The United States has sent 900 new troops to Saudi Arabia and Qatar amid the threat from Iran, announced U.S. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Wednesday.
“I don’t see a change in any behavior,” he told reporters on his way to Indonesia. “The situation still remains tense. It is a high-threat environment.”
The United States has enacted new sanctions and deployed two warships with fighter jets, in addition to a Patriot missile battery, to the Gulf in response to Pentagon reports that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was planning an attack on U.S. forces or interests in the region—moves that have caused European foreign ministers to call for de-escalation.
On Thursday, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said, “I don’t think this threat is over, but I do think you can make at least a conditional claim that the quick response and the deployment and other steps that we took did serve as a deterrent.”