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Marines and Warships Being Sent to Middle East, U.S. Officials Say
Iran’s
response to days of aerial bombardment and long-range artillery strikes has
proved more resilient than Trump administration officials anticipated.
Eric
Schmitt
By Eric
Schmitt
Reporting
from Washington
March 13,
2026, 3:48 p.m. ET
About
2,500 Marines aboard as many as three warships are heading to the Middle East
from the Indo-Pacific region, as Iran increases its attacks on the Strait of
Hormuz, two U.S. officials said.
The
shift, earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes as Iran’s response to
nearly two weeks of aerial bombardment and long-range artillery strikes has
proved more resilient than Trump administration officials anticipated.
The
Marines will join more than 50,000 American troops in the region. The new
deployment comes as Iran’s attacks on and near the strait have choked maritime
traffic through the essential waterway, rocking the global economy.
The
Strait of Hormuz is a strategically important waterway that connects the
Persian Gulf to the northern Arabian Sea. Iran’s southern coastline runs along
the strait, and military and civilian vessels transiting through are routinely
questioned by Iranian authorities via maritime radio communications when
entering and exiting the gulf.
About a
fifth of the world’s oil transits the strait via large civilian-run oil
tankers. A pause in tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz because of
security concerns since the United States and Israel struck Iran on Feb. 28,
has contributed to a global spike in oil prices and higher gas prices for
consumers in the United States.
Last
week, President Trump said he might order Navy warships to escort merchant
ships through the crucial oil supply route, which U.S. forces did for a period
of time in the late 1980s during similar tensions with Iran.
Eric
Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on
U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
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