Britain should have been prepared for Iranians’ predictable response
Just days after Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told his British counterpart Jeremy Hunt that Tehran wanted to reduce maritime tensions between the two countries, Iran captured a British vessel in the Gulf.
Despite Mr Zarif’s high profile, he may have been the wrong figure for Mr Hunt to contact. The crisis is grounded in US sanctions and the fallout from the nuclear deal but also in Iran’s support for the Syrian regime, which is the domain of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The group, which answers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rather than Iran’s elected government, was established to defend the republic.
For the past eight years, this has included supervising Shiite militias fighting on behalf of President Bashar Al Assad in Syria in a conflict that has led to Damascus killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens.
On July 4, British Royal Marines seized the Iranian tanker
Grace 1 off Gibraltar, saying the Iranian oil aboard was being transported to Syria in contravention of EU sanctions. On July 19, after earlier Iranian actions against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, IRGC commandos seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero.
The confrontation between Iran and Britain is the latest example of the western scramble to deal with predictable moves by Iran after US pressure on Tehran.
The British seizure was the first time a European country seriously challenged Iranian support for the Syrian regime since the start of the uprising against the Assad family’s rule in 2011.
That the IRGC would respond by detaining a British vessel was hardly unforeseeable, given the direct challenge by London to Iranian supremacy in Syria, and that the group had warned Britain to expect reciprocity.
The seizure of the Stena Impero followed an earlier attempt on July 11, in which Britain said one of its frigates foiled an attempt by Iranian boats to stop and divert the British Heritage, a BP-operated tanker that was passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
It is not the first time Iran’s foes have been caught unprepared by a predictable action. European sources said Iranian officials signalled that tankers in the Gulf would be a target because of regional support for US sanctions on Tehran, well before the first sabotage of an oil tanker off Fujairah in May this year.
Iran’s confidence may have received a boost by the EU, which has refrained from supporting Britain’s impoundment of the Grace 1, despite its apparent flaunting of EU sanctions against the Syrian regime.
The EU imposed sanctions on the Syrian regime in 2011, shortly after the outbreak of the uprising, and condemned its siege warfare and forced population transfers, but practised a de facto policy of no-objection to Iran’s role in Syria, despite the waves of refugees to Europe.
The sanctions had been toothless in curbing Iranian support for Mr Assad, until Britain seized the Grace 1. But Iran has sympathetic ears in Europe, most notably in Germany. With the rest of Europe little bothered by Iran’s support for the Damascus regime, despite verbal condemnation of his policies, Britain will find it difficult to resolve this row in any way that would undermine Tehran.
Iran has not admitted outright that the vessel’s oil was destined for the Syrian regime, thus opening the possibility it could comply with an initial demand by Britain that the tanker not sail to Syria in return for its release.
But that could prove to be a temporary restraint on Iran, with multilayered differences between Britain, the EU and the US undermining any action that could effectively counter Iranian interests.
If the next tanker carrying Iranian crude to help fuel the war machine of the Syrian regime comes near the British Royal Marines, London will likely think twice before impounding it.