US’s Austin deploys submarine to Middle East, tells aircraft carrier to accelerate its transit
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the deployment of a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft Carrier Strike Group to speed up its journey to the region.
The moves come as Israel and the US watch out for an Iran-led retaliatory attack over the assassination of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr in Beirut.
The Pentagon, in a statement, said Austin spoke with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and reiterated Washington’s commitment “to take every possible step to defend Israel”. Reinforcing this commitment, the Pentagon chief ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, equipped with F-35C fighters, “to accelerate its transit” to the Middle East and ordered the USS Georgia (SSGN 729) guided missile submarine to the area, the statement said.
Iran, Hezbollah keeping Israelis ‘on edge’
Rami Khouri, distinguished public policy fellow with the American University of Beirut, said the US and Israel are preparing for a “big attack” from Iran and Hezbollah.
“The Iranians and Hezbollah are being very coy about this,” he told Al Jazeera from Boston. “Really what they’re doing is pretty extensive psychological warfare, keeping the Israelis on edge. And not just the Israeli army, which is quite stretched and exhausted and still hasn’t achieved its objectives in Gaza, but also the Israeli population and the Israeli economy.”
He noted that the news out of Israel in the past few hours was that Israeli and American intelligence expect the retaliatory attack in the next 48 hours.
“But they’ve been saying that for the last three four weeks,” Khouri said. “So really, I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the day-to-day manoeuvring and rather look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture being that Israel’s military power and the US support have not allowed Israel to become a safer place to live for Jews, have not achieved it short term goals [in Gaza], have worsened its position regionally and globally.”
‘US seeks to contain escalation with efforts on multiple tracks’
Ibrahim Fraihat, associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says the US is giving a message to Iran by ordering a guided missile submarine and an aircraft carrier group to hasten its arrival to the Middle East.
“The US is working on multiple tracks,” he said.
“One is posturing in the region and sending a very strong message to Iran that, ‘We are ready not only on the rhetoric level by making statements, but also by sending aircraft carriers and submarines to the region in order to be ready and defend Israel’,” the academic said.
He also said that the international community is preparing for the Gaza war truce talks on August 15.
“Second … the US is counting on big time on these talks to try to have a breakthrough. And for that they are sending their three top diplomats,” Fraihat said.
“The US is working on these two tracks in order to contain the escalation in the region,” he said.
Everything except reigning in Israel... If you don't fix the source, you'll never get lasting de-escalation.
