Israeli expert skeptical of Iran plan to deploy warships to Gulf of Mexico
As Iran continues to fight to become a global superpower, Israeli experts are skeptical about reports of a plan by Tehran to fly the Islamic Republic’s flag halfway across the globe on warships in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Our fleet of warships will be sent to the Atlantic Ocean in the near future and will visit one of the friendly states in South America and the Gulf of Mexico,” Iran’s new Navy Commander R.-Adm. Hossein Khanzadi was quoted as saying by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
In 2014, Iran said it would bring warships into the Gulf of Mexico to protest the US Navy‘s presence in the Persian Gulf. The 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain and across the Persian Gulf where American and Iranian vessels have clashed in recent years.
But the ships never made it, and “it’s not clear if Iran is actually going to do it” this time either, according to Meir Javedanfar, Iran lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and researcher at Haifa University’s Meir Ezri Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies.
“Making an announcement is very different than actually being able to carry out such a big and sophisticated task of sending Iranian ships all the way to the Gulf of Mexico,” Javedanfar told The Jerusalem Post. “And even if Iran succeeds, I think it’s going to be mostly for show for domestic purposes. The Iranians have said that the Americans have no business being in the Persian Gulf and therefore, maybe by doing this, they are trying to reciprocate by saying that ‘Just as you come to our backyard we can come to your backyard.’”
Iran has repeatedly warned that any act of aggression in the country’s territorial waters would be met with an immediate and befitting response. But, according to Javedanfar, “The US Navy in the Persian Gulf has got far more sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry systems, aviation systems and Marines than the Iranians ships, so the two can’t be compared.”
At a press conference in early November, outgoing naval commander R.-Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said, “Sailing in open waters between Europe and the Americas should be the [Iranian] Navy’s goal, which will be realized in the near future.”
Iran has increased its presence in international waters in recent years. Sayyari said that Iran sent 47 flotillas of warships into international waters, including during last November, when an Iranian flotilla sailed around Africa and into the Atlantic Ocean.
“No foreign military official could even imagine that the Iranian naval forces might reach the Atlantic Ocean,” Sayyari stated during a ceremony in August, adding, “No one saw it likely that Iranian forces could sail around Africa or go to the Suez Canal, but they proved to be capable of doing it.”
The Iranian Navy began taking part on Monday in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium Multilateral Maritime Search and Rescue Exercise-2017 (IMMSAREX-17) with the navies of 32 other countries. According Tasnim, Iran’s naval military presence in international waters is “aimed at demonstrating the naval power and extending a message of peace and friendship.”
And while the Iranian Navy poses no real threat against the American Navy, if Iranian warships succeed in reaching Latin America, Tehran will likely use that action to advance its relationship with its ally Venezuela, a US adversary.
Iran has also been working to upgrade its navy, with new vessels and submarines to be introduced next year to bolster the country’s aging fleet. The growth of Iran’s Navy has concerned Israel, especially after Iran’s Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Muhammad Hossein Bagheri said that setting up naval bases in Yemen and Syria was “10 times more important” than nuclear technology.
According to Javendafar, Iran wants to portray the role of a superpower by deploying its Revolutionary Guard in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Tehran, he said, wants to do the same with its naval forces, but due to its age, the fleet is more about optics and does not pose any real threat to either Israel or the United States.
“Iran’s missiles are the biggest threat to us right now. Israel’s Navy is far stronger, more modern and much better trained than the Iranian Navy,” he said. “But... if Iranian ships do make it to the Gulf of Mexico, the fact that it might rile some Americans will, of course, count in Israel’s favor.”