Iran-U.S. confrontation: Is the war of oil tankers happening again?

🔸 Fresh attacks by Iran and the United States on oil tankers and ships have, for many Iranians, brought back memories of the final years of the Iran-Iraq war and the clashes that came to be known as the “tanker war.”

🔸 On September 5, the U.S. Army targeted three Iranian oil tankers after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired missiles at two American warships; Tehran’s response did not take long, and the IRGC announced that it had targeted three oil tankers and three vessels linked to the United States.

🔸 A few days later, the United States targeted five other Iranian oil tankers, and this time Tehran said it had attacked ten vessels in the region and simultaneously hit a U.S. base in Jordan.

🔸 On September 13 as well, an Iranian cargo vessel was targeted near Qeshm. Iranian officials said one person was killed and four were injured, and called the attacker “a terrorist enemy,” while the United States did not take responsibility for the attack.

🔸 This back-and-forth over the span of a few days has once again turned oil tankers into one of the main arenas of confrontation between Iran and the United States.

🔸 About four decades ago, in the final years of the Iran-Iraq war, attacks on commercial ships gradually turned into a crisis that brought U.S. warships back into the region and ultimately led to one of the most serious naval clashes between Iran and the United States.

🔸 Attacks on shipping associated with Iran had begun in the early years of the Iran-Iraq war, but starting in 1984—equal to 1363 in the Solar Hijri calendar—their intensity increased noticeably.

🔸 Iraq targeted ships that were traveling to and from the country’s ports and oil facilities in order to limit Iran’s oil revenues, and attacks on Kharg—the most important export terminal of Iran—also increased. In response, Iran went after vessels associated with Arab countries supporting Iraq, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

🔸 Mohammad Qaedi, a lecturer in political science at George Washington University, believes that Iran’s logic in that period has a significant similarity to the calculation that is seen today in Tehran.

🔸 In this regard, he tells Radio Farda: “In the 60s of the Solar Hijri calendar, Iran wanted to establish this equation that if its oil industries were attacked by Iraq and it could not export oil, then the other Arab countries—especially the countries supporting Iraq—would also be unable to export oil, or their oil exports would not be without cost.”

🔸 Read the full report on the RadioFarda website.