TRIP MY WIRE

TripMyWire is een vrijplaats voor journalistieke producties en bespiegelingen op het mediavak. Daar horen ook Engelstalige producties bij. De auteur van deze analyse, Antonie van Campen, studeert op dit moment in Denemarken waar ze deelneemt aan het programma Europe in the World.

Strait of Hormuz: a sea-passage of great strategic importance

Global sea trade is an important factor in the hostile war of words between the US and Iran. Could the world’s most important waterway be a possible casus belli?

Oil tankers continue to navigate the Strait of Hormuz where the USS Vincennes last Sunday launched missiles against the civilian Iranian Airbus and blasted it from the sky. ‘‘We are a U.S. warship operating in international waters. Please identify yourself and state your intentions.’’ (…)

This was the opening of an American newspaper on July 9, 1988.1 The reason was an unofficial Naval war between the United States and Iran for control over the Persian Gulf. This ‘Tanker War’ started when Iraq attacked Iranian tankers and oil terminals in 1984. Ships belonging to other nations, however, came also under attack in the Gulf waters. Under international law, an attack on such ships was then treated as an attack on the United States, allowing the U.S Navy to retaliate. And so they did.
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