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Hanging over the current disagreement is the debate over the Iraq war and, specifically, Secretary of State Colin L. Powells address to the United Nations in 2003. Mr. Powells presentation included fuzzy images and partial communications intercepts, and detailed what came to be understood as wildly wrong assessments about the Iraqi governments illicit weapons.

In the debate over Iran, Representative Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, has introduced legislation to require the Trump administration to get congressional approval before engaging in hostilities with Iran. In April, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, pressed Mr. Pompeo during a hearing for the same commitment, but the secretary of state deflected the request.

Most Republicans signaled they supported the administrations tough line. Iran seems to be more aggressive, and we have to push back, Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said after meeting with intelligence officials. We cannot give them a lot of space.

Divisions over the intelligence extended to American allies.

Troops from Germany and the Netherlands were pulled back to bases in Iraq. Spanish defense officials, to avoid entanglement in any upcoming conflict with Iran, withdrew a frigate that was part of the American-led carrier strike group heading to the Persian Gulf. Training efforts by France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are continuing as normal.

The State Department ordered nonemergency U.S. government employees at both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil, the Kurdish capital, to leave the country. The order applied primarily to full-time diplomats posted to Iraq; an embassy statement said that visa services in Iraq would be suspended as a result. Contractors who provide security, food and other such services will remain in place for now.

Mr. Pompeo shared some details of the intelligence with Iraqi leaders on May 7 when he made a surprise visit to Baghdad. But American officials in Washington said the most delicate intelligence was not shared with the Iraqis for fear their agencies have been penetrated by Iranian spies.

Tensions with Iran have been rising since May 2018, when Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal that world powers reached with Tehran. American sanctions were reimposed in November, weakening the Iranian economy perhaps more quickly than expected.

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"Don't test us," Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran's ambassador to the United Kingdom said in an interview with Sky News Tuesday.

"While we have renounced any escalation in the region, I would assure you that Iranian armed forces are fully ready for any eventuality in the region, so they should not try to test the determination of Iran to confront any escalation in the region," Baeidinejad said.

His comments come shortly after the head of Iran's National Security Foreign Policy Committee, Heshmatollah Falahat Pisheh, said the international community must be wary of "making crises" surrounding the "sabotage" of four commercial ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates over the weekend, as tensions continue to rise between Iran and the United States.

When asked about the attack on Monday, President Donald Trump fired a verbal warning to Iran, telling reporters, "We'll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a bad mistake."

Pisheh said in an interview with Iranian state media Monday that "Iran and the United States can manage the crisis by themselves."

"But there are third parties who might make the atmosphere of the region more sensitive in terms of security by making deviant moves," he said. "There are different groups whose goal is to make the region unsafe. Therefore, there must be red lines between Iran and the United States in the management of the events which prevents third parties from making crises."

The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns these moves, Piseh said, and has demanded the perpetrators be identified.

Saudi Arabia's minister of energy said Monday that two of the ships damaged were Saudi oil tankers, one of which "was on its way to be loaded with Saudi crude oil from the [Saudi] port of Ras Tanura, to be delivered to Saudi Aramco's customers in the United States." It said there were no casualties and no spillage.

Saudi Arabia's state news agency Saudi Press Agency said Monday the country "condemned the acts of sabotage."

A Norwegian shipping company confirmed to ABC News that one of the ships it manages, an oil tanker called the MT Andrea Victory, was among the four damaged ships.

The initial assessment by a U.S. military team sent to assist the UAE is that Iran or Iranian-backed proxies placed explosive charges on the four ships anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. official told ABC News. The official said each ship sustained a 5- to 10-foot hole at or below the water line.

"We need to do a thorough investigation to understand what happened, why it happened, and then come up with reasonable responses short of war," U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia John Abizaid said in Riyadh on Tuesday, according to Reuters. "It's not in [Iran's] interest, it's not in our interest, it's not in Saudi Arabia's interest to have a conflict."

The increase in tensions between the U.S. and Iran could be seen in recent statements from European leaders over the past week. U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters in Brussels before talks with Pompeo on Monday that "we are very worried about a conflict, about the risk of a conflict ... of an escalation that is unintended," according to Reuters.

The Iranian reaction comes as The New York Times reported overnight that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had presented Trump with a military plan that could see 120,000 troops deployed in the Middle East if Iran were to attack American forces.

However, Dr. Sanam Vakil, senior research fellow at the Middle East & North Africa Programme of Chatham House, told ABC News such moves by the Trump administration should be taken as "bluster."

"Of course we can see the parallels with the run up to the Iraq war, but this is a president who lives up to his campaign promises," she said. "He campaigned on leaving America's military footprint from the Middle East, not increasing it."

The Trump administration's ultimate objective, she said, is to facilitate negotiations with Iran and negotiate a better deal after the U.S. pulled out of the JCPOA -- the Iran nuclear deal -- last year.

Meanwhile, "Iran are trying to send strong, but also conflicting messages about what their objectives are," Vakil said, but she said talk of parallels with the situation leading up to the 2003 Iraq War are overplayed.

"I think the context is different," she said. "Not only does the entire international community have a hangover [from] 2003, [but] the level of awareness of sleepwalking into another conflict that could potentially be much more dangerous and have wider regional implications, particularly those for European security, is making everybody very cautious."

The possibility of an Iranian-U.S. war is worrying for many people in the country's capital of Tehran.

Mehdi Mohammadi, 32, a part-time English teacher and PhD student of philosophy in Tehran, told ABC News he would not be happy with war, "unlike those who might think Trump will come and topple the system and bring the country a democratic system and freedom of speech."

"Trump does not care about democracy here," he said. "I hope Iran stops saying it does not negotiate. We are not the only ones Trump tore agreements with. China kept negotiating, so did Canada. Even negotiation with Trump is better than a war."

Maryam Agharabi, 35, local Tehran business owner from the northern city of Rasht, said the recent tensions are unsurprising, but the primary concern for most Iranians is "changing our life style to adapt to the deteriorating economic conditions."

"I do believe the sanctions on Iran should be called an 'economic terror' rather than an economic war," she said. "War is reciprocal, like what is going on between China and America, where the two parties have means to use against each other. What America is doing against us is totally unilateral."

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Saudi Arabia said Monday two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in attacks that caused "significant damage" to the vessels. One of the ships was en route to pick up Saudi oil to take to the United States, a Saudi government minister said.

The announcement by the kingdom's energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, came on the heels of a new warning to sailors in the region from the U.S. While no blame was cast at Iran or any other nation for the alleged attack on the ships, it fuelled fears that a miscommunication or small act of antagonism in the politically charged region could quickly escalate into a full conflict.

Late last week the U.S. Maritime Administration warned commercial shipping companies that from the beginning of May there had been, "an increased possibility that Iran and/or its regional proxies could take action against U.S. and partner interests, including oil production infrastructure, after recently threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or the Persian Gulf."

The statement from the Saudi government on the alleged "sabotage attacks" off the United Arab Emirates port at Fujairah came just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at the port, which sits less than 100 miles from the mouth of the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping channel. Emirati officials have declined to elaborate on the nature of the sabotage or say who might have been responsible.

A U.S. defense official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that the UAE had requested American assistance investigating the incidents, and the U.S. was sending a team of investigators to help.

A total of four tankers sustained some damage on Sunday, according to UAE officials. One of the others was Norwegian owned, but officials in that country did not immediately confirm any links to the apparent attacks on the Saudi-flagged vessels.

Early Sunday, the U.S. Maritime Administration issued a new warning to sailors about the alleged sabotage, while stressing "the incident has not been confirmed." It urged shippers to exercise caution in the area for the next week.

It remains unclear if the previous warning from the U.S. agency is the same perceived threat, or part of it, that prompted the White House to order the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and the B-52 bombers to the region on May 4.

"One of the two vessels was on its way to be loaded with Saudi crude oil from the port of Ras Tanura, to be delivered to Saudi Aramco's customers in the United States," al-Falih said. "Fortunately, the attack didn't lead to any casualties or oil spill; however, it caused significant damage to the structures of the two vessels."

Saudi Arabia did not identify the vessels involved, nor did it say whom it suspected of carrying out the alleged sabotage.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which oversees the region, did not immediately offer comment. Emirati officials declined to answer questions from The Associated Press, saying their investigation is ongoing.

Shortly after the Saudi announcement, Iran's Foreign Ministry called for further clarification about what exactly happened with the Saudi tankers. The ministry' spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying there should be more information about the incident.

Mousavi also warned against any "conspiracy orchestrated by ill-wishers" and "adventurism by foreigners" to undermine the maritime region's stability and security.

An Iranian lawmaker suggested in the country's parliament on Monday that the attacks on the Saudi ships could have been carried out by unspecified "saboteurs" from an also unspecified third country.

Even without any actual accusation that Iran or its "proxies" were behind the purported attack on the Saudi tankers, the incident clearly demonstrated how high tensions are in the region, and some other countries were quick to express their concern.

Britain's Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt warned of the risks of an "accident" sparking a conflict between the United States and Iran.

"We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended," Hunt said in Brussels, where U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived to discuss the Iran standoff with European counterparts.

"What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking," Hunt said, adding that would share those concerns Monday with his European partners and Pompeo.

Underlying the regional risk, the general-secretary of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council described the alleged sabotage as a "serious escalation" in an overnight statement.

"Such irresponsible acts will increase tension and conflicts in the region and expose its peoples to great danger," Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani said. Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen's internationally recognized government similarly condemned the alleged sabotage.

Tensions have risen in the year since President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, restoring American sanctions that have pushed Iran's economy into crisis. Last week, Iran warned it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels in 60 days if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal.

The Brussels meeting on Monday was intended for the European leaders to thrash out ways to keep the Iran nuclear deal afloat.

The meeting between the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini comes as the Europeans struggle to keep financial supply lines open to Iran to offset the impact of U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic's shattered economy.

"We in Europe agree that this treaty is necessary for our security," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Brussels. "Nobody wants Iran to get possession of an atomic bomb and that's been achieved so far."

Mogherini said the talks would focus on "how to continue to best support the full implementation of the nuclear deal."

The White House has put mounting pressure on its European allies to abandon the nuclear deal, which was hammered out by former President Barack Obama, saying it intends to bring Iran's petroleum product income to "zero."

Pompeo's State Department billed Monday's talks with European officials in Brussels as an opportunity "to discuss recent threatening actions and statements" by Iran.

Germany's Maas said he told Pompeo on Monday that he and his European counterparts "do not want it to come to a military conflict (between the U.S. and Iran)."

The top German diplomat avoided criticizing the Trump administration, saying Europe and Washington both wanted to ensure peace in the Middle East, but admitting that they were "going about it in different ways... taking different courses."

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Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman at the U.S. militarys Central Command, said there were "possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq." USA TODAY

The U.S. military put its forces in Iraq on highalert, andthe State Departmentordered all nonemergencyemployees Wednesday to leave the country immediately amid escalating tensions with Iran. SomeU.S. allies have expressedskepticism about the Trump administrations claims that Iran poses a growing threat.

Navy Capt.Bill Urban, a spokesman at the U.S. militarys Central Command, said in a statementthat there were "possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq" as he sought to clarify contradictory remarks by a British commander Tuesday.

British Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, said, "Theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria." Urban rebutted Ghika's remarks in a sign of how the United Statesand its closeallies have split over Iran's potential threat.

Applying "maximum pressure" on Iran is a central tenet of the Trump administration's foreign policy. Trump withdrewthe United Statesfrom a nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers in 2015, reimposed crushing sanctions and boosted the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf. Unease that Washington and Tehran could be headed toward military confrontation has mounted.

Iran to Trump: You areplaying 'very dangerous game,' risking 'devastating war'

In Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy published a statement Wednesday sayingthe State Department mandated thatall nonemergency government staff leave the country after Washington said last week it detected urgent "credible" threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and U.S. interests.

Specific details about the intelligence havenot been revealed.

Saudi Arabia said this week that two of its oil tankers and other energy-related infrastructure were damaged in an act of "sabotage" in theGulf. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who are fighting a war with Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities Tuesday.

Federica Mogherini, Europe'stop foreign affairs diplomat, called for theUnited Statesto show"maximum restraint" after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Mixed messages: Varied points of view from Trump onIran

When the UnitedStatespulled out of the nuclear deal in May last year, the other signatories to the accord Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union vowed to stay in and establish a financial mechanism that would allow them to keep trade and other ties with Iran open amid the U.S. sanctions. They have struggled to achieve that. As a result, Iran gave European countries 60 daysto find a way of salvaging the agreementor it would start enriching uranium to far higher levels.

If nothing happens when the 60 days are up, "there will be consequences from our side," Hamid Baeidinejad, Irans ambassador to the United Kingdom, told USA TODAY and other media outlets during a briefing in Iran's Embassy in London on Tuesday.

Successive U.S. administrations have viewed Iran as a regional troublemaker and described it as the "largest state sponsor of terrorism." Tehranaids a number of Shiitemilitant groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syriaand elsewhere across the Middle East. The Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal in part because of that and also because the deal does not address Iran's ballistic missile activity.

The United States and Iran have been lobbing threats, fighting proxy wars, and imposing sanctions for decades. USA Today looks at over 60 years of this back-and-forth. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

Iran or its proxies, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban, havecarried out bombings, abductions and hijackings against the USAand other Western nations.

"Iran is certain to continue to pursue its regional strategy,unless and until its adversaries are willing or able to blunt Irans efforts," the authors of a new report bythe Soufan Center, a global security research center, wrote."Rolling back Tehrans regional influence will require an equally nimble approach combining diplomacy, smart counter-terrorism policy, and a nuanced understanding of how and why Irans soft power efforts have been successful so they may be effectively countered."

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said lawmakers needed an immediate briefing from Trump administration officials on the alleged threats from Iran. He said there are only two reasons for the State Departmentto order the departure of U.S. Embassy staff from Baghdad: credible intelligence Americans are at riskor preparation for military action.

"The Trump administration has not provided any information to this committee on the intelligence behind their decisions or what they plan to do in Iraq or Iran," he said.

War plan?: Trump dismisses report of plan to send troops to Middle East

A U.S. Patriot missile defense system is stationed at the Israeli air force base in Hatzor.(Photo: ATEF SAFADI, EPA-EFE)

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Contributing: Deirdre Shesgreen

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May 14, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

By Alexander Smith and Kennett Werner

At first glance, it was possible to miss the puncture at the waterline of the Andrea Victory, a 600-foot Norwegian oil tanker anchored off the United Arab Emirates.

The damage appeared relatively minor, and no one has been officially blamed.

And yet, there are growing fears that this mysterious, obscure incident could become a catalyst accidental or otherwise that inflames the already knife-edge tensions between the United States and Iran.

The Andrea Victory was one of four ships damaged in what officials are calling a coordinated sabotage attack carried out early Sunday.

Two of the ships were from Saudi Arabia, and one of them was set to deliver crude oil to the U.S., according to Riyadh's energy ministry. A fourth vessel nearby was also damaged.

There does not appear to be any official, publicly released information implicating Iran in the incident, save the country's proximity some 60 miles across the Gulf of Oman.

"The available data on the incident is still too scant to pin blame," according to Mohammad Shabani, a researcher at SOAS University of London.

Nonetheless, at a moment of acute tension with Washington, Iran has quickly become the focus of the fallout.

Since his election in 2016, President Donald Trump and his team have consistently taken a more hawkish stance toward the country than the Obama administration.

The president withdrew from a landmark deal designed to curb Iran's nuclear program last year. Trump complained that, although Iran was complying, the agreement was too soft.

Then the U.S. deployed an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf last week to counter alleged threats from Tehran.

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It also warned that there was an increased risk of Iran "targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels" in the region.

On Monday, Trump stopped short of blaming the country directly for this incident.

"We'll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake," he told reporters. "If they do anything, they will suffer greatly."

Separately, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday blamed Yemeni rebels aligned with Iran for launching explosives-laden drones at oil facilities. State oil company Aramco shut down pumping on one of its pipelines and oil prices rose sharply, but no injuries or deaths were reported.

The rising temperature has prompted some politicians and experts in Europe to urge calm particularly when so much seems unclear about who carried out the attack.

"We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said at a summit in Brussels with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Hunt said he was concerned about "an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict." He called for "a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking."

It was the latest sign of daylight between the U.S. and its European allies on their policies regarding Iran. While the European Union shares some of Washington's concerns about the Islamic republic, the 28-country bloc still backs the nuclear deal and wants to salvage it.

What worries some experts in Europe is the bellicose rhetoric being exchanged between the U.S. and Iran.

Never mind who was behind Sunday's attack, it is the mere uncertainty surrounding it, combined with the warlike words exchanged by both sides, that escalates the risk for some misunderstanding leading to war, so this theory goes.

"Regardless of whether these ships got hit by Iranians or not, the Americans and the Iranians have gotten themselves into this cycle where neither seems to be able to back down from making belligerent statements," according to Michael Stephens, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.

The tough talk employed by Trump, Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton carries significant and perhaps unintended and unforeseen risks, Stephens said.

"If that's what drives the Iranians to the negotiating table, then it's a successful tactic," he said. "But it really is playing with fire, and all it takes is for one thing to go wrong because the Middle East is a tinderbox."

The crux of all this is the debilitated Iran nuclear deal.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned last week that his country might restart enrichment of higher grade nuclear fuel if other nations do not help get around the restrictions imposed by Trump after he pulled out of the agreement.

"The crunch point is whether Iran decides to pull back from its commitments on the nuclear deal," Stephens said. "If it does that, then I think all bets are off really."

For its part, Iran has denied all involvement in Sunday's maritime sabotage. While information is scant, some analysts believe the country would be reluctant to sanction such a direct assault and risk triggering a war it would surely lose.

Iran's foreign ministry echoed the conspiracy theories bouncing around some corners of the internet, suggesting it may have been some kind of false-flag operation staged as a convenient pretext to war.

Spokesman Abbas Mousavi spoke of a vague "conspiracy orchestrated by ill-wishers" and "adventurism by foreigners," according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

As the New Yorker magazine pointed out Monday, the U.S. does have "a long history of provoking, instigating, or launching wars based on dubious, flimsy, or manufactured threats."

Perhaps the most famous of these were the disputed Gulf of Tonkin attacks in 1964 that led to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

Another possibility is that a militant group such as Al Qaeda carried out the assault.

Whoever is responsible, the lack of information is doing little to calm the red-hot tensions that have risen in this part of the world since Trump's inauguration.

"Everyone is being really careful because the implications can be as dangerous as the facts," said Sanam Vakil, senior research fellow at Chatham House, another London think tank.

"Everybodys posturing," she added, "but with all this heightened rhetoric and movement of military equipment, of course anything could happen and thats what makes this so dangerous."

Alexander Smith is a London-based senior reporter forNBC News Digital.

Kennett Werner is a reporter for NBC News.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed.

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