The rapid expansion of US military power in the Middle East echoes the scenario of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, according to analysts and former senior Pentagon officials interviewed by the Financial Times (FT).
According to Becky Wasser, a military strategy expert at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank, "the troop build-up is similar to what was observed immediately before the Iraq war", particularly in terms of the build-up of the Air Force.
As Dana Straul, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Middle East Affairs, noted, this is "a significant deployment of troops in a very short period of time." Over the past few days, the United States has deployed about 70 military cargo planes and about 50 fighter jets to the Middle East.
One aircraft carrier strike group has been deployed in the Gulf of Oman, and the second will be deployed off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean Sea.
