Five years ago, Donald J. Trump tweeted:
That, of course, was years before Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman had journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and his body dismembered with a bone saw.
At a press conference Friday morning, however, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper let the prince, who is also the Saudi minister of defense, know that additional U.S. troops and military matériel would be deployed to the kingdom. ABC News reports that chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman said, "Taken together with other deployments, this constitutes an additional 3,000 forces that have been extended or authorized within the last month."
The U.S. is sending two fighter squadrons, one air expeditionary wing, two Patriot Batteries, and one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) to Saudi Arabia. The air expeditionary wing can be comprised of tankers, fighters, surveillance and reconnaissance, and the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), a U.S. official tells ABC News.
With the addition of these troops, the Trump regime will have added about 14,000 troops in the Middle East since May. The latest deployment is ostensibly meant to bolster Saudi defenses against attacks from Iran. Esper again pointed the finger at Iran over the drone attacks on the Saudi oil works at Abqaiq a month ago, saying that the evidence collected so far makes it clear Iran did the deed. Tehran’s leaders have denied this.
Any idea why we aren’t seeing the same scramble to figure out who struck an Iranian oil tanker Thursday as there was to pin the Abqaiq attack on Iran?
Rhetorical question.