Amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, thousands of Marines are being stationed in the region. Meanwhile, senior military officials are deliberating the potential deployment of an Army paratrooper division as the conflict involving Iran enters its fourth week.

According to a report by the New York Times on Monday, top military leaders are considering sending the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the area.

This deployment would add approximately 3,000 soldiers to the military forces, facilitating a potential operation on Kharg Island, a critical location for processing 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

Insiders have informed the Times that President Donald Trump has not yet issued any commands regarding the deployment, despite his confrontational response to a reporter’s inquiry about ground troop engagement earlier on Monday.

Responding to the question, the President remarked, “Well, let me ask you this. If you were in my position and I asked you that question, do you really believe I’d give you that? It’s a crazy question.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune highlighted that approximately 2,500 Marines were dispatched to the Middle East last week, traveling aboard three naval vessels.

The Times reported that a different Marine unit, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in Japan, which was headed toward the region, could also be used to seize Kharg Island. 

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit will arrive Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported, the deadline Trump gave the Islamic Regime to get a peace deal across the line.

President Donald Trump is being given options to deploy Army paratroopers to the Middle East, while thousands of Marines are already headed to the region 

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, photographed here in February, are headed to the Middle East and are expected to arrive on Friday

Kharg Island’s airfield was damaged in recent US strikes, with former US commanders telling the paper that it was more likely the Pentagon would first bring in the Marines, who have combat engineers who could rebuild it. 

After that, the 82nd Airborne could jump in. 

The behind-the-scenes military planning comes as Trump has teased ‘a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.’

The President said he would halt strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days as envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner try to get a deal done with an unnamed Iranian official. 

Trump told reporters as he departed Florida for Tennessee that, ‘we’re dealing with a man who I believe is the most respected and the leader.’ 

It was not, however, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, who has not been seen since the strikes that killed his father on February 28.

‘We have not heard from the son,’ Trump told reporters. ‘We don’t know if he’s living.’

Axios reported Monday that Kushner and Witkoff were in touch with the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, but it’s unclear if Ghalibaf is the individual Trump was referring to. 

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is captured conducting routine operations last week. The group is headed to the Middle East and is expected to arrive Friday

Iranian officials slapped down the President’s claim of peace negotiations, with an Iranian official telling the Fars News Agency, which is aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that there is ‘no direct or indirect contact with Trump.’  

The prospect of peace had markets moving upward on Monday, with investors favoring de-escalation in the region over a prolonged Iranian conflict. 

Despite the troop movement, the President previously said he wouldn’t put US boots on the ground in Iran. 

‘No, I’m not putting troops anywhere,’ Trump said Thursday, while hosting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office. 

‘If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you,’ he then told the reporter who asked him.