Plans aim to beef up defenses against potential Iranian threats as tensions between countries continue to rise

The Pentagon is considering a US military request to send 10,000 extra troops to the Gulf to beef up defences against potential Iranian threats, US officials have said.

Officials told AP that the troops would be defensive forces, and the discussions include additional Patriot missile batteries, more ships and increased efforts to monitor Iran. The move was not in response to any new threat from Iran, but was aimed at reinforcing security in the region, they added.

No final decision has been made, and it is not clear if the White House would approve sending all or just some of the requested forces, amid rising regional tensions spurred by Donald Trump’s decision a year ago to pull the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal.

On Thursday, a senior German diplomat flew to Tehran to establish precisely what the Iranians want from Europe to stop them pulling out of the deal.

Jens Ploetner, a political director in the foreign ministry, was due to meet the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. The UK political director Richard Moore was in Tehran last week, but Ploetner knows Araghchi personally from the original negotiations on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA).

Germany is also seen by Tehran as the European power that is doing most to activate a financial system that would encourage trade between Europe and Iran without it being subject to punitive US sanctions.

Tensions have been heightening ever since Washington sent more military forces to the Gulf, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers, and Patriot missiles, in a show of force against what US officials say are new Iranian threats to its troops and interests in the region. Iran claims its navy has the US navy under its control in the northern Strait of Hormuz, the waterway used to transport oil from the Gulf.

Trump campaigned on pulling the US from the 2015 accord, under which Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Since the withdrawal, the US has reimposed previous sanctions and come up with new ones, and it has warned nations around the world that they will be subject to sanctions if they import Iranian oil.

Iran is sceptical that Europe is willing to confront the US over its threat of sanctions and, as a result, believes Europe is not fulfilling the bargain enshrined in the deal.

Tehran claims the US administration is deploying a policy of maximum diplomatic and economic coercion either to force the Iranian regime to renegotiate the deal, or to provoke an economic collapse that leads to mass protests that sweep away the regime.

A German diplomatic source said: “There is a window of opportunity for diplomacy to persuade Iran to continue to fully comply with the JCPOA … The situation in the Persian Gulf and the region, and the situation around the Vienna nuclear accord, is extremely serious. There is a real risk of escalation … In this situation, dialogue is very important.”

Most large European firms have pulled out of Iran to avoid the threat of US sanctions.

Iran 'threat' has diminished, says US defense secretary Read more

Iran has said it will lift limits on uranium enrichment levels in 60 days’ time – a step that is seen by the UK as bring in clear breach of the JCPOA.

The US administration, in a closed-door briefing to Congress this week, claimed its intelligence showed that Iranian-influenced forces were behind threats to US forces in Iraq as well as the attack a fortnight ago on oil vessels close to the United Arab Emirates. The quality of the intelligence is disputed by the Democrats.

In a sign of the tensions within Iran over the country’s strategy towards the west, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, criticised the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and the prime minister, Hassan Rouhani, for entering into the nuclear deal in the first place.