US warns Iran to make a deal as it steps up military deployments

The White House has warned Iran it would be “very wise” to make a deal with the US as Donald Trump stepped up the deployment of a massive military force to the Middle East.

As tensions mount between Washington and Tehran, the price of Brent crude has jumped almost 6 per cent in the past two days to about $71.40 a barrel, close to a six-month high.

The US has been sending additional military assets towards the region in recent days after Trump ordered one of the biggest build-ups in the area since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, as he weighs whether to attack the Islamic republic. 

A second aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, was off the coast of north Africa and edging closer to the Middle East, while a variety of aircraft, ranging from heavy lift to command-and-control planes, have headed towards Europe and the Middle East from the US.

Over the three days to February 18, some 39 US KC-135 refuelling aircraft transmitted positions during flights eastward from the US into Europe, according to Flightradar24 data. 

The pattern appeared to echo flight movements before the US briefly entered Israel’s war with Iran in June 2025, when Flightradar data showed at least 30 military tanker aircraft including KC-135s flying from the US to Europe. Days afterwards, the US bombed the Islamic republic’s nuclear sites.

US media this week quoted American officials saying the military has the ability to strike Iran as early as this weekend, if Trump decides to order an attack. But they reported that the president had not yet made a decision.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that Trump had been “very clear” that diplomacy “is always his first option”. She added that “Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump”.

“He is always thinking about what’s in the best interest of the United States of America, of our military, of the American people, and that’s how he makes decisions with respect to military action of any kind,” Leavitt said. 

The military build-up has continued as the US held two rounds of indirect talks with Iran over its nuclear programme. After the latest negotiations in Geneva on Tuesday, Leavitt said there had been “a little bit of progress made, but we’re still very far apart on some issues”.

Trump has been threatening to attack Iran since it brutally cracked down on mass anti-regime protests last month, killing thousands of people. 

The US has deployed enough air and naval firepower in the Middle East to sustain a weeks-long campaign against the Islamic republic, analysts said.

Washington has 10 warships in the region’s waters, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and six destroyers. It also has two destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea. About 40,000 American troops are in the Middle East.

The aircraft carrier strike groups bring thousands of troops and dozens of warplanes to the region. Among planes on the carriers are F-35 and F-18 fighter jets, electronic warfare aircraft, airborne early warning aircraft and command-and-control planes.

The US has also deployed Thaad and Patriot air defence systems to bases in the region, as Iran vowed to retaliate against any strike, threatening to target American bases in the Middle East as well as Israel. 

Trump on Wednesday said the joint US-UK base at Diego Garcia, located in the Indian Ocean, could be used in any attack on Iran. He added that the UK’s Fairford air base could also play a role. Both bases have the long runways necessary to launch bombers.

Trump could strike Iran’s air defences and missile programme, including launchers and storage facilities, according to former US national security officials. 

He could also target high-level regime security officials, the Revolutionary Guards, conventional military forces, command and control centres and warehouses. The US president could also target Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and potential successors and other senior officials, the former US security officials said.

Last June, the US briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against the republic to bomb Iran’s main nuclear facilities. Israel degraded Iran’s military capabilities during that war, but Tehran is thought to have been rebuilding its missile capacity.

The US has eight permanent bases and 11 other military sites in the Middle East, all of which would be vulnerable to retaliation from the Iranian regime.

After Tuesday’s talks in Geneva, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said there had been “good progress” in the negotiations. But he also cautioned that this did not mean there would be an agreement soon.

“We eventually reached a general understanding on some principles to guide us going forward,” he said.

A US official also said after the talks that progress had been made and that Iran would come back in two weeks with “detailed proposals to address some of the open gaps in our position”.

Iranian officials have said they want a deal but also that they are prepared for war. The Revolutionary Guards this week conducted a naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime trade route through which about a third of the world’s seaborne crude oil passes.

That was followed by Iranian and Russian naval drills in the Islamic republic’s southern waters on Thursday.

“These drills have one message and that is Iran’s coasts are no place for the enemy’s surfing,” the Quds, a conservative online news outlet, wrote on Thursday. “The drill with Russia will help foil the enemy’s psychological warfare.”

Additional reporting by David Djambazov and James Shotter