In what is considered an unprecedented move in the region, American officials are considering placing U.S. military forces onboard private vessels as security against a growing threat from Iran. The U.S. Navy and Marines would serve at the request of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Associated Press report on August 3.
The announcement follows the arrival of an increased presence of ships, aircraft, and Marines to the Gulf on August 6 in response to Iran’s attempted seizure of two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in early July. The AP reports that in the last two years, Iran has seized at least five commercial vessels and harassed at least a dozen others in and around the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow commercial choke point in the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of all crude oil passes. (READ MORE: You Are What Your Archive Says You Are)
With the U.S. interjecting in Ukraine and China’s escalated brooding in the Western Pacific, the persistent menace of Iran has opened a third sore in the Biden administration’s feeble foreign policy strategy, which emphasizes aesthetics rather than substance, starting with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now, to keep President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement from flatlining, the Biden administration appears to have fallen back on promises to enforce strict sanctions on the regime, continuing an Obama-era appeasement pattern. According to the Washington Free Beacon:
Nicholas Burns, U.S. ambassador to China, and Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, were both pressed during their Senate confirmation hearings late last year on Iran sanctions enforcement. In sworn written testimony to Cruz, copies of which were obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Burns and Toloui vowed to uphold sanctions on Iran’s illicit oil trade and pressure China on the matter.
Since their confirmation last year, however, Iranian oil sales to China and other countries have skyrocketed, jumping 40 percent and sparking accusations that the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to sanctions enforcement as it works to ink a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear deal.
The State Department had an opportunity to continue the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy against Iran, which inflicted harm on Iran’s economy while isolating the regime, even though its nuclear plans continued. However, the Biden administration’s lack of enforcement of existing sanctions and soft stance in the wake of escalating tensions has kept the regime afloat and arguably emboldened it to where we now are forced to use American military might as security detail in the Persian Gulf.
The Biden admin’s timidity contrasts with Operation Praying Mantis, President Reagan’s response to Iran’s mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) in 1988. It was one of the largest naval operations since World War II. It included the U.S. Navy sinking the largest enemy warship since World War II, destroying two Iranian surveillance platforms, sinking two of their ships, and decommissioning another. The engagement marked the first time the U.S. Navy exchanged surface-to-surface missiles with an enemy force. In one day of battle, the Navy imposed, through force, a period of Iranian impotence. (READ MORE: Death Toll Rises as Fires Spread on Maui)
A swift and decisive response to the current Iranian hostility is needed but is beyond the capacity of the current administration, which has proven its lack of appetite for definitive action that shows both the might of America’s military and our willingness to harness it for preventing escalation where more investment in manpower and money would be needed. Instead, as with the Afghanistan withdrawal, the administration relies on inutile diplomatic avenues and preserving the legacy of his former boss’s JCPOA at the cost of effective and lasting disablement of the regime, preferring to put more of our men and women in uniform at risk at a time when troop recruitment and retention numbers are already thin, and the American people are skeptical of entanglement in another overseas conflict.
Placing U.S. troops on private vessels for security in the Strait of Hormuz may be necessary. However, it is a band-aid for a situation that could have been prevented by a more robust response to earlier aggressive actions by Iran. The Biden administration continues to take a short-sighted view of foreign policy, preferring diplomacy and statecraft when our enemies are committed to piracy and cannon.
Jenna Stocker is editor and publisher of Thinking Minnesota, the quarterly magazine from the Center of the American Experiment. She is a former Marine Corps officer, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, and an enthusiastic Midwesterner.
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