President Donald Trump has stated {that a} change in energy in Iran “could be one of the best factor that would occur” because the US administration weighs whether or not to take navy motion in opposition to Tehran.
Trump made the feedback shortly after visiting with troops in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and after he confirmed earlier within the day that he’s deploying a second plane service group to the Mideast for potential navy motion in opposition to Iran.
“It looks like that will be one of the best factor that would occur,” Trump stated in an change with reporters when requested about urgent for the ouster of the Islamic clerical rule in Iran. “For 47 years, they’ve been speaking and speaking and speaking.”
Service Diplomacy
Trump stated earlier that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest plane service, is being despatched from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to affix different warships and navy property the US has constructed up within the area. The deliberate deployment comes simply days after Trump prompt one other spherical of talks with the Iranians was at hand. These negotiations didn’t materialise as certainly one of Tehran’s prime safety officers visited Oman and Qatar this week and exchanged messages with US intermediaries.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll want it,” Trump informed reporters in regards to the second service. He added, “It’ll be leaving very quickly.”
Gulf Struggle Fears
Already, Gulf Arab nations have warned any assault might spiral into one other regional battle in a Mideast nonetheless reeling from the Israel-Hamas battle within the Gaza Strip. In the meantime, Iranians are starting to carry 40-day mourning ceremonies for the hundreds killed in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests final month, including to the interior stress confronted by the sanctions-battered Islamic Republic.
The Ford, whose new deployment was first reported by The New York Instances, will be part of the USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying guided-missile destroyers, which have been within the area for over two weeks. US forces have already got shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Lincoln on the identical day final week that Iran tried to cease a US-flagged ship within the Strait of Hormuz.
Latin America Pivot
It’s a fast turnaround for the Ford, which Trump despatched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean final October because the administration constructed up an enormous navy presence within the lead-up to the shock raid final month that captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
It additionally seems to be at odds with the Trump administration’s nationwide safety and protection methods, which put an emphasis on the Western Hemisphere over different components of the world.
In response to questions in regards to the motion of the Ford, US Southern Command stated US forces in Latin America will proceed to “counter illicit actions and malign actors within the Western Hemisphere”.
“Whereas drive posture evolves, our operational functionality doesn’t,” Col. Emanuel Ortiz, spokesperson for Southern Command, stated in an announcement. US “forces stay absolutely able to venture energy, defend themselves, and shield US pursuits within the area”.
Double Service Muscle
The Ford strike group will convey greater than 5,000 extra troops to the Center East however few capabilities or weapons that don’t exist already throughout the Lincoln group. Having two carriers will double the variety of plane and munitions which might be accessible to navy planners and Trump.
Given the Ford’s present place within the Caribbean, it should doubtless be weeks earlier than it’s off the coast of Iran.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to make use of drive to compel Iran to conform to constrain its nuclear program and earlier over Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Iran and america held oblique talks in Oman per week in the past, and Trump later warned Tehran that failure to achieve an settlement along with his administration could be “very traumatic”. Related talks final 12 months in the end broke down in June as Israel launched what grew to become a 12-day battle on Iran that included the US bombing Iranian nuclear websites.
Requested by a reporter in regards to the new negotiations, Trump stated Friday that “I believe they’ll achieve success. And in the event that they’re not, it’s going to be a nasty day for Iran, very unhealthy.”
Israel Issue
Trump held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and stated he insisted to Israel’s chief that negotiations with Iran wanted to proceed. Netanyahu is urging the administration to press Tehran to reduce its ballistic missile program and finish its help for militant teams akin to Hamas and Hezbollah as a part of any deal.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceable functions. Earlier than the June battle, Iran had been enriching uranium as much as 60 per cent purity, a brief, technical step away from weapons-grade ranges.
Lengthy Sea Deployment
The USS Ford, in the meantime, first set sail in late June 2025, which suggests the crew will quickly have been deployed for eight months. Whereas it’s unclear how lengthy the ship will stay within the Center East, the transfer units the crew up for an unusually lengthy deployment.
The Navy’s prime officer, Adm. Daryl Caudle, informed reporters final month that retaining the Ford longer at sea could be “extremely disruptive” and that he was “a giant non-fan of extensions”.
Carriers are usually deployed for six or seven months. “When it goes previous that, that disrupts lives, it disrupts issues … funerals that had been deliberate, marriages that had been deliberate, infants that had been deliberate,” Caudle stated.
He stated extending the Ford would complicate its upkeep and maintenance by throwing off the schedule of repairs, including extra put on and tear, and rising the gear that may want consideration.
For comparability, the plane service USS Dwight D. Eisenhower had a nine-month deployment to the Center East in 2023 and 2024, when it spent a lot of its time engaged with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The ship entered upkeep in early 2025 as scheduled, nevertheless it blew previous its deliberate completion date of July and stays within the shipyard to today.
Caudle informed The Related Press in a latest interview that his imaginative and prescient is to deploy smaller, newer ships when attainable as an alternative of persistently turning to large plane carriers.
Public Anger Rising
Iran faces still-simmering anger over its wide-ranging suppression of dissent. That rage might intensify within the coming days as households of the lifeless start the standard 40-day mourning for family members. Already, on-line movies have proven mourners gathering in several components of the nation, holding portraits of their lifeless.
One video purported to indicate mourners at a graveyard in Iran’s Razavi Khorasan province on Thursday. There, with a big transportable speaker, individuals sang the patriotic music “Ey Iran”, which dates to Forties Iran below the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Whereas initially banned after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s theocratic authorities has performed it to drum up help.
Revealed on February 14, 2026
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