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Iran vs. the U.S. Navy
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, 01/08/08

The recent Strait of Hormuz incident, where five Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) armed military speedboats reportedly made some threatening moves towards some U.S. Navy warships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow "chokepoint" waterway between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, is being downplayed now in an attempt to defuze the matter.

Speculation now is that the incident was authorized by lower-level commanders and not by anyone in Tehran. No one in Tehran claimed the U.S. provoked the incident or violated international laws, as was the case with the Iran-British Navy incident. Apparently the "back-door" channels between the U.S. and Iran that are trying to negotiate a face-saving deal for restoring order in Iraq provided enough assurances on both sides that the incident was an isolated and harmless one and no further words or actions were necessary.

I think downplaying this type of incident is deadly and dangerous. To me the incident is much more than a few speedboat commanders out to show how macho they are. This looks like a probe to me. An awful lot of good intel can be gained by performing exactly this kind of maneuver and watching how the Navy reacts. How fast do defenders appear? How fast do they radio a warning? What maneuvers do the ships make? Do the men manning the machine guns appear competant? Do the main guns come into play or just light machine guns? The very fact that we did not open fire is a very, very important piece of intel.

This incident was in daytime with marked military vessels. What if the incident was at night? What if they were civilian vessels? What if they were flying flags of friendly nations, or broadcasting distress signals?

Although the IRGC boats are armed with machine guns, what if their real mission was to lay mines? What if the boat was loaded with explosives and was on a suicide mission, like the inocuous inflatable boat that blew a hole in the USS Cole and killed 17 sailors? What if they were carrying nuclear devices? Iran might not have nukes small enough to put in a gravity bomb or rocket, but putting a big ugly nuke in a speedboat is a much simpler matter.

My point is simple: we should never assume the best, especially in this part of the world at this time in history. Our response shouldn't be driven by political expediency. Just because we're attempting back-channel negotiations with Iran to solve one problem doesn't mean we should allow Iran to slide when they perform other hostile or provocative actions.

The first reports said the IRGC boats came within 300 yards of the Navy warships. Traveling at 50 mph, it would take those boats just 11 seconds to close the gap. The second reports said the minimum distance was 700 yards, but even then it would only take 25 seconds to close in. If the IRGC boats were maneuvering hard, it might be difficult to hit it before it struck. At night, even using night-vision goggles, it might be impossible for a manually-aimed gunner to hit a fast-moving target.

I realize that not every ship that closes within 300 yards is a hostile, even if it was from Iran. But given what occurred between Britain and Iran, as commander of the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf I would say that any vessel doing unpredictable or hostile actions that close should be considered hostile and engaged. Period. Damaging or destroying a U.S. Navy warship would be an enormous public relation coup. Tehran could always deny givng orders to attack, while at the same time telling its people and allies how weak the United States was.

My bottom line: if it looks and acts hostile, it IS hostile. Shoot first and ask questions later.

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