A Liberian-flagged ship flying 280km from the port of Al-Daqam in the Oman Sea was targeted by a drone on Friday.
The oil tanker is called MV Mercer Street and is managed by the Zodiac Maritime company owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer. Two crew members, one British and one Romanian, were killed in the attack.
Following the incident, Israeli media and politicians pointed the finger at Iran. Britain and the United States later said that Iran’s regime was behind the attack.
The foreign ministers of Israel, Britain, and the United States held talks after the attack. At the same time, there were reports in the media about possible action against Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We are in very close contact, in coordination with the United Kingdom, Israel, Romania, and other countries. And there will be a collective response,” he told reporters at the U.S. State Department on Monday.
Bogdan Aurescu, foreign minister of Romania, in a tweet on August 2, 2021, said: “Based on t/available info, Romania Flag of Romania strongly condemns t/Iranian drone attack against “Mercer Street”, during which a RO citizen was killed. There are no justification whatsoever 4 deliberately attacking civilians. We continue 2 coordinate w/our partners 4 an appropriate response.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that Iran must face up to the consequences of the attack on the oil tanker off the coast of Oman.
“Iran should face up to the consequences of what they’ve done. This was clearly an unacceptable and outrageous attack on commercial shipping,” the British Prime Minister told reporters, according to the Reuters news agency.
“A UK national died. It is vital that Iran and every other country, respects the freedoms of navigation around the world and the UK will continue to insist on that,” he added.
Such hostile activities are nothing new by Iran’s regime. Without thinking about the consequences of such actions, it takes such measures to show its forces that it is not in a weak stand, especially when it seems that the JCPOA nuclear talks are failing, and the regime must face the consequences of its nuclear adventures.
Escaping forward and warning other nations about the consequences of any ‘adventures’ against Iran is a clear sign of such half-baked decisions and weakness.
This weakness can be seen in the reactions of the state-run media. The state-run daily Tose-e-Irani on August 3, 2021, wrote:
“Now Iran is under pressure from these four countries and, of course, threats of retaliation. Iran’s reaction, however, has so far been a denial. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said yesterday that the reaction of the four countries was unfortunate and said:
“These coordinated statements themselves contain contradictory phrases, such that they first accuse the Islamic Republic of Iran without providing any evidence and then speak of its “possibility.”
“It is unfortunate that while these countries have remained silent in support of terrorist attacks and sabotage of Iranian merchant ships in the Red Sea and international waters, in a blatant political bias they are making false accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, if these countries have a document to prove their false claims, they must provide it.”
Besides the regime’s fear about any reaction, it is clear that no one would reveal its resources to such a dictatorship, and one other than this regime is benefiting from the instability in the Middle East as we are witnessing its many countries and there is no need to count them all.
In an indirect confession about the regime’s action, the state-run daily Eghtesad News on August 3, 2021, wrote:
“With the denial of Iran, the Zionist regime and the United States are still trying to take full advantage of this incident. In a situation that less than a month has been passed after the sabotage in one of the buildings of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran located around Karaj on June 23.
“The subversive act of which the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime Naftali Bennett implicitly referred to the role of this regime in this incident. The destructive and criminal role that was shown in the previous months by sabotaging the Natanz facility and assassinating our country’s nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
“This is at a time when Western countries are not interested in condemning such actions against Iran and pass by it indifferently, preferring to remain silent in the face of crimes such as the child-killing of the Zionist regime in the 12-day war in Gaza.”
The decision of confronting the world and destabilizing more the situation in the Middle East has started at that time when the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was receiving the message of the former US President Donald Trump by Japan’s prime minister and ordered to attack an oil tanker of Japan, to show that the regime is not negotiable.
Taking such a decision a few days before the start of the regime’s new presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, delivered the message that the regime’s terror machine will not stop and will become even worse.
