A Military History of the Modern Middle East by James McNabb
Author:James McNabb [McNabb, James]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2017-03-31T04:00:00+00:00
OPERATION EARNEST WILL
As the deal was to take effect within 10 days, the Reagan administration was sufficiently motivated for approving the Kuwaiti request and subsequently moved within 5 days, closing a deal to reflag the Kuwaiti tankers with an American flag, thereby co-opting the Soviets.25 The Kuwaiti tanker fleet at the time consisted of 22 ships, and the United States placed its flag on 11 tankers. The reflagging and follow-on naval convoying activities became part of Operation Earnest Will, which lasted from July 24, 1987, to September 26, 1988—the largest naval convoying of ships since the Second World War. Any attack on such flagged ships could be treated as an attack on the United States and would provide the legal basis for military retaliation.
Such support neutralized a key point of leverage the Iranians had over Saddam by virtue of its successful military operations aimed at blocking the Shatt al-Arab waterway—stopping his ability to generate revenue by the export of oil. The Kuwait-U.S. move ensured an Iraqi stream of revenue for the duration of the war and served to frustrate the Iranian leadership and its desire to see the war conclude on its terms. In short, the United States, by conducting Operation Earnest Will, moved to internationalize the Iran-Iraq conflict, placing the Iranian leadership on the horns of a precarious dilemma: escalate and be faced with a military conflict involving the United States and its associated allies, or accept that Iraqi oil will make it into the international marketplace, ensuring that Baghdad continued to have a steady stream of revenue to continue fighting. The escalation of what became known as the “tanker war” during the Iran-Iraq conflict was actually under way prior to the initiation of Operation Ernest Will, as Iraq attacked Iranian tankers, including the key oil terminal at Kharg Island, in 1984. Iran responded by attacking tankers carrying Iraqi oil from Kuwait followed by a precipitous escalation that began targeting any tanker belonging to Gulf countries supporting Iraq.
Within the Gulf, on May 17, 1987, an Iraqi F1 Mirage jet reportedly (at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, which had become public in November 1986) misidentified the USS Stark (FFG 31)—a Perry-class frigate—and fired two “Exocet” AM39 air-to-surface missiles (range of 40 miles and each carrying a 352-pound warhead, both jet and missile French-built), which killed 37 and wounded 21 aboard the Stark. The United States publicly considered this act to be a mistake, as the Iraqis at the time were engaging a nearby Iranian warship.
Further dangerous escalatory moves occurred during the Iran-Iraq War when Iran began mining Gulf waters to interdict ships moving in support of Iraq. The USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) was hit by an Iranian mine on April 14, 1988, 65 miles east of Bahrain, with the resulting explosion ripping a massive hole in the ship’s hull. The United States responded by launching Operation Praying Mantis—its largest action involving surface warships since World War II—four days later when it attacked two Iranian frigates (Sabalan and Sahand) and fired on Iranian oil platforms in the Sassan and Sirri oil fields.
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