Recent reports suggest that the United States is disturbed by aspects of the Israeli-Iranian shadow war raging across the region – in this case, at sea. It seems reasonable to conclude that Washington is trying to lower tensions it fears can spoil attempts to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Tehran.
American sources told The Wall Street Journal in recent days that since 2019, Israel allegedly attacked 12 ships illegally carrying Iranian oil to Syria, using weapons such as limpet mines to damage the vessels.
The report came amid signs of a possible escalation between Israel and Iran on the seas, suggesting that the information was designed to send a signal to Israel to cool down the alleged maritime operations.
It also surfaced at about the time Iran accused Israel of attacking an Iranian container ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea last week named the Shahr e Kord, causing a fire.
That attack came days after Israel said Iran was behind an attack on an Israeli-owned cargo ship, the MV Helios Ray, in the Gulf of Oman.
Israel’s alleged covert campaign at sea is part of a much larger campaign, dubbed by the defense establishment as the “campaign between the wars,” designed to prevent the radical Iranian axis from building up its military and terrorist power in the region but to do so without crossing the threshold of regional war.
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