Agreed. Most people either don't know or tend to forget that big decks travel with quite an array of support ships and even a sub or two. Iran aircraft would be deaded before they could ever get close to locking on. An aircraft carrier is much like a ground forward operating base that is surrounded by defense measures.
if God forbid a couple of IIAF F-4’s were to powerdive into
Big E’s flightdeck with AP bombs aboard and survive long enough to strike it, E could sink.
They know that USN are alert to civil air fraffic and
may have fixed some of their phantoms to squak civil aircraft idents to blend in with the Gulf air traffic.