U.S. assets deployed in Middle East will help Israel but are unlikely to change Iran’s mind on retaliation, experts say

Iran may reconsider its decision to attack Israel in retaliation for the alleged assassination of a senior Hamas leader, but experts question the impact of U.S. forces in the region on the change in attitude.

After months of U.S. Navy patrols in the region without responding to Iranian escalations, Tehran is unlikely to react out of fear of U.S. retaliation, Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.

“Khamenei sees more of a glorified military parade than a credible military threat, and that will remain true until he is proven wrong,” Goldberg said. “It is not sustainable in the long term to be held hostage to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist proxies.”

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A map showing U.S. Navy assets stationed in the Middle East. (Fox News)

The only way to restore deterrence is to reinstate sanctions and demonstrate a willingness to take military action, he added.

“The alternative is surrender to a maniacal, nuclear-armed regime that sponsors terrorism, and that would be a catastrophic outcome not only for the Middle East but for U.S. national security as a whole,” Goldberg said.

Israeli media reported Thursday that Iran may backtrack on its plan to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which Iranian officials blamed on Israel. However, officials later determined that Haniyeh died not from a missile strike but from a bomb planted in his room, according to The Times of Israel.

U.S. officials still expect Iran to respond to Haniyeh’s death, but they say the response is likely to be more measured. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Monday that Washington has urged countries to make clear to Iran that it is absolutely not in its interest to launch another attack on Israel.

Last week, a U.S. official told Fox News Digital that reports of the deployment of 12 warships to the region over concerns of escalating tensions following the assassinations were false, and that no “official mission has been assigned” to the ships, which were already in the Middle East. The official noted that the ships remained scattered, with some even in ports or conducting routine operations, and that none of the ships were near any location of interest.

James Carafano, an E.W. Richardson fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a 25-year military veteran, told Fox News Digital that any deployment of assets would only occur in addition to behind-the-scenes discussions, but he doubted the impact those discussions would have on Iran’s decision-making.

“We don’t always use external communication, but if you just listen to American diplomacy, I mean… it’s completely useless,” Carafano said. “It’s really hard for me to imagine a universe in which what we do publicly has any impact on Iranian behavior.”

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Carafano said three things could be at stake: Israel’s “very surgical, very strategic, very proportional” strike capability that offers retaliation without escalation; Lebanon’s chaotic domestic situation “that could collapse five minutes into a war”; and the possibility that growing political protests could spread to other parts of the world and impact Iran.

“We see this revolution happening in Venezuela, and green revolutions like the Arab Spring tend to spread,” Carafano said. “So that’s a significant risk for the Iranians.”

Iranians burn a representation of the Israeli flag at Enqelab-e-Eslami on August 1, 2024, in Tehran, Iran, during the funeral ceremony of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard, who were killed in an assassination blamed on Israel. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Carafano stressed that the United States already has “deployed all the capabilities necessary to hit virtually any type of target” in the Middle East, with the recent F-22 deployment only adding to an already robust presence in the region.

“We deployed significant military power in the region, and it was only military power with deep strike capability,” Carafano said, stressing that it was a “powerful statement.”

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U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) posted on social media platform X that the Air Force deployed F-22 Raptors on Thursday “as part of U.S. force posture changes in the region and to address threats posed by Iran and Iran-backed groups.”

CENTCOM had announced the Raptor deployment a week earlier, again citing the need to deter Iran from attacking Israel.

U.S. Central Command announced Thursday that “U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of ​​responsibility on August 8 as part of U.S. force posture changes in the region and to address threats posed by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.” (U.S. Central Command)

While Goldberg acknowledged that the United States has repositioned some assets in the region, he disputed the idea that there has been a “surge” in recent weeks that might have changed Tehran’s thinking.

“In general, the idea of ​​a surge in the last week is more of a press release than a reality,” Goldberg said. “The Lincoln just made a stopover in Guam over the weekend and is unlikely to be on station before an Iranian attack occurs.”

“Remember that US Navy forces are already deployed in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden due to the Houthi’s continued attacks on maritime shipping, and the ships already deployed are the same ones you would want to defend against an Iranian missile strike.”

Matt McInnis, a visiting fellow at the Institute for the Study of War and a former intelligence officer, acknowledged that the weapons deployment likely only contributed to ongoing diplomatic efforts to pressure Iran to change course and avoid a major escalation. Iran’s neighbors have been applying pressure over the past week to dissuade Tehran from starting an open war with Israel.

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“I think the additional forces that are coming in are in support of the diplomatic efforts that are currently underway to try to reduce the scope or the risk and scope of potential Iranian actions against Israel,” McInnis told Fox News Digital. “So I think it’s having an effect, but not in contradiction to some of the other diplomatic efforts that are going on.”

“Overall, I think they have to make some tough choices about where we position ourselves between the Middle East, Europe and particularly the Indo-Pacific,” he added. “It’s always a challenge to bring forces back to the Middle East, but I think right now, given the resources that are available, they’re probably doing the best they can to calibrate that.”