Trump faces skepticism from allies amid troop deployment

The Donald Trump administration will deploy a small detachment of US troops and more missile defense batteries in Saudi Arabia, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday, just days after the United States blamed Iran for attacks that devastated a key facility in the oil-producing nation.

Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford characterized the move, which includes provisions of defense equipment, as “defensive in nature.” The decision came after Trump’s National Security Council huddled late Friday afternoon to discuss a range of US military options to respond to the alleged Iranian attack.

While adding onto 2,000 US troops sent to the Middle East since June, the decision — announced alongside fresh sanctions on Iran’s central bank Friday — marks another move by the Trump administration to respond to a suspected Iranian provocation below the level of a military strike.

The new deployment will be less than 1,000 troops, Dunford stated at Friday’s briefing, as Pentagon officials called on American allies to help reinforce Saudi defenses, which experts said had been oriented in the wrong direction to respond to the attacks last weekend and may not have been prepared to shoot down drones and cruise missiles without adequate early warning systems.