The U.S. Navy’s Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group is heading to the Middle East, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln already in the region, according to news reports.
“The USS Ford Carrier Strike Group has been notified that they are leaving the Caribbean and headed to the Middle East,” NBC News reported on Friday, quoting officials.
The news comes nearly a week after President Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had a series of talks with Iranians in Oman. The talks failed to end the deadlock, with the Iranian top negotiator and Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, threatening to attack U.S. military bases in the Middle East shortly after the meeting.
“The USS Gerald R. Ford’s planned deployment to the Mideast comes after Trump only days earlier suggested another round of talks with the Iranians was at hand,” The Associated Press observed on Friday. “Those negotiations didn’t materialize as one of Tehran’s top security officials visited Oman and Qatar this week and exchanged messages with the U.S. intermediaries.”
It is worth noting that during Operation Midnight Hammer last June, when the U.S. struck key Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, two aircraft carriers were deployed in the region.
Reuters reported:
The Pentagon is sending an aircraft carrier from the Caribbean to the Middle East, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, a move that would put two carriers in the region as tensions soar between the United States and Iran.The Gerald R. Ford carrier, the United States’ newest and the world’s largest carrier, has been operating in the Caribbean with its escort ships and took part in operations in Venezuela earlier this year. (…)The Gerald R. Ford will join the Abraham Lincoln carrier, several guided-missile destroyers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft that have been moved to the Middle East in recent weeks.The United States most recently had two aircraft carriers in the area last year, when it carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear sites in June.
The deployment of the second carrier strike group to the Middle East highlights President Trump’s approach of increasing the pressure on the Mullah regime as diplomacy fails to reach a breakthrough.
The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, commented that by “sending the Navy’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier to the Middle East” the Trump administration is “step[ing] up plans for a potential attack on Iran.”
President Trump wants Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism, to give up its nuclear weapons program entirely. He has also called for an end to the massacre of Iranians demonstrating against the regime.
Tehran, however, is playing for time and refusing to make any commitments. Having outwitted the Obama-Kerry duo in 2015, the Khamenei regime hopes to deceive the Trump team in the current round of negotiations.
The USS Ford, the world’s largest carrier, took part in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in early January.
“The Ford is the world’s largest carrier and its presence in the Caribbean was seen as putting pressure on then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his government,” ABC News reported. “Some of the aircraft aboard the carrier participated in the Jan. 3 raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas that led to Maduro’s capture.”
Three destroyers will accompany the nuclear-powered carrier to the Middle East, news reports confirm.
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