President Donald Trump is threatening Iran with bombing to get to a new nuclear deal.
The threat comes as the US appears to be massing B-2 stealth bombers at a strategic base in the Indian Ocean that has been used to stage strikes in the Middle East.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump told NBC News’ Kristen Welker over the weekend, adding that “it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Earlier this month, Trump gave Tehran a two-month deadline to agree to a new nuclear deal or face military action. On Sunday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian rejected direct talks with the US, though he left the door open to indirect negotiations.
Trump withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran during his first term in office.
The president’s threat comes as the US has been deploying B-2 Spirit bombers to Diego Garcia, a tiny British island in the Indian Ocean that has served as a joint UK-US military base for decades, in an unusual move. Open-source intelligence analysts began tracking the arrival of multiple aircraft over the past few days.
A spokesperson for Air Force Global Strike Command confirmed that there are B-2s at Diego Garcia, though they would not say how many. Recent satellite imagery indicated that as of last Tuesday, there were at least three of them there, but possibly more.
“Their mission is to deter, detect, and, if necessary, defeat strategic attacks against the United States and its allies,” the spokesperson told Business Insider on Monday without elaborating further.
The bombers could be there in relation to developments in the Middle East or Bomber Task Force missions. Either way, it’s a lot of firepower readily available.
The B-2 Spirit is a long-range strategic bomber manufactured by Northrop Grumman. The Air Force has just 19 of these stealth aircraft in active service. Built for penetrating strikes against hard-to-reach targets, the bombers are based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
The roughly $2 billion B-2 is capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional strikes and is able to carry up to 40,000 pounds of ordnance, including the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The MOP is a 30,000-pound bunker buster.
It’s been speculated that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are largely underground in hardened bunkers, would require capabilities only that the B-2 can deliver.
The specific purpose of the B-2s on Diego Garcia is unclear, but they have the potential to serve as a show of force for Iran and its proxies. Last fall, the US sent a clear message to Tehran by sending B-2 bombers to strike hardened Houthi facilities. Iranian support for the Houthis has fueled the Red Sea crisis, which has heated up again lately.
The Trump administration has pounded the Iran-backed rebels with airstrikes over the past two weeks in an effort to stop their attacks against military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
However, the Houthis demonstrated as recently as Sunday that they can still fire long-range missiles at Israel, which they continue to do in protest of the Gaza war.
The deployment of the B-2s noticeably comes amid a larger US military build-up in the Middle East. There have been rising tensions and threats between Trump’s White House and Iran and the Tehran-backed Houthis.
On Saturday, the Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing announced the deployment of more than 300 Airmen and several A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft to the Middle East area of operations. The unit has previously deployed in support of the US-led war against the Islamic State.
The Navy is also sending a second aircraft carrier to the region. USS Carl Vinson will join the USS Harry S. Truman and its strike group, which has been striking the Houthis for weeks. When it arrives, the Vinson would be the fifth US carrier to partake in combat operations against the rebels.
