Danger is that neither side is likely to blink

You cannot wage economic war against the Islamic Republic without paying a price. US officials believe that was the message delivered by two explosions on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman this week.

Since pulling the United States out of the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015, Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a “maximum pressure” economic sanctions policy against Iran in a bid to force it to accept more intrusive restrictions on its nuclear activities.

The policy has caused real economic pain inside Tehran. Last month, Iran threatened to suspend some commitments under the deal unless the remaining signatories – the EU, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China – could help Iran realise the economic benefits the deal promised.

President Hassan Rouhani and his erudite, English-speaking foreign minister Javad Zarif have been working the diplomatic circuit hard in a bid to in their words “save” the deal they championed.

But Mr Rouhani and Mr Zarif only run Iran’s government. And that doesn’t mean what it means in many other countries.

Iran has a three-branch government like any other: the executive, run by Mr Rouhani, who is elected in a direct popular vote; a legislature formed of a directly elected singlehouse parliament; and a judiciary. But democracy is constrained by the Guardian Council, a 12-cleric board that decides who can run for office.

And ultimate power lies with the office of the

supreme leader: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He can fire presidents and ministers, veto laws and directs foreign and security policy. He is also the real, not symbolic, commander-inchief of both Iran’s regular armed forces and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

If he had ordered a sabotage operation in the Gulf of Oman, Mr Rouhani and Mr Zarif would have been powerless to stop it. There is a good chance they would not even have known about it.

“Mr Zarif doesn’t have the power to change things. That power lies with the supreme leader,” said Holly Dagres, a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Mr Zarif is a diplomat who puts on a friendly face and defends the indefensible, because that’s his job. But I don’t think he would have been told about or involved in the planning of these attacks, if they were by Iran.”

Planting mines on tankers – without, so far, killing anyone – is a risky but effective way to play havoc with global oil supplies without an all-out war.

But if the Iranian regime believe such threats will force the Trump administration to change course, they are likely to be disappointed. Hawks in Washington are likely to conclude that Iran is lashing out because it is under pressure – and that if they push ahead with their policy of maximum pressure, Iran will buckle.

They, too, are likely to be disappointed. The Islamic Republic has been under siege in one form or another for most of its existence. It fought a brutal eight-year war with Iraq in the Eighties and has been locked in a stand-off of one sort or another with the US for decades. Resistance is in the regime’s DNA.

With neither side likely to back down, the Gulf of Oman is likely to become increasingly dangerous.