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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