Nazemroaya: Could the US Navy be Defeated by Iran?g

After years of US threats, Iran is taking steps which suggest that it is both willing and capable of closing the Straight of Hormuz. On December 24, 2011 Iran started its Velayat-90 naval drills in, and around the Straight of Hormuz, and extending from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Since the conduct of these drills, there has been a growing war of words between Washington and Tehran. Nothing the Obama Administration or the Pentagon have done or said so far, however, has deterred Tehran from continuing its naval drills. Besides the fact that it is a vital transit point for global energy resources, and a strategic choke-point, two additional issues should be addressed in regards to the Strait of Hormuz. The second pertains to the role of Iran in co-managing the strategic strait in accordance with international law, and its sovereign national rights. The maritime traffic that goes through the Strait of Hormuz has always been in contact with Iranian naval forces, which are predominantly composed of the Iranian Regular Force Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy. In fact, Iranian naval forces monitor and police the Strait of Hormuz along with the Sultanate of Oman, via the Omani enclave of Musandam. More important, to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, all maritime traffic, including the US Navy, must sail through Iranian territorial waters. Almost all entrances into the Persian Gulf are made through Iranian territorial waters. Iran allows foreign ships to use its territorial waters in good faith, and on the basis of Part III of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea's maritime transit passage provisions that stipulate that vessels are free to sail through the Strait of Hormuz and similar bodied of water on the basis of speedy and continuous navigation between an open port and the high seas. Although Tehran in custom follows the navigation practices of the Law of the Sea, Tehran is not legally bound by them.