Photo Gallery Show of Force in the Gulf
The US aircraft carrier 'Abraham Lincoln' sailed through the Strait of Hormuz this month and entered the Persian Gulf despite threats from Iran. The carrier is part of a flotilla of Western warships now in the Gulf. The Persian Gulf hasn't seen this kind of display of naval power since the final campaign against Saddam Hussein.
Iranian military personnel during an exercise near the Strait in December. With Iran's coastline bristling with missiles, the Revolutionary Guards' flotilla of armed speedboats and their submarine bunkers, so much military might is concentrating in the area that any incident could spark a new Gulf war.
A satellite image of the Strait of Hormuz. At its narrowest point, the strait is only 54 kilometers (34 miles) wide. US experts assume that, in the case of war, Iran would utilize a "hybrid strategy" of guerilla hit-and-run tactics and ultra-modern weapons.
Satellite image of the Iranian uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. The nuclear stand-off between Iran and the West intensified last week when the EU decided to impose an oil embargo that will affect a fifth of Iran's oil exports.
Commercial and fishing ships sail off the shores of Khasab in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz - a vital international oil shipping route in the Gulf - if oil sanctions are imposed against the Islamic state.
US aircraft carriers Abraham Lincoln and John C. Stennis. In a letter sent to Iranian leaders in early January, US President Barack Obama warned that blockading the Strait would be tantamount to crossing a "red line" and would provoke a massive response.
Fishing boats in front of oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Revolutionary Guards have about 2,000 naval mines in its arsenal, though it would only take 300 of them to disrupt tanker traffic through the strait.
An Iranian naval vessel firing a medium-range missile near the Strait of Hormuz. At the moment, the United States has about 40,000 soldiers in the Gulf region, on ships and on military bases in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain. Patrick Seale, a British expert on the Middle East, warns that a war could "break out by accident." Sanctions against Iran's central bank and its oil exports, he writes, could "create a climate of hysterical nationalism that could trigger a clash."
An oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. An oil embargo would hit Iran hard. In retaliation, Iran's parliament announced last week its intension to immediately halt all oil deliveries to EU member states. If there is a ticking time bomb in the Gulf, it has undoubtedly been set to explode on the day the European oil embargo goes into effect. That is July 1, 2012.
