Tehran signaled that it could sanction ships that pass through a new “restricted zone” extending from the Strait of Hormuz to an area blockaded by the U.S., although military analysts in the U.S. and Middle East questioned Iran’s ability to enforce its plan.
“Any ship that attempts to pass through this area in violation of the law will be placed on our sanctions list,” Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Sunday in an interview with state television, as reported by Tasnim news agency.
Rezaei said those ships “will face problems obtaining insurance, and they know that if they want to pass through again, this area is under our control. Many ships that pass through return again. The Strait of Hormuz will become a sanctions-controlled area.”
How Iran’s government would seek to enforce the sanctions is unclear. Tehran said it planned to release more details in coming days.
The announcement followed a recent spate of attacks and counterattacks between Iran and the United States. On Saturday, U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers after the U.S. Central Command said Iran had fired ballistic missiles at two of its ships.
Rezaei said Iran is finalizing maps for a new international shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz to be jointly managed with Oman.
A senior U.S. official dismissed the threat, saying that “now that the United States Navy has cleared the Strait of mines, transit to and from non-Iranian ports will continue to ramp up even further.”
Analysts who spoke with MBN described Iran’s latest statements as little more than face saving measure following recent setbacks.
Immediately after the tanker strikes, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf vowed Sunday to deliver an “even stronger and more painful response,” saying that “the rules of the game have changed.”
Retired Egyptian army Maj. Gen. Sayed Ghoneim, head of the Global Security and Defense Affairs Institute in the United Arab Emirates, said Tehran is attempting to show that it is the equal to the United States.
But the latest pronouncements are “merely demonstrative responses with no real impact on the ground,” he said.
Tom Warrick, a nonresident senior fellow with the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said Iran’s efforts “to enforce its restricted zone” would likely be met with a greater force from the United States.
“The United States will likely strike more Iranian ships than Iran strikes international ships. Given that Iran has virtually no ships to enforce any zone, they are likely planning on using drones, so any launch site or tracking site for their drones will almost certainly be targeted,” he said.
Propaganda occupies a large part of Iran’s strategic planning. Warrick added that “much of this is likely psychological warfare on Iran’s part. The announcement that the United States had cleared mines from the middle of the Strait was intended to increase merchant shippers’ confidence, and Iran’s threat is intended to decrease it. We’ll see how this works out in the coming days.”
Former U.S. diplomat Peter Humphrey described the Iranian announcement as an empty show of force, and that attacks on U.S. warships would be met with “stunning blowback.”
Former U.S. diplomat and the Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute, James Jeffrey, summed up Iran’s announcement of a “restricted zone” as serving two propaganda purposes: “to frighten shipowners and insurance companies,” and to send a message to the Iranian public, which has begun to feel the effects of the U.S. blockade.
“But if Iran tries serious escalation, the United States will strike back hard,” Jeffrey said.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
