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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, JuNE 4, 2019
AP Photo/Brian M. Wilbur
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier and an Air Force B-52H Stratofortress conduct joint exercises in the Arabian sea.
US aircraft carrier deployed over Iran remains outside Gulf
By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press
ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LIN-
COLN — A U.S. aircraft carrier ordered by
the White House to rapidly deploy to the Mid-
east over a perceived threat from Iran remains
outside of the Persian Gulf, so far avoiding
any confrontation with Iranian Revolutionary
Guard forces, amid efforts to de-escalate ten-
sions between Tehran and Washington.
Officers aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln
repeatedly said Monday they could rapidly
respond to any regional threat from their posi-
tion, at the time some 200 miles off the eastern
coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea.
However, after decades of American air-
craft carriers sailing through the Strait of Hor-
muz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf
through which a third of all oil traded at sea
passes, the U.S. Navy’s decision to keep the
Lincoln away is striking.
“You don’t want to inadvertently escalate
something,” said Capt. Putnam Browne, the
commanding officer of the Lincoln.
The White House in May deployed the Lin-
coln and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf.
The U.S. also plans to send 900 additional
troops to the Mideast and extend the stay of
another 600 as tens of thousands of others also
are on the ground across the region.
The crisis takes root in President Don-
ald Trump’s withdrawal last year of the U.S.
from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran
and world powers that capped Iran’s uranium
enrichment activities in return for lifting sanc-
tions. Washington subsequently re-imposed
sanctions on Iran, sending its economy into
freefall.
Trump has argued that the deal failed to
sufficiently curb Iran’s ability to develop
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, or halt
its support for militias in the Mideast.
AP Photo/Jon Gambrell
A pilot gets in the cockpit of an F/A-18 fighter jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
But amid the escalation, the U.S. alleges
without offering evidence that four oil tank-
ers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates
were attacked with limpet mines. Meanwhile,
Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have
launched coordinated drone attacks on Saudi
Arabia.
The U.S. itself has made a point to show
its arsenal in the region. On Sunday, the Air
Force announced a B-52 conducted a training
exercise with the Lincoln that included “simu-
lated strike operations.”
That came as Monday marked the 30th
anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhol-
lah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s Islamic
Republic. Thousands in Iran commemo-
rate Khomeini’s death by visiting his golden
shrine south of Tehran. This year, Iranian mil-
itary officials reportedly plan to guard it with
HAWK surface-to-air missiles, the same kind
the U.S. delivered to the Islamic Republic in
the Iran-Contra scandal.
However, in recent days, the Trump admin-
istration has stressed it is ready to speak to the
Iranians without preconditions. Iran in turn
has demanded the U.S. show it respect.
Though officials repeatedly declined to
discuss it, keeping the Lincoln out of the Strait
of Hormuz and Persian Gulf helps to de-es-
calate the situation. Transits through the strait,
which at its narrowest point is just 21 miles
wide, often see the paramilitary Revolutionary
Guard naval forces shadow American war-
ships. They’ve also run snap missile launches,
fired machine guns and flown drones over
American carriers.
To Iran, which shares the strait with Oman,
they view the American naval presence akin
to Iranian forces sailing into the Gulf of Mex-
ico. But the U.S. Navy stresses the strait is an
international waterway crucial to global ship-
ping and energy supplies.
Asked about why the Lincoln hadn’t gone
through the strait, Rear Adm. John F.G. Wade,
the commander of the carrier’s strike group,
said that his forces could “conduct my mission
wherever and whenever needed.” He declined
to discuss any specifics about that mission,
though he said Iran had presented “credible
threats” to the region.
“They do impose a threat to our operations,
but also to the safety and security of commerce
and trade going through the Strait of Hormuz
and that’s why we are here,” Wade said.
The Lincoln famously served as the back-
drop of then-President George W. Bush’s May
2003 speech declaring combat operations over
in Iraq, a banner reading “MISSION ACCOM-
PLISHED” hanging behind him. The majority
of the war’s casualties came after.
On Monday, F/A-18s flew maneuvers over
the carrier. Accompanying the Lincoln to the
Mideast are three destroyers — the USS Bain-
bridge, the USS Mason and the USS Nitze —
as well as the guided-missile cruiser the USS
Leyte Gulf.
Capt. William Reed, the commander of the
carrier’s air wing, laughed off any notion the
situation was stressful.
“It’s just another day at the office,” he said
from the carrier’s hangar as airmen worked on
the ship’s F/A-18 fighter jets.
Capt. Chris Follin, the commodore of the
destroyer strike group traveling with the Lin-
coln, didn’t express any concern, either.
“I wouldn’t want to go against that,” he
said, nodding toward the ship’s sailors and
warplanes. “Our mission is just to keep the
peace.”