Tensions have been rising in the Middle East, and as such, for the first time the US has deployed a guided missile submarine to the region.
This is what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also had to say: an aircraft carrier that was still bound for the region would get there even faster.
The measure has been taken with the view of averting a broader crisis in the region following the recent assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas commanders.
It proclaims the US’s willingness to assist in the protection of Israel from any aggression by Iran, to which Mr. Austin stated that the US would ‘do everything possible’.
As far as Iran is concerned, it is being keenly observed to see how and when it is going to react to the assassination carried out by the motorcyclist gunmen on 31 July of the Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
The Iranians accused Israel of assaulting Mr. Haniyeh on their soil, and they have threatened to retaliate. Though no official statement can be made on this, the act is claimed to have been masterminded by Israel.
The Pentagon, in a statement on Sunday, stated that Mr. Austin had dispatched the USS Georgia-guided missile submarine to the region.
It had also directed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which includes F-35C fighter jets, to increase its speed on the way there. The ship was also scheduled to replace another American ship in the area and was en route to do so.
There is still no idea what it is that Iran may be preparing to do next.
In the case of the latter, another possible attack on Israel can be opened from the part of Hezbollah—the militia and the political party with the Iranian backing stationed in Lebanon.
It has pledged to avenge the shooting dead in the same area of senior Hamas commander Fuad Shukr by Israel only hours before the assassination of Mr. Haniyeh.
According to countries’ Perspicacious, Professor Mehran Kamrava from Georgetown University in the country of Qatar, American sending out a submarine in public was “intended to intimidate Iran and Hezbollah.”.
