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What Happened in the Strait of Hormuz?How to prevent a naval war with Iran.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008, at 6:29 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Was this a dicey confrontation? Without question. Vice Adm. Cosgriff said at his news conference that the Iranians have engaged in these kinds of aggressive maneuvers only twice before—out of the dozens of times (two or three times a week) that American ships have crossed into the strait in the sight of Iranian ships.

Given the sharp memories of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 sailors, it's only natural that the officers onboard the U.S. destroyer, cruiser, and frigate moving through the strait on Sunday morning, well within international waters, should take the speedboats' actions very seriously.

I am told that, at one point, the Iranian boats came within the security zone of at least one of the American warships—that is, close enough that, under the U.S. Navy's rules of engagement, the ship's captain could have been well within reason to fire a warning shot. The Pentagon's videotape reveals that at least one of the ships sounded the warning horn—but nobody took a shot.

Both Adm. William Fallon, the commander of U.S. Central Command, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have instructed captains in the Persian Gulf to be extremely cautious in the event of Iranian provocations. Nonetheless, by necessity, a ship's captain has full authority to take action if he judges that his vessel faces a clear and imminent danger. According to at least one report, one of the captains was moments away from firing when the Iranian boats turned away.

It's hard to say what the Iranians were trying to accomplish or, for that matter, whether their actions were approved by the Tehran regime. (The boats are said to be under the control of the Revolutionary Guard, which is more militant than the regular navy and which has been known to act on its own authority, even in defiance of the foreign ministry.) Were they sending a signal to President George W. Bush, on the eve of his trip to the Middle East, that the U.S. fleet shouldn't assume it can act with impunity in the Gulf? Were they testing the fleet's rules of engagement? Were they playing to the crowd at home, trying to provoke the United States in order to stoke the fear of a larger U.S. attack on Iran, a fear that sustains their own political power?

In one crucial sense, the explanation doesn't matter. Many wars over the centuries have been triggered by misperceptions and by escalations from small-scale clashes. As historian Walter Russell Mead notes in an op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "From the 18th century to the present day, threats to American ships and maritime commerce have been the way most U.S. wars start."

And yet, as Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, told the Boston Globe's Bryan Bender and Farah Stockman on Monday, the U.S. commanders have no systematic way to halt a conflict if it begins to spiral. "I do not have a direct link with my counterpart in the Iranian Navy," he said. "I do not have a way to communicate directly with the Iranian Navy or [Revolutionary] Guard."

Through the darkest days of the Cold War, Washington and Moscow maintained a hot line. During most of those times, there were parallel forums for communication between the two sides' senior officers. Iran doesn't pose anything remotely resembling the threat that the United States and the Soviet Union posed to each other in those years. Here is yet another reason to establish diplomatic relations with Iran. You don't have to be friends to talk.

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Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" columnist and the author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, due out next month. He can be reached at .
Photograph of USS Port Royal by Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Mobley, U.S. Navy.
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