Maximum pressure a recipe for disaster

If the United States is seeking to safeguard the security of commercial shipping and freedom of navigation in the strategic Strait of Hormuz with its plans to put together a coalition to provide naval escorts for oil tankers, it would do well to consider why it thinks that is necessary. A series of attacks on shipping in the world’s most important oil artery may seem to have provided the US with the excuse of putting together such a coalition. That three Iranian vessels tried to impede an oil tanker passing through the strait in recent days has added to the tension in the region.

Yet it is the withdrawal of the US from the 2005 multinational agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program that is the fundamental source of the trouble.

And it might be just wishful thinking on the part of the US to organize such a coalition considering that its European allies are less enamored of the “maximum pressure” the US is putting on Iran in an attempt to force it to terminate its involvement in the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen — as they still hope to save the Iran nuclear deal.

Although they are still US allies, they do not see eye to eye with the Trump administration on many international issues, including Iran.

In response to the pressure tactics of the US, Iran has increased its uranium enrichment, consciously breaking its obligation under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is a dangerous sign that Teheran is testing Washington’s limits.

Even if such a coalition is established, the US should realize the more warships that it and its allies have in the strait, the more risk there is of an inadvertent run-in or miscalculation that may trigger a military conflict that neither the US nor Iran wants.

That the US stopped short of launching a retaliatory military attack against Iran after Iran shot down its surveillance drone suggests that the US does not want a war with Iran. It hopes that its sanctions and maximum pressure will finally make Iran give in.

But that is very unlikely given the way Iran has responded to what the US has done. The best solution to the current stand-off is for both sides to take a step back, which Iran already seems to have taken, and engage in talks, talks in which the US should not ask for too much.