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The flyby comes a day after Israel’s top general warned US President Joe Biden against reverting to the Iran nuclear deal.
The United States has flown B-52 bombers over the Middle East, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday, the third so-called “presence patrol” to date this year.
The flyby was the first since U.S. President Joe Biden took office on January 20, with the others taking place near the end of Donald Trump’s presidency in what has been widely seen as a show of force against Iran.
The B-52 bombers took off from the US state of Louisiana and “successfully conducted a presence patrol in the Middle East” on Wednesday, CENTCOM said in a statement.
The “defensive mission” was “intended to demonstrate the ability of the US military to deploy air power anywhere in the world to deter potential aggression and show the US commitment to regional security,” the communicated.
The flyby comes a day later Israel’s highest general said the country’s military was revising its attack plans on Iran and warned Biden against returning to the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump, whose administration pursued a ‘maximum pressure’ strategy against Tehran, unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, but Biden vowed to revert to the deal under which Iran agreed to hold back. its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
Israeli Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi said on Tuesday that a return to the agreement “is operationally and strategically wrong and wrong.”
Israel was a strong supporter of the Trump administration’s tough stance against Tehran.
Meanwhile, Iranian Presidential Chief of Staff Mahmoud Vaezi, rejected Kochavi’s remarks as “psychological warfare” and says that Israel “in action, they have no plan or capacity to carry it out.”
“Some Zionist regime officials think Washington would accept whatever they say,” he told reporters Wednesday after a cabinet meeting. “But I believe the new US administration has its own independence – just like other countries have their own independence.”
Biden and Iran
Iran did not immediately respond to the B-52 overflight on Wednesday but reprimand the United States for the last, which arrived just three days before Biden took office. There have been a total of six such missions since November of last year.
After the latest survey Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the United States should spend its money “for the health of your taxpayers”, while warning “we are not afraid of crushing the aggressors”.
The Biden administration was committed to taking a more measured approach to Iran than Trump.
During Trump’s tenure, tensions between the two countries threatened to escalate into full-scale military conflict on several occasions, particularly following the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.
Despite Biden’s intention to revert to the deal, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US remains “far away” from deciding whether or not to join the deal and that it would need to see this. that Tehran actually did to start respecting the pact again.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said “The ball is in Washington’s court” when it comes to reviving the deal.
The US flyover of the B-52 also took place a day after Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, was attacked by missiles or drones, according to the Kingdom’s state media, the first time that projectiles had been thrown at the city for months.
The Biden administration, although it promised to end its support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen, quickly condemned the attack and pledged to help the Kingdom to “defend itself against attacks on its territory”.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
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