Is America giving up on peace in Eastern Europe and preparing for military action in the Middle East? The Trump administration is diverting anti-drone weaponry that was initially allocated for Ukraine to U.S. Air Force units in the Middle East, according to a Wall Street Journal exclusive. “The Pentagon quietly notified Congress last week that special fuzes for rockets that Ukraine uses to shoot down Russian drones are now being allocated to U.S. Air Force units in the Middle East,” the Journal reported Wednesday.
What the Journal didn’t mention is that Russia has received thousands of drones from Iran, which is in the middle of having to choose between scrapping its nuclear program or going to war.
The Pentagon told the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to a recently disclosed message obtained by the Journal, that the need for the weaponry was a “Secretary of Defense Identified Urgent Issue.”
The move raises several questions: Is this part of a strategy to render Ukraine less capable of defending itself and thereby bringing an end to the war? Is the United States preparing for war with Iran? Or is it trying to create the perception that it’s preparing for war to intimidate Iran into signing a nuclear deal?
The author of the Journal article believes the redirection of the anti-drone weapons “illustrates the scarcity of crucial defense items as Ukraine steels itself for more Russian drone and missile attacks.” But it’s possible the Trump administration simply doesn’t view Ukraine’s ability to keep dragging out a war it has little chance of winning as a priority. Moreover, it’s possible this is intended to render Ukraine less equipped to continue a war that poses the risk of escalating into a nuclear conflict with NATO. Russia now occupies the entire eastern borderlands of Ukraine, more than 20 percent of the country. And while Russia’s military ranks are more robust now than before the invasion began, Ukraine’s manpower problem is dire.
This development also happens to come after Ukraine’s surprising and impressive drone attack over the weekend on a number of airbases deep within the Motherland. The Russians just retaliated overnight with a missile and drone strike on Kyiv, but the Trump administration knew nothing of the Ukraine’s inter-Russia drone blitz, reports say. Some military experts, however, suggest that doesn’t mean U.S. involvement was absent. General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and former national security advisor (NSA) under Trump, is among them. On Wednesday, Flynn, whose stint in the first Trump administration was torpedoed by the Deep State, published a long post on his Facebook account under the title “Avoiding World War III” in which he makes the following point:
I do not believe that the recent escalation against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet was authorized by or coordinated with President Trump. Rather, it is my view that the Deep State is now acting outside of the control of the elected leadership of our nation. I believe that these persons in our Deep State are engaged in a deliberate effort to provoke Russia into a major confrontation with the West, including the United States. The time is now to take aggressive action against those who abuse their authority as government employees to manipulate the elected leadership of our nation.
Flynn believes that members of the American Deep State have a “deep, visceral, and irrational hatred for Russia.” He goes on to say that Russia today is not the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin is not Joseph Stalin. Flynn also suggests that Trump distance himself from certain warmongers, domestic and foreign. On the American side, he singles out Republican U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, whom he labels “chief among demonstrated war mongers.” Flynn says, “those who love wars fought by others are no friends of America, and have no entitlement to be friends of the President.”
Flynn believes Trump should stay away from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has “acted and spoken in an irresponsible manner with respect to the Ukraine War.” The general was likely referring to Merz’s recent comments suggesting he was seriously considering giving Ukraine Taurus air-launched stealth cruise missiles. Those missiles have a range of about 300 miles, which would enable Ukraine to strike Moscow.
Merz happened to have been Trump’s guest in the Oval Office the day after Flynn posted his warning on social media. Merz was there to discuss trade with the United States, and the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict came up. Trump said that he’s holding off on sanctions against Russia until he’s sure the White House can’t mediate a peace deal between the two warring nations. But if that happens, he suggested sanctions may be leveled against both countries. “It takes two to tango,” he said. He told reporters that he talked to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. Putin told him he had no choice but to hit Ukraine back for Sunday’s drone attack. Trump also made several comments indicating he expected more fighting between the two nations before there’s any chance for peace. He compared Putin and Zelensky to two young children fighting in a park:
And you try and pull them apart, they don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for awhile and then pulling them apart. And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday.… And maybe that’s a negative because we’re saying “go,” but there’s a lot of bad blood between the two.… there’s a great hatred between those two men.
Trump went on to say he’d love to have immediate peace “if I could,” but “there’s some additional fighting that’s going to go on.”
The president has been more hostile, at least in public, to Zelensky than Putin. But he has expressed frustrations with Putin as well, especially after Russia struck several regions in Ukraine including the capital. As for now, it seems the unofficial policy of the Trump administration is to let these two countries fight it out while pulling back on support for Ukraine.
As for Iran, the Trump administration’s latest proposal indicates the president is serious about preferring a diplomatic approach over a military one. The administration is proposing a deal that would let Iran enrich uranium for civilian use while preventing nuclear weapon capabilities. The New York Times reported Tuesday:
Under the proposal, the United States would facilitate the building of nuclear power reactors for Iran and negotiate the construction of enrichment facilities managed by a consortium of regional countries. Once Iran began receiving any benefits from those promises, it would have to stop all enrichment in the country.… It is the first concrete indication since President Trump took office that the United States and Iran might be able to find a path to compromise that would head off a potential regional war over Tehran’s ambitions to build a nuclear weapon.
The proposed consortium, the Times added, would give the Iranians the fuel needed for civilian nuclear power. The problem, however, is Iranian leadership has said it’s not interested in an arrangement that doesn’t allow it to conduct any enrichment whatsoever. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday, “We do not need anyone’s permission to enrich uranium.… Without respecting our right to enrich uranium, there will be no agreement.”
One idea that’s been brought up, one that seems to strike a balance, includes building an enrichment facility on an island in the Persian Gulf. “This would potentially give both sides a talking point: The Iranians would be able to say they are still enriching uranium, and the Americans could state that enrichment is not happening on Iranian soil,” the Times noted. This idea is not part of the U.S. proposal, but one that has been brought up by Omani and Saudi Arabian officials. U.S.-Saudi relations are very good.
Iranian leadership also wants a deal that includes removing all sanctions on oil sales and bank transactions.
Standing by and watching all this closely — very closely — is Israel. For Israel, a strike on Iranian facilities seems to be more a matter of when as opposed to if. When a reporter asked him outright if he influenced Israeli leadership to put off strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said he did, adding he did it because he didn’t think it would help the negotiation process.
There is at least one thing Iran and Russia have in common: drones. Iran has supplied Russia with around 3,000 drones since the latter invaded Ukraine in 2022. And since that’s the case, there’s little doubt the anti-drone technology the Pentagon is redirecting has been used to bring Iranian drones down. Could it be that the United States is diverting anti-drone technology Ukraine uses against Iranian-made drones because it’s planning to use them in a coming conflict with Iran? Or is it to send to the Israelis? Or is the entire move part of a larger psychological operation designed to scare the Iranians into accepting a nuclear deal?
Time will tell.