Iran threatened to take action today if the US Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the Gulf, Tehran's most aggressive statement yet after weeks of sabre-rattling as new US and EU financial sanctions take a toll on its economy.
The prospect of sanctions targeting the oil sector in a serious way for the first time has hit Iran's rial currency, which reached a record low today and has fallen by 40 per cent against the dollar in the past month.
Queues formed at banks and some currency exchange offices shut their doors as Iranians scrambled to buy dollars to protect their savings from the currency's fall.
Army chief Ataollah Salehi said the United States had moved an aircraft carrier out of the Gulf because of Iran's naval exercises, and Iran would take action if the ship returned.
"Iran will not repeat its warning . . . the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasise to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf," he said.
"I advise, recommend and warn them over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once."
The US navy today said that transits through the Strait of Hormuz were necessary to supply US missions in the Gulf region.
The aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis leads a US Navy task force in the region. It is now in the Arabian Sea providing air support for the war in Afghanistan, said Lieut Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman for the US 5th Fleet.
The carrier left the Gulf on December 27th on a "preplanned, routine transit" through the Straight of Hormuz, she said.
Some 40 per cent of the world's traded oil flows through that narrow straight - which Iran threatened last month to shut if sanctions halted its oil exports.
Brent crude futures were up more than $4 this afternoon in London, pushing above $111 a barrel on the news of potential threats to supply in the Gulf, as well as strong Chinese economic data.
Tehran's latest threat comes at a time when sanctions are having an unprecedented impact on its economy, and the country faces political uncertainty with an election in March, its first since a 2009 vote that triggered countrywide demonstrations.
The West has imposed the increasingly tight sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran says is strictly peaceful but Western countries believe aims to build an atomic bomb. After years of measures that had little impact, the new sanctions are the first that could have a serious effect on Iran's oil trade, 60 percent of its economy.
Sanctions signed into law by US president Barack Obama on New Year's Eve would cut off financial institutions that work with Iran's central bank from the US financial system, blocking the main path for payments for Iranian oil.
The EU is expected to impose new sanctions by the end of this month, possibly including a ban on oil imports and a freeze of central bank assets.
Even Iran's top trading partner China - which has refused to back new global sanctions against Iran - is demanding discounts to buy Iranian oil as Tehran's options narrow. Beijing has cut its imports of Iranian crude by more than half for January, paying premiums for oil from Russia and Vietnam to replace it.
Iran has responded to the tighter measures with belligerent rhetoric, spooking oil markets briefly when it announced last month it could prevent shipping through the Straight of Hormuz.
It then held 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf, test firing missiles that could hit US bases in the Middle East. Tuesday's apparent threat to take action against the US military for sailing in international waters takes the aggressive rhetoric to a new level.
Experts still say they do not expect Tehran to charge headlong into an act of war - the US Navy is overwhelmingly more powerful than Iran's sea forces - but Iran is running out of diplomatic wiggle room to avert a confrontation.
Reuters