Trump team weighs options for taking steps against Iran over tanker attacks

Published Jun 15, 2019

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Washington - President Donald Trump and Iranian leaders

traded accusations Friday over who was responsible for fiery

explosions that crippled two oil tankers off Iran's coast, but both

sides appeared cautious not to go beyond a war of words, at least for

now, to avoid a direct military confrontation.

After blaming Iran hours after what appeared to be coordinated

attacks on a Japanese and a Norwegian tanker on Thursday, the Trump

administration considered options Friday but showed no immediate sign

of responding.

Options include providing armed escorts to vessels navigating

vulnerable shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, reflagging tankers

of friendly nations with the U.S. flag to entitle them to U.S. naval

protection, and adding more sanctions to what is already a long

blacklist.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the Pentagon was

making plans for possible military action in case of more attacks or

efforts to close the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic chokepoint

through which much of the world's oil passes.

"We obviously need to make contingency plans should the situation

deteriorate," Shanahan told reporters.

Iranian officials pointedly warned in April, after the Trump

administration tightened a ban on Iran's oil exports and worsened its

economic recession, that they might interrupt the flow of oil through

the narrow strait. The attacks, which caused no injuries, may have

been calculated to show that while Tehran could not withstand a

full-on U.S. military assault, it could still rattle the White House.

"Iran's real interest is to show it retains the ability to strike

back," said Jon Alterman, a former State Department official in the

George W. Bush administration now at the Center for Strategic and

International Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

"The worst thing for Iran is to suffer the sanctions and be ignored."

U.S. officials said military action against Iran was not imminent.

U.S. intelligence agencies are seeking to bolster their initial

assessment that Iranian operatives had sabotaged the two tankers,

hoping to persuade U.S. allies to join the White House in publicly

condemning Tehran.

A defense official played down the likelihood that U.S. warships

would escort convoys of tankers in the Persian Gulf. The operation

would require allies to contribute warships, the official said, and

building that coalition might prove difficult for the White House.

Many leaders in Europe and Asia remain angry over Trump's decision to

withdraw last year from the Iran nuclear deal, signed in 2015 by the

Obama administration, Russia, China, France, Germany and Great

Britain. Under the agreement, Iran dismantled most of its nuclear

production infrastructure and admitted international inspectors.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was first to blame Iran for the tanker

explosions Thursday. On Friday, Trump echoed the charge in a TV

interview, saying a limpet mine attached to one of the ship's hulls

had "probably got essentially Iran written all over it," although

U.S. forces or allies did not recover the munition.

He instead pointed to a grainy video, taken from a U.S. surveillance

aircraft, that the Pentagon said shows a crew from an Iranian patrol

boat navigating to the stricken ship's bow and removing an unexploded

mine 10 hours after the initial explosion, then speeding off.

"So it was them that did it," Trump said on "Fox & Friends."

The tanker, the 558-foot Kokuka Courageous, reportedly was hit

midship with projectiles above the waterline after sunrise, but the

source wasn't clear.

"We received reports that something flew towards the ship," Yutaka

Katada, president of Kokaku Sangyo Co., which owns the ship, told a

news conference in Tokyo. "The place where the projectile landed was

significantly higher than the water level, so we are absolutely sure

that this wasn't a torpedo."

Crews abandoned the Kokura Courageous and the Norwegian-owned Front

Altair, which was attacked less than an hour later, with an Iranian

naval vessel helping rescue the crew on the 826-foot Front Altair.

Both ships were carrying fuel products to Asia and were sailing in

international waters.

The explosions occurred several hours before Japanese Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe met in Tehran with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali

Khamenei to try to ease tensions and create a U.S. communications

channel. Khamenei later said he had rejected Abe's overture, saying

"honest negotiations will not come from an individual such as Trump,"

according to Iranian state television.

Trump and Abe spoke by phone Friday, and the White House issued a

statement that said they discussed "the circumstances surrounding the

attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman," language considerably

less accusatory than Trump or Pompeo had used.

Iranian officials, who quickly denied any involvement in the

explosions Thursday, were careful Friday to blame Trump's aides and

allies - but not him, and suggested it might be the work of

unidentified actors seeking to create a crisis.

"That the US immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran- w/o

a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence - only makes

itabundantly clear that the #B _ Team is moving to a #PlanB: Sabotage

diplomacy," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Twitter.

The "B-Team" is Zarif's derisive term for U.S. national security

adviser John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed

bin Zayed al Nahyan.

They represent governments determined to restrain Iran, isolate it

diplomatically and punish it economically for what they call its

"malign behavior," especially its support for militant groups in

Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

After four tankers were damaged by mines off the coast of the United

Arab Emirates a month ago, Bolton was adamant in warning that

additional violence would be met with sharp U.S. retaliation.

The administration subsequently sent the aircraft carrier Abraham

Lincoln and strategic bombers to the region, and an additional 1,500

U.S. troops to help bolster defenses for U.S. facilities and

personnel. But Trump pushed back against Pentagon requests for a more

robust escalation.

The U.S. case against Iran was not clear-cut on Friday. Some analysts

agreed with Iranian officials that Tehran had no incentive to attack

a Japanese tanker during Abe's highly-publicized visit.

"Put simply, it isn't in Iran's interest to escalate," Dina

Esfandiary, a fellow at the Century Foundation, a think tank in

Washington and New York, said in an interview Friday.

"Why would Iran want a war it is ill-equipped to fight?" he added.

"It would be isolated, would turn its new European friends against

it, and it would be fighting a militarily superior U.S."

Esfandiary said the attacks may have been a message from hard-line

elements in Iran's government that they could act against the

U.S.-led sanctions campaign and cripple global energy supplies.

But other analysts said Iran's goal was to create uncertainty and

sharply higher prices in oil markets that would encourage Japan and

other countries that rely on oil supplies from the Persian Gulf to

pressure the Trump administration to ease sanctions.

"They wanted to spook Abe," said Behnam Ben Taleblu, who specializes

in Iran at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national

security think tank in Washington. "This is not the last iteration of

Iran escalating."

tca/dpa

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