Duane Patterson
…. What I do find of extraordinary importance is what is taking place on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean that happens to contain a very long 12,000-foot runway.
Diego Garcia Air Force Base is a joint U.S. and U.K. base on the largest of the Chagos Islands. The Brits have controlled much of the region as part of their British Indian Ocean Territories, but in 2024, they negotiated transfer of the island to Mauritania, with the exception of a 99-year lease for the Air Base, which is now operated and used by both the Brits and the Americans. It also happens to be due south of Iran.
In the last 72 hours, a pretty significant buildup of U.S. aerial assets have been arriving on the archipelago, and the amount of open source information thus far is something that very well might be of great consequence to the greater Middle East very soon.
Most of those B-2's, the bat-wing stealth bombers that will single-handedly ruin any adversary's day if they happen to drop the types of premium ordinance they usually contain, are usually stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base about three hours west of St. Louis. There are indications that there may be as many as 7 of the B-2's now on that island in the Indian Ocean. They're not there for rest and recreation.
… Donald Trump was the first president since Ronald Reagan to give the Iranians, and their proxies, pause after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. But then Joe Biden freed up all the money Trump sanctioned, pouring gasoline, and rockets, missiles, and drones all over the region, leading to the October 7th holocaust on Israel by Hamas in 2023.
Now that Donald Trump is back in office, having talked to hostages in which he facilitated their release from the Hamas tunnels, he has seen enough. He gave Hamas an ultimatum to release the remaining hostages immediately, or all hell would break loose. They didn't, and Israel eventually began raining hell down on the Gaza Strip once it became clear the ceasefire was no longer working.
Hezbollah has been effectively dismantled by Israel. Bashar al-Assad is no longer running Syria, and that country is now a failed state with all sorts of factions vying for control. Last week, the sustained campaign against the Houthis by the United States began in earnest, with the message to Iran being very, very clear.
Iran has chosen no deal, Howie. On St. Patrick's Day, Trump seemingly gave Iran one more final warning.
It's a week later, and Iran has not heeded the warning. They floated video of short and medium-range missiles, presumably underground somewhere, as a tacit warning back to the U.S. to back off. Which brings us back to Diego Garcia.
… Two carrier task groups have been dispatched to the region. This buildup, especially with the refueling tankers, is not something that indicates whatever is coming is a one-off. This is what you would see if you were planning on being there a while with a plan to rearrange the landscape of a country. The buildup is not for Yemen, because the Houthis are being eradicated pretty efficiently from assets in the Red Sea.
So why all this firepower in this particular location? There really can be only two explanations, and neither one of them is very good for Iran. One is that Donald Trump is on his last nerve with Khamenei, and has ordered the staging in order to bring the promised hell to them and end this nuisance once and for all. The other is to make Tehran think they're about to be hit, hoping they will blink, roll over, and give up the keys to their nuclear program.
Iran once was thought to be an ominous proposition to handle, militarily speaking, inside their borders. They have an alliance with Russia and China, and until recently defended their airspace with Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries. Except last October 30th, Israel did us the good favor of destroying those batteries, leaving Iran defenseless from the air.
The possible targeting, were hell to come visit Iran, could be small, and it could be large, or it could be a mixture. They have lots of oil, but very limited refining capacity. Would be a shame if something happened to their refinery. Their electrical grid is shaky. Would be a pity if the country looked like North Korea at night. Their nuclear program's key ingredients, centrifuges believed to be buried under mountains which would be formidable to most nations, are complicated but not out of reach to U.S. bunker busters that can be used as pile drivers of destruction with successive drops in the same location.
I’m not sure how much military expertise and analysis the executive producer of the Hugh Hewitt show brings to the party, although he’s got at least as much, and probably more, than the Obama Iran “experts” who ran the desk for 12 of the past 16 years, and he does link to and seems to rely on this article by Alistair Bunkall , Sky News UK’s military correspondent, who does seem to have a pretty good grasp of the situation:
The United States appears to be significantly increasing its military presence in the Middle East with the deployment of highly sophisticated aircraft and a second aircraft carrier to the region.
In recent days, at least five B-2 stealth bombers have deployed to Diego Garcia, a British military base used by the US in the Indian Ocean. More are reportedly en route.
Seven C17 aircraft have also been tracked landing on the remote atoll, suggesting transportation of equipment, personnel and supplies, and refuelling aircraft have been repositioned to strategic locations.
The Pentagon recently ordered the USS Harry S Truman carrier strike group to extend its deployment in the Red Sea by a month, and a second strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, is heading for the Middle East.
Both groups have support ships, including destroyers, as part of the group.
It is an unusual surge in military assets and an indication, perhaps, that the US is planning heavy strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and possibly looking to send a strong message to Iran.
The Houthis, an Islamist group that controls a large part of Yemen, including the capital Sana'a, have repeatedly attacked Red Sea shipping and Israel during the war in Gaza.
Those attacks stopped while the ceasefire was in force but have restarted following a resumption of Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Do we really want to go to war again in the Middle East? I think perhaps not, but if we’re going to do it, at least this time we have a worthwhile target.
