The U.S. military will hold its current force posture in the Middle East throughout the 60-day negotiation window opened by the new memorandum of understanding with Iran, senior Trump administration officials confirmed Monday.
“We hope to draw them down, but we’re not doing that yet,” a senior administration official said during a phone briefing with reporters, as reported by The Hill. The official added that any reduction in forces is contingent on Iran following through on what it has committed to under the agreement.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put it plainly on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday: “Our military posture will be whatever it needs to be to ensure they’re compelled over these 60 days through the memorandum of understanding that they live up to what they said they would do.”
“The document says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, won’t seek one, won’t buy one, won’t have one,” Hegseth said.
The U.S. military built up a substantial presence in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in the months leading up to joint American-Israeli airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28. As of late March, more than 50,000 U.S. service members were deployed across the CENTCOM region, along with more than 200 aircraft and, at one point, three aircraft carrier strike groups operating simultaneously — a configuration not seen in decades.
That deployment included warships, fighter jets, surveillance aircraft, drones, Marines from multiple Marine Expeditionary Units, and Army paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division.
President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance electronically signed the MOU on Sunday. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf signed for Tehran. The full text of the agreement is expected to be released within 24 to 48 hours, officials said.
Vance said earlier Monday that the United States holds “all the cards” in the 60-day talks, and that Iran will receive no sanctions relief, no frozen assets, and no money of any kind until it meets specific, verifiable conditions tied to its nuclear program.
