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Iran Fires Rockets Near U.S. and French Vessels in Strait of Hormuz Iran’s Missile Tests Remind the U.S. That Hostilities Have Not Ended
(about 11 hours later)
LONDON — An Iranian naval vessel fired several rockets close to an American aircraft carrier and destroyer and a French frigate in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States Navy confirmed on Wednesday, calling the action “highly provocative.” WASHINGTON — After two recent Iranian ballistic missile tests made clear that Tehran had no intention of obeying a United Nations prohibition on such launches, Obama administration officials on Wednesday handed Congress a draft list of fresh sanctions they are preparing against Tehran — to be imposed even as separate nuclear-related sanctions are lifted in coming weeks.
The rockets came within 1,500 yards of the aircraft carrier’s right-hand side, but they were not fired in the direction of military and commercial vessels, Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, a spokesman for the United States Fifth Fleet, said in a statement. The new sanctions are designed, administration officials say, to make clear that the United States remains committed to containing Iran’s regional ambitions, which have so rattled its Arab neighbors. But they are also intended as a carefully calibrated answer to critics, from Capitol Hill to Saudi Arabia, who have argued in recent months that President Obama is willing to overlook almost any Iranian transgression in order to avoid derailing the nuclear deal he pursued for so many years.
“Firing weapons so close to passing coalition ships and commercial traffic within an internationally recognized maritime traffic lane is unsafe, unprofessional and inconsistent with international maritime law,” Commander Stephens said. There is now almost no doubt that the nuclear accord will go into effect. But the past few days have been full of sobering reminders that the grander objective of that deal — some gradual steps toward an era of wary cooperation, or at least a cessation of hostilities between Washington and Tehran — remains a long way away.
The military action, which occurred on Saturday, was first reported by NBC News on Tuesday. Just last week the Republican-led Congress inserted new rules into the budget signed by Mr. Obama that were clearly intended to discourage foreigners from doing business with Tehran. Then on Saturday, the Iranian Navy harassed an American aircraft carrier and a French frigate in the Strait of Hormuz, launching rockets that passed within 1,500 yards of the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman. It seemed an act somewhere between recklessness and outright aggression.
The rockets came close to commercial traffic and three vessels — the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, the destroyer Bulkeley and the French frigate Provence — that are part of a military coalition fighting the Islamic State, Commander Stephens said. So much for détente. The Republicans in Congress who voted against the nuclear deal — which was all of them — are looking for ways to signal their continuing displeasure. And inside Iran, a similar battle is playing out, as hard-liners fear that President Hassan Rouhani will use the deal, and the imminent lifting of the nuclear-related sanctions, to bolster his party in upcoming parliamentary elections.
Iranian officials declined to comment publicly, but the semiofficial Tabnak news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying that the rockets had been fired to warn the Truman away from “a forbidden zone” in the Persian Gulf in keeping with “normal procedure.” “There are those on both sides who won’t accept even a transactional approach,” said Derek Chollet, who until earlier this year was assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and who helped calm the Arab allies who feared that the United States was planning a broader grand bargain with Iran.
Tabnak said that Western news reports about the episode were an attempt to “undermine Iran’s capability to provide regional marine safety.” “On most issues,” Mr. Chollet said, “we have opposing interests.”
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most strategically important passageways, in particular for the global oil supply chain, connecting the Persian Gulf to the open sea. The missile tests are a classic example. Secretary of State John Kerry delayed the nuclear deal reached in July in Vienna by days as he haggled with his Iranian counterpart, Mohamed Javad Zarif, over the side issue of whether, and how long, a United Nations resolution banning missile development and testing would remain in place.
To protect its considerable interests there, the United States deployed warships to the area to defend American vessels in April after Iran seized a cargo ship owned by the Danish company Maersk that was traversing the strait. The Iranians dismissed that part of the accord as soon as it was announced: Nothing, they said, could infringe on their fundamental right to build a “defensive technology,” intended to counter Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The two countries quickly backed away from a possible military confrontation, which occurred amid the delicate negotiations over the nuclear accord that was reached in July between Iran and six major world powers, including the United States and the European Union. The new United Nations resolution, which goes into effect only after the nuclear deal is implemented, is far more weakly worded than the existing ban on such tests. Iran is “called upon” to stop work for eight years on ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear weapon. The missiles tested recently appear to have that capability, with modest design changes.
In recent weeks, however, tensions between the United States and Iran have risen. Congress recently adopted restrictions barring foreigners who have visited Iran from entering the United States under a visa-waiver program; lawmakers said the steps were a response to terrorism, but Iranian leaders, eager to expand commercial links after years of sanctions, criticized the move. Adam J. Szubin, the acting undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, wrote in a statement circulated on Capitol Hill that the United States “will vigorously press sanctions against activities” outside of the nuclear deal.
For its part, Iran has tested a long-range guided ballistic missile, escalated its cyberespionage program against the United States, and cracked down on journalists, activists and opposition figures. Iranian officials have said that if the Treasury issued new sanctions, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would regard them as a violation of the nuclear accord. They would not be: The agreement does not preclude sanctions for non-nuclear violations, including human rights violations and the flouting of the missile ban.
The navy of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has long focused on what it calls “asymmetric warfare” in the Strait of Hormuz, a combination of fast boats and missiles to challenge the larger vessels of adversaries. But they certainly illustrate how the two countries have drifted away from the early speculation, in both capitals, that the nuclear deal was the first step in a broader rapprochement.
“Americans have entered the Persian Gulf with their entire military might, but Iran’s fast-patrol boats have authority over them,” an Iranian naval commander, Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi, was quoted as saying by the Islamic Student News Agency on Monday. Neither government has, so far, allowed the latest provocations to get in the way of the steps each promised to take in the nuclear pact. On Monday a Russian ship left Iran carrying most of the country’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, a move that nuclear experts say leaves Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
Commander Stephens said that Iranian forces suddenly announced a “live-fire exercise” on Saturday before firing the rockets 23 minutes later, from within internationally recognized maritime traffic lanes and within the territorial waters of Oman, he said. The Obama administration, meanwhile, is on track to join other countries in unfreezing roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets in the coming weeks, freeing the country to sell oil on world markets and operate in the world financial system. That is a long-sought benefit for the Iranian public, dwarfing the sanctions on the five Iranian individuals named in the new Treasury document for helping bring ballistic missile components into the country.
Iran had not announced any military exercises for Saturday, although its navy conducted a joint search-and-rescue exercise with Oman three days earlier. But American military officials and foreign policy experts warn that the challenges from hard-liners on both sides could build. Mr. Zarif warned last week that Congress’s new law, which denies visa-free travel to the United States for foreigners who have visited Iran in the past five years, violates the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of the nuclear deal.
“U.S. Navy forces are committed to ensuring the safe and free navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and throughout the region by maintaining a strong presence,” Commander Stephens said. “While most interactions between Iranian forces and the U.S. Navy are professional, safe and routine, this event was not and runs contrary to efforts to ensure freedom of navigation and maritime safety in the global commons.” He received an assurance from Mr. Kerry that the new regulations may not be observed by the Obama administration.
Navy Seahawk helicopters from the Harry S. Truman kept a close eye on the Iranian vessels during the event, he said. Meanwhile, the rockets fired by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps near the American warships in the heavily trafficked Strait of Hormuz could inflame tensions, as well, military officials said. The rockets, Navy officials said, also came dangerously close to commercial ships.
Commander Stephens said the live fire represented the third time in a little over a year that small Iranian boats had launched rockets “within visual range” of a United States aircraft carrier strike group. “It’s the equivalent of walking onto I-95 and deciding to have a weapons test,” said Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
On Oct. 20, 2014, several unguided rockets were launched almost 10 miles from the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush. On the night of April 15 this year, 11 unguided missiles were fired almost six miles from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. In a written statement, the Navy called the Iranian military action “unsafe, unprofessional and inconsistent with international maritime law.”
Hamid Reza Taraghi, an analyst close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the rocket launch “a minor warning.” Mr. Taraghi has long expressed the view that the nuclear deal did not signal a transformation of the long-strained relations between the United States and Iran. Iranian officials declined to comment publicly, but the semiofficial Tabnak news agency quoted an unnamed official saying that the rockets had been fired to warn the Truman away from “a forbidden zone” in the Persian Gulf, in keeping with “normal procedure.”
“The Americans are acting against the Revolutionary Guards Corps in Syria and Iraq, and they are planning to designate the Corps as a terrorist organization,” he said in a phone interview. “This way, there is no reason to think the relations will improve.” Hamid Reza Taraghi, an analyst close to Ayatollah Khamenei, called the rocket launch “a minor warning.” But he said the bottom line was that “there is no reason to think the relations will improve.”