They've all stepped up to the plate this weekend.
Washington, London and Tel Aviv accused Tehran on Sunday August 1 of being responsible for the drone attack on the oil tanker MT Mercer Street, run by an Israeli billionaire, in the Arabian Sea.
The incident, which took place on July 28, claimed the lives of two crew members, a Briton and a Romanian.
“We have evidence of Iranian involvement,” said Naftali Bennett, the Israeli Prime Minister, while Dominique Raab, the British Foreign Secretary, believes that “this is a deliberate and targeted attack, in violation of international rules, led by Iran. "Israel and its allies have added to consider retaliatory measures. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also said that Iran should" face the consequences " of an attack which he described as “unacceptable and scandalous”.
Fifth ship targeted by Iran since early 2021
Iran did not like these threats, which maintains that it had nothing to do with the incident.
Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, pledged that his country “will respond immediately and decisively to any possible adventurism” if targeted.
As guarantor of Persian Gulf security, Iran strongly condemns provocative & orchestrated UK / US statements.
Having kept silent abt REPEATED terrorist attacks on IRANIAN ships, they now baselessly accuses IRAN.
Any anti-Iran adventurism will receive IMMEDIATE & DECISIVE response.
- Saeed Khatibzadeh (@SKhatibzadeh) August 2, 2021
The verbal escalation of the last few days and the threats made on both sides can be explained by the fact that “this is the first time in two years of maritime attacks between Israel and Iran that there have been had deaths ”, recalls on Twitter Kian Sharifi, Iran specialist for the British channel BBC. “The death of the two crew members constitutes a major escalation in the latent conflict between the two countries, and one can expect strong diplomatic responses”, analyzed experts from Dryad Global, a consultancy firm specializing in maritime threats, in a note published Friday, July 30.
This is the kind of incident that Iranian-Israeli relations experts have warned against since the sea became, more than two years ago, a new battleground between the two countries. "It is a cold war that risks heating up at the slightest mistake," assured Ali Vaez, Iran specialist at the International Crisis Group, interviewed by Foreign Policy magazine.
The tanker MT Mercer Street, which left Tanzania on July 21 for the United Arab Emirates, is far from the first ship to bear the brunt of tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran at sea.
In reality, these attacks appear to have become one of the many facets of the conflict, alongside Israeli airstrikes, rockets launched by Hezbollah - the pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon - or warfare in cyberspace.
Above all, these incidents at sea are more and more frequent.
Israel has, thus, carried out “commando operations against at least 10 Iranian ships since 2019, according to American officials”, recalls the New York Times.
For its part, Iran has already targeted five merchant ships with ties to Israel since the start of 2021.
This is what the media are starting to call “the shadow war at sea” between the two regional powers.
”It is a conflict in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea in which neither country can afford to appear weak, but where they are careful to calibrate their attacks well to prevent them from leading to an open war that could set the whole region on fire ”, analyzes the BBC.
Testing the opponent
Iran sees operations at sea as an ideal way to test the resolve of the Israeli leadership and its American ally, the Jerusalem Post believes.
It would not be a coincidence, according to this conservative Israeli newspaper, if operations have intensified since the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the US presidential election in November 2020.
The attack on MT Mercer Street “also took place while the tanker was not far from the American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, apparently to send a message to the Americans”, underlines on Twitter Farzim Nadimi, an expert on Iran for the Washington Institute, a conservative American think tank.
For Israel, the sea is also the ideal battleground for standing firm without causing too much damage.
The attacked Iranian carriers had to be immobilized for a few days for repairs, which essentially delayed scheduled deliveries, underlines the Foreign Policy.
But it is also for Tel Aviv a way of trying to suffocate Iran a little more financially.
Most of the Israeli maritime targets were cargo ships carrying oil to Syria.
The regime of Bashar al-Assad is one of the last major customers for Iranian oil, the export of which is subject to numerous US sanctions on Tehran.
Moreover, the Israeli harassment of Iranian oil tankers has become so problematic that Russian military ships have started to escort them in order to ensure that the precious black gold does indeed reach the hands of their Syrian ally, notes the New York Times.
Disrupting the sale of oil to Syria is all the more important in Tel Aviv's eyes as "it prevents Iran from recovering money that it can then send to Hezbollah in Lebanon," said Sima Shine, a former Mossad analyst, interviewed by The New York Times.
Until now, the “maritime shadow war” between Iran and Israel has boiled down to an “eye for an eye, tooth for tooth” where each responds to a previous attack by trying to thwart the opponent's plans. .
But the drone strikes on MT Mercer Street that killed two people, including a Briton, were a game-changer.
This incident will force Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom to find an appropriate response, a first test for the new and very conservative President Ebrahim Raïssi, who is due to take office officially on August 3.
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