US moves nuclear-powered warship to Middle East

[Twiglets1]

The US has moved one of its most powerful warships to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran over the killing of protesters, the Pentagon has said.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group have moved west from the Indo-Pacific region, satellite data from Copernicus shows. It includes fighter jets, guided missile destroyers and an attack submarine.

Sources told The Hill that the movement of the ship to the Middle East would take around a week, with Washington continuing to threaten strikes on Tehran over its brutal crackdown on protests.

Trump's envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, insisted “all options are on the table” during an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss the Iran crisis. The US also warned Tehran’s leadership that any further killing will have “grave consequences”.

So I wonder - is Trump really prepared to keep out of the uprising in Iran despite saying that help is on the way? Or is he just stalling for time?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-trump-military-action-protests-latest-news-b2901654.html

Agree. That’s why I really appreciated what Merz said. Clarity instead of all this “oh, but we don’t know what the majority of Iranians actually think about the their government”.

There does need to be moral clarity and we have to be unambiguous about calling out this regime as an evil.

Indeed. It is so far from being 'all about Israel', that the obsession with that country seems willfully blind.

Aside from the killings, rapes, torture and general suppression of the Iranian/Persian people, Iranian interference in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Venezuela, Ukraine, South Africa and of course the UK & US etc, has been less than benign for those countries.

Seems like a lot of things would improve inside and outside the country if they went for the mullah lite option. I wonder what degree of motivation for their shenanigans is a purely caliphatic ambition, and how much is an agenda ultimately driven by other powers. In other words, who is shoring up the failing regime and can/will they continue?

Totally agree @mids2019 & @inamarina

Agree

Just came across this on X:

https://x.com/persianjewess/status/2016714004530679986

Moj Mahdara, former CEO of BeautyCon and close friend of Huda Kattan, publicly calls out Huda for supporting the Islamic Regime:
“A few years before October 7 I asked you to support Women Life Freedom…and you said you couldn’t do anything political.
And here you are in 2026 covering up the dirty work of the Islamic Republic…
You say you don’t know the real facts? You do.
Because we have been communicating. I have all the DMs, text messages, phone calls, voice notes…
Be honest. You just hate America and Israel more than you love Iranians.”

Huda Kattan previously posted (utterly deranged) antisemitic propaganda and conspiracy theories, claiming among other things that Israel had been behind WWI, WWII (!!) as well as 9/11 and October 7th.

BBC Verify are reporting that ship-tracking data shows that another US warship has arrived in the Middle East.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Delbert D Black was tracked sailing through the Suez Canal towards the Gulf on Wednesday, tracking site MarineTraffic showed.

At least 10 US warships are now believed to be in the Middle East, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

I would expect between 3 and 6 other surface vessels will be accompanying the Abraham Lincoln, as well as a few submarines which I doubt will be advertised. A carrier goes nowhere without an escort. It is a truly fearsome expression of the doctrine of combined arms. With the exception of China, the UK, France and maybe Australia and Israel, very few countries field the sort of firepower that a single CSG yields. And the US has eleven of them…

The more interesting thing is the transfer of US air force assets to the UK. This puts Iran firmly within striking distance of a force capable of carrying out consistent SEAD (suppression of enemy air defence) and DEAD (Destrucrion of Enemy Air Defence). Once this is established, then it’s a matter of them picking and choosing their targets. Iran fields nothing like the capability to either resist or strike back. Look at the Israeli strike 6 months ago- didn’t even need SEAD- the JSF flew right by their defences and came and went without them knowing. Will they commit to boots on the ground?

Well said, and I think spot on regarding the naval deployment.

One minor quibble, Israel attacked and destroyed a lot of Iranian air defense systems during skirmishes in 2024 and there was more SEAD and DEAD during the first 24 hours of the June war. Most of that was accomplished by the IAF, but there were reports that some was done by Israeli agents and special forces on the ground.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2025/10/shallow-ramparts-air-and-missile-defenses-in-the-june-2025-israel-iran-war/

The Iranians did know that they were there when the bombs fell.

I think boots on the ground are unlikely other than some targeted special forces missions.

Being reported by The Independent and other sources that yesterday the US shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.

An Iranian Shahed-139 drone flew towards the carrier “with unclear intent” and was shot down by an F-35 US fighter jet, the US military said.

Iran says the drone was carrying out a "routine and lawful" mission. They say, “This drone successfully transmitted its surveillance and reconnaissance images to headquarters, but subsequently lost communication. The reason for this loss of contact is currently under review.”

Shouldn't be the hardest puzzle to solve seeing as the US take responsibility for shooting it down.

The reason for this loss of contact is currently under review.

That’s funny. Are they trying to come up with some alternative explanation for the drone disappearing, in order not to lose face?
I also heard yesterday that a US-flagged tanker was approached by six Iranian gunboats in the Strait of Hormuz.
Apparently, they ordered the captain to stop the engines and prepare to be boarded.
The ship ignored the orders and increased its speed. It was then escorted to safety by a US war ship.

Face-saving I imagine. Not very effective 😂

They surely wouldn’t be so foolish as to board a US tanker…

They done even more foolish things in the past, like mining the Strait of Hormuz, causing damage to an American warship. That ended rather badly for the Iranians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis

Yes but hopefully they’ve learned from Praying Mantis that they haven’t a hope in hell of resisting. The US destroyed the majority of their airforce and navy in about a day or something mad.

Theocracies are often irrational about matters like this.

I agree thinking skills don't seem to come into their decisions.

They also care little for their repressed people and more about posturing

I listened to the podcast “the rest is history” about the Iranian revolution last week. It was very interesting- the axis of the revolution was Marxist islamism. A very unusual combo.

Trump sends world’s largest aircraft carrier to Middle East

Reported by The Telegraph that Donald Trump is moving the world’s largest aircraft carrier to the Middle East.

The USS Gerald R Ford – the newest carrier in the US fleet – has been ordered to sail from the Caribbean towards Iran as tensions between Washington and Tehran continue to escalate.

The flagship carrier includes an air wing, destroyers and an attack submarine and will arrive with escort ships. It is 333m long and has a capacity of 80 aircraft.

Its last known location was just west of Puerto Rico. Sources told US media outlets that it had been ordered to sail towards the Gulf where it will join the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and accompanying warships that are already there.

The nuclear-powered USS Gerald R Ford operates F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter planes. It cost $13bn (£10bn) to build and is equipped with dual-band radar data fusion and other advanced capabilities in its defence system.

It was previously sent to the eastern Mediterranean Sea by Joe Biden, the former president, to support Israel in 2023 two days after the attack on Oct 7.

www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/02/13/trump-sends-worlds-largest-aircraft-carrier-to-middle-east/

On Thursday Trump said he would give Iran “10 to 15 days” to come to a deal.

The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, entered the Mediterranean sea on Friday and will arrive in range of Iran within that timeframe of 10 to 15 days.

Two Israeli officials said they believed the gaps between Washington and Tehran were unbridgeable and the chances of a military escalation were high.

Israel’s government is making preparations for possible joint military action with the US. However, no decision had been made on whether to carry out such an operation, a source familiar with the planning told Reuters.

The Telegraph point out that the US has dispatched more than one-third of its navy towards Iran and assembled the largest amount of air power in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Make of that what you will.

I notice students are protesting and the question is would the Iranian authorities care to use lethal force now? If the protests increase then the IRGC are within US crosshairs.

This is what I was wondering - would they dare crackdown on the students at this time of peril for the regime.

In another sign that a US military strike could be imminent, Britain has ordered its embassy staff in Iran to leave.

Embassies across the region have been told to evacuate employees, including in Israel, where Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador, warned workers who wanted to leave “to do so today”.

Overnight, nine refuelling tankers arrived at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, adding to the massive build-up of US military forces in the region.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest shipping companies, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, decided not to operate voyages through the Red Sea amid ongoing tensions with Iran.

Yes something appears to be happening. Didn't Trump give x number of days to do something.