SerpApi.Org
WASHINGTON—The U.S. is surging forces, medics and weaponry to the Middle East to give President Trump more muscular military options as he considers expanding the conflict against Iran, according to people familiar with the matter.
In the past week, special-operations forces have deployed to the region from their U.S. bases, according to flight-tracking data and U.S. officials. Squadrons of jet fighters have been staged across the Middle East, and bomber aircraft at bases in the U.S. and U.K. are on high alert to ramp up operations, according to one of the officials.
Additionally, more than 150 medics have arrived at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany in recent days, another official said. The hospital is the primary location for treating troops injured in combat in the Middle East.
The preparations are the latest indication that Trump is considering escalating the conflict after three American soldiers were killed in an Iranian attack in Jordan over the weekend. A fourth servicemember was killed in Iraq during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.
Retired Gen. Joseph Votel, the former commander of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, said the surge itself doesn’t necessarily mean major military operations are inevitable.
“The big idea here is to give the president and the secretary [of defense] the most flexibility, and the force the most options to present to them,” Votel said.
A spokesman for the Pentagon referred questions about the troop movements to U.S. Central Command, which declined to discuss details, citing operational security. In a statement, the White House said Trump “always has all options at his disposal.”
The preparations come despite concerns in Washington about America’s endgame and the mounting cost of the war, which has reached more than $37 billion, according to congressional testimony this week by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Returning to all-out war also risks further draining U.S. munitions and exacerbating disruptions to global oil supplies, as Iran continues to attack commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and as the Iran-backed Houthis threaten shipping in the Red Sea.
On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled House voted 216-214 to pass a $95 billion budget framework that includes an extra $73 billion in defense and intelligence funding, a first step in approving money sought by the White House. Some Republicans have aired concerns that voting for additional funds would be interpreted as approval from Congress for the war itself. Others have sought more information on the war’s costs and the Pentagon’s strategy on how to bring the fighting to an end.
“I want to pay the troops. I do not want to support the war,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa), who voted for the measure.
The House also approved 216-212 its version of the National Defense Authorization Act annual policy bill with little support from Democrats, who say Trump has illegally bypassed Congress in waging the Iran war. The NDAA typically draws broad bipartisan support.
Trump and Hegseth have defended the war, now in its fifth month, as necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump on Wednesday threatened to bomb a bridge or power plant each time Tehran attacks a vessel traveling through the strategic waterway. Current and former military officials caution it isn’t lawful to strike an adversary’s infrastructure for political purposes, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in a social-media post that “any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response.”
The U.S. in recent days has deployed cargo flights from U.S. bases that house special-operations forces to the Middle East, the officials said. Special-operations forces were used for combat search-and-rescue operations during the first phase of the war known as Epic Fury, though they are capable of carrying out a range of missions.
Long-range bombers are also preparing for major combat operations, according to some of the officials. That includes B-1 bombers currently staged in the U.K.
The military also has sent aerial tankers, F-16 jet fighters from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany and stealthy F-35s from the air base at Lakenheath, England, to the region, the Journal previously reported. Jordan and Israel are widely seen as the likely hosts for these aircraft.
Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against Iran, threatening to punish the country for the deaths of Americans and saying on Tuesday that he might order an assault on Pickaxe Mountain, where Iran is suspected to have buried nuclear-enrichment centrifuges.
“The president has many options available to him if they continue to insist on not being cooperative,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at a summit in Manila, in reference to the Iranian regime.
Despite a tenuous ceasefire since April, the human toll of the conflict is rising. Overall, 18 U.S. troops have been killed during the conflict from enemy fire and accidents, while hundreds more have been wounded.
Iran also has fired on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passed before the war.
The Iranian regime has shown no signs of backing down, and its leaders have pledged to continue attacking U.S. forces and American partners in the Gulf.
In recent weeks, the U.S. military has primarily focused its attacks on targets that degrade Iran’s ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The latest American strikes included attacks on Iranian military-operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities and military-logistics infrastructure, according to U.S. Central Command. The U.S. has also targeted bridges that it says Iran’s military uses to resupply a naval base on the strait.
Iran, which spent the ceasefire reconstituting its weapons programs that the U.S. and Israel tried to destroy in the early days of the war, has unleashed its arsenal of weapons against American troops and infrastructure across the Middle East.
The additional forces arrive in the Middle East and Europe as the U.S. already has tens of thousands of troops in the region. The U.S. Navy currently has 17 ships in the Middle East, including two aircraft-carrier strike groups, along with their 11 combined destroyers and a Marine Corps expeditionary unit, according to a naval official.
“Every time that the Trump administration has plussed up militarily, they’ve used it,” said Dana Stroul, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during the Biden administration. “The conundrum of the moment is that there’s just no military solution here with this regime intact. You cannot eliminate every missile and every drone, and limited air power and sea power alone are insufficient to change the regime’s fundamental approach.”
Write to Shelby Holliday at [email protected] and Lara Seligman at [email protected]