I believe we had a bunch of ships there all along. Before Truman, it was USS Eisenhower and her strike group (continuously since January). She was deployed there for 6 months, now she’s headed home and USS Truman is there to take her place.
Also, I don’t see how a single strike group with 6,000 sailors and around 80 aircraft (presumably, mostly F-18’s, not heavy bombers), can have much impact on any war between Israel and Iran. When we invaded Iraq, we had 500,000 ground troops. I’m not sure how many aircraft carriers were involved, but it had to be more than one. And Iran is bigger and better defended than Iraq was.
