Assessment of Iran's Reaction to the Return of the American Aircraft Carrier to the Persian Gulf

Habibollah Sayyari, the Deputy Coordinator of the Iranian Army, stated in an interview with ISNA on December 23 that "the entry of the American aircraft carrier is not very important to us." He referred to the USS Stennis aircraft carrier, which returned to the Persian Gulf after about ten months. Sayyari added that Tehran "will not allow" this carrier to approach Iran's territorial waters. According to this commander, the Iranian army is "ready to defend at any moment." He also mentioned, "We have territorial waters in the Persian Gulf based on maritime laws, and outside our territorial waters, it is considered international waters where anyone can navigate, just as we can navigate in international waters." The army commander further spoke about Iranian ships going to the Atlantic Ocean near U.S. borders. Military expert Hossein Aryan in Newcastle, UK, told Radio Farda that the commander’s attention indicates that Iran has not witnessed the presence of an aircraft carrier at this level in the Persian Gulf for a long time. However, why has this American aircraft carrier returned to the Persian Gulf after about ten months? Mansour Farhang, a senior professor of political science and international relations at Bennington College in Vermont, responded to Radio Farda that this U.S. action could be a form of pressure on Iran. The goal of this security and political pressure, which aligns with sanctions, is to bring Iran to the negotiation table to accept U.S. conditions not only regarding the nuclear program but also concerning "pollutions" in Syria, southern Lebanon, and even to some extent Iraq. Aryan identified two primary factors for the return of the USS Stennis to the Persian Gulf: first, the "Prophet Muhammad 12" military exercise by the Revolutionary Guards, which focused on the Strait of Hormuz, along with practicing amphibious operations and defending against a hypothetical enemy landing on Iranian shores. The second factor, according to this military expert, is that the U.S. wanted to respond to recent statements by Hassan Rouhani, who said that if Iran cannot export oil, no other country can send oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. Aryan concluded that the U.S. wants to emphasize: "No! This is a waterway that we can pass through without harm and utilize." The passage of crude oil produced in the Middle East through the Strait of Hormuz supplies one-fifth of the world’s oil consumption. The risk of military confrontation between the two countries is very unlikely. The only danger is a spark, an incident, or an unintended occurrence between the two countries that both sides cannot contain the consequences of. Mansour Farhang noted that the verbal conflict between Tehran and Washington over the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and the re-imposition of sanctions against Iran continues, but he believes that taking Rouhani's threat seriously, that if Iran cannot export oil from the Persian Gulf, no other country can, is a separate matter. According to this international relations professor, Americans do not take this threat seriously. Farhang adds that despite this, the risk of military confrontation between the two countries is very unlikely. He believes that the only danger is a spark, an incident, or an unintended occurrence between the two countries that both sides cannot contain the consequences of. It is true that the Revolutionary Guards are not unfamiliar with occasional confrontations in the Persian Gulf, but it is also true that the number of these confrontations has decreased in recent months.