US-Iran nuclear struggle is playing out on the high seas – The Telegraph

Two oil tankers recently seized by Iran are just the latest sign of building tension with the US as the two countries engage in a tit-for-tat tanker war with vessels and cargoes of oil used as hostages to gain negotiating advantage.

More such incidents will likely follow as the two nations are deadlocked over the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Aggressive moves at sea have replaced talks at the table, with the US seeking to impose sanctions on Iranian oil exports and Iran aiming to counterbalance US-ordered seizures.

In the latest Iranian moves, the US Navy says the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Advantage Sweet was seized on 27 April by the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy while transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman. The Sweet was, tellingly, en route for Houston. Just days later on 3 May the Panama-flagged oil tanker Niovi was seized by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian regular navy probably handled the Sweet boarding as it took place further from Iran. The Revolutionary Guard naval force mostly operates small fast-attack vessels better suited to operations close to home.

Maritime security company Ambrey says that these Iranian moves may have been triggered by the US previously redirecting the tanker Suez Rajan, outbound loaded with Iranian crude, a move which became public on 22 April. US officials and those associated with the Suez Rajan have not responded to requests for comment.

The US 5th Fleet's Bahrain headquarters called Irans harassment of vessels an interference with navigational rights in regional waters that were unwarranted, irresponsible and a present threat to maritime security and the global economy. The 5th Fleet also noted that the Sweet was at least the fifth commercial vessel seized by Iran in the past two years.

For its part Iran claimed that the Sweet was seized because it had collided with another vessel and refused to stop. On 7 May, the deputy commander of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) went further. Ali Fadavi said if America and its allies pose a threat to Iranian vessels or export cargoes the Islamic Republic will be hard on them.

In theory the Biden administration is committed to rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a deal brokered by various European nations which would exempt Iran from sanctions on its oil exports and permit it to proceed with ostensibly peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Former President Trump pulled the US out of the deal, halting it, five years ago.

Trump continued a hard stance toward Iran, famously ordering the assassination of IRGC General Qassim Soleimani when the chance came up in 2020. As head of the IRGC al-Quds (Jerusalem) black-ops force, Soleimani had been a deadly US opponent across the Middle East for years. After he was killed by a US drone strike at Baghdad airport in Iraq, Iran stated publicly that it would no longer comply with the JCPOA.

Joe Biden, for his part, promised to bring the US back into the JCPOA during his election campaign.

Iranian diplomats, whether to be taken seriously or not, seemed keen to get back around the table on Monday. Irans foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said then that it is possible to salvage the JCPOA if western parties, particularly the US, put an end to repeated delays.

But theres not much political support in the USA for going soft on Iran at the moment. Former US Secretary of State and Trump electoral opponent Hillary Clinton is among the many Washington politicians who have recently said the US government should temporarily boycott all dealings with Iran, particularly due to its oppressive response to citizens who protest against the regime. Understandably, it would not sit well for the US to strike a deal and lift sanctions on the Iranian regime while it is brutalising its own people.

Unfortunately, the Iranian regime may not care all that much. China has been happy to take Iranian oil regardless of Western sanctions, and the Ukraine war has also seen closer links between Tehran and Moscow. Meanwhile Iran is edging ever closer to military-grade uranium enrichment.

For context, in February, Iranian oil exports to China rose to almost 1.2 million barrels a day, the second-highest pace since the start of 2017, according to Kpler data. And Iran and Russia are planning a new rail link so that they can trade without needing to send cargoes via the worlds oceans.

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-kilometre network of road, rail and shipping routes designed to move freight between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe, was conceived in 2000 but never completed. However, theres a renewed push to finish the project as a solution to Western interference.

Meanwhile Irans nuclear programme is still advancing. International inspectors working in Iran said in February that they had discovered particles of uranium enriched to the point where they were 83.7 per cent composed of Uranium-235, the fissionable isotope. Uranium enriched to 90+ per cent U-235 is considered to be of weapons grade, such that it can be used to assemble an atomic bomb. Iran says that it does not enrich above 60 per cent at present, a level already well above that necessary for peaceful purposes.

Enrichment of uranium is a difficult, prolonged process and most of the world's nuclear warheads are made of plutonium instead. Plutonium doesn't occur naturally: it is made out of non-fissionable Uranium-238 in a nuclear reactor, which can also generate some energy for peaceful purposes.

Getting back to the tit-for-tat tanker war, there have been various attempts over the decades by the Iranians to interdict tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby waters. It has turned out each time that the US, if it decides to get serious, can prevent this: from Operation Prime Chance in 1987-89 onwards. Meanwhile the US can stop a shipment of Iranian crude anywhere in the world, by diplomatic pressure on third-party nations or direct naval action. So the US can probably win this part of the struggle. It will hurt Iran if it cannot ship its crude to China or other customers.

But the JCPOA looks dead in the water, and that deals many critics would argue that it would not have prevented Iran acquiring nuclear weapons anyway. US interdictions of Iranian oil will probably not halt the Iranian weapons programme either, not in the long run.

The world may simply have to get used to the idea that it will presently have a new nuclear weapons state, to join the existing eight.

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US-Iran nuclear struggle is playing out on the high seas - The Telegraph