Bush Iran War Plans - 4 Strike Groups in the Persian Gulf

wrote:

Finally, it occurs to me that a hot war in the Middle East would
provide ideal cover for sweeping flawed or rigged midterm election
results under the White House carpet and denying calls for
investigation of election irregularities. As I diaried last week, 'The
president fully intends to maintain control of the House and the
Senate'. A hot war with Iran, Syria and Lebanon would certainly give a
pretext to "maintaining control".

Exactly how would a hot war with Iran influence voters to vote
Republican? I would think it would enrage Democrats and increase their
voter turn-out, thus causing the GOP to LOSE control of Congress.

Bad news. Very bad news. Another expeditionary strike group will
imminently enter the Persian Gulf where it will join the Enterprise,
Eisenhower and Iwo Jima strike groups.

-I assume the ESG you are referring to is the Boxer amphibious group.
They are there to relieve the Iwo Jima group per the normal cycle. Even
so, neither group can conduct offensive strike ops. Between them they
carry six Harriers, eight Cobras, and a whole bunch of transport
helicopters. All of which would be pretty useless for air strikes in
Iran. Good for landing Marines though.

-The Eisenhower isn't in the Persian Gulf. She is at a port call in
Cyprus. It would take about 2 days for her to get into position to
launch strikes into the Northwestern corner of Iran, from the
Northeastern Med, but that would require permission to overfly Turkish
air space and would also require USAF Tanker support, also via Turkey.

-The Enterprise is in the Arabian Sea as per the normal deployment
cycle.

No other carrier is close.
-Nimitz and Reagan are in the Eastern Pacific between Hawaii and CA
conducting work-ups
-Kitty Hawk is in the Philippine Sea
-All others are in their yard/maintenance period.
This represents the standard deployment that the US has maintained in
these areas since the 1960's. All of it was scheduled about six years
ago as the carriers go through their normal maintenance, work-up, and
deployment cycles.

In order to conduct strikes in Iran, we would need at least two
carriers in the Med and two in the Arabian sea. That isn't going to
happen anytime soon.