It's probably not as far fetched as many would think.
The growing obsolescence of blue-water navies has been the elephant in the room for a long time, with missile technology having advanced to the point that U.S capital ships would likely be simply unable to defend themselves within a certain distance from the shoreline. Both Russia and China have astounding missile capabilities, and it wouldn't be surprising if their equipment ended up in Iran, or is already in Iran. The U.S economy pours tens of billion of dollars into running a single carrier, which are geared more toward either anti-insurgency or a 20th century conflict, and it would likely only take a strike from one or two relatively cheap missiles to sink one. The loss of even one carrier would be a devastating national tragedy that would severely undermine American confidence in their military supremacy.
Iran (and China, and Russia) know this, and they've been working their asses off for the last 20 years developing missiles for exactly that purpose, and the word on the street is they've been very successful at it. Combined with swarms of torpedo boats, they'd likely make the Persian Gulf a very dangerous place.
The answer is to stop letting politicians (and to some extent, the DoD/military-industrial complex) pour hundreds of billions of dollars into antiquated Cold-War dogshit that is obsolete as soon as it rolls off the assembly line, and focus on a smarter, leaner, more efficient modern military unburdened by corruption and pork barrel contracts.
But we're not going to see meaningful change on that front until Iran, China, or North Korea blows a U.S carrier and 3,500 sailors out of the water.
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