The United States is deploying a third aircraft carrier strike group to waters in the Middle East close to Iran, a US official has told Al Jazeera, as the war enters its eighth month and both sides weigh escalation and diplomatic engagement. Thousands more troops are also on their way to the region, just a month before November US midterm elections, which could see US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party hit hard by his handling of the war, which is deeply unpopular in the US. We look at what the latest troop deployment means and whether it signals a coming escalation in the war on Iran: A US official told Al Jazeera that the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group left its San Diego base on Sunday, bound for the region, followed a day later by the Makin Island Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which is carrying more than 2,000 Marines.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the strike group and naval deployments could involve an additional 9,000 to 10,000 US troops in total, including sailors and Marines assigned to the carrier strike group and other ships. By the end of November, the official said, three aircraft carriers and two amphibious landing groups will be positioned near Iran. The official said the concentration of force would hand President Donald Trump a wider menu of options if he decides to act.
Al Jazeera’s Tanya Noury, reporting from Washington, said the new deployment, which includes F-35 fighter jets, will add to the roughly 50,000 US service members already stationed in the region. The goal, Noury said, quoting sources inside the Pentagon and White House, is to keep military options “on the table” for Trump regardless of how diplomacy unfolds. The Pentagon is not currently planning to withdraw any assets even if an agreement with Iran is reached.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said forces are “ready to go” should Trump order new attacks. The US has stationed troops and military assets at bases in the Middle East for decades. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US operates from a broad network of military sites, both permanent and temporary, across at least 19 locations in the region.
Of these, eight are permanent bases, located in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The US’s first deployment of soldiers in the Middle East took place in July 1958, when combat troops were sent to Beirut during the Lebanon crisis. At its height, there were almost 15,000 Marines and soldiers in Lebanon.
As of mid-2025, there were 40,000 to 50,000 US soldiers stationed around the Middle East, comprising personnel stationed in both large, permanent bases and smaller forward sites across the region. Trump has been beefing up the US military presence in the Middle East since the start of this year, initially sending warships, including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, to the Arabian Sea. According to open source intelligence analysts and military flight-tracking data, the US has deployed more than 120 aircraft to the region since early February.
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