Even as flight tracking data shows an apparent exodus of aircraft from the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East ahead of a possible new conflict with Iran, Trump on Wednesday said the rationale for an attack may be subsiding. The president claimed that the killings of anti-regime protesters, which sparked his repeated threats against Iran, seem to be ending. His comments have created confusion in military, political, and diplomatic circles about what he intends to do about Iran.
You can catch up with our previous coverage of the unfolding events here.
“We were told that the killing in Iran is stopping and stopped – stopping, and there’s no plan for executions or an execution or executions,” Trump stated. “So I’ve been told that on good authority. We’ll find out about it.”
In an exclusive story later in the day, NBC News reported that “Trump has told his national security team that he would want any U.S. military action in Iran to deliver a swift and decisive blow to the regime and not spark a sustained war that dragged on for weeks or months.” The network cited a U.S. official, two people familiar with the discussions and a person close to the White House.
“If he does something, he wants it to be definitive,” one of the people familiar with the discussions told NBC.
“But Trump’s advisers have so far not been able to guarantee to him that the regime would quickly collapse after an American military strike, the U.S. official and two people familiar with the discussions said,” the story continued, “and there is concern that the U.S. may not have all the assets in the region it would need to guard against what administration officials expect would be an aggressive Iranian response.”
“Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkey, that U.S. bases in those countries will be attacked if the U.S. targets Iran,” Reuters reported. We saw a similar pattern in June, just days before Trump ordered the Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, when the Air Force evacuated many of its aircraft from bases near the Persian Gulf in order to save them from a potential barrage.
There have also been peculiar aircraft movements to Hawaii, though the reason is not clear. The Hawaii Air National Guard (HANG) is holding Sentry Aloha, a large training exercise involving fighter aircraft, airborne early warning jets and refueling tankers. This could account for some of the activity, but that even kicked off today and usually participating aircraft do not show up the night before such an exercise.
It also should be remembered that the Pentagon purposely made sure flight trackers could see the movements of what appeared to be a large group of B-2s over the Pacific ahead of Midnight Hammer in what became a very effective information operation. In reality, the real strike force was heading east without being tracked, over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, before making their way to strike their targets in Iran.
“At midnight, Friday into Saturday morning, a large B-2 strike package comprised of bombers” left the United States, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained during a press conference following Midnight Hammer. “As part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise, part of the package proceeded to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy, a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa.”
Whether there is any connection between what we are seeing in Hawaii and any attack on Iran is something we will only really know after the fact, just like Midnight Hammer. But aside from prepositioning refueling assets, this seems less likely at this time.
As far as Navy assets, a handful of unconfirmed reports state the U.S. is ordering the USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group (CSG) to the Middle East. This would mark the first major movement of Navy assets to the region since massive protests against the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei broke out across the country last month. There are currently no U.S. aircraft carriers in the region.