A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump is sending thousands more American soldiers to the Middle East. NPR has confirmed at least 2,000 paratroopers have gotten orders to mobilize.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The orders come as Trump's public comments this week have focused on diplomacy with Iran. He continued to insist his administration is in talks to end the war, something Iran has denied. Trump said Tuesday that whoever was representing Iran had offered some sort of prize related to the Strait of Hormuz, but he didn't say what it was or who offered it.
MARTÍNEZ: So is this deployment a way to pressure Iranian negotiators or a signal of the imminent use of American troops? We have Quil Lawrence from NPR's national security team to explain. Quil, what do we know about the troops?
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Well, this week, NPR and other outlets had reported that the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and members of his headquarters staff were heading to the Middle East, and that suggested what NPR has now confirmed. A U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly told our colleague Tom Bowman that 2- to 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been notified that they're heading to the region.
MARTÍNEZ: So President Trump has said he won't rule out putting boots on the ground. That's what we're talking about here, right?
LAWRENCE: Yeah. I mean, Airborne paratroopers, I guess you might easily imagine them parachuting in to take an airstrip, but they have many other abilities. These soldiers come from the division's Immediate Response Force, which is able to mobilize within 18 hours to go anywhere worldwide to do a variety of different missions. Along with the two Marine expeditionary units that are already sailing toward the Persian Gulf, this could bring about 6- to 8,000 American ground troops and their supporting troops in close proximity to Iran.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. And so what will they do when they get there? What's their mission?
LAWRENCE: This is all speculation. We don't know. For decades, there have been U.S. military plans sitting on the shelf to take Kharg Island, which is Iran's exporting hub at the top of the Persian Gulf. Ninety percent of Iran's oil comes out of there. President Trump is said to have a particular interest in Kharg Island going back decades. The U.S. has already bombed it during this war, but they said they avoided oil infrastructure. But again, sending these troops, it could all be a negotiating tactic.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So I want to go back a bit because on Monday, President Trump said these are high-level negotiations and it could be heading toward a diplomatic resolution. But now he's sending thousands of ground troops to the region, which sounds like the opposite, Quil, of de-escalation.
LAWRENCE: Yeah. I mean, I can see why our listeners might be confused by this. It's a mixed message. I mean, NPR has confirmed that there are at least back-channel efforts with third countries to open up a dialogue. President Trump says he's already talking with Iran, but the Iranians deny that. Now, having thousands of ground troops could make it a more credible threat in any negotiations to pressure the Iranian regime, that there is some threat of direct regime change or seizure of the nuclear material. This is all speculation.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said in blunt terms that the U.S. won't get into some sort of prolonged quagmire like Iraq and Afghanistan. And Iran is still far from that, you know, a decades-long conflict with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and thousands of American troops killed in action. So far, you know, Iranian casualties have been massive, and the destruction there has been massive, but U.S. casualties have been low. The U.S. could still, you know, sail and fly away. And the costs so far for the U.S. have been political and economic, and putting boots on Iranian soil would bring much higher risks of U.S. casualties and bring in a whole other set of variables, and war is unpredictable.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Quil Lawrence. Quil, thanks.
LAWRENCE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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