submitted to the U.S.
On Tuesday, a White House official said Iran would provide detailed proposals to address "some of the open gaps in our positions" in the next two weeks.
The US President reiterated on Thursday: "We may have to take it a step further [than Operation Midnight Hammer], or we may not."
"Maybe we are going to make a deal. You are going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days."
"Iran would have had a nuclear weapon based on everything we found out since within one month [if we didn't do Operation Midnight Hammer].
We can't let that happen."
"They cannot continue to threaten the stability of the entire region. They must make a deal. If it doesn’t happen, bad things will happen."
The opinion of many on the US carrier groups are that the modern warfare no longer required such a US approach. While it's general agreed that in the eventuality of war between Iran and US with allies, the fall of Iran will never be like that of Iraq or Libya in the face of Iranian missiles that humbled Israel in the 12daya war.
Additional sources: ABC news, Sputnik
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