Iran’s navy has seized a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel, the MV Maersk
Tigris.
A 65,000 ton, Danish-owned, Singapore-chartered, container ship, en
route to the United Arab Emirates from Saudi Arabia, manned mostly by Eastern
European and Asian sailors, is intercepted, boarded, and confiscated by the
Iranian navy, prompting a U.S. destroyer to investigate.*
That wasn’t an anecdote from Tom Friedman’s next book on
globalization–it’s a rough description of what took place on Tuesday, April 28,
in the strategically important sea lanes of the Strait of Hormuz.
Allow me to get into the details:
The
shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz have long been highlighted as a
potential flashpoint amid the simmering geopolitical tensions between the
United States and Iran. Its waters are of particular geostrategic significance
given that over a third of the world’s petroleum traded by sea passes through
the region. Iran has repeatedly emphasized its dominance over the waters,
threatening to blockade the strait in a time of crisis. Today, we saw an acute
manifestation of Iran’s audacity when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
Navy (IRGCN) seized and escorted the Marshall Islands-flagged MV Maersk
Tigris, a shipping vessel belonging to Denmark’s A.P. Moller–Maersk
Group and chartered by Singapore-based Rickmers Shipmanagement, toward the
Iranian port at Bandar Abbas. The incident sparked a response by U.S. Naval
Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), which ordered the USS Farragut,
an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that was 60 miles from the point
of the Tigris’ interception, to respond to the vessel’s distress signal. The
incident took place as Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif led a
delegation to New York City for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference at
the United Nations, meeting with Western diplomats on the sidelines to discuss
the ongoing P5+1 talks over his country’s nuclear program.
Map
depicting the MV Maersk Tigris’ original path toward the UAE and diversion
after being intercepted by the IRGCN. (Source: marinetraffic.com)
Saudi Arabia-backed,
UAE-based Al Arabiya was
among the first sources to break the news in English. It reported that Iran had
fired warning shots (true) and seized a U.S.-flagged vessel (false).
Nevertheless, the initial reports sparked considerable online panic at the
prospect that the United States and Iran could be headed for a major
confrontation. The report also noted that the crew of the ship numbered 34 and
were American. Needless to say, U.S. citizens being held against their will by
Iran hits a raw nerve for the United States given certain historical events. We’ve since learned, thanks to Reuters, that the
Tigris’ has a crew of 24, most of whom hail “from Eastern Europe and
Asia.” In the process of the seizure, the IRGCN fired across the bow of
the ship. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren told CNN that “the
master was contacted and directed to proceed further into Iranian territorial
waters. He declined and one of the IRGCN craft fired shots across the bridge of
the Maersk Tigris.”
Iran’s
reasons for seizing the ship were at first unclear. Speculation abounded that
the incident was a show of force intended to strike back at the United States
after it sent the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) to intercept an Iranian arms
shipment to Yemen’s Houthis last week. Additionally, others
suggested that the seizure could have been a move by hardliners opposing Iran’s
negotiations with the West over its nuclear program – an attempt to
spark a broader crisis to derail those talks. Reza Marashi, research
director of the National Iranian American Council, told The Hill that
the IRGCN’s boldness could have actually been in retaliation against Saudi
Arabia. Tensions between the two geopolitical rivals has been high recently
given Saudi Arabia’s campaign against the Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Marashi notes
that the ship’s point-of-departure being Saudi Arabia supported this
hypothesis.
Soon
enough, however, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that
the reason for the seizure was far more mundane: the Iran Ports Authority had
procured a court order to seize the ship. ”The ship was seized after a
relevant court order was issued for its confiscation,” stated an “informed”
source that spoke to Fars. The agency added that that the ship was
reportedly “seized for trespassing on Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian
Gulf,” though a quick Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) assessment dispelled
that fairly quickly. (The ship was bound for the United Arab Emirates port of
Jebel Ali, from Saudi Arabia, according to Marine Traffic’s open source
tracker.) The ship’s status, as of this writing, is noted as “at
anchor” at Bandar Abbas.
In the wake
of the Tigris incident, CNN learned that a
U.S.-flagged ship had been intercepted by the IRGCN
– on Friday, April 24, four whole days before the Tigris
incident. Reportedly, the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet issued a notice to commercial
ships to exercise caution in the Persian Gulf and the Hormuz Strait following
the incident.
The
Marshall Islands isn’t normally a country whose name you’ll read at the center
of a major international incident, but the fact that the Tigris was flagged
with the country’s flag complicated the situation. After gaining independence
from the United States in 1986, the Marshall Islands enjoys pseudo-protectorate
status under the United States’ security umbrella. As per the Compact of Free Association governing
the relationship between the United States and the Marshall Islands, the United
States “has full authority and responsibility for security and defense matters in
or relating to the Republic of the Marshall Islands.” The U.S. Defense
Department’s lawyers have determined, however, that for
the purposes of the Tigris‘ capture by the IRGCN, the U.S. has no
obligation to respond or come to the defense of the Marshall Islands-flagged
vessel. (Eli Lake and Josh Rogin have more on the Marshall Islands angle over at Bloomberg View.)
The U.S.
government’s reaction has to the incident has been somewhat underwhelming.
State Department spokesperson Jeff Rathke noted, somewhat obviously,
that ”it’s a key concern of the United States to ensure that sea lanes in
the region remain open and safe.” In a slightly more lively take, the U.S.
Senate’s national security dynamic duo, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, chimed
in as expected, issuing a statement in
which they noted that the Tigris incident was “a serious and deliberate
provocation against the United States and the international community.” They
added, “This act is another display of Iran’s contempt for the rules-based
international order and a threat to the freedom of navigation in one of the
world’s most vital sea lanes.”
The Maersk
Tigris‘ fate remains in flux, but it is already apparent that this episode
will be cited by U.S. critics of the Iran nuclear talks. Iran’s brazen
aggression in international waters is indeed worrying and a threat to
principles that the United States holds dear, including the freedom of
navigation. The administration will do its best to contain the fallout of this
incident and avoid escalation with Iran lest it affect the fragile diplomatic
rapprochement that seems to be budding between the two decades-long enemies.
The coming days will offer an opportunity to better assess the significance of
this anomalous but important event.
* Hat-tip
to Jeffrey Lewis for highlighting the
multi-national absurdity of the situation. By Ankit
Panda
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