Canadian navy not asked to join British coalition to protect Strait of Hormuz
OTTAWA — Canada has no plans to contribute a ship to Britain’s nascent navy coalition to defend international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, where its tense dispute with Iran is unfolding.
But Britain is seeking Canada’s vocal support for the deal Iran reached with other western powers to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, The Canadian Press has learned.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the nuclear agreement it forged with its fellow United Nations Security Council members — Britain, France, China and Russia — as well as Germany is widely viewed as the spark for renewed tensions between Iran and the West.
Those tensions further escalated last Friday when Iran seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero as it was transiting the narrow and strategically vital international waterway between Oman and Iran through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is shipped.
That followed the British Royal Navy’s seizure of an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar earlier this month on the suspicion it was violating sanctions against Syria.
The standoff is a major international crisis for Britain’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson. The government of his predecessor, Theresa May, announced plans in her final days to cobble together a “Europe-led” force to protect international shipping.
“At this point we have not received any specific request from Britain regarding this issue,” said Todd Lane, a spokesperson for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.
Ex-Canadian navy commanders who have served in the region, as well as Middle East analysts, say that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
They say cooler diplomatic heads will be required to solve the current crisis, and that a military buildup of Western warships in the Persian Gulf would only inflame tensions.
“It’s early days right now in this situation, and I suspect what’s in the mind of the decision makers is a concern about escalating the situation unnecessarily,” said Harry Harsch, who commanded HMCS Fredericton on a separate mission in the Persian Gulf in 2003 during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Harsch, now a vice-president with the Navy League of Canada, conducted numerous missions in the Strait of Hormuz, where international boundaries meet.
“It’s a very scary place,” he said. “It’s 21 miles wide. If you do the math, you take Oman’s 12mile limit and Iran’s 12-mile limit, guess what? They intersect.”
Bessma Momani, a University of Waterloo Middle East analyst, said it would be important for Canada to join a coalition with its European allies, if asked.
“There are risks with this, however, as a hawkish populist takes over the U.K., under PM Boris Johnson, who sees kinship in the United States’ President Donald Trump and we find ourselves enmeshed in a wider U.S.-U.K.-Iran conflict,” she said.
But a senior British official, who briefed The Canadian Press on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing dispute, said the focus is on “European allies” when it comes to building its naval coalition. Britain has held talks with France and Germany, said the official.