Pentagon sends third aircraft carrier and up to 10,000 troops to Middle East

Carrier Roosevelt and Makin Island Marines head to region by end of November

The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier strike group and additional Marine Corps ships to the Middle East, adding 9,000 to 10,000 troops to the region, according to U.S. officials. The deployments are to arrive by the end of November, as President Trump considers resuming strikes on Iran after the midterm elections and days after rejecting a seven-day ceasefire proposal from Tehran.

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt left its home port of San Diego on Sunday on a scheduled deployment, while the USS Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group — comprising three amphibious ships carrying Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit — departed Monday, the officials said. The ships, jet fighters, Marines and sailors will arrive in the region by the end of November. Trump recently told aides that he expects to resume bombing Iran that same month, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Two carrier strike groups — the USS George H.W. Bush and USS George Washington — are already in the Middle East. If the Washington remains in the region after the Roosevelt arrives, it would bring three carrier strike groups to the area for the first time since April, before Iran and the U.S. clinched a fragile ceasefire that temporarily ended fighting that began on Feb. 28. That ceasefire has since collapsed, and the two sides have fought sporadically since. It is possible, however, that the Washington could depart and return to its home port in Japan, bringing the regional force back down to two carriers.

Ships from the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group are also in the Middle East. The additional servicemembers on the warships that deployed this week will add to the more than 50,000 troops already in the region, one of the officials said. Spokespeople for the White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.

The deployments come days after Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal for a seven-day ceasefire, and after a Time magazine interview published Thursday in which Trump said he could resume striking Iran after the midterms if there is no deal in place. The proposal Trump rejected would have led to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil ordinarily flows — and resumed talks over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, in exchange for the U.S. lifting its blockade of Iranian ports.

In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has extended the deployments of other troops critical to major combat operations, including air-defense units that counter Iranian missiles and drones and the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. The 82nd can perform a range of missions, including shooting down threats and parachuting into hostile territory to secure airfields and land.

The U.S. has maintained a presence of about 20 Navy ships in the region in recent months to enforce its blockade and help escort commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, according to Navy officials. The additional moves will further strain the U.S. Navy, which has experienced supply shortages and faced near-record deployments during the conflict. Iran has in recent weeks fired ballistic missiles at American warships. The crew of the Roosevelt is prepared for a longer-than-normal deployment, according to senior Navy officials.

This deployment extends a series of U.S. force increases to the region tied to the Iran war. MSI previously reported that in April, the Pentagon sent the USS George H.W. Bush carrier strike group and thousands of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East as the Trump administration pursued negotiations with Tehran, and that the larger February buildup assembled the largest U.S. force of warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, including two carrier strike groups and additional fighter jets and cargo aircraft.