Political Paranoia

There is a lot of speculation in the non-US press and in blogs about an imminent US strike on Iran,
what with two US carriers in the Persian Gulf (and two Marine amphibious groups), the incident with the UK and the fact that Iran and Russia seem to have made up on the deal for enriched uranium (reactor grade) for the Busher reactor.Except for the bit where the Russians "rotated out" most of their staff for a pause...

I don't think so.

Not as an imminent threat - two carriers (Eisenhower and Stennis) aren't enough, they need three on the Gulf side, I'd think, and at least one in the Med, maybe; and the USS Reagan was in port in Korea this weekend before the annual RoK exercises through early April.
She could not get down to the Gulf before mid-April.
There are no Med carriers in place, although the Truman might be able to scoot down quickly from exercises, but I think that'd be noticed.
The Kitty Hawk is presumably still in dock (although why they need $40 million repairs when she is being decommissioned next year and underwent a medium upgrade last year is a mystery); which leaves the Nimitz, who should be resting in San Diego (albeit "surge ready").

So reports of an April 6th or earlier strike seem unlikely. The US just does not seem to have the assets in place to launch a major strike, if everything is where it is announced that it is.

On the other hand, there are a lot of amphibious assault ships out, the Kearsarge appears to be joining the Baatan, while at least one other is exercising in Korea, which puts pretty much a whole Marine division at sea. And, there are a lot of submarines at sea - which could just be post-stand down catch up on training, plus spring cruises. Or not.

If any air assets are being moved into place it is being kept very quiet, so I don't see that happening either in the near future (although flying cross country there was a fair amount of chaos because the scheduled plane - a new 777 - had been replaced with a smaller and older 757, with about 50 passengers dumped. Again. Very clumsy to have so many big planes unavailable for full scheduled long distance hauls.
But, my understanding is that

So, unless things are being done very quietly and secretly, and I don't quite see that being accomplished, a strike in the next couple of weeks is not realistic. (FWIW Iran timeline clock is now set at 17 days and I concur - that is the earliest plausible date IF a political decision has been made for a pre-emptive attack - of course a really clever attack would come at an impossible time... ;-)

IF a strike option is being planned, and things are being moved into place now, then the earliest realistic time would be mid-April, say about the time of the dinner for the Saudis in DC that just got rudely canceled.

On the third hand, the President of the United Arab Emirates just saw fit to send a letter to Iran saying they do not permit UAE territory to be used to strike third nations and are not party to the "conflict between Iran and US".

WTF is that about.

Anyway, I still have the definite sense that the administration wants to launch a pre-emptive air strike on Iran, thinking to set their nuclear program way back, and a "hail Mary" to induce regime change (yeah, right).
But, they may need a provocation for cover, or there may be too much internal resistance within the DoD and State Dept.
My sense is also that April is really their last open window, and then they get caught by too many units needing R&R and general resetting of forces, and there is not another opportunity to do anything real silly until autumn, which may be politically too late.

Interesting times. Not very scientific though.