A third US aircraft carrier has come to the Middle East waters, bringing the number of American warships in the area back to the highest level seen in more than 20 years, as peace negotiations with Tehran and Washington stall.
The USS George H.W. Bush — a 1,000-foot-long, nuclear-powered carrier that can transport more than 80 aircraft — joined the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford in the Indian Ocean on Friday, US Central Command announced on X.
The extra firepower in the region will significantly bolster the US blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of the world’s oil passes — and comes as President Trump threatened to resume bombing Iran if the regime doesn’t make a deal soon.
The three warships have more than 200 aircraft and 15,000 sailors and Marines on board, Centcom said, adding that the last time the three ships operated simultaneously in the region was in 2003.
The presence of Bush means “a whole lot of politics,” said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Carl Schuster, who declined to “discuss force disposition, ship movements or locations to protect service members and operational security.”
“The possibility of a third carrier joining the mix is an additional burden on the (Iranian) regime as peace talks draw near,” Schuster told the outlet.
The message is that Trump may inflict more harm if the peace talks don’t go the way Trump wants them to go,” he explained, “and the political imagery is as, if not more important than military action.”
Unlike the Ford, the Bush is equipped to carry the newest F-35 fighter jets, which could be a beneficial war tactic if Trump and Iranian leaders can’t settle on a peace deal soon.
Schuster told CNN that the two carriers equipped with F-35s “can give Iran a lot of firepower if it is intransigent.”
The Bush reportedly sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of Africa after leaving its home port at Norfolk, Virginia, on March 31 to avoid running into Iranian-armed Houthi proxies in the Suez Canal and Red Sea.
Tracking sites earlier this week revealed the Ford was in the Red Sea, the Lincoln in the Arabian Sea south of Iran, where it had been moored since the outbreak of the war in February.
Both the government sources indicated that senior Iranian officials would be coming to Pakistan on Friday or Saturday to meet for discussions.
However, the meeting will most likely be bilateral between Islamabad and Tehran only, an Iranian source said.
If peace is not reached, Trump will continue to bomb Iran, he said Thursday afternoon.
He said from his office in the Oval Office: “If they don’t want to make a deal, then I’ll do it militarily with the other 25% of the targets.”
