With the arrival of USS George H.W. Bush, there are now three carrier battlegroups, more than 240 jets, and at least 16 destroyers in the Arabian and Red seas hunting for Iranian ships and “shadow fleet” tankers.
But one thing the 20,000 sailors and Marines involved in the 20-plus ship operation—including more than 2,500 assault infantry on the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli—aren’t doing is blockading the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is controlling which ships come and go through the narrow 21-mile pass linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
Iranian ships are transiting the corridor and moving in and out of Persian Gulf ports, or what remains of them after 38 days of bombing, because the U.S. Navy has few, if any, warships in the basin-like sea. Under the ceasefire, the Iranian ships are not being fired on by U.S. or Israeli forces….