Trump to Send 3,000 More Troops to Mideast as Saudi Crown Prince Pushes Iran Ground Invasion

This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Brett Wilkins

The Pentagon is preparing to deploy around 3,000 troops to the Middle East as thousands of Marines also head to the region amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, stoking fears of a possible ground invasion that is reportedly being pushed by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.

Two unidentified US officials told The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets Tuesday that soldiers from the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division quick reaction brigade—which can send troops almost anywhere in the world in under a day’s time—would be ordered to deploy in the coming hours.

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While the officials said that no decision has been made regarding a ground invasion of Iran, the deployment marks the latest escalation in the 24-day war—which President Donald Trump claimed was “very complete, pretty much” over two weeks ago.

The United States already has approximately 50,000 troops in the Middle East, where the US has attacked four countries—Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—along with Libya and Somalia in Africa and Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia, since 2001.

The US deployments come as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—who is often called by his initials MBS—is reportedly pushing Trump to launch a ground invasion of Iran with the objective of toppling its current government, which, despite assassinations of numerous leaders, has so far demonstrated a resiliency experts say is rooted in its decentralized and highly flexible “horizontal” command structure.

According to The New York Times, the crown prince is arguing that the war on Iran offers a “historic opportunity” to reshape the Middle East. Saudi officials denied any such lobbying.

This, as Gulf monarchies are reportedly inching closer to getting directly involved in the war, as Iranian counterattacks target regional US allies including Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Previous reporting by The Washington Post and others detailed how, before the war, MBS and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly pressed Trump to attack Iran for the second time in as many years.

Asked during a Tuesday White House press conference if MBS has “been encouraging you to do certain things related to Iran,” the president replied: “He’s a warrior. Yeah, he does. He’s a warrior. He’s fighting with us, by the way.”

Lauren Harper, the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said on Bluesky Tuesday that MBS’ reported lobbying of Trump “is a great example of why a strong Presidential Records Act is essential for accountability.”

Following Trump’s deletion of social media posts—including a racist video amplifying lies about the 2020 election in which former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama are portrayed as apes—there have been renewed calls for robust enforcement of the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which requires preservation of “the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of the president’s constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties.”

“Want to read the notes or the telcons (telephone conversations) between Trump and MBS re: Iran? Then you need an enforceable PRA that doesn’t let Trump get away with not keeping or destroying records,” Harper wrote.

US Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) said Tuesday on Bluesky: “I’ve listened to Trump’s calls with foreign leaders. The American people deserve to know exactly what he promised MBS—and at what cost to our troops and our values.”

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Some critics took aim at Trump’s campaign promise of no new wars, part of his so-called “America First” agenda.

“The America First guy keeps getting headlines about the war with Iran being pursued to fulfill the aims of Netanyahu or MBS,” said Chad Stanton, political director at the faith-based progressive advocacy group SojoAction.

(GP)

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