“We’re watching Iran,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One
on Thursday as he flew back from the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland.
“We have a big force going towards Iran,” Trump said.
“I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them
very closely,” he said.
Trump’s announcement on the US naval buildup comes after he
appeared to back-pedal last week on his threats of military action against
Iran.
US officials said the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln
and other assets would arrive in the Middle East in the coming days.
One official said additional air-defense systems were also
being eyed for the Middle East, which could be critical to guard against any
Iranian strike on US bases in the region.
The warships started moving from the Asia-Pacific last week
as tensions between Iran and the United States soared following a severe
crackdown on protests across Iran in recent months.
Trump had repeatedly threatened to intervene against Iran
over the recent killings of protesters there but protests dwindled last week.
The president backed away from his toughest rhetoric last week, claiming he had
stopped executions of prisoners.
He repeated that claim on Thursday, saying Iran canceled
nearly 840 hangings after his warnings.
"I said: 'If you hang those people, you're going to be
hit harder than you've ever been hit. It'll make what we did to your Iran
nuclear (program) look like peanuts,'" Trump said.
"At an hour before this horrible thing was going to
take place, they canceled it," he said, calling it "a good
sign."
The US military has in the past periodically surged forces
to the Middle East at times of heightened tensions, moves that were often
defensive.
However, the US military staged a major buildup last year
ahead of its June strikes against Iran's nuclear program.
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