The US is preparing to deploy more troops to the Middle East as the war with Iran drags on. The Pentagon plans to send around 3,000 soldiers from the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to support operations against Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The decision to put boots on the ground in Iran hasn’t been made final yet, the officials said. Either way, the move would be a significant shift in the conflict, which has largely been an air campaign.
As more US troops head to the Middle East, President Donald Trump has increasingly looked for an off ramp for the war. Trump signaled that Iran had offered a “present” as a show of good faith in negotiations, and while he wouldn’t detail the gift, he confirmed it was related to energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Overall, there remained broad uncertainty about who the US is negotiating with, the structure of talks, and the outlines of any potential agreement, and Iran and Israel showed no signs of letting up in the conflict.
Despite overtures for negotiations, there are some warning signs the conflict could explode into a much larger regional war. The New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince is pushing Trump to stay in the war. Sources told Bloomberg the region’s most powerful states — Iran-rival Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in particular — are losing patience with Iranian strikes that have already hit ports, energy facilities and airports. But those states would only join the war if Tehran makes good on its threats to attack vital power and water infrastructure — a high threshold.
Meanwhile, if there’s one clear winner from the war it is Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin is earning the most from its oil exports since just after its troops marched into Ukraine in 2022, boosting crude flows amid soaring prices and eased sanctions. Russia’s oil income had been heading down and while Putin has warned that the windfall will be temporary, for now Moscow’s own war chest is getting a big boost — about $270 million a day, up from $135 million. — Margaret Sutherlin