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The last Marine expeditionary unit - an armada carrying Marines, aircraft and vehicles prepared for an amphibious assault - came through in November 2021. The USS Nimitz sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz in November 2020 as the last American carrier in the Persian Gulf.

11, 2001, attacks, there were at times two different American aircraft carriers patrolling the Gulf to provide fighter jets for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later for the battle against the Islamic State group.īut slowly, the Pentagon began to wind down the naval presence, leaving a gap of months that brought gasps from Gulf Arab states and commentators worried about Iran. In the two decades that followed the Sept. Those fears have cemented the longtime American presence in the Persian Gulf. Gulf Arab nations need the waterway to get their oil to market and worry about Iran's intentions in the wider region. Worries over another seizure likely has left a ship allegedly carrying Iranian oil stranded off Texas as no company has yet to unload it.įor the U.S., keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping remains a priority to ensure global energy prices don't spike, particularly as Russia's war on Ukraine pressures markets. and its allies that the Islamic Republic has the means to retaliate, particularly as American sanctions result in the seizure of ships carrying Iranian crude oil. Some 20% of the world's oil passes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the wider world.įor hard-liners in Tehran's theocracy, the move projects power to surrounding nations as part of a wave of assaults attributed to Iran since 2019. There is no sign that diplomacy will revive the deal soon, and Iran in recent weeks has resumed harassing and seizing ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

But Washington is seeing once again that while it's easy to get into the Middle East militarily, it's difficult to ever get fully out - particularly as Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

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