Iran vows to retaliate on ship inspections

Iran vows to retaliate on ship inspections    The saber-rattling between Iran and the international community moved up a gear Thursday, when Iran's legislature indicated it would pass a bill backing retaliatory measures on ship inspections.
   Essentially, the move would allow Iran to inspect any foreign ship, just as United Nations sanctions passed last week compel nations to inspect Iranian ships that could be linked to the national carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.
   IRISL was sanctioned last fall by the U.S. government for aiding illegal weapons proliferation. Among a list of new sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N. were more specific guidelines in trying to expose a network of shell companies IRISL has allegedly set up to hide its illicit trade activities.
   If Iran is successful in its retaliatory maritime inspections, it could conceivably have a great effect on Middle East trade. Iran could use the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, to suppress the movement of commercial vessels, affecting some of the region's busiest container ports, such as Jebel Ali and Sharjah (in the U.A.E.), Bahrain, and the Saudi Arabian port of Dammam.
   Alternatively, ports outside Iran's sphere of influence — such as Salalah, in Oman, and Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Jeddah — could benefit.
   'The Strait of Hormuz is the strategic position in the region, and the Islamic Republic will not hesitate to use its levers of power,' said Iranian MP Kazem Jalali, according to a report Thursday in the Tehran Times.
   'We warn the United States and certain other adventurous countries, if they are nurturing the temptation to inspect Iranian cargoes, they should know we will take the same measures toward their ships in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman to defend our national interests,' said Ali Larijani, speaker of Iran's legislature, known as the Majlis.