War is ‘almost over’

The Pentagon is set to send thousands more troops to the Middle East this week, even after saying the war in Iran was about to be over.

Around 6,000 additional troops on the USS George H.W.

Bush and other warships will enter the region soon.

An additional 4,200 members of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the Marine Corps task force will arrive by the end of April, the Washington Post reported .

The announcement comes just hours after Trump went from swearing at the Iranians over the Strait of Hormuz on Truth Social to now hinting that the collapsed negotiations could resume.

Trump also said the Iran war is nearly over, referring to the conflict he started with Iran in the past tense during an interview.

Speaking to Fox News , Trump said: ‘I think it’s close to over, yeah.

I view it as very close to being over.’
But he then seemed to pivot and suggest the US could always turn around and continue attacking the country if he wanted.

The 79-year-old continued: ‘If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country, and we’re not finished.

‘We’ll see what happens.

I think they want to make a deal very badly.’
Trump’s blockade on the Strait of Hormuz began earlier this week , bringing the already fragile ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US into dangerous territory.

The vital waterway is a 60-mile-wide part of the Persian Gulf, which has been at the heart of regional tensions for decades.

Experts told Metro that US forces will likely face challenges not just of enforcing the blockade, but of facing Iranian drones and missiles.

Dr Andreas Krieg, Associate Professor at King’s College London , told Metro : ‘The closer the US Navy moves to the Strait itself, the more US Navy ships would become sitting ducks in range of Iranian drones and missiles.’
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The military has already said the blockade would target shipping to and from Iranian ports, rather than the entirety of traffic in the Strait.

‘This tells you that even Washington seems to recognise that a full closure would be extraordinarily dangerous and difficult to sustain,’ Dr Katayoun Shahandeh of the University of London said.

Dr Shahandeh points out: ‘This is a major military undertaking, not a simple switch Trump can flip and can lead to a prolonged operation and presence.

‘Trump himself has admitted it would “take a little while,” which suggests the logistics are already constraining the politics.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk .

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