May 24, 2019

'Troops To Iran' Scare - The Mountain Brings Forth A Mouse

On May 13 a leak to the New York Times launched an 'troops to Iran' scare:

The US military is exploring a plan to deploy 120,000 troops to the Middle East as tensions with Iran intensify - NYT/Business Insider, May 13

On May 14 we wrote:

The 120,000 troop deployment is the third option. The number is too high for an attack by air and on sea and too low for an attack on land, i.e. an invasion of Iran. Releasing the third option number is likely designed to rally against such a move.

From there on varying numbers were all over the news:

Trump denies U.S. plan to send 120,000 troops to counter Iran threat - Reuters, May 14

Trump says he'd send 'a hell of a lot more' than 120,000 troops to fight Iran if it came to that - Business Insider, May 14

Pentagon mulling military request to send 5,000 troops to Middle East: officials - Reuters, May 23

Trump: No plan now for more troops to confront Iran - Washington Times, May 23

The Pentagon’s plan to send up to 10,000 troops to the Middle East is about Iran - Vox, May 23

US officials: Plan may send up to 10,000 troops to Mideast - AP, May 24

Finally Trump put out a real number:

Trump says US to send 1,500 more troops to Middle East - AP, May 25

Unfortunately it was still wrong. Here is the real one:

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan notified Congress on Friday that he had authorized a request from U.S. Central Command to send the additional forces – an Air Force fighter jet squadron, an engineering element and combination of manned and unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets – into the Middle East, he said in a statement. The Pentagon will also extend the deployment of some 600 soldiers from a Patriot missile battalion already serving in the region.

There seems to have been a minor war between John Bolton, Trumps National Security Advisor, and the State Department or Pentagon. Bolton is longing for his war on Iran and sending lots of troops would eventually provide for that. The State Department and the Pentagon want to prevent that catastrophe from happening and preferred to send none. Trump eventually agreed to minimal number.

There are in total some 20,000+ U.S. troops in the various countries of the Middle East. The additional 900 send now will not make any difference.

The idiocy of the whole discussion was well captured by the German satire site Der Postillon. On May 16 it headlined (translated):

US sounds alarm: "Iran is moving its country ever closer to our troops!"

Tensions between Washington and Tehran continue to increase. Now the United States accuses Iran of moving its borders ever closer to US troops. In part, American soldiers were almost in firing range.

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"Iran is using its territory to harass our peacefully deployed troops," said US National Security Advisor John Bolton. "Some of the country's borders come dangerously close to our soldiers - almost in range, Iran must stop doing that right away!"

...

The US threatened to mobilize its troops. Bolton: "We are a peaceful nation, but if Iran dares to let its borders cross below the feet of our soldiers, that inevitably means war!"

Five days after later Reuters converted the satire into news:

Iran's reach puts U.S. forces, allies in striking range

Sure, Iran's reach did that ...

Posted by b on May 24, 2019 at 18:15 UTC | Permalink

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