Mediaboss Marketing

John Bolton, President Donald Trump's national security adviser, announced on Sunday that the US would send the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its associated strike group to the waters near Iran to "send a message" and respond to vague threats.

But the US will be sending the powerful carrier to a job it's arguably ill-suited for, putting thousands of sailors at a major military disadvantage. And if a conflict were to arise, the sinking of a US aircraft carrier would be in Iran's sights.

Though the carrier's deployment to Iran's nearby waters may have been planned long ago, Bolton has been clear that the ship's return to the region marks a response to "a number of troubling and escalatory incident and warnings" from Iran.

Read more: Why the US suddenly decided to send an aircraft carrier and bombers to check Iran

DoD photo

While Bolton did not get into specifics, a report from Axios said Israel passed the US "information on an alleged Iranian plot to attack" US forces or interests in the region.

The Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying new intelligence "showed that Iran drew up plans to target U.S. forces in Iraq and possibly Syria, to orchestrate attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb strait near Yemen through proxies and in the Persian Gulf with its own armed drones."

Read more: Iran harassed and humiliated the US Navy under Obama here's why it stopped under Trump

US aircraft carrier strike groups represent the highest order of naval power ever put to sea, but they're not the right tool for every job.

Caitlin Talmadge, an associate professor of security studies, said on Twitter that US carriers are "designed for operations on the open ocean."

As a floating air base with guided-missile destroyers and cruisers sailing nearby for antimissile defenses from land and sea, the carriers are best off when moving around far from the range of missiles fired from the shore.

The narrow, "confined waters of the Persian Gulf make carriers tremendously more vulnerable to asymmetric air, land, and naval threats," Talmadge wrote.

Iranian military personnel participate in the Velayat-90 war game near the Strait of Hormuz. REUTERS/Fars News/Hamed Jafarnejad

In the shallow brown waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow pass through which about one-fifth of the world's oil passes through, Iran's outdated submarines and missiles see a vastly uneven playing ground leveled out.

"Ideally, a Nimitz-class carrier would operate within comfortable range of its targets (based on the range of its air wing) but at sufficient stand-off distance to minimize the risk of enemy threats," Omar Lamrani, a senior military analyst at the geopolitical consulting firm Stratfor, told Business Insider. "This varies based on operating environment but is usually between 300 to 400 nautical miles."

Aircraft carriers do send a message and have been relied on for such by presidents for decades, but according to Talmadge, it's kind of empty in this situation.

Read more: Iran releases video of its submarine sinking a US aircraft carrier by exploiting a key weakness

In the Gulf wars and against militants such as ISIS, aircraft carriers made plenty of sense.

"Iraq has tiny coast, couldn't contest US carrier presence, so unusual situation," added Talmadge, who said that Iran was a different kind of beast.

But "Iran's geography & military capabilities, particularly presence of significant assets near Strait of Hormuz, make sailing carrier through Gulf a lot riskier, and w/ less benefit given US ability to deploy carriers in Arabian Sea & Indian Ocean instead," she said. Google Maps

In fact, the Persian Gulf, Iran's home waters, plays directly into their hands. One of Iran's favorite and best documented ways to harass the US Navy is to use fast-attack boats in a swarming attack.

Swarm boat attacks would "not be much of a danger in the open sea," where the carrier had room to maneuver, but could be a problem in the choked gulf.

"Iran has various systems that can be a threat within the Persian Gulf, including anti-ship cruise missiles, fast attack craft and swarm boats, mini-submarines, and even asymmetric tactics like UAV swarms that seek to harass rather than disable the carrier," Lamrani added.

Read more: Iran has found a new way to mess with the US Navy

Aircraft carriers lack onboard defenses against torpedo attacks, something that an old Iranian submarine could manage. In the noisy brown waters of the Persian Gulf, the US Navy may also struggle to track such small boats.

Furthermore, the Iranian media has fantasized for years about sinking an aircraft carrier. In the country's state-controlled media, the massive ships are often seen as targets ripe for sinking.

Iran's Ghadir submarine menaces behind a US carrier strike group in a propaganda video. Iranian TV via MEMRI

With US-Iranian relations hitting a startling new low, the Trump administration's decision to send an aircraft carrier to Tehran's home waters seems like a risky choice with little apparent payoff.

Accompanying the carrier deployment announced by Bolton was an increase in bombers in the region. Business Insider has previously reported that Iran is highly unlikely to attack even small exposed groups of US troops in the region because the response from nearby US air bases would all but obliterate the country.

Read more:
US sent Iran an aircraft-carrier 'message,' but it's at a ...

National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the U.S. is sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East. Buzz60, Buzz60

WASHINGTON The Pentagon is sending a "very loud" message to Iran not to harm U.S. troopsin the Middle East after intelligence reports revealed a rising level of threats from Iranian paramilitary forces,a senior Defense official said Monday.

The commander of U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, made an urgent request to bolster American forces in the region after observing multiple streams of intelligence that indicated threats to U.S. troops, according to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The threats were above and beyond what is usually detected.

There are hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Syria, as well as in surrounding Middle East countries.

The U.S.S. Lincoln aircraft carrier task force and a bomber group were dispatched to send the message to Iran to leave U.S. forces alone, the official said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks to the media on the sidelines of the Arctic Council ministers' working dinner at the Arktikum museum in Rovaniemi, Finland, Monday, May 6, 2019. The U.S. is dispatching an aircraft carrier and other military resources to the Middle East following what it says are indications that Iran and its proxy forces are preparing to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)(Photo: Mandel Ngan, AP)

The Pentagon also announced Monday that it is bolstering its forces in the Middle East to counter Irans destabilizing activities and malign behavior.

Spokesman Charles Summers said the U.S. military has been prepared to deal with Iranian provocations.

However, the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force are considered a prudent step in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against U.S. forces and our interests, Summers said. It ensures we have the forces we need in the region to respond to contingencies and to defend U.S. forces and interests in the region."

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

That announcement follows a statement released Sunday night by John Bolton, President Trump's national security adviser. Bolton referred to "troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran as the reason for the deployment of the Lincoln and the bombers.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted Monday that Iran could not escape blame by sending proxy forces to attack U.S. troops. Any attack, he said, would be attributed to Iran andGen. Qassem Soleimani, who heads the elite Quds Force of Iran's hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

"We will not distinguish between attacks from Shia militias in #Iraq & the #IRGC that controls them, Rubio tweeted.

The Pentagon has a history of bad blood with Iranian forces in the region, particularly in Iraq. During the peak of fighting in Iraq, U.S. commanders produced evidence of sophisticated explosives used to kill U.S. troops. Known as explosively formed penetrators, the weapons required expertise and manufacturing that wasn't available to most militants in Iraq.

Read more: Download the USA TODAY app

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/06/iran-poses-potential-harm-us-troops-military-forces-sent-area/1122759001/

See original here:
Iran poses potential harm to U.S. troops; military forces ...

Breaking News Emails

Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

May 6, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC/ UpdatedMay 6, 2019, 11:26 AM UTC

By Alex Johnson and Abigail Williams

The United States is sending a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to send a "clear and unmistakable message" to Iran, President Donald Trump's national security adviser announced Sunday night.

While John Bolton said the U.S. wasn't seeking to go to war with Iran, "we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces."

He added: "Any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force."

Bolton said the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and an unspecified bomber task force were being sent to U.S. Central Command's region of responsibility, which covers the Middle East. According to the Navy, the strike group left Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on April 1 on a regularly scheduled deployment.

The strike group consists of the Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier; the USS Leyte Gulf, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser; Carrier Air Wing Seven; and destroyers from Destroyer Squadron Two.

In a brief statement, Bolton didn't say what specific actions or provocations the United States was responding to.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also declined to cite specifics, saying Sunday night that the move was unrelated to the deadly violence over the weekend in the Gaza Strip, where Iran is widely reported to fund Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

"It's something weve been working on for a little while," Pompeo told reporters aboard his flight to Europe.

"It is absolutely the case that we have seen escalatory actions from the Iranians, and it is equally the case that we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests," he said. "If these actions take place if they do by some third-party proxy, a militia group, Hezbollah we will hold the Iranian leadership directly accountable for that."

The announcement comes two days after the Trump administration imposed new limits on Iran's nuclear activities. Trump said last month that the United States would no longer exempt any nation from U.S. sanctions if it buys Iranian oil.

NBC News has previously reported that Bolton, who has long been considered a hawk on Iran, has clashed with officials at the State Department who favor maintaining all of the waivers.

Last month, the Trump administration designated the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has placed the designation on part of another country's government. The designation categorizes Iran's military alongside groups like ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas.

More here:
U.S. deploying carrier strike group to send 'message' to Iran

Breaking News Emails

Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

April 13, 2019, 2:14 PM GMT

By F. Brinley Bruton and Ali Arouzi

The White House was looking to shake things up when it designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.

It worked.

American terrorists killed in bombing, read a headline in Irans official Fars news agency, referring to an attack in Afghanistan that killed three U.S. servicemen. That came just a day afterthe Trump administration's announcement and represented a marked change in terminology by Tehran.

Iranian lawmakers dressed in military uniforms also chanted "Death to America" during an open session of Parliament on Tuesday. And according to the countrys Mehr news agency, Parliament passed an emergency bill requesting that countries that arrest U.S troops should hand them over to Iran to face trial as terrorists.

President Hassan Rouhani declared that the force's popularity would only surge in the wake of the designation, saying its members would be more "in the hearts of the Iranian nation" than at any other time in history.

The White Houses decision to put the powerful military unit with deep economic resources that answers only to the country's supreme leader in the same category as al Qaeda and the Islamic State group came a year after the Trump administration said it was withdrawing from the landmark Iran nuclear agreement.

Richard Nephew, a former director for Iran at the National Security Council who served as a member of the team who negotiated the 2015 deal, said President Donald Trump's decision to designate the Guard as terrorists would most likely make American operations in the region much more complicated.

If you have terrorists nearby ... what do you do with them? he wrote in an email. In the U.S. system, we have authorities that authorize military operations against them. The Iranians know that. Are they going to wait to be hit? Or will they hit first?

This is not a hypothetical scenario: For almost two decades Iran has expanded its influence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. In the process, it has had to operate close to American forces often as adversaries, but sometimes not.

And the designation raises legal issues, Nephew said.

What do we do if we capture IRGC officers somehow in Syria or Iraq? Do we turn them loose to the Iranians? They're terrorists! he wrote. And, what do the Iranians do if they capture U.S. terrorists in the Persian Gulf as they did in January 2016?

NBC News reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

Trump called the designation an unprecedented step that recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.

Those who opposed the Obama-era nuclear pact both in Washington and the capitals of U.S. allies in the Middle East allege it gave Iran cover to pursue its ballistic weapons program and deepen its influence in the region. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia have warned for years of Irans growing power, and were bitterly disappointed when Obama negotiated it.

On the eve of pivotal elections in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday personally thanked Trump for the designation, as did Saudi Arabia.

But this week's announcement makes it less likely that Iran will accede to American demands and stop its pernicious activity in the region, according to Ilan Goldenberg, Middle East security director at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington.

The bottom line is the agreement was working, it was containing Irans nuclear program and we had total international support and unity around this issue, he said.

With the nuclear deal axed, that mechanism for the U.S. to address Irans behavior is no longer available.

Weve shattered all trust, Goldenberg said. You could have had a negotiation on ballistic missiles. You could have had a negotiation on regional behavior. You could have had negotiations on future additional nuclear agreements.

Sanctions against the Guard could also complicate any attempt by a future president to try to return the United States to the Iran deal, both advocates and critics of the move said.

This is part of a strategy by Iran hawks to layer on sanctions to make it more difficult for Democrats," a Republican congressional aide told NBC News when the designation was announced.

Several Democratic presidential candidates have said they favored having the United States re-enter the agreement, and the Democratic National Committee has said it supports a return to the deal.

F. Brinley Bruton reported from London, Ali Arouzi reported from Tehran, and Dan De Luce from Washington.

F. Brinley Bruton is a London-based senior editor for NBC News Digital. She focuses on news from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ali Arouzi is NBC News' Tehran bureau chief and correspondent.

Dan De Luce, Associated Press and Reuters contributed.

Go here to read the rest:
Designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard as terror group could ...

Formed in the wake of Iran's 1979 revolution, the deeply ideological IRGC was designated by Washington as a specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) and sanctioned under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) in 2017.

Iran has been listed as a state sponsor of terror by the U.S. since 1984, and in 2007 its foreign operations wing, the Quds Force, was labeled an SDGT.

Many experts agree that the FTO label won't significantly deepen the impact that previous designations have already had. Inflation and unemployment in Iran are skyrocketing, with the sanctions compounding an economy long made stagnant by decades of mismanagement and corruption.

Oil exports, central to Iran's revenue, have dropped from around 2.5 million barrels a day before Trump's sanctions to just over 1 million per day now.

"The symbolism, however, is very important here," Vakil said. "The Trump administration is upping the ante in their maximum pressure campaign, because their policy as it stands today has yet to see any change in Iranian behavior."

In the past few years, Iranian-backed proxy activity in the Middle East including support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and for Bashar Assad's forces in Syria has only continued or increased.

See the article here:
Trump's terrorist designation of Iran's IRGC: The economic impact