What on Earth is the Trump administration thinking when it comes to the Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1?
I ask because the Trump administration is acting like a headless chicken: hyperventilating about stopping the ship, but taking none of the easily practicable actions that might effect that outcome.
Since being released by British authorities a couple of weeks ago, the tanker has meandered its way from Gibraltar across the Mediterranean Sea. Britain released the ship after receiving obviously absurd Iranian pledges that its oil would not be delivered to its original destination, Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime.
Guess where the Adrian Darya 1 is now? Off the Syrian coast, of course, having turned off its location transponder over the past few days. Guess why civilian cargo ships deactivate their transponders? Whether Iranian, North Korean, or otherwise, they do so to facilitate covert ship-to-ship transfers. It is thus highly likely that the Adrian Darya 1 has now provided at least some of its oil to another vessel.
The Trump administration could have prevented this outcome. Yes, the U.S. successfully pressured Greece to deny port access to Adrian Darya 1, and that’s great, but only as a means to an end that the U.S. government does not seem willing to pursue.
As the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, the Trump administration’s special representative on Iran, Brian Hook, has been emailing the Adrian Darya 1’s captain, offering him millions of dollars to take the ship to a U.S.-allied port. Though justified, this letter of marque was unsuccessful, presumably because the ship’s captain assumed his new wealth would come with the short-term addendum of Iranian assassins.
But here’s the thing: with a U.S. Justice Department warrant against the ship in hand, and the knowledge that its oil was going to enrich the Iranian regime and support Bashar Assad’s Muslim-killing-machine, why on Earth hasn’t the Trump administration simply directed the U.S. Navy to seize Adrian Darya 1? This wouldn’t be a great challenge for the U.S. Navy’s European Sixth Fleet. But as far as I can tell, the fleet has received no orders to intercept the tanker.
This is a significant problem for the U.S. for two reasons.
First, it cultivates a perception of weakness in the eyes of both the Iranian hardliners and President Hassan Rouhani’s more-moderate factions. Both factions are aware that the U.S. regards the tanker as a direct and illegitimate challenge to its maximum pressure strategy. Moreover, both are aware that the U.S. Navy has dominant means of seizing it.
Second, it undercuts the Trump administration’s broader narrative that all nations should avoid assisting Iran. This carries new importance in the context of a burgeoning French-led effort to support Tehran with $15 billion of assistance. But where, as here, the U.S. indirectly supports Iran’s economy by failing to take obvious easy action to the contrary, it degrades its argument that others not do the same.
The solution is quite simple. Trump should direct Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to seize Adrian Darya 1.
