US military to stay in Middle East during negotiations with Iran

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The U.S. military will maintain its current force posture in the Middle East during the 60-day negotiation period with Iran, according to senior Trump administration officials.

“We hope to draw them down, but we’re not doing that yet,” a senior administration official told reporters during a phone briefing on Monday.

“We want to see again the Iranians do what they promise they’re going to tell us that they’re going to do, and the agreement contemplates the reduction of military forces in the region upon the agreement of a final deal, which again is the agreement that we assume we can make, so long as the Iranians make some concessions and give up some of their activities and some of their nuclear program,” the official said.

The comments come as both President Trump and Vice President Vance on the U.S. side and Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, electronically signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday. The agreement will be released Tuesday or Wednesday, according to officials.

The Pentagon amassed a massive military presence in the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) region in the lead-up to joint U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, dispatching warships, fighter jets, surveillance aircraft, drones, Marines, Army paratroopers and other personnel.

As of late March, the U.S. military had more than 50,000 U.S. service members deployed across the Centcom area of responsibility.

The deployment consisted of three aircraft carriers at one point and more than 200 aircraft. The U.S. also dispatched troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, along with Marine Expeditionary Units made up of Marines and sailors.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned over the weekend that the U.S. military posture in the Middle East will be to ensure Iran lives up to their end of the bargain.

“Our military posture will be whatever it needs to be to ensure they’re compelled over these 60 days through the memorandum of understanding that they live up to what they said they would do,” Hegseth said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The document says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, won’t seek one, won’t buy one, won’t have one.”

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