Trump points finger at Iran over Gulf oil tanker attacks
US president accuses Tehran of being behind bombings but stops short of pressing for retaliation
DONALD TRUMP called Iran “a nation of terror” yesterday after accusing the country of being behind attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
The US military released a grainy video which it said proved Tehran was behind Thursday’s attack and allegedly showed Iranian forces trying to remove an unexploded mine from the side of one vessel.
“They didn’t want the evidence left behind,” said Mr Trump, who gave no indication the US plans to retaliate. “They are a nation of terror and they’ve changed a lot since I became president.” Iran has denied responsibility.
Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, said the UK had no reason not to believe the US assessment, but warned that Iran and Washington were in danger of stumbling into an unwanted war.
“At the moment, both sides in this dispute think the other side doesn’t want war. The risk you have is that then they do something provocative that leads to catastrophic consequences that weren’t intended,” he said.
However, the Japanese owner of the Kokuka Courageous oil tanker contradicted the US claims and said he believed the ship was attacked by “a flying object” rather than a mine or a torpedo.
Yukaka Katada, president of the operating company, did not say whether he believed Iran was responsible.
The attacks came just a month after four other oil tankers were sabotaged in the same area.
Speaking on Fox News, Mr Trump was repeatedly asked how the US was going to respond and replied merely: “We’ll see.” He repeated his hope that Iran would agree to return to the negotiating table to thrash out a tougher version of the 2015 deal limiting its nuclear ambitions. “I’m ready when they are,” he said.
Iran has repeatedly said it will not negotiate until the US lifts crippling sanctions that have devastated its economy ever since the US abandoned the landmark nuclear deal in May 2018.
“We will not negotiate with the United States,” said Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. “No free nation would ever accept negotiations under pressure.”
All 23 crew members of Norway’s Front Altair tanker were rescued by Revolutionary Guard forces and taken to the southern Iranian port of Jask.
Iranian state media released video footage of the mainly Russian crew saying they were being treated well.
The US Navy meanwhile rescued 21 crew members from the Kokuka Courageous and later took them back to the ship so they could help tow it to port. The video released by the US military appeared to show a small Iranian patrol boat pulling alongside it and removing an unexploded limpet mine several hours after the attack. The US said the Iranians were trying to dispose of evidence of their involvement. “It’s not a great video, and you can’t see much detail ... but it looks like what the US says it is,” said Richard Meade, the editor of Lloyd’s List, a shipping intelligence agency. “The working assumption is that it was Iran and this footage points in that direction.”
The US also claimed that Iranian forces appeared to be racing towards the tug that initially rescued the crew of the Kokuka Courageous in an effort to pick up the sailors themselves.
However, the USS Bainbridge, an American warship, got there first and the sailors were taken aboard and stayed overnight on the destroyer.
Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said the attack was carried out by what he called “the B Team” – John Bolton, the US national security adviser, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince – in order to disrupt Iranian diplomacy.
All three men have advocated an aggressive stance towards Iran.
“Unilateral US actions – including its economic terrorism on Iran – are solely responsible for insecurity and renewed tension in our region,” Mr Zarif said.
‘The working assumption is that it was Iran and this footage points in that direction’
The world has got so used to the war of words between Washington and Tehran that the risk of deadly conflict was largely discounted. Or at least it was until President Trump accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of being behind the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf over the past month. Suddenly the political temperature has shot up.
It is easy to see how this crisis could spiral out of control. If hardliners in Iran calculate that America would never risk trying to invade a well‑armed country with three times the population of hornets’ nests like Iraq and Afghanistan, they could keep upping the ante. At the same time, the US will struggle not to retaliate more harshly against repeated Iranian interference with the world’s oil supply. An act of war by a state’s forces, if that is indeed what has taken place, would demand a clearer response from the Americans than mere piracy or even terrorism.
And targeting ships operating out of pro‑american oil‑rich monarchies suggests that Iran is preparing to make good on its threat to close the Persian Gulf to tanker traffic in retaliation for US sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Ever since Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal reached with Iran under Obama, American sanctions have been strangling Iran’s foreign trade. The problem is that the Americans’ assumption that economic self‑ interest would make the Iranians back down has not worked out in practice so far. In fact, the hardliners there, who never liked the nuclear deal, see isolation as beneficial because they can blame Iran’s woes on “the Great Satan” and rally people behind the Islamic Republic’s cause. The extent to which anti‑american feeling has taken hold among ordinary Iranians only increases the risk of slipping into war.
What really complicates this crisis is that, unlike the standoff between America and North Korea during the “Fire and Fury” exchanges Donald Trump had with Kim Jong‑un two years ago, there are numerous powerful factions in play. Washington and Pyongyang could face up to each other without anyone fearing that either a rogue general would launch a missile without Kim’s permission or a third party such as Japan would provoke North Korea without America’s say so. The same cannot be said in the Gulf.
America’s main allies in the region are Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni monarchies. They see Iran’s Shiite rulers as a religious and ideological mortal enemy and will hope that this is the moment the US finally steps in to crush their powerful neighbour.
This makes any efforts by Washington to de‑escalate tensions trickier because it risks bitterly disappointing allies whose anti‑ Iran agenda runs deep and who are sick of seeing the Islamic Republic meddling in their domestic affairs. There is also the risk that these allies will seek to provoke Iran behind the backs of the Americans.
Within Iran, behind the façade of the Islamic Republic, are competing factions jostling to decide foreign policy. Some of them have control over serious missiles and military muscle, such as the Revolutionary Guards, and would easily be capable of independent action. These Iranian hardliners see a confrontation as the best way to secure the regime at home, and no less a figure than the Ayatollah Khamenei has declared that there is no point in negotiating with the Americans. He told the visiting Japanese prime minister that to his face this week – and tweeted it, too, so that President Trump would get the message.
There is no sympathy in the EU or Japan for Iran. However, Trump’s status as a bogeyman for certain sections of Western society makes it easy to imagine him bearing the blame for the global recession that would follow a Us‑iran conflict. Animosity towards the president could even be enough to make Nato allies deeply suspicious of rallying to the American cause. The possibility, however remote, of splitting the West in such a way holds obvious appeal within Iran.
The existence of so many wild cards makes calming the current crisis so difficult. Meanwhile, America’s other geopolitical rivals are calculating the consequences. Moscow and Beijing have so many gripes with the Trump administration that seeing it embroiled 24/7 in a Gulf crisis would be a clear win. If an energy crisis is created by the closing of the Gulf to tanker traffic, Washington’s allies will be worst hit and its enemies, notably Russia and Venezuela, would stand to gain.
To a great extent, Donald Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea has been based on coddling Kim’s self‑esteem. The problem with calming Us‑iran tensions is that each side sees the other’s basic demands as a slap in the face. Iran’s hardliners won’t back down on the nuclear issue. The Americans can’t either.
As the use of force at sea threatens to get out of hand, the search for common ground is a desperately important one.
Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford