Four More US Ships Arrive in Gulf as Iran Feels Pressure
Flooding the Gulf with warships is a routine practice to maintain hegemony
by John Glaser
AntiWar.com
June 25, 2012
Four US minesweepers arrived in the Gulf over the weekend to bolster the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, secure the flow of oil shipping routes, and threaten Iran.
The additional ships have an area of operations that includes the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean. In addition, the two other critical shipping choke points of the Suez Canal and the Strait of Bab al Mandab, between the southern tip of Yemen and Africa, are included in the mission.
In response, the commander of Iran’s ground forces, Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan, suggested on Monday that Iran might move to close the Strait of Hormuz to defend its interests. Th threat is an old and tired one, and one that few expect to actually happen.
In April, the Obama administration sent a second aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf, joining the rest of the fleet of American warships just south of Iranian shores. Cmdr. Amy Derrick-Frost of the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said the deployment was ”routine and not specific to any threat.”
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