America just started pulling troops out before a new strike on Iran

America's top intelligence officer just told the Secretary of State something huge.

Iran's plots to kill Americans in the Middle East have reached an advanced stage.

And the Pentagon is already moving troops out of the way.

Jay Clayton is the Director of National Intelligence. Four to five days ago, he sent a memo straight to Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. CIA Director John Ratcliffe was copied in.

Jay Clayton says quote "the lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against US citizens have reached advanced stages".

That's America's own intelligence chief saying Iran is close to actually killing Americans somewhere in the region.

Axios broke the story first. Since then, more has come out about what's actually happening on the ground.

So here's what's moving. US troops are being quietly pulled back from bases across the Middle East. Jordan. Qatar. Kuwait.

And it's not just troops. The State Department has ordered non-essential staff and their families out of the US embassy in Riyadh. Same for the consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran. That started six to seven days ago.

Staff numbers have also quietly dropped at US missions in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon.

But here's the part that matters.

When the Saudi evacuation was first announced, the State Department gave a totally different reason.

Tommy Pigott, the State Department spokesperson, said at the time it was about Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure. Nothing to do with any Iran plot.

It was only days later that reporting connected the dots. Six countries, one drawdown, and it all traces back to that Iran plot memo.

Timothy Hawkins is the US Central Command spokesperson. He has said American forces are regularly repositioned to optimise mission readiness, and he wouldn't say anything more about the actual movements.

And here's the thing. We've seen this exact pattern before.

Bases quietly thinned out. Embassy staff sent home. That's exactly what happened right before Operation Epic Fury — the joint US-Israeli campaign against Iran that started on 28 February this year.

The Pentagon declared that operation over on 5 May. But the fighting between the two countries never actually stopped. 21 US troops have been killed in the Middle East since that war began.

And Donald Trump has already said the name out loud again.