High Stakes In The Gulf

Eager to avoid future confrontations between Iranian boats and U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. government has quietly sent word to Tehran asking for dialogue. The stern four-paragraph message, dated Jan. 10, was delivered to Tehran via a Swiss intermediary. The communiqué, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, notes that Washington had sent an earlier request on Nov. 21, 2007, to limit "the possibility of miscommunication and misunderstanding" in the Gulf, but that "we have not received a response to that message. We believe it is in Iran's interest to consider [it] and avoid any further provocative actions." (Click here to view the memo)

U.S. officials say they are not hopeful that Iran will respond now, given its silence before. In December, after the first message was sent, there were two encounters in the Strait of Hormuz; one led the U.S. captain to fire warning shots. During the most recent provocation on Jan. 6, five Iranian launches careered around three U.S. warships for close to half an hour, at one point dropping objects in the path of one of the vessels, according to the Navy. A radio transmission from an unknown source declared a U.S. ship would "explode." "They came at us as a group of five, in a formation," said Cmdr. Jeffrey James, skipper of the destroyer USS Hopper. "They knew what they were doing."

Though Pentagon officials, speaking anonymously because of the topic's sensitivity, stress there is no proof, Navy analysts at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain have concluded that the Jan. 6 confrontation was most likely a deliberate effort by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to persuade U.S. vessels to open fire on them. The purpose: to create an incident prior to President George W. Bush's visit to the region, which was intended in part to rally support from Arab countries against Iran. (An Iranian national-security official called the accusations "fabricated." Insisting on anonymity, he said they were a "show for the Arab countries.") The increased "buzzing" of U.S. warships by IRGC launches comes as the guard has taken more control of Gulf operations from Iran's regular Navy.