Iran Discovers U.S. Navy Has Opinions About Being Shot At With A Tit-for-Tat

TEHRAN, IRAN: Iran apparently learned an important lesson about international diplomacy Saturday after the United States responded to Iranian ballistic missile attacks on American warships by blowing up three Iranian oil tankers.

We've a lot more tits than they have tats.

U.S. Central Command announced that two Iranian oil tankers had been “permanently disabled” and a third was “completely destroyed” after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terrorist organization composed of misguided Muslims who think they'll be getting 72 brown-eyed virgins rather than goats. They apparently decided that firing missiles at U.S. Navy ships was a reasonable foreign-policy strategy.

The IRGC may now wish to revisit that strategy.

“A U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer successfully evaded multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks. No American personnel were harmed,” CENTCOM said.

The United States then proceeded to make sure that some Iranian personnel had a considerably worse day.

U.S. forces “permanently disabled” the Iranian oil carriers MT Downy, located off the coast of Kharg Island, and MT Stark 1, which was struck near the Iranian coastal city of Jask.

The U.S. also “completely destroyed” the unladen crude oil carrier MT Kylo in the Gulf of Oman.

The Kylo, also known as the MT Noxen, was struck in “multiple critical locations to render it inoperable after the crew was directed to abandon ship.” This was the first time many of the crew bathed in months, reports say.

This is generally what happens when you fire ballistic missiles at American warships and discover that the other side has access to a calculator.

“The three Iranian crude oil tankers are part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies. Iran has no means by which to defend them,” CENTCOM said. 

Iran's shadow fleet has apparently discovered that being a shadow fleet does not actually make a ship invisible. Perhaps we should consider not waiting for a tit-for-tat before destroying these type vessels.

“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” said CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper.

“We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet,” he added.

Iranian state-run Tasnim news agency had reported earlier Saturday that explosions were heard near Kharg Island, with an oil tanker, presumably the Downy, struck by four U.S. missiles.

Tasnim reported no casualties from the strikes, presumably because everyone involved had already received the helpful instruction to abandon ship and get the heck out of Dodge.

The strikes came after Iranian forces launched ballistic missiles at U.S. Navy warships patrolling in “regional waters.”

The two U.S. carriers currently deployed in the region are the USS George H.W. Bush and USS George Washington, which relieved the USS Abraham Lincoln two weeks ago.

The George Washington is reportedly sailing with a single destroyer escort, meaning Iran may have chosen to discover what happens when it picks a fight with a carrier group that is very much aware of what is happening.

For years, Iran has invested heavily in missiles, terrorism, proxy armies and a multibillion-dollar shadow oil network.

On Saturday, it apparently invested in three fewer oil tankers.

There are, one imagines, cheaper ways to learn that the United States Navy is still open for business and the United States of America is not a country to mess with.

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US military begin mission to clear mines in Strait of Hormuz, says CENTCOM

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121)
(Photo US Navy)

In a region long accustomed to the theatrics of revolutionary bluster and the quiet calculus of power, the United States has once again demonstrated that freedom of navigation is not a slogan but a necessity enforced by steel and resolve. While negotiations between Washington and Tehran stutter onward in Pakistan, U.S. Central Command has moved with characteristic directness: its forces have begun the deliberate, painstaking work of clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, that narrow artery through which a fifth of the world's oil once flowed, now choked by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as an act of economic self-harm.

“USS Frank E. Peterson (DDG 121) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) transited the Strait of Hormuz and operated in the Arabian Gulf as part of a broader mission to ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines previously laid by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” CENTCOM stated plainly.

This marks the first transit by American guided-missile destroyers through those contested waters since the current hostilities with Iran erupted, a quiet but unmistakable signal that the era of Iranian impunity in international sea lanes is drawing to a close.

Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, put the matter with naval understatement: “Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce.”

The two destroyers had been operating in the Arabian Sea before making their crossing. CENTCOM was at pains to remind the world what should require no reminder: the Strait of Hormuz is “an international sea passage and an essential trade corridor that supports regional and global economic prosperity.” Additional American forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance operation in the coming days.

One cannot help but note the irony. The regime in Tehran, which has spent decades railing against “imperialist” interference while happily profiting from the very global commerce it now seeks to disrupt, has once again overplayed its hand. By sowing mines in waters that belong to no single nation, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have not only endangered innocent mariners and spiked energy prices worldwide; they have invited the very response they claim to dread. The United States, for its part, is not engaged in conquest but in restoration, reopening a chokepoint that serves Arabs, Europeans, Asians, and yes, even the Iranian people far more than it serves the clerical elite clinging to power through provocation.

As the destroyers cut through those historically fraught waters, the message is clear: chokeholds on global trade will not be tolerated indefinitely. Civilization, after all, runs on predictable lanes of commerce, not on the capricious threats of a theocracy that mistakes mine-laying for strategy.

The work of clearing the strait is technical and dangerous; the principle behind it is simple and ancient. The seas must remain open.

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