Iran Ratchets Up Aggression Ahead of Biden Inauguration – By Paul D. Shinkman (US News) / January 5 2021
Aggressive military drills, the seizure of a South Korean tanker and the enrichment of nuclear materials amount to an attempt to force the incoming administration’s attention, analysts say.
A SPIKE IN IRANIAN hostility in recent days escalated Tuesday with the announcement it had begun large-scale combat drills, including “the widespread use of suicide drones to destroy vital targets” – a clear message to the U.S. ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden this month.
The bellicose rhetoric from Tehran followed its troubling announcement late Monday it had resumed enriching uranium at 20 percent in a provocative move clearly exceeding the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement from which President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew. And on Monday, Iranian forces raided and seized a South Korean tanker under the auspices of pollution control. Iran subsequently demanded that Seoul supply $7 billion in funds limited by the Trump administration’s sanctions but which Iran considers to be held “hostage.”
Each of the actions could constitute an act of war and, taken as a whole, present troubling prospects for potential conflict between Iran and its enemies. But analysts say the moves also represent a clear cry from Tehran for recognition from the incoming Biden administration and a desire for some form of relations more productive than Trump’s unsparing “maximum pressure campaign.”
The moves, and others, “are part of Tehran’s effort to signal to Biden that broadening the conversation to include Iran’s other troubling actions will first require a quick return by Washington to the 2015 nuclear deal and the removal of sanctions,” Alex Vatanka, director of the Middle East Institute’s Iran Program, said in an emailed statement. “Then, and only then, might Iran be open to discuss other contentious matters.”
