Iran threatened to shoot down two American planes flying in international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, the latest example of Tehran’s increased aggression in the Persian Gulf. The American planes disregarded the warning and eventually landed safely. “We wanted to test the Iranian reaction,” a U.S. defense official told Fox News. “It’s one thing to tell someone to get off your lawn, but we weren’t on their lawn. Anytime you threaten to shoot someone down, it’s not considered professional.”
Iran has increased its belligerence in the Persian Gulf since the implementation of the nuclear deal in January: there have been 31 incidents between Iranian and American ships in that time period that the U.S. Navy deemed “unsafe,” “unprofessional,” or both, which is the same amount for all of 2015. “We’ve seen an uptick in confrontations by Iranian vessels in the Arabian Gulf,” Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said last week. “Ultimately if they continue to test us we’re going to respond and we’re going to protect ourselves and our partners.”
Seven armed boats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy swarmed a U.S. Navy patrol ship in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, forcing it to change course after the Iranians came within 100 yards and stopped their vehicles in the American ship’s path. Sailors aboard the USS Nitze recorded an encounter last month when Iranian boats came as close as 300 yards, forcing it and the USS Mason to change course to avoid a collision. Two weeks later, two U.S. patrol coastal ships, the USS Tempest and the USS Squall, were operating in international waters in the northern Gulf when IRGC boats approached them at high speed and passed within 600 yards of the Tempest three times. The Iranians ignored several radio warnings to behave according to internationally recognized maritime rules. These incidents came just a few months after ten American sailors and their two boats were seized by IRGC naval forces in January of this year, in violation of international law.
In a move that reflects Iran’s growing belligerence towards the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf, the new ship launched by the IRGC Navy on Tuesday was draped in a banner that read, “America should go to the Bay of Pigs, the Persian Gulf is our house.” IRGC naval chief Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi said at the time, “This ship increases the deterrent power of Iran and will have an effect on the calculations of the enemy, particularly America.”
[Photo: National Museum of the U.S. Navy / Flickr ]