The U.S. is moving its last aircraft carrier in the western Pacific toward the Middle East as the Iran war puts growing strain on the Navy’s fleet and crews.

The USS George Washington is leaving the Pacific and is expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose deployment has been repeatedly extended to support operations against Iran.

The move will temporarily leave the region without a U.S. carrier as China steps up military activity around key American allies.

Analysts say the shift underscores the broader cost of the open-ended Iran conflict, which is stretching carrier deployments, raising concerns about sailor fatigue and potentially creating years of maintenance backlogs.

“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East, he added.

No one expects China to invade Taiwan because an American aircraft carrier has left the region, but the carrier’s absence gives the Chinese another opportunity to show its strength, according to Bryan Clark, a former Navy submariner who is a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.

“They’re using this as part of the narrative to demonstrate to the Philippines, to Japan, to Indonesia and others that the U.S. is not the big dog in the western Pacific anymore,” Clark said. “They would just prefer that countries in the region decide that China is the bigger power and the U.S. is not able to guarantee their security anymore.”

Adm. Frank Bradley, head of the
U.S. Special Operations Command, has been trying to reassure regional allies of Washington’s commitment.

He was in Manila on Thursday, telling his Filipino counterparts that U.S. special operations forces are ready to step up joint exercises to strengthen the countries’ alliance. He also is expected to travel to Japan.

“We have the ability to project force, the United States, anywhere on the globe,” Bradley told The Associated Press. “And when the threat in the region of the Middle East has been attended to, we will redeploy and reorient and be able to project that force wherever else it might be required.”

“I also feel very confident in the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ ability to protect their sovereignty here and for us to remain close with them,” he said.

AP contributed to this report.

The Trump administration reportedly opened a secret backchannel to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that is terrorizing the Strait of Hormuz
after U.S. officials began questioning whether Tehran’s formal negotiators actually had the authority to end the war.

Iraqi Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani served as the intermediary because of his unusually strong relationships in both Washington and Tehran, Axios reported Sunday.

In mid-May, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard asked Barzani to contact IRGC commander Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and determine whether the Guard supported the positions being taken by Iran’s negotiating team.

Barzani ultimately spoke directly with Vahidi on May 14, Axios reported.

Vahidi said the IRGC backed the negotiators and preferred resolving the crisis diplomatically.

The White House later explored holding secret U.S.-Iran talks in Erbil, but Iranian officials reportedly raised security concerns and the meeting never happened.

President Donald Trump has hailed the war-fighting effort and questioned peace-making because of the multiple layers of leadership and command that the months of U.S. and Israeli strikes have already removed.