The head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegsethapproved this Friday at the request of the United States Central Command the deployment of the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli to the Middle East along with an expeditionary unit of 5,000 marines and sailors, according to the Wall Street Journal. The ship will be escorted by the guided missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls and the guided missile destroyer USS Rafael Peralta.
The deployment will reinforce the largest United States military operation in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald Ford, two of the large aircraft carriers of the North American fleet, have been sailing in the waters of the region for weeks. Their presence, however, does not seem enough to reduce the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The troops of the marine expeditionary unit have the necessary training and equipment to carry out ground operations, according to Associated Press. In addition to practicing amphibious assaults, the 2,500 troops know how to proceed in evacuating civilians and maintaining security in embassies.
Until this Friday, the mobilized units were stationed in Japan. They were sailing through the Pacific when they received the warning. Therefore, it is likely that they will take between one and two weeks to arrive at their destination.
The Pentagon intends to destroy the anti-ship missiles that the Iranians have deployed in Hormuz. Reopening as soon as possible the bottleneck through which 20% of global gas and oil consumption passes has become an essential objective for the operation Epic Fury follow its course.
Hegseth assured this Friday that the Trump Administration has “a plan in place to defeat, destroy and disable all of its significant military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before,” and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, And Raizin Cainepromised that his forces would continue to “destroy the Iranian Navy to ensure freedom of navigation, and that means attacking Iran’s mining capabilities and destroying its ability to attack commercial ships.”
The war threatens to continue over time. Donald Trump He says he will feel “in his bones” when the time is right to end the operation. Epic Fury.
The big question will be whether the Iranians will also be willing to stop the hostilities after having found the enemy’s Achilles heel in Hormuz.
The price of a barrel of oil surpassed the threshold of 100 dollars this Friday, the highest closing level in almost four years, And hours before, the Trump Administration had made the desperate decision to eliminate sanctions on Russian oil that was already loaded on ships for a month. An oxygen cylinder for Vladimir Putin.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessantacknowledged this Friday that his department estimates the volume of losses caused by the closure of Hormuz at $11 billion. The argument that the rise in oil prices benefits the United States, put forward this Thursday by Trump himself, clashes with his own data.
The former financier of George Sorosconverted into the visible face of Trump’s aggressive tariff policy, that the United States Army will be able to escort vessels passing through Hormuz “soon.”
The Secretary of Energy, Chris Wrighthad stated at the beginning of the week that the Navy had already managed to escort the first vessel in the strait. An advertisement as risky as it was erroneous that had to be removed from social networks after a few minutes.
The statements by Bessent, Trump and company seek to encourage the markets. Markets that, however, seem to pay more attention to the threats of Mojtab Jameneiwhom the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considered a “puppet” in the hands of the Revolutionary Guard.
Iran’s new supreme leader, who Hegseth said may be “injured and probably disfigured” following the Israeli bombing of Tehran that killed his father, Ali Jameneicalled in his first message to the nation to keep Hormuz closed tight.
The Pentagon reinforces the operation while the trickle of American casualties continues in the framework of the operation Epic Fury. In the accident of the KC-135 tanker plane that crashed in Iraq this Thursday, its six crew members died.
At least thirteen soldiers have died in fourteen days of conflict, according to Central Command. Trump confessed in the first days of the war that he expected more casualties, and that they would be inevitable.
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