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The Trump administration has authorised dependants of American military personnel to leave the Middle East amid rising tensions between the US, Israel and Iran over the Islamic republic’s expanding nuclear programme.
After the Pentagon announced the decision on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said they were “being moved out because it could be a dangerous place”.
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters. “They [Iran] can’t have a nuclear weapon, very simple.”
The US has held several rounds of talks with Iran in an effort to reach an agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities, with the next round of negotiations scheduled for Sunday. But Trump has also warned he would consider military options to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon if diplomacy fails.
Israel has also pushed for strikes against Iran, believing the Islamic republic is at its most vulnerable in decades and it has an opportunity to attack.
Last month, Trump warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Iran while Washington negotiates with Tehran over a nuclear deal. The two leaders discussed the Iran talks in a telephone conversation on Monday.
Oil prices rose sharply on Wednesday amid concerns of a potential confrontation, with Brent crude, the international oil marker, jumping 5 per cent from its settlement level on Tuesday to $70 a barrel in afternoon trading in New York. Prices moderated on Thursday morning in London to $69.25 a barrel for Brent.
Trump said this week he was “less confident” of a nuclear deal with Iran after Iranian officials criticised a US proposal for an interim deal.
A 60-day deadline Trump set for Iran to agree a new nuclear deal expires on Thursday, but the president has reiterated that he prefers a diplomatic solution to military action.
Tehran, which is enriching uranium close to weapons-grade levels, said this week there would be a sixth round of talks on Sunday and has said it will submit a counterproposal. Oman, which is facilitating the talks, confirmed that negotiations would take place this weekend.
Western diplomats say Tehran is keen to avoid military conflict and wants the negotiations to succeed so that it can secure sanctions relief to boost the economy.
But it refuses to accept a US demand that it stop enriching uranium domestically, insisting that is a red line, while accusing Washington of sending mixed signals.
“They are good negotiators, but they’re tough. Sometimes they can be too tough, that’s the problem,” Trump said this week.
Iran’s defence minister on Wednesday repeated Tehran’s warning that it would target American military assets in the region in response to any attack “without hesitation”.
A day earlier, General Michael E Kurilla, the head of the US’s Central Command, told a congressional committee that he had presented Trump with “a wide range of options” for a potential strike against Iran.
A state department official said the US had also chosen to “reduce the footprint of our mission in Iraq”, noting that it was “constantly assessing the appropriate personnel posture at all our embassies”.
Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have previously launched attacks against US targets in Iraq, where there are about 2,500 American forces.
Britain’s Royal Navy Maritime Trade Operations office had said earlier on Wednesday that it “has been made aware of increased tensions within the region which could lead to an escalation of military activity having a direct impact on mariners”.
A UK government official said it was not following the US lead for its own forces in the region, but was keeping its position under review.
Brent’s rally on Wednesday was an “overreaction that shows the market is a bit short and full of angst”, said Jorge Montepeque, managing director of Onyx Capital, an oil derivatives liquidity provider. A “short” position is a bet that oil will fall.
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Helima Croft, a former CIA analyst who is now at RBC Capital Markets, said the departure of non-essential US personnel from the region was raising geopolitical tensions.
“While not a full evacuation order, these decisions are not usually taken lightly and typically involve a significant intelligence review,” Croft said. “This raises the spectre of a heightened threat environment in the region.”
Additional reporting by Guy Chazan in New York, Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and David Sheppard in London
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