The US, Iran, and Oil Tankers
If the Biden administration goes ahead with this plan, the risk of escalation would go beyond the US and Iranian militaries.
Thousands of US Marines and Navy sailors arrived at the Red Sea last Sunday, August 6, as part of a preannounced deployment to the Middle East which comes amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran. As The Hill recently reported, this move by the US is meant to “deter destabilizing activity and deescalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels earlier this year,” according to a statement from the U.S. Fifth Fleet spokesman Commander Tim Hawkins.
The first seizure that Hawkins was referring to occurred back in April, when the Iranian Navy seized a Marshal Islands-flagged tanker, the Advantage Sweet, in the Gulf of Oman. The tanker was headed for Houston, Texas, and was carrying Kuwaiti crude oil for Chevron Corporation, an American energy company.
The second instance happened several days later, when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized a Panama-flagged tanker, the Niovi, that was traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.
A crucial bit of context that is often conveniently absent from the reporting on this situation, however, is that the US has also seized tankers in a similar fashion. The most recent of which was the Suez Rajan, a Greek tanker that was carrying Iranian oil to China before it was forced to change course to the United States.
That action, which the US justified by using the pretext of sanctions enforcement, likely played a role in provoking Iran’s seizures, particularly of the Advantage Sweet, as it occurred a mere five days before. The Suez Rajan is still being held in the US — or more accurately, it’s stranded off of the coast of Texas — because no company wants to offload or sell the oil as it could mean risking retaliation from Iran, and clearly, the US has no intention of returning it.
What’s more, the Associated Press (AP), while citing unnamed US officials, reported earlier this month that “The U.S. military is considering putting armed personnel on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, in what would be an unheard of action aimed at stopping Iran from seizing and harassing civilian vessels,” a move that would significantly increase the risk of conflict between the US and Iran.
As the AP article briefly notes, placing troops on commercial ships “would represent an extraordinary commitment in the Mideast by U.S. forces as the Pentagon tries to focus on Russia and China.” That point is worth making, as it’s important to remember that the US is currently engaged in a proxy war of choice with Russia while simultaneously ramping up cold war tensions with China, and now it is openly risking conflict with Iran. It also showcases the immense hubris of the Biden administration as well as the managers of the US empire more broadly, who all seem to think they can dominate the entire globe and never face any serious repercussions.
As Daniel Larison recently wrote at Eunomia, placing US personnel on commercial ships “would put those Americans at risk of being injured, captured, or killed for the sake of protecting ships that their own governments or the governments of regional states ought to be safeguarding.” We should all ask ourselves, is such a risk really worth taking? Have we not already seen enough American casualties from the last twenty-plus years of US military adventurism in the Middle East?
To anyone reading this who might be more sympathetic to this consideration by the Biden administration, I suggest watching this video by YouTuber Beau of the Fifth Column, who, as far as I can tell, has been supportive of nearly every foreign policy decision this administration has made up until this one. As Beau points out in the video, this situation has the potential to “go sideways” or “spiral out of control very quickly.” He goes on to say that “Mistakes can be made when you have forces in that close of proximity (…) without clear rules of engagement and without both sides knowing what they are.”
If the Biden administration goes ahead with this plan, which at the time of this writing is still unconfirmed, the risk of escalation would go beyond the US and Iranian militaries. Back in the 1980s, a similar situation between the US and Iran took place in what became known as the “Tanker War”, which resulted in the US shooting down a civilian airliner and killing everyone onboard.
According to the Associated Press:
The so-called “Tanker War” involved American naval ships escorting reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Persian Gulf and the strait [of Hormuz] after Iranian mines damaged vessels in the region. It culminated in a one-day naval battle between Washington and Tehran, and also saw America accidentally shoot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people.
The death of those 290 civilians occurred without the “Tanker War” escalating into an all-out, years-long war, so imagine what would have happened if it had escalated further. If a similar “accident” (if that’s what you want to call the unjustified killing of nearly 300 people) were to occur today, I’m willing to bet that the conflict would go on for much longer than one day. Considering the US’s already hostile stance toward Russia and China, it could also very likely pull in those much larger powers, which would be yet another avenue that could lead to World War 3 (as if the US isn’t flirting with that possibility enough already).
Some might argue that the the US needs to do something to prevent Iran from attacking or seizing ships, especially ones that are carrying oil for US companies, but this latest consideration by the Biden administration involves too many risks. A simpler and less hostile solution would be for the US to lift the Trump-era sanctions that have been placed on Iran, many of which the Biden administration has continued to enforce.
As I stated earlier in this article, the US claimed to be enforcing those sanctions when it seized the Suez Rajan, which, even if that move didn’t directly provoke Iran’s recent seizures of other ships, still increased tensions between Washington and Tehran. Lifting those sanctions would be a significant step toward easing those tensions, and would remove some of the incentives Iran has to seize ships in the first place.
Why does the US have the authority to seize a Greek tanker carrying Iranian oil to China anyway? What right does the US have to involve itself in that mutual transaction between three foreign countries? As I said earlier, the managers of the US empire seem to view themselves as the rulers of the entire world, but the states that fall outside of that empire clearly disagree, and they’re beginning to make that disagreement much more obvious than they have in the past.
It’s not too late for this situation to be resolved through diplomacy, however, and a recent prisoner-swap that took place earlier this week between Washington and Tehran illustrates that point. As Antiwar’s Dave Decamp noted, “Prisoner exchanges have typically been kept separate from other issues between the US and Iran,” but the fact that this exchange took place amid these heightened tensions shows that there is room for diplomacy should the Biden administration choose to pursue it.
While it is not yet confirmed that the US is planning to put armed personnel on commercial ships, the possibility itself is disconcerting, and the potential risks from doing so should not be overlooked. The US has long used its military and economic might to force the governments of other countries to bend to its will, but the tables are turning. The US’s influence around the world has been waning and more countries are beginning to stand up to it.
The threat of military force from the US is not what it used to be after twenty-plus years of failed military actions in the Middle East, not to mention the fact that our weapons and ammunition stockpiles have been depleted from our involvement in the war in Ukraine. As for the US’s economic might, our national debt currently sits at over $32 trillion and is rising by the day, and the dollar continues to be devalued and lose significance on the world stage.
Considering all of the above, it becomes clear that the Biden administration should not place US Marines and sailors in harms way when the option for diplomacy and de-escalation exists, and it should also do more to try to prevent situations like this in the future. If the US would stop demanding the rest of the world follow its dictates, the tensions we’re currently seeing between the US and Iran (and the US and Russia, and the US and China, etc.) would have likely never even emerged in the first place. Seeing as they do exist, however, the US should work to ease those tensions rather than exacerbate them.
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