By Marc Burleigh / Agence France-Presse
TEHRAN — A showdown between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers worsened Thursday with warships from each side giving weight to an increasingly bellicose exchange of words.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards rejected a warning that the U.S. military would “not tolerate” such a closure, saying they would act decisively “to protect our vital interests.”
The tough language came as two U.S. warships entered a zone where the Iranian navy’s ships and aircraft were in the middle of 10 days of war games designed as a show of military might.
But a U.S. navy spokeswoman said later that the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and the guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay had transited without incident on Tuesday, in pre-planned, routine operation.
“Our interaction with the regular Iranian Navy continues to be within the standards of maritime practice, well-known, routine and professional,” Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich said on Thursday.
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