PNN – The Wall Street Journal quoted American officials as saying: The Pentagon may be able to launch a “limited airstrike” on Iran, but it is ill-prepared to deal with Iranian retaliation. The US must strengthen defenses at its bases in the Middle East.
The Wall Street Journal, headquartered in New York, wrote in its report on Sunday that the Washington government, considering the possibility of Iran’s response, should first strengthen its defense system in the region before any attack on the country.
According to the Wall Street Journal, American officials believe that if President Donald Trump orders an attack, the Pentagon may be able to launch a “limited airstrike” on Iran, but it is not sufficiently prepared to deal with Iranian retaliatory responses.
They have noted that it is true that the US military has numerous air defense systems in the region, but satellite images show that the Pentagon has not yet fully deployed additional batteries of the THAAD system and the Patriot system at its bases in the Middle East, including in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Susan Maloney, an Iran expert at the US State Department, told the newspaper: We have a major problem with air defense in the region, and that is that we should have deployed sufficient equipment in advance to defend our forces and interests in the region against possible Iranian retaliatory attacks.
On Saturday, the US president said that Washington was negotiating with Tehran but was not very optimistic about the possibility of achieving a positive outcome.
Iran believes that the US’s goal in imposing all kinds of sanctions, pressure, chaos and unrest is to create a pretext for military intervention and ultimately regime change, and it constantly threatens to give a “comprehensive and unprecedented” response to any attack or limited provocation.
In contrast, Israel and its American ally accuse Iran of trying to produce a nuclear bomb, while Tehran has repeatedly emphasized the peaceful purposes of its nuclear program, including electricity generation.