To be honest, I thought that Iran or Syria would be the Second Front of World War III, prior to China opening Taiwan, Korea, or even the Philippines as the Third Front. But it appears Niger may have already claimed that honor. Still, the Middle East is already drawing more US troops and ships away from the Ukrainian Front.
The US military has deployed thousands of troops and additional naval assets to the Middle East to “deter” Iranian forces. The move comes after Washington accused Tehran of harassing commercial vessels and other “destabilizing” actions.
The US Navy’s 5th Fleet announced the decision on Monday, noting that more than 3,000 marines and sailors had arrived in the Red Sea aboard an amphibious assault ship and a dock landing vessel the day before.
“These units add significant operational flexibility and capability as we work alongside international partners to deter destabilizing activity and deescalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels earlier this year,” 5th Fleet spokesman Commander Tim Hawkins told The Hill in a statement.
The amphibious assault ship sent in the latest deployment, the USS Bataan, also carried additional air assets, the Navy added. Though it did not specify the systems on board, the military said that the ship can carry more than two dozen rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, including the Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and AV-8B Harrier attack jets, in addition to a number of landing craft. The smaller USS Carter Hall, a docking ship, will act as a support vessel for operations involving landings or amphibious attacks.
The usual hypocrisy is on display here. The USN’s justification for this deployment is “to defend the freedom of navigation”. While just yesterday, US Senators and neoclowns were decrying the Russian and Chinese ships that were exercising the very right that the US Navy is claiming to defend in the Red Sea.
In a statement on Saturday, two Republican Senators representing the state of Alaska – Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan – said a total of 11 ships had been detected “transiting US waters in the Aleutians,” citing a classified briefing, and labeling the activities “an incursion.”
Sullivan said it marks “yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow,” adding that he was pleased to see a robust US response involving four American destroyers.
Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has called the patrol “a historical first” and “highly provocative” considering tensions over Taiwan and the Ukraine conflict, the WSJ reported.
Of course, all of these actions are little more than gunboat diplomacy. A single destroyer and a single Marine Expeditionary Unit are not a serious threat to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps nor are they meant to be. What really has the neoclowns alarmed is that Russia and China have sent a very clear signal to Iran, Niger, and every other country that isn’t controlled by Washington DC that they are no longer afraid of the US Navy, and that any country that challenges the globalist hegemony doesn’t need to fear US-backed regime change anymore.