A conflict between the United States and Iran would be detrimental to the U.S.'s long-term focus on competition with the Chinese Communist Party.

This view, which Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of U.S. Air Forces Central, shared with reporters on Wednesday underscored the military's willingness to deploy more forces to the Middle East in an attempt to prevent a larger conflict from emerging. He acknowledged that a recent deployment of additional force to the region has curbed a string of commercial vessel seizures in the region by Iran's navy.

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"If you want to distract the United States of America from focusing on that long-term existential threat, a terrorist attack on our homeland would certainly do that. So our job at CENTCOM and AFCENT is to continue to maintain adequate pressure on groups like al Qaeda and ISIS so that they can't do that. So we remain focused," he told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event on Wednesday. "If you want to distract us, even more broadly, a war with Iran would do that, right? That would be catastrophic to the long-term focus on China. And so we're not looking for conflict with Iran. We're looking to deter that conflict."

While the Department of Defense focused heavily on the Middle East for the first two decades of the 21st century, it has since made a shift toward the Indo-Pacific region, mainly honing in on the threat posed by the CPP. Defense officials routinely characterize China as the only country with both the desire and capability to rewrite the international order.

Grynkewich, also the Combined Forces Air Component Commander for U.S. Central Command, acknowledged that the pivot to the Pacific region requires a reallocation of resources in that direction as well, hence their need to squash possible conflict before it reaches its infancy.

"We recognize that the long-term existential threat is to the rules-based international order and the challenge that China poses to that rules-based international order," he said. "We hope that we don't ever get to the point of conflict with China, which is why competition right now is so important to really meter how we're competing appropriately. That competition, by definition in a world where resources are limited, requires a reallocation of focus. It requires not just money shifting, but it requires brain power shifting to other problems."

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The Pentagon deployed the USS Thomas Hudner, F-35 fighters, and F-16s in mid-July, about two weeks after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy attempted to seize two commercial vessels in the Gulf of Oman. U.S. defense officials have accused Iran of attacking, seizing, or attempting to seize approximately 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels in the region in the last two years.

"My sense is, and what we're trying to message, is that it looks like we surge forces in response to a specific threat that shows American commitment to the region," he said.