Days after the Donald Trump administration touted the deployment of an aircraft carrier group and a suite of radar-busting bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, the Pentagon’s new top commander in the region used his first public appearance on Wednesday to pin the country as the region's greatest long-term threat to the United States.

US Central Command said today that the USS Abraham Lincoln had arrived in the Middle East along with four bombers.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the newly tapped US Central Command chief who pushed to speed up the carrier group's deployment, said the move “sends a clear and unmistakable message” at a conference of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. “Iran should not confuse our deliberate approach with an unwillingness to act.”

But the back-and-forth over the carrier deployment — which was routinely announced by the US Navy in April before national security adviser John Bolton put it in the public spotlight with a statement on Sunday — demonstrates the challenge McKenzie will face in his new job.