Arie Egozi and Colin Clark, Breaking Defense: Leaks, Drones, Mystery Attacks: US-Iran Tensions Boil Hot, But…
As troops and hardware are on the move in the Gulf, diplomats signal that no one is eager for war.
TEL AVIV: In a rapid-fire series of events, Iran has reportedly rolled large numbers of missiles into the open, potentially signaling to American forces they can overwhelm them if necessary. Elsewhere, its drones have reportedly attacked Saudi Arabian oil facilities, and American B-52s were shown yesterday taking off from a base in the Persian Gulf. Back in Washington, plans for moving up to 120,000 troops to the region are leaked by seven Trump administration officials to the New York Times.
President Trump, reacting to the Times report, said today the US has not “planned” to send troops to Iran. “I think it’s fake news, okay? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we’re not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we’d send a hell of a lot more troops than that,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
That’s the current state of play between the US, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and her regional allies.
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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- May 15, 2019
America Must Not Stumble into a Third Gulf War -- John Dale Grover, National Interest
Are tensions between US, Gulf allies and Iran coming to a head? -- James Reinl, Al Jazeera
How to Stop Iran's Gulf Aggression -- James Stavridis, Bloomberg
Tensions over Iran show cracks in a time-tested alliance -- Gregory Katz and David Rising, AP
Are Russia and Turkey making deals or parting ways in Syria? -- Joe Macaron, Al Jazeera
No easy options for China as trade war, U.S. pressure bite -- Kevin Yao and Michael Martina, Reuters
US, China trade conflict was 20 years in the making -- Paul Wiseman, Martin Crutsinger, and Christopher Rugaber, AP
Clash of civilizations and the China conundrum -- Gordon Watts, Asia Times
Chinese Foreign Policy Is Not Responsible for the ‘Asian Peace’ -- Van Jackson, War On The Rocks
What Putin and Pompeo did not talk about -- Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
At odds on many fronts, US and Russia hope for better ties -- Jim Heintz and Francesca Ebel, Military Times/The Associated Press
Russia is Finally Getting the 'Great Power' Talks That It Always Wanted -- Nikolas K. Gvosdev, National Interest
AP Interview: EU elections could be boon for conservatives -- Karel Janicek, AP
The global Interest Is Disintegrating -- Aslly Adee, BBC
