Pentagon to Deploy 82nd Airborne to Middle East
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The Pentagon is expected to send a combat team from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, according to multiple reports.
The elite 82nd Airborne Division is known for its rapid deployment, and “secures key objectives for follow-on military operations in support of U.S. national interests,” the Army states.
The move follows the deployment last week of thousands of Marines and sailors aboard the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, along with its Marine Expeditionary Unit and accompanying warships.
The expected deployments come just a day after President Donald Trump postponed threats to bomb Iranian power plants, saying there had been “productive” talks with Iran.
The United States and Israel have greatly diminished the Iranian threat, but Iran still has the capacity to launch drones and missiles, and Trump should not “declare victory as long as that’s happening,” according to national security expert Robert Greenway.
Iran’s ability to fire missiles and launch drones “diminishes every day,” Greenway, who served on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, told The Daily Signal. “The launches now are still in the low 20s, and as long as that’s the case, things will continue to make progress. But I don’t think we’re there yet, but we’re close.”
Ending the operation in Iran will likely take at least another week, maybe two, according to Greenway, who now serves as the director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation.
The U.S. is still carrying out strikes on distributed sites across Iran, including weapons manufacturing and storage facilities and mobile launcher sites, but the “large majority of the work has been done,” Greenway said, adding that Iran is incapable of blocking the strikes.
Operation Epic Fury is now in its fourth week. Trump announced Monday that the U.S. and Iran are in negotiations to reach a deal after Trump threatened to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure unless ships could safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a key Middle East oil shipping lane.
Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, has offered to host negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
“Washington’s first objective in any arrangement with Iran must be to prevent the regime from recovering quickly,” said Meir Ben Shabbat, head of the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, a pro-Israel policy organization.
Ben Shabbat holds that any agreement should include “sanctions and diplomatic isolation of Iran,” as well as “removal and destruction of the enriched uranium, but also a ban on enrichment at any level on Iranian soil.”
The U.S. and Iran held several rounds of talks before Operation Epic Fury. Greenway says he does not think negotiations will “bear fruit” now.
Trump’s threat to strike Iranian power plants “manufactured leverage,” kicking off back-channel negotiations with Iran, Greenway explained.
Trump “put something on the table as a theoretical, it got exactly the desired end state,” he said, “which is, the attempt at negotiations would serve multiple purposes, not least of which is it demonstrates his willingness to pursue a negotiated diplomatic settlement. At the same time, strikes continue.”
Greenway estimates that the Strait of Hormuz will be navigable within the next two weeks, as Iran’s ability to carry out strikes is further diminished.
Once ships pass through the strait unharmed, then the “economic imperative of getting oil out will override” the fear of a possible Iranian strike, and “the floodgates will open back up again,” he said.
This story is developing and will be updated.
Reuters contributed to this report.