WASHINGTON – The US President Barack Obama administration is accelerating the deployment of a series of new defences against possible Iranian missile attacks in the Gulf, placing special ships off the Iranian coast and anti-missile systems in at least four Arab countries, administration and military, officials said on Sunday. The deployments come at a critical turning point in Obama's dealings with Iran's leadership, when he is warning that his diplomatic outreach will now be combined with the “consequences,'' as he put it in the State of the Union address, of the country's continued defiance on its nuclear programme. The administration is trying to win broad international consensus for sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Western nations said controls the military side of the nuclear programme. As part of that effort, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly warned China that its opposition to sanctions was shortsighted. The Senate, meanwhile, last week unanimously approved a resolution authorising sanctions that include cutting off gasoline to Iran, a step Obama's aides said he was reluctant to take. The deployments are partly intended to address US concerns about retaliation for whatever sanctions are imposed. The administration is also trying to demonstrate to Israel that there is no immediate need for pre-emptive strikes against Iran. The news that the United States is deploying antimissile defences – which included a rare public discussion by General David H. Petraeus – appears to be part of a co-ordinated strategy to increase pressure on Iran. By highlighting the defencive nature of the buildup, the administration was trying to contain any threat without provoking a sharp response from Tehran. Because many countries in the Gulf are hesitant to be publicly identified as accepting US military aid, Petraeus declined to say who was taking the equipment. In fact, the names of the countries, where Patriot antimissile batteries are deployed, are classified, but many of them are an open secret. Military officials said that the countries that accepted the missiles were Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and Israel have long had similar equipment of their own.
