Here we go again - Part 2

On Sunday, the National Security Council announced that the U.S. was sending a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Persian Gulf in response to “troubling and escalatory” warnings from Iran—an eye-popping move that raised fears of a potential military confrontation with Tehran. Justifying the move, anonymous government officials cited intelligence indicating Iran had crafted plans to use proxies to strike U.S. forces, both off the coast of Yemen and stationed in Iraq. National Security Adviser John Bolton also discussed the intelligence on the record. A consensus appeared to be emerging: that Iran was gearing up for war.

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“It’s not that the administration is mischaracterizing the intelligence, so much as overreacting to it,” said one U.S. government official briefed on it. Another source familiar with the situation agreed that the Trump administration’s response was an “overreaction” but didn’t dispute that a threat exists. Gen. Qasem Soleimani—the head of the Quds Force, Iran’s covert action arm—has told proxy forces in Iraq that a conflict with the U.S. will come soon, this source noted.

  Daily Beast

I think we could all make that prediction since the day John Bolton was made a part of the administration.

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to “totally dismantle Iran’s global terror network” and once in office his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, used his inaugural press briefing to declare that Tehran was “on notice.”

Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster, broke with the president on his uncompromising attitude towards the Islamic Republic, but with the appointment of John Bolton has come a more hawkish return to form.

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“I would characterize the current situation as shaping operations on both sides to tilt the field in preparation for a possible coming conflict,” continued the second source, who is also a U.S. government official. “The risk is a low-level proxy unit miscalculating and escalating things. We’re sending a message with this reaction to the intelligence, even though the threat might not be as imminent as portrayed.”

And that message? Is it "gin us up some intel to match what we're saying"?

A third U.S. government official close to the situation described the administration’s response this way: “It is meant to send a clear message and remove any ambiguity from a tense situation. We’re demonstrating the overwhelming capability we can bring to the region.”

Iran’s specific intentions may be a subject of debate, but there’s little doubt that it has the capability to hit U.S. forces through proxy groups, as the Quds Force demonstrated with lethal efficiency during the Iraq war.

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The Daily Beast has not reviewed the intelligence itself, which is all but certain to be classified. That means that the characterization of the intel—both on the record and anonymously—is crucial. And in this case, there is not a consensus in intelligence and military circles on whether the administration’s interpretation, used to justify the deployment of an addition U.S. aircraft carrier and Air Force bomber task force to the Gulf, was accurate.

Then it's probably a good guess that it wasn't.

[T]ension between the Trump administration and Iran, already strained after the U.S. walked away from the U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement, has only increased. In recent weeks, the administration has ratcheted up sanctions on the Islamic Republic even further, announcing that it will no longer grant waivers to countries allowing them to buy Iranian crude oil without risk of U.S. sanctions and designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.

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In response, Iranian officials have recently hinted that they would walk away from commitments made under the nuclear deal to limit enrichment of uranium fuel—a key component necessary in the production of nuclear weapons.

Despite the apparent intelligence indicating an increased risk to U.S. interests in Iraq, Secretary of State Pompeo made a surprise visit to the country on Tuesday.

"Despite" or "because of"?

When Bolton took the unusual step of announcing that the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and an Air Force bomber task force were headed to the Gulf, he said that the movement was in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

But one congressional aide cast doubt on the claim that intelligence alone had driven the deployments. The administration, the source told The Daily Beast, was “pivoting off posture moves already underway to respond to what they interpret as real risk in the intelligence reporting.”

Still, the aggressive messaging, meant to dissuade Iran from unleashing its proxies on the U.S., could end up backfiring, the aide told The Daily Beast. “Even if you view it as non-escalatory or in the ‘escalate to de-escalate’ school (where a tough message is essential to walk things back) it’s taking place in an environment of increased pressure, including the IRGC designation. That context matters.”

And the context of what administration is in office matters, too.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.