The Pentagon has ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel to deter Iran or Hezbollah from joining the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to U.S. officials.
A senior US official and a US official told ABC News that the USS Eisenhower carrier strike group will be ordered to the eastern Mediterranean to join the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group that arrived there earlier this week and is in international waters off of Israel.
"I have directed the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to begin moving to the Eastern Mediterranean," said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a statement confirming the deployment. "As part of our effort to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas's attack on Israel."
Israel and the US are the only nuclear powers involved unless we think that we are going to support Israel launching a nuclear attack. However, that would be incredibly short-sighted since it would (1) be completely denounced by the entire world and (2) give Russia's propaganda machine an opportunity to use them on Ukraine without any push back from the West. Because of these reasons, I highly doubt the US would support Israel's use of nuclear weapons, but I don't deny that Israel would use them otherwise. The US sending a 2nd carrier group might have been part of a compromise in which Israel refrains from using nuclear weapons.