WASHINGTON: Sharply escalating regional tensions have raised a new spectre of a return to the “Tanker War” to the Gulf.
The UN last night called for an independent inquiry into Thursday’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman as a Pentagon official said he expected even deadlier attacks in the region.
The situation in the volatile Middle East escalated further after a US official said Iranian fast-boats were preventing two privately-owned tug boats from towing away an oil tanker damaged in the attack.
Amidst the jitters, Saudi Arabia separately said it had intercepted five armed drones fired by Iran-linked Houthi militias, targeting Abha airport and the city of Khamis Mushait.
The US dispatched another destroyer, USS Mason, to the region.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was available for mediation.
He was speaking alongside Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit after the pair met.
“My call to our Iranian brothers – be careful and reverse course because you’re pushing everybody towards a confrontation that no-one would be safe if it happens,” Gheit said.
Gutteres said the world cannot afford a major confrontation in the Gulf.
US President Donald Trump blamed Iran for the attack.
“Iran did do it and you know they did it because you saw the boat,” Trump told Fox News.
He was referring to a video released by the US military which said it showed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were behind the blasts that struck the Norwegian-owned Front Altair and the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous in the Gulf of Oman, at the mouth of the Gulf.
The blasts followed similar attacks a month earlier on four tankers, which Washington also blamed on Tehran.
Western observers and journalists voiced their fears yesterday that the attack on the oil tankers may signal a return of the “Tanker War” which erupted in the Gulf waters in the 1980s.
The Tanker War reached its peak in 1987 when Iranian boats attacked a US-flagged Kuwaiti oil tanker.
The US Navy retaliated then and sank two Iranian oil platforms and three destroyers, and damaged two other frigates.
The Tanker War left a heavy toll on the Iranian economy.
The US led a massive operation escorting oil tankers in the Gulf waters to protect them from attacks.
“The US is no longer as dependent on the flow of oil from the Gulf as back then, but all of our allies are. So, for the functioning of the global economy, it’s still a vital waterway,” said Nicholas Burns, a Harvard University professor and former under-secretary of state under President George W Bush.
Iran expert Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council in the 1980s, emphasised the straightforward nature of those attacks at the time, both in terms of motivation and execution. Neither Iran nor Iraq made any secret of the fact that they were waging a war of economic attrition, and they carried out their attacks with missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The initial start of the sea conflict appeared to be slow and marginal, compared with the bloodshed on land: Iraq threatened to attack all ships going to or departing from Iranian ports in the northern part of the Gulf in 1981, but it took until the following year for a Turkish oil tanker to become the first major vessel to be hit by an Iraqi strike. Unable to immediately match Iraq’s technical abilities to attack and sink ships, Iran later reciprocated.
The US became involved in the conflict in 1987, when it began escorting neutral Kuwait’s ships through the region to protect them from attacks. US intervention ultimately helped end the conflict, after 37 US crew members were killed when an Iraqi jet launched a missile attack against the USS Stark the same year.