Against the backdrop of Israel’s Gaza genocide and ongoing US attacks against Yemen, the Trump administration is rushing military hardware to the Middle East amid escalating threats to attack Iran.
While the Trump administration’s pretext for threatening Iran is the alleged development of its nuclear program, US war plans against Iran are part of a US-Israeli offensive, decades in the making, to reshape the Middle East under direct imperialist domination and launched using the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas as a pretext. As part of this plan, Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza and seeking to annex the territory.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group will be deployed to the Middle East, joining the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier strike group.
The Pentagon has sent six of its B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—within striking distance of Iran—or 30 percent of the entire US stealth bomber fleet. The B-2 bomber is capable of deploying both nuclear weapons and the largest US bunker-buster bombs, which are reportedly capable of reaching underground Iranian nuclear facilities.
Military aviation analyst Peter Layton told CNN that the deployment of six B-2 bombers would be far too many to be used against Yemen and could instead only be leveraged in an attack on Iran. “Six is a serious number. For Houthi deeply buried targets, two or maybe three, but six B-2s is a major effort,” he said.
Alongside the aircraft carriers and bombers, the US has sent additional destroyers capable of launching long-range cruise missiles and Patriot missile defense batteries to bases around the region.
Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump declared that unless Iran accepted the United States’ demands, “there will be bombing.”
Last month, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the United States is seeking the “full dismantlement of” Iran’s nuclear program. Waltz said:
This isn’t some kind of, you know, kind of tit-for-tat that we had under the Obama administration or Biden. ... This is the full program. Give it up or there will be consequences.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron held a meeting to discuss the likelihood of a US attack on Iran, with a spokesman later declaring that a military escalation appeared “almost inevitable.”
On March 15, the Trump administration launched a series of bombing campaigns on Yemen, which have hit hundreds of targets in the most intense US bombardment of the country to date.
On Tuesday, Trump again threatened Yemen, saying:
we have only just begun, and the real pain is yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.
The same day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the United States has carried out over 200 attacks on Yemen, declaring:
Iran is incredibly weakened as a result of these attacks, and we have seen they have taken out Houthi leaders.
In response to Trump’s threats against Iran, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that “if they commit any mischief they will surely receive a strong reciprocal blow.”
The Telegraph reported Sunday that an Iranian official said that British troops could also be targeted in response to a US attack, saying:
There will be no distinction in targeting British or American forces if Iran is attacked from any base in the region or within the range of Iranian missiles.
He added:
When the time comes, it won’t matter whether you’re an American, British, or Turkish soldier—you will be targeted if your base is used by Americans.
A US attack on Iran threatens to massively escalate the ongoing war throughout the Middle East, potentially drawing in China and Russia
Last week, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Qalibaf said:
If the Americans attack the sanctity of Iran, the entire region will blow up like a spark in an ammunition dump.
During Trump’s first presidential term, the United States withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement brokered under the Obama administration to reduce the scale of Iran’s nuclear program. In December, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has expanded its capacity to enrich uranium.
In a statement this week, Ali Larijani, Khamenei’s adviser, raised the prospect that Iran would build a nuclear weapon in response to the US threats. Ali Larijani said:
We are not moving towards (nuclear) weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself.
He added:
Iran does not want to do this, but … (it) will have no choice. … If at some point you (the US) move towards bombing by yourself or through Israel, you will force Iran to make a different decision.
Meanwhile, the Gaza genocide continues to expand. Al Jazeera reported that at least 77 Palestinians had been killed in the blockaded territory Wednesday, amid nonstop ground and air attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In the IDF’s missile attack on a United Nations medical facility in the Jabalia refugee camp, at least 22 people, including women and children, were killed.
On Tuesday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) announced that every one of the bakeries it operates in Gaza has been closed due to shortages of food and fuel caused by the ongoing Israeli blockade.
For nearly a month, Israel has prevented all food, fuel, water and electricity from entering the Gaza Strip as part of a deliberate policy of starvation and ethnic cleansing aimed at killing or displacing Palestinians in Gaza and annexing their land.
On Tuesday, Israel announced a major expansion of its ground offensive in Gaza, adding that large portions of the enclave would be seized and put under military control.
Meanwhile more details continue to come out about the 15 aid workers, including one UN employee, massacred by Israeli forces on March 23 and dumped into a mass grave. After The Guardian reported Tuesday that those who had been killed had been bound and executed, the New York Times reported that the rescue workers “were shot multiple times before being buried in a mass grave.”