WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- About six months into the Iran war, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has become a stark symbol of how Washington's pursuit of military solutions is increasingly coming back to haunt itself.
As the conflict drags on, months of prolonged deployment are exhausting U.S. service members, straining military resources and exposing the mounting costs of a conflict that Washington has yet to bring to a decisive end.
U.S. Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper sought to reassure the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln on Sunday, highlighting their "resilience" during a visit to the carrier. His remarks came after media reports raised concerns over deteriorating conditions aboard the ship, whose deployment has been extended for months by the war with Iran.
The USS Abraham Lincoln left its home port of San Diego last November and was later redirected to the Middle East for U.S. military operations in the war with Iran.
With about 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard, the carrier has gone more than 200 days without a port call, setting a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea, according to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
The prolonged deployment has taken a toll on living conditions aboard the carrier. Stars and Stripes reported complaints about food and water shortages, disrupted mail service and a lack of regular port calls after months at sea.
Meanwhile, the newspaper said family members had raised concerns about sailors' exhaustion and mental health directly with the acting secretary of the Navy, citing one military spouse as saying that her husband had told her he hoped he would not wake up the next day.
The U.S. administration, however, has sought to downplay the mounting concerns. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the reports had "completely misrepresented" conditions aboard the carrier. President Donald Trump likewise dismissed concerns over the length of the deployment, saying it was "not nearly long enough."
The mounting pressure on the crew reflects a deeper problem with the war, with the administration having neither planned for the conflict nor prepared a clear strategy for ending it, according to Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a former Marine, in an interview with ABC News.
The war has also come at a growing cost to the U.S. military. The Pentagon estimated that it had spent about 37.5 billion U.S. dollars on operations and would need another 67 billion dollars to replenish weapons stockpiles that had fallen to dangerously low levels, according to the Financial Times.
A 60-day window established under the June 18 peace MoU between Iran and the United States expired on Monday. However, there was little sign of a clear path toward ending the conflicts.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that Tehran had not decided to resume talks with the United States. Trump said on Monday that Washington was not seeking an extension of the memorandum and demanded Iran's surrender.
The impasse underscores the strategic dilemma facing Washington. The United States has yet to secure either a decisive outcome on the battlefield or meaningful progress toward a diplomatic settlement, while the costs of sustaining the war continue to rise.
The USS Abraham Lincoln thus offers more than a snapshot of hardship aboard a warship. It reflects the broader price of a foreign policy increasingly reliant on military power.
The result of the war so far has been "a strategic loss and an embarrassment," said Robin Niblett, a former director of London-based think tank Chatham House. ■
