A few days after its naval exercises in the Gulf, Iran has threatened another round, which the naval commander of the Revolutionary Guards has said would focus on the Strait of Hormuz. He added chillingly that "today the Islamic Republic of Iran has full domination over the region and controls all movements within it".
There is no doubt that Iran is responding to the threats of more sanctions on its oil products, which the European Union and Japan have said that they will consider in a few weeks, and the United States has already said that it will implement.
The danger is that these mutual threats will escalate into a situation that will be hard to control. No one will benefit from direct confrontation, and it is important that everyone should remember that engagement in direct diplomatic talks between Iran and the United States and its allies is both possible and desirable.
At the moment there are also two other immediate factors at work: The US has maintained an aircraft carrier in the Gulf for decades, and recently rotated the USS John C Stennis out of the region. This has given the Iranians the opportunity to threaten that it should not return, leading to an almost certain clash when it does.
However, the naval group around that very aircraft carrier has rescued 13 Iranian fishermen who were captured by pirates in the Arabian Sea. The Iranians were freed by American action, and are now on their way home.
In normal times this gesture of goodwill would lead to thanks on all sides, but in a measure of the strength of the gathering confrontation, the Iranian government has not commented on the incident.
