Columnists at The Wall Street Journal, citing a former senior Pentagon official, report that without its aircraft carriers the United States would struggle to rapidly assemble a strike squadron for potential attacks on Iran. The former official explained that, in the absence of carrier-based aviation, the military would find it difficult to quickly form a full-fledged «strike package» — a grouping that normally includes additional fighter jets and electronic warfare aircraft to protect the strike component.

Earlier, Western media noted that a significant share of U. S. Navy vessels had been redeployed to the Caribbean amid tensions around Venezuela or sent back to the Asia-Pacific region. Among them is the American supercarrier USS Gerald Ford, which operates together with its carrier strike group.

Teheran, in turn, has used diplomatic channels to warn the states of the Persian Gulf that host American military bases that any U.S. strike on Iran would be met with retaliatory attacks on those facilities.

Against this backdrop, Washington has decided to partially withdraw personnel from several sites in the Middle East. According to journalists, some staff members were ordered to leave the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar by the evening of 14 January.