Announced in July, the exercise is named IMCMEX-12 for International Mine Countermeasures Exercise 2012.
It started Monday with a symposium for officers from more than 30 navies.
Military officials, diplomats and analysts—as well as Iran itself—all sought to play down the exercise and to stress the defensive and hypothetical aspects. The exercise moved on to the water Thursday with ships from a much smaller number of nations taking part in the actual maneuvers.
It was a clearly deliberate demonstration of the determination of a broad coalition of states to counter any attempt by Iran to disrupt Persian Gulf shipping in retaliation for an Israeli or US strike on its nuclear facilities, a form of retaliation Iran has repeatedly threatened.
“This exercise is about mines and the international effort to clear them,” Vice Admiral John Miller, commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command, also known as the Fifth Fleet, told officers assembled for the symposium at his fleet headquarters in Bahrain Monday.
“Represented here are the best of our individual countries’ efforts dedicated to securing the global maritime commons.”
Taking part are Britain and France, a number of Middle Eastern states and countries from as far apart as Estonia and New Zealand.
“The de-mining efforts are clearly in preparation for a showdown with Iran,” said Hayat Alvi of the US Naval War College, “presumably in the context of either an Israeli strike targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, or some provocation that leads to an Iranian response in the Persian Gulf region.”
US forces in the area include two aircraft carriers on permanent station, though these are not taking part in the current exercise, one of dozens held by the Fifth Fleet every year. For its part, Iran has said it will hold a major air defense exercise next month, showing its ability to protect nuclear sites.
Iranian military officials sounded a surprisingly relaxed note. Instead of the usual accusations that anything the Americans do in the region is a nasty provocation, the Islamic Republic this time brushed the mine clearing exercise aside. “This exercise is a defensive exercise and we don’t perceive any threats from it,” Mohammad-Ali Jafari, commander of the Pasdaran, was quoted as saying Sunday. “We are not conducting exercises in response.”
Anthony Skinner of the Maplecroft consultancy said the exercise would, however, remind Iran of Washington’s ability to blunt its offensive capabilities: “Iran would likely mine the Strait of Hormuz and possibly deploy suicide bombing skiffs in the event of air strikes against its nuclear facilities.
“Washington wants to show that it’s prepared for such an eventuality,” Skinner said. “I see this exercise as part of broader initiative to sustain the pressure on Iran. Giving sanctions the time to work is clearly the preferred option for the Obama Administration, at least in the medium term.”
In a statement, the US navy recalled what it described as terrorist attacks in 2002 on the French tanker Limburg off Yemen and in 2010 on the Japanese M. Star in the Strait of Hormuz, as examples of the “hypothetical threat” to shipping in the area of the exercise, which is taking place at sea in three areas, two in the Persian Gulf and one at the mouth of the Red Sea.
Western navies have also been practicing in recent years how to respond to small, fast boats, possibly crewed by suicidal assailants, which could target larger ships in the way the US destroyer Cole was damaged in a Yemeni port 12 years ago.