ANIMOSITY between Washington and Tehran dates back to 1979, when revolution in Iran overthrew the Peacock Throne of US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and installed the still regnant Shi’ite theocracy.

A botched attempt to free over 50 hostages held in the American embassy was a major contributor to president Jimmy Carter’s defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan the following year.

Reagan returned the favour, turning a blind eye to sales of US weapons needed for the war with Iraq in the 1980s, with the money illegally recycled to Nicaragua’s Contra insurgents.

In 1988, a US Navy cruiser shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290 people. America has never admitted liability or formally apologised for what happened.

Sanctions on oil and trade were imposed in 1995, with marine insurance unwillingly dragooned into doing much of the heavy lifting. They were partly lifted by Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, only to be slapped back on by Donald Trump three years later.

Other spats have included the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani in 2020 and US participation in Israeli air strikes on Iranian nuclear processing facilities earlier this year.

In the latest chapter in this unhappy multi-decade story, Trump is hitting Iran with a further round of sanctions rather than a further round of bombing.

As Lloyd’s List New York reporters Tomer Raanan and Greg Miller report today, the US on Wednesday blacklisted nearly 150 vessels, entities and individuals with purported links to Iran.

These include what the Treasury Department describes as the “vast shipping empire” controlled by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, whose father is a leading adviser to Iran’s supreme leader and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.

The State Department separately took fire at 20 entities and 10 vessels involved in Iranian oil and petrochemical trades.

Shamkhani is seen as a key player in the export of Russian and Iranian oil, exerting control over a significant portion of Iran’s crude oil exports, with the proceeds benefiting both his own family and the Iranian state.

His fleet, which includes both oil tankers and boxships, undergoes frequent changes in the operators and managers, in a bid to obscure their connections to the regime.

Other targets of Trump’s ire include Switzerland-based Progwin Shipping, formerly known as Fractal Shipping, whose activities we have previously covered in great detail, and China’s Zhoushan Jinrun Petroleum Transfer Co.

Thanks to the unique ability of Lloyd’s List Intelligence to analyse vessel movement data, Tomer and Greg offer a level of detail that simply isn’t available anywhere else.

All in all, another great job from the Woodward and Bernstein of shipping journalism, which we have made free to read.

David Osler
Law and marine insurance editor, Lloyd’s List

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