The announcement of a more modest achievement—launching a new line of indigenous tanker—should register on the radar screens of Western policymakers and security officials for a number of reasons. Press reports describe the 178-meter-long, 32-meter-wide tanker as weighing 35,000 tons, with a five-story, 400-ton superstructure. Its engines reportedly have a propulsion power of 11,200 KW, making it bigger than the Aframax-class tankers which Iranian shipbuilders have constructed for Venezuela.
Both the United States and the European Union have already slapped unilateral sanctions upon the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) in order to leverage pressure upon IranÂ’s oil exports into Iranian concessions on the Islamic RepublicÂ’s nuclear program. Because sanctioning the NITC might hamper the company from purchasing new tankers, the Iranian government will likely claim as a victory the ability to build their own.
The European Union’s ban on reflagging Iranian tankers to third countries—a strategy Iran has used to skirt sanctions —may mean the Iranian government has switched tactics and now seeks to control all aspects of the oil industry, from drilling to delivery.
A larger issue for American and European policymakers may be the security challenge that Iranian-built, Iranian-operated tankers may pose to international shipping and port security. Iranian shipping remains largely under the aegis of Khatam al-Anbia, the economic and commercial wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian authorities have made clear that they recognize that they cannot defeat the United States head-on, and will therefore consider asymmetric naval strategies. |