The Newsweek story stated that these were "suicide drones," but offered no additional information about the origins of that assessment. Newsweek's sources otherwise indicated that these small unmanned aircraft had been conducting what appeared to be simply intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities and that they posed no immediate threat, which would seem to contradict the assertion that they were indeed suicide drones. The story did say that there were concerns that the drones might be gathering intelligence about potential targets for future strikes.

In addition to the Houthis in Yemen, Iran backs myriad armed groups across the Middle East, including in countries such as Iraq and Syria, where they often operate close to American forces. The United States has blamed Iranian-supported militias in Iraq for rocket and other indirect fire attacks near U.S. military and diplomatic facilities in recent years. Just on Dec. 3, 2019, several rockets landed near Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, where a significant contingent of American forces is located. No group has yet taken responsibility for that attack.

Also on Dec. 4, Newsweek reported , again citing unnamed U.S. government officials, that there had been an uptick in drone activity near U.S. forces at unspecified locations in the Middle East. The group or groups operating these unmanned aircraft is unclear, but there were reportedly indications that Iranian-supported militias under the direction of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , were the ones flying them.

An Iranian Lockheed P-3F Orion maritime patrol plane, which the United States delivered to the regime of the Shah of Iran in the 1970s, flies by the dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Alan Shepard in the Gulf of Oman on Nov. 11, 2019.

All of these details that have emerged today about Iranian and Iranian-linked activities, such as they are, are well in line with the relatively steady flow of official U.S. government statements and media reports that first began appearing in May 2019. This notably started with reports that Iran was either deploying missiles on boats or otherwise moving them around the Middle East that way, potentially to launch attacks, which is extremely similar to the stories that are emerging now.

This reported intelligence, coupled with actual and alleged malign behavior from Iran, including the aforementioned strikes on Saudi Arabia, the seizure of multiple foreign oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the shootdown of a U.S. Navy drone over the Gulf of Oman, and a spate of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, has led to the deployment of approximately 14,000 additional U.S. military personnel to the Middle East over the past seven months. This has included a particularly significant new deployment of personnel, including combat jets and air and missile defense systems, to Saudi Arabia in recent months.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 4 that all of this has prompted the U.S. military to consider possibly doubling that figure, sending another 14,000 personnel to the region in the coming year. It's unclear how much of this would necessarily be additive to the overall total force posture and how much of this might be simply rotations of fresh troops to relieve existing units in place. For instance, the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, along with the rest of its strike group, is presently heading toward the region where it will likely take the place of the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group. Truman was supposed to have arrived earlier in the year, but was delayed due to the need for unforeseen maintenance.

John Rood, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, did allude to new deployments to the Middle East in the near future to counter Iranian moves when speaking to reporters on Dec. 4. "Watch this space," he said. "I think we're going to be dynamic in our deployments, in our response and how we message. In private, you should know we've sent very clear and blunt signals to the Iranian government about the potential consequences of aggression."

It's not clear what might be driving Iran's latest geopolitical maneuvers. The country has been, at least to some degree, preoccupied with major domestic protests across the country that prompted the regime in Tehran to launch a violent crackdown in which security forces have killed at least 200 demonstrators already. It is the worst violence in decades and the country's president Hassan Rouhani recently called for the release of protesters who have been rounded up in the clashes.