The Ohio-class nuclear submarine USS Georgia along with the guided-missile cruisers USS Port Royal and USS Philippine Sea transited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf, the US Navy announced on December 21.

The guided-missile submarine USS Georgia is capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. The submarine can also be configured to host up to 66 Special Operations Force. If there is such a decision by the US leadership, the submarine will allow to deploy groups of saboteurs to hit targets on the Iranian coast or attack Iranian ships.

The increase of the US military presence in the Gulf comes amid tensions with Iran that reached a new height following the recent assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist near Tehran. Just on December 20, eight rockets were fired at the Us Embassy in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone. The strike caused damage to buildings and cars in the area near the embassy. To repel the strike, the US military employed C-RAM air defense system, which was deployed in Iraq together with Patriot surface-to-air missiles earlier in 2020.

Expectedly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iranian-backed forces for the attack. MSM and ‘anonymous sources’ that they quote regularly express ‘concerns’ that Iran may use the anniversary of the assassination of General Qasem Solemani to conduct a symbolic attack on US interest in the region. Any kind of such attack or even the ‘possibility’ of such attack could be easily used by the Trump administration as a pretext for a new round of active actions against Iran.

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