Trump’s Armada Has Now Been Assembled

Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened the Islamic Republic of Iran over its killing of protesters, but the killing has gone on, albeit at a slower pace than on January 8 and 9, when the massacre in city streets across Iran was at its height. After the first two weeks of protests and the mass killing of protestors. Trump issued his call for the protests to continue and assured those protesters that “HELP IS ON THE WAY!”

But the killings continued, albeit at a slower pace, and instead of acting as he had threatened to do, Trump decided to declare that he had been informed that the killing had stopped and so there was no longer any need for the U.S. to take action. He declared he was satisfied that he had stopped the killing of protesters, which, of course, he had not done. Trump waxes and wanes, he says one thing and then its opposite, this mercurial and unpredictable man, and he has done so especially in his statements about Iran. He utters menacing threats, pretends the threats have worked, and therefore he no longer feels any need to make his threats a reality. The killings of protesters, though the number of victims has decreased, are continuing.

Now he has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, and several other ships in the carrier group as well, from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, where another carrier group headed by the USS Ford, is already stationed. Their mere presence is supposed to overawe the Iranian leaders and cause the regime to end its nuclear program, and hand over to the Americans the 400 kg. of uranium Tehran has enriched to a just-below-weapons-grade purity of 60%. “Russia, Turkey seeking US-Iran talks to stave off conflict amid Trump’s threats,” Times of Israel, January 29, 2026:

…Trump has threatened military intervention against Iran over its crackdown on protests, which rights groups say killed thousands. However, rhetoric on the issue has shifted in recent days so that the threat of military action is hanging over Tehran unless it returns to the talks on the issue of its contentious nuclear program.

A US naval strike group arrived in Middle East waters on Monday with Trump warning it was “ready, willing and able” to hit Iran “if necessary.”

The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been talking with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, but said Wednesday: “There was no contact between me and Witkoff in recent days and no request for negotiations was made from us. Our stance is clear, negotiations don’t go along with threats and talks can only take place when there are no longer menaces and excessive demands.”

Aragchi’s remarks do not suggest Iran is ready to negotiate with the US over its nuclear program. Since Trump has so often in the past made ALL-CAPS threats, and then not followed through, why should the Iranians take the latest threat seriously?

Meanwhile, the latest figures on those killed and wounded in Iran, that are being reported by both European news programs and by Iranians in exile, are 36,500 killed and 330,000 wounded.

With the arrival in the Gulf region of the USS Abraham Lincoln, adding more airplanes to those that previously arrived on the USS Gerald Ford, Trump does indeed have a powerful armada with which to harm the Islamic Republic. There are many ways Trump’s threat can be carried out against the Islamic Republic. It could take the form of airstrikes on the senior Iranian leadership. These airstrikes could take out the supreme leader, his son Mojtaba, a dozen more of the highest-ranking clerics, as well as the senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Basiji, and the Iranian army. The IRGC troops could also be hit, killing thousands of them. The Americans could also launch attacks on those nuclear facilities that Iran has been trying to rebuild since the IDF devastated them in the 12-Day War last June, that also included a one-day attack by American B-2s that dropped 30,000 pound bunker-buster bombs on nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and in Isfahan.

The “Armada”— consisting of the USS Gerald Ford, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and a dozen smaller vessels — could also park itself in the Persian Gulf right outside the port of Bandar Abbas, on the northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz, in order to enforce a total blockade on Iranian oil exports, and on any imports headed for Iran. This would be a devastating final blow to the Iranian economy.

Trump now has so many ways to rattle the cages, to flutter the dovecotes, to scare the supreme leader into burrowing deeper in his underground hideout, while the protesters can return in force to Iranian cities, confident of American support should more bombing be deemed necessary to stop the killings in the streets, in order to pull down the already tottering pillars of the Islamic Republic without — please note — the need for a single American soldier to be on the ground in Iran.

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