6 | AUGUST 12 • 2021 

The West Must Counter Iran’s Maritime Terrorism
C

ommercial shipping 
activity in the Gulf of 
Oman near the port 
of Fujairah in the United Arab 
Emirates was disrupted Aug. 
3 after several 
ships in the area 
reported diffi-
culties operating 
their GPS-based 
navigational sys-
tems.
Meanwhile, 
another report 
came in that a 
ship named Asphalt Princess 
had been hijacked by armed 
assailants. The entire story 
can be traced to a recent inci-
dent in the Arabian Sea, in 
which the Iranians attacked 
the MV Mercer Street vessel 
with a suicide drone, killing 
the ship’s Romanian captain 
and a British crew member.
After the world realized, 

based on Israeli intelligence, 
that Iran was behind the 
attack, senior U.K. and U.S. 
diplomats openly accused 
the Islamic Republic and 
threatened retaliation with-
out saying whether it would 
be diplomatic or military in 
nature. The U.S. Pentagon 
said all options were on the 
table.
The Iranians, who apparent-
ly didn’t intend on killing any 
of the crew, were caught in 
this crisis rather off guard.
The ensuing condemnations 

from all directions, along 
with the numerous threats, it 
seems, sparked considerable 
anxiety in Tehran, and the 
Iranian leadership, seeking to 
nip matters in the bud, deliv-
ered a message that any action 
against Iran would be met 
with a response, which would 
most likely severely disrupt oil 
shipments from the Persian 
Gulf.
It’s worth noting that some 
30% of all of the world’s oil 
passes through this highly 
sensitive waterway, such that 

any disarray could cause a 
global crisis even to the point 
of war with Iran.
The Iranians are adept at 
pushing boundaries. In any 
crisis, they pull the rope to 
its absolute limit, right to 
the point before it snaps, in 
order to gauge the West’s 
response. When the Iranian 
tanker Grace1 was stopped 
by British forces in Gibraltar 
in the summer of 2019, the 
Iranians hijacked the British-
flagged tanker Stena Impero. 
Ultimately, the British released 
the Iranian vessel, and the 
Iranians released the British 
tanker, ending that particular 
crisis. 
 In the latest incident, the 
Iranians, it appears, activated 
GPS jammers that disrupted 
several ships’ navigation sys-
tems, and armed assailants, 
who didn’t identify as Iranian, 
to hijack a vessel. The Iranians 

Vice Adm. 
(Ret.) Eliezer 
Marom
JNS.org

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 8

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