The US suddenly pulled the USS Nimitz – its only aircraft carrier in the Middle East – out of the region ahead of Sunday’s one-year anniversary of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, despite weeks of rising tensions with Iran.
The move was reportedly a ‘de-escalatory signal’ aimed at avoiding a crisis with less than three weeks left in President Trump’s term.
The change came as Iranian leaders threatened revenge against President Trump and military leaders for Soleimani’s death. ‘Do not assume that anyone, like the President of the United States, who appears as a murderer or has ordered a murder, can be indemnified from justice. Never, “said the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, at a rally to commemorate the anniversary.
Nimitz’s departure also comes days after US strategic bombers flew over Iran as a show of force, and a week after Trump warned the Iranian government that he would be held accountable for attacks on Americans in Iraq.
Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller ordered that the USS Nimitz, which had been operating just off the coast of Somalia amid a ten-month deployment that began in September, should return to its home port in Washington state. According to The New York Times, the Pentagon’s decision was taken on the objections of top military advisers.
US intelligence officials have seen increasing indications that an Iranian attack on US troops is “imminent”, NBC News reported. Iran denies that it planned an attack, and even accused its arch-enemy Israel of plotting to assassinate US servicemen in a plot designed to lure Trump into responding to Tehran.
The US still has several other naval vessels in the region.
Separately, Iran has said it is increasing its uranium enrichment to levels not allowed by the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from the U.S. in 2017, but President-elect Biden wants to rejoin.