Iran reacts to Trump’s decision to dispatch additional troops to the Middle East

Tabnak – As a new sign of its increasingly hostile policy toward Iran, the US administration has decided to deploy additional troops to the Middle East. Warning about the risk of escalation, Iranian foreign minister calls the latest American move “extremely dangerous.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the US decision to deploy additional troops to the Middle East is "extremely dangerous" and threatens international peace and security.

Zarif made the remarks on Saturday, a day after US President Donald Trump said he was sending some 1500 troops to the region for "mostly protective" reasons. The flip-flopping US president announced the decision only a day after he said he did not think additional American troops were needed in the Mideast.

"Increased US presence in our region is extremely dangerous and it threatens international peace and security, and this should be addressed," official IRNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying.

Tensions have escalated since the US sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the region in response to intelligence reports suggesting an imminent attack. Iran has dismissed the alleged intelligence as fake and slammed the deployments as a psychological warfare.

“The Americans have made such allegations to justify their hostile policies and to raise tensions in the Persian Gulf," Zarif said.

In the same vein and in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Friday, Majid Takht-Ravanchi said some officials in the Trump administration were pushing the US president to adopt a hard line toward Iran based on "fake intelligence".

"The recent dispatching of a US naval armada to the Persian Gulf is a response to the same fake intelligence, supported not by members of Congress or US allies," he wrote.

"While Iran does not desire war in the region, neither with the United States nor with any other country, we will stand firmly against any act of aggression against our country."

According to Takht-Ravanchi, the United States’ policy toward Iran, while having no clarity or cohesiveness, is driven by "an obsessional antagonism". "It is no secret that a number of US high officials — and certain leaders in the Middle East — are pushing President Trump to adopt a hardline policy toward Iran, even calling for 'regime change'.

"This group has presented what we call 'fake intelligence' to 'prove' that Iran is responsible for all of the Middle East’s problems — thus the urgency to confront us at any cost, including through military means."

It should be noted that since taking office, the US president has expressed an array of conflicting positions toward Iran, ranging from wanting dialogue with Tehran to threatening the country "the official end".

Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of a multilateral deal with Iran last year and reimposed sanctions on the country. He has recently ratcheted up pressure on Iran by halting a waiver for other countries to import crude oil from the Islamic Republic.