Abstract
Scrambling a fighter jet from Qatar or the UAE to Iran, for example, only takes several minutes. […] the United States will continue to assist Gulf countries in maintaining land-based missile defense systems and other coastal defenses in case of an Iranian or terrorist attack.55 The reduced USN presence would also offer fewer opportunities for unnecessary escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran on the high seas if Iran were to send another swarm of armed patrol boats to harass the USN, as it did in 2008.
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