Why is Iran confronting USN warships in the Persian Gulf?

 

File photo: IRGCN 13 m catamaran craft during “Great Prophet” maneuvers in 2010 (Photo: Mahdi Marizad at Fars News Agency) 

USS Mahan (DDG 72) Arleigh Burke-class destroyer on 08JAN2017 fired three shots into the water from an onboard machine gun as a warning to Iranian patrol boats who “approached at a high rate of speed".

Many ask why Iran would send relatively much less powerful craft against the might of the United States Navy. As this is part of a pattern of activity exercised by the IRGCN, on 06SEP2016 Alex Lockie at Business Insider queried Cliff Kupchan on the matter. His view is typical of most. This is what he said:

"In my view, [Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic] Khamenei decided it's time to send a message: I’m here and I’m unhappy," Cliff Kupchan, chairman of Eurasia Group and an expert on Iran, told Business Insider in a phone interview.

According to Kupchan, the Iranian navy carries out these stunts under directions straight from the top because of frustrations with the Iran nuclear deal. Despite billions of dollars in sanction relief flowing into Iran following the deal, Kupchan says Iran sees the US as "preventing European and Asian banks from moving into Iran and financing Iranian businesses," and therefore not holding up their end of the Iran nuclear deal.

With respect to Mr. Kupchan, he and others like him are off the mark. This writer can offer a number of different explanations in reference to IRGCN high speed patrol boat intercepts of USN vessels in the Persian Gulf.

In effect, these actions are intended to cause course corrections to USN vessels away from Iranian shores, similar to PLANAF intercepts of USN aircraft.

There are a number of military-related rationales for such encounters, including observation of USN responses, effectiveness of IRGCN craft pursuit and maneuvering against USN vessels, and the rendering of such encounters as a routine that with time possibly fosters USN complacency.

There are also obvious military points of contention in the region between Iranian and American military forces, including backing certain opposing sides in Syria as well as competing for influence among Iraq's military forces. Looked at from this perspective, Iranian assertiveness can be seen as similar to Russian military flexing as a consequence of Western responses towards the Ukraine conflict.

Moreover, the consistent denominator for all these displays that the Russians, Chinese and Iranian share is a projection of defending sovereignty, as nations exercising an independent foreign policy based on their own self-identied national interests. That this becomes points of contention with the U.S.-led global security order is manifested by such displays of IRGCN intercepts of much more powerful naval vessels.

There is a great danger to these encounters, and that is the operation can lead to actual combat and war. During the 2016 presdiential campaign, current PEOTUS stated:

"With Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water," Trump said to loud cheers.

PEOTUS becomes U.S. commander-in-chief on 20JAN2017.