Years ago I was listening to an expert on middle-east affairs. He claimed that the iranians believed a hit on one of our aircraft carriers would be so demoralizing it would cripple us.
With the people we have now in the majority in this country and in control of our government, I tend to agree with him.

If these are the facts, why are they in the Gulf to begin with?

Let me take a stab at it, 2. Because The Won is not on our side.

This is how idiot-boy intends to cut the size of our navy. He´ll let his muz-bros use the Persian Gulf groups for target practice.

In May 1987, the "nearness" of everything and everybody in the Persian Gulf was a serious disadvantage to the crew of the USS Stark. (Wikipedia has the story.)
When it comes to defending a carrier battle group, when challenged by a determined enemy, what´s changed?

I´ll second the retired 0-7´s emotion...we don´t need them there..send them over the horizon where they can´t be touched..then light up Iran..should take a couple of hours..

A preference for shadow over substance by the Administration is a strong possibility but any Chief of Naval Operations worth his salt would resign before exposing the Carrier Groups to needless risk.

The "optics" administration likes to drive their carriers up and down the gulf as though it was saturday night downtown. The real skippers would park them over the horizen.

The Iranians have been armed by the Chinese. China´s great strategic need has been to clear the Taiwan Strait of hostile capital ships in the event of war with Taiwan. They have developed very sophisticated shore to ship missiles. Iran has been armed with these missiles. #7 is absolutely right. The Chief of Naval Operations should have resigned before he issued an order to put those big blue water ships in the narrow confines of the Persian Gulf.

If you want to see just how wimpy our navy has become, go look up the Natl Press Club speech by the Chief of Naval Operations. The guy is right out of the Hillary/ Susan Rice ´dialogueing´ school of warfare. Yes, folks,we´re building a global force with our partners in the mideast and China. But there is some good news- they´ve decided to have men and women at the Naval Academy wear the same uniforms.

Back in 1941 as the Second World War was going strong and Japan and the USA were about to go at it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferred most of the US Pacific Fleet´s battleships from Long Beach and San Diego, CA, to Pearl Harbor, HI, where they were in range of the Imperial Japanese Navy carrier strike force. Then came December 7, 1941 and the Japanese essentially sank or put out of action all of those US battleships.

Essentially the same thing is happening again, as President Barak Obama has put two big US aircraft carriers and their supporting vessels well within range of Iranian would be attackers and their shore to ship Chinese made missiles. There is really no tactical reason for those two carriers to be in the Persian Gulf, and they should be removed to more distant and safer positions where they can still mount effective air attacks if that becomes necessary.

This carrier display is probably the equivalent of the marxist egomaniac using AF-1 as a parade float over manhattan.

develop our own oil and withdraw carriers to norfolk

#13 nailed that one, bigtime!! The Persian Gulf is a fish pond when it comes to moving carrier task forces. As was perviously stated, our carriers need to be in the ocean where smart skippers can park their rigs just over the horizon, loaded and ready to go. But they need to room to maneuver when attacked. Just common sense, guys.

No expert but I have worried about this.

Getting our fleet them out of the gulf essentially negates swarming tactics by small Iranian vessels.

Instead of being able to attack within minutes they would have to be at sea for hours. They would be detected and attacked by our aircraft all the way.

It would also negate Iran´s air force which is not powerful but be a distraction when paired with their naval attack.

OTOH it would be easier for Iran to mine the gulf and to launch attacks on tankers.

Ultimately the area must choose its own fate. If the Arab gulf states won´t stand up against the Iranians they will be ruled by them. It would require some Arab unity, they aren´t big on that.

#11. Good observation. You describe the result of the move to Pearl Harbor. But IMO the move made sense, the US was rapidly preparing for a Pacific War.

The success of the attack was not because of location, of simply being in Hawaii. It was from not being alert. Our military had the means to detect the attack but was not wisely using them.

The gulf situation differs. Geography really is a vital constraint in those waters.