Iran Navy Begins “Massive Drill” Stretching Across World’s Key Oil Chokepoints
Iran’s navy has begun a three day war game exercise on Friday in the Persian Gulf, in an expansive area encompassing Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, to the Sea of Oman and even stretching to northern parts of the Indian Ocean, state media reports. Some reports indicate the games could go on for as much as a week, but all emphasized the “large-scale” nature of the drills in which Iran’s navy will showcase the Fateh-class submarine — a domestically built sub carrying cruise missiles and torpedoes, as well as its Sahand destroyer.
The cruise missile-firing capable Fateh, or “Conqueror”, was launched for the first time at the start of this week and has been touted as “state-of-the-art” and with the ability to stay underwater for five weeks at a time. Crucially, the large exercises come after last week’s US-sponsored Warsaw conference in which both Israeli and US officials made threats of war with Tehran. Indeed during the conference Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu openly stated that he was attending the summit with an aim to “advance the common interest of war with Iran.”
The games also come at a time when even foreign policy establishment insiders, such as the Council on Foreign Relation’s Steven Cook, increasingly acknowledge that the White House’s “march to war against Iran” is now “echoing the drumbeats” of the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Writing in Foreign Policy, Cook warns:
Taken together—the Warsaw conference, Pence’s bullying of the Europeans, Bolton’s threatening video, and the broader background noise in Washington—the events of the past week were familiar in a foreboding way. The chatter about Iran has not become the war fever that gripped Washington in 2002 over Iraq, but the echoes of that year are not hard to miss in the Trump administration’s effort to shape the domestic and international debate about Iran.
Iran’s drills in the coming days will further involve battleship exercises and amphibious and anti-amphibious warfare maneuvers, according to Iranian military statements.
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