US poised for war on Iran—Here’s what Trump has deployed to Middle East

President Donald Trump is sending even more warships, fighter jets, missiles and troops to the Middle East, raising concerns that a U.S. military attack on Iran could be imminent.

Although he’s indicated he prefers to negotiate with Tehran, his administration has not taken military action off the table.

Fighter jets were being deployed even as the U.S. and Iran held indirect talks this week on restrictions to Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The war planes join the huge “armada” Trump has built up in the region these past weeks, which include the aircraft carriers the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln. These vessels carry thousands of personnel, dozens of planes and vast caches of precision weapons—and would likely be key for any major military operation.

Washington is now poised for a larger, sustained operation against Iran than its attack last June, which saw precision strikes on three of Tehran’s nuclear sites.

In fact, there is now enough firepower in the region for the president to authorize an assault as early as this weekend, unnamed U.S. officials have told some media outlets.

Trump still prefers diplomacy, said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. But, she warned, there were “many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran.”

Which Warships Have Been Deployed?

Moving assets closer to a target doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be used for an attack. When the U.S. targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, many of the aircraft involved departed from the mainland U.S.

But having lots of firepower nearby has obvious advantages. Fighter jets don’t need to refuel in midair if they’re launched from an aircraft carrier near to a target, and can fly much quicker to where they need to be.

Last week, Trump said the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, was being sent from the Caribbean to the Middle East. It is due to arrive in the area in coming weeks and was tracked heading for the Strait of Gibraltar on Tuesday.

It will join the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the area. Satellite imagery from recent days shows the huge vessel off the coast of Oman.

Aircraft carriers travel with what is known as a carrier strike group, or other ships loaded with weapons to carry out attacks and to protect the carrier itself. The idea is for the entire package of vessels to project power wherever they are deployed.

As such, several other vessels are accompanying the Ford and Lincoln. We’ve seen evidence of:

• The three guided missile destroyers which are part of the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group: the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., USS Michael Murphy, and the USS Spruance. These can launch several weapons, including long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles. A guided missile submarine fired Tomahawks at Iran during the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes last June.
• Three other destroyers have also been reportedly sent to the area, the USS McFaul, USS Mitscher and the USS Pinckney.

Also in the area is the USNS Henry J. Kaiser, a refilling vessel, and the USNS Carl Brashear, a cargo ship able to carry large supplies of ammunition. At least one nuclear submarine accompanies each carrier strike group.

The USS Santa Barbara, a littoral combat ship, carried out exercises in the Middle East, along with close support aircraft, earlier this month. These smaller combat ships are designed to operate in shallow waters near land where bigger warships cannot go.

Specialist trackers have also reported that two other combat ships, the USS Canberra and USS Tulsa are deployed with the Santa Barbara in the Persian Gulf.

The USS Bulkeley, another guided missile destroyer, is deployed in the Mediterranean. It’s thought to be accompanied by the USS Roosevelt warship. If needed, these ships would be able to reach the Persian Gulf in a matter of days, rather than the weeks it would likely take to arrive from further afield.

The Airpower Flying Over

The U.S. is already known to have aircraft stationed in and around the Middle East, with about 100 aircraft just at its Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, across the sea from Iran. The base was targeted by Iran last summer in retaliation for the American strikes on its nuclear facilities.

Monitors say the U.S. has also moved an additional 50 fighter jets, including two types of advanced, fifth-generation aircraft known for their stealth capabilities, toward the Middle East in recent days.

At least a dozen F-22s departed Langley Air Force Base in Virginia early on Tuesday, according to The War Zone. F-22 Raptors are one of the most sophisticated jets in the world, and very hard for enemies to detect on radar.

They work alongside other aircraft when carrying out missions. During the U.S.’s June strikes on Iran, F-22s were among the 125 aircraft deployed by U.S. forces, which also included B-2 bombers carrying powerful “bunker buster” bombs.

Several war planes have arrived in the U.K. and Europe in recent days too, according to online radars and monitors. The U.K. is traditional stopover and refueling point for U.S. Air Force planes traveling onto the Middle East.

Six F-22 jets arrived in the U.K. from the U.S. on Tuesday, footage posted online suggests.

Meanwhile, open-source analysts tracked around 20 U.S. tanker aircraft, more than a dozen transport aircraft and at least two E-3 airborne early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft departing the U.S. eastward on Tuesday, within a few hours of each other.

AWACS planes like the E-3 are sometimes referred to as “eyes in the sky,” deployed with other aircraft to sniff out threats and command the wider fleet in the air.

Flight tracking data shows two U.S. Air Force E-3 aircraft departed the British Mildenhall air base on Wednesday. As of 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, both had flown over Saudi Arabia. Analysts suggested the aircraft could land at the Prince Sultan Air Base in central Saudi Arabia.

Another clip circulating online appeared to show an E-3 taking off from an airstrip, but it’s not clear when and where it was filmed.

At least one C-17A large transport aircraft arrived at the U.K.’s RAF Lakenheath on Wednesday from the U.S., according to flight tracking data. Another C-17 set off from McEntire Joint National Guard Base for the U.K. on Wednesday.

Three more transport aircraft arrived at the British base on Wednesday from Spangdahlem air base in western Germany. The European base is home to American F-16 fighter jets, and reports have claimed up to 36 F-16 fighter jets have been newly deployed toward the Middle East.

On Monday, 18 F-35A stealth fighters departed left Lakenheath for Jordan, analysts said. F-35s, like F-22s, are very fast, hard to spot, and kitted out with the most advanced avionics and weapons.

They were accompanied by eight tankers from the Mildenhall base, open-source information indicated. Other U.S. aircraft have been deployed to Jordan in previous weeks, including electronic warfare aircraft.

The U.S. is sending more air defenses, like the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, to the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reported last month. Both are considered the gold-standard of ground-based air defenses able to intercept attacks by ballistic and cruise missiles.

Is the US And Allies in Danger of Retaliation?

The White House has repeatedly said, even after the Geneva talks wrapped up, that diplomacy is President Trump‘s first choice. But this has been quickly followed up by overt threats of military force.

Ahead of the talks on Tuesday, the president had said: “We could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s in to knock out their nuclear potential. And we had to send the B-2s,” referring to the seven B-2s involved in last summer’s attacks.

“I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal.”

Leavitt emphasized this again on Wednesday, saying: “Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump,” noting that the Iranians now had a “couple of weeks” to come back with a deal.

Earlier, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had issued a defiant, fiery response to the U.S. military build up in the region—saying even the world’s “strongest military” could “be struck so hard that it cannot even get back on its feet.”

Iran has warned that if Trump did launch an attack, U.S. and allied bases in the Middle East would be in Tehran’s crosshairs. After the June attack last year, Iran targeted the U.S Al Udeid air base in Qatar.

There are other U.S. bases across the region, including in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan. U.S. allies in the region have raised concerns about how Iran could retaliate, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are believed to have been crucial to getting Iran-U. S. talks off the ground this year.

Separately, in a jab at the U.K. government on Wednesday, Trump said U.S. forces might also need to use the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to strike Iran if Tehran doesn’t sign a deal.

Diego Garcia hosts a joint U.S.-U.K. military base and is the largest of the Chagos Islands, a remote archipelago at the center of a long-running dispute between the U.K. and Mauritius.

The current U.K. government has long said it would to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius but that London would lease back Diego Garcia for at least 99 years.

Trump has periodically supported and condemned the decision for security reasons, arguing giving sovereignty away would affect the U.S.- U.K. military base there.

On Wednesday, he highlighted the Iran threat not just to the U.S. but also its old ally, the United Kingdom.

He posted on Truth Social: “Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime — An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries.”