A solid month of US recruitment for an anti-Iran naval coalition to
operate in the Persian Gulf has come to fruition, such as it is, and was officially launched this week, with Defense Secretary Mark Esper playing it up as a way to defend merchant vessels.
Heavily courting NATO, EU member nations, and other global powers, the
US initially presented this back in July as a huge deal. In the end,
they managed to get three other participants, Britain, Australia, and
Bahrain.
Many nations were very public in rejecting the idea of joining the
operation, both in that they don’t envision Iran posing a threat to
their ships in the first place, and particularly in that in joining the
US fleet they’d be making themselves a target if the US escalates this
into a war.
Indeed, even this paltry collection of participants was inflated by
Britain announcing their own fleet, recruiting for it, and then folding
it into the US version when it became apparent there was so little
interest.
With Few Members, US Launches Anti-Iran Maritime Force
A month of recruitment netted three other participants
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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