Sending 82nd Airborne to Middle East in search of another Peace Prize
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Remember when people couldn’t vote for Kamala because she was going to start WWIII?
Good times.
The Pentagon is expected to send thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, adding to a massive U.S. military buildup even as President Donald Trump talks about a possible deal with Tehran to end the war.
Reuters first reported on March 18 that Trump’s administration was considering deploying thousands of additional U.S. troops, a move that would expand options to include deployment of forces inside Iranian territory. Such an escalation could dramatically raise the stakes in the conflict, which is already in its fourth week and has roiled global markets.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, did not specify where in the Middle East the troops would go or when they would arrive in the region. The soldiers are stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The U.S. military referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
No decision had been made to send troops into Iran itself, one of the sources told Reuters, but they will build up capacity for potential future operations in the region.
One of the sources said the Pentagon was set to send between 3,000 and 4,000 soldiers.
The soldiers’ deployment follows Reuters’ March 20 report about the U.S. decision to send thousands of Marines and sailors aboard the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, along with its Marine Expeditionary Unit and accompanying warships to the Middle East. . . .
Sources had previously said the U.S. military was looking at options in the Iran war including securing the Strait of Hormuz, potentially by deploying U.S. forces to Iran’s shoreline.
The Trump administration has also discussed options to send ground forces to Iran’s Kharg Island, the hub for 90% of Iran’s oil exports, Reuters has reported.
The 82nd Airborne Division, which can deploy within 18 hours of receiving orders, specializes in carrying out parachute assaults.
Trump is stumbling into a ground war because he’s a moron, surrounded by grifting opportunists, and I Look Like A Super Butch Warfighter on TV utter incompetents like Pete Hegseth.
I think it would be difficult to overestimate how wildly unpopular any kind of ground invasion would be, given that to an extent unprecedented in American history the administration has not bothered to produce any kind of consistent rationale for any of this, nor has it come up with any set of mission goals other than “the mullahs are overthrown by a spontaneous revolution,” which as I mentioned this morning is obviously pure magical thinking.
This is going to be a catastrophe, and the only silver lining here is that maybe, just maybe, this will be a bridge too far for enough Republican politicians to begin to make some sort of difference, and/or it will lead to a total wipeout in the midterms, despite massive voter suppression efforts. But that’s a very tenuous reed to grasp, given the enormity of the disaster that’s looming on the horizon.