Iran's Revolutionary Guards vow 'decisive response' to US Gulf threat

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps on Thursday warned the US of a "decisive response" after President Donald Trump said he instructed the US Navy to "shoot down" Iranian boats that harass American ships in the Gulf.

"We declare to the Americans that we are absolutely determined and serious... and that all action will be met with a decisive response that will be efficient and quick," Major General Hossein Salami told state television.

Iran separately summoned the Swiss ambassador, who looks out for America's interests in the country, to complain about Trump's threat coming amid months of escalating attacks between the two countries. 

While the coronavirus pandemic temporarily paused those tensions, Iran has since begun pushing back against the Trump administration's maximum pressure policy both militarily and diplomatically.

The Guards also launched Iran's first military satellite Wednesday, unveiling a previously secret space program.

Speaking to state television Thursday, Salami warned his forces "will answer any action by a decisive, effective and quick counteraction".

"We have ordered our naval units at sea that if any warships or military units from the naval force of America's terrorist army wants to jeopardise our commercial vessels or our combat vessels, they must target those [American] warships or naval units," Salami said.

The latest dispute comes after the US Navy said last week that 11 Guard naval gunboats had carried out "dangerous and harassing approaches" to American Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the Persian Gulf. The Americans said they used a variety of nonlethal means to warn off the Iranian boats, and they eventually left.

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) April 22, 2020" style="color:#fff;" class="twitter-post-link" target="_blank">Twitter Post Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the country's first successful launch of a military satellite into orbit, following months of failed attempts, amid US-Iran tensions https://t.co/72DgftBRgQ — The New Arab (@The_NewArab) April 22, 2020

Iran, meanwhile, accused the US of sparking the incident, without offering evidence.

Iran has had tense encounters at sea for years with the US Navy in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of all oil passes. The US has patrolled the area to protect global shipping for decades, something Iran describes as akin to it patrolling the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump on Wednesday, facing a collapsing global energy market and the pandemic at home amid his re-election campaign, tweeted out a warning to Iran that he ordered the Navy to "shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea". 

"We don't want their gunboats surrounding our boats, and traveling around our boats and having a good time," Trump told reporters on Wednesday evening at the White House.

"We're not going to stand for it. ... They'll shoot them out of the water."

The International Crisis Group, noting the tensions, urged both countries to create a deconfliction hotline to avoid a possible military confrontation.

"In the absence of a major diplomatic breakthrough, an indirect military communications channel could go some way toward ensuring, at least, that a single incident will not spark a wider conflagration," it said in a report on Thursday.

Iran in the past has rejected idea of a hotline.

Surprise satellite launch

Meanwhile, the Guard surprised analysts by sending a satellite into space on Wednesday from a previously unused launch pad and with a new system. While Iran stresses its program is peaceful, Western nations fear such a program will help Iran build intercontinental ballistic missiles.

State television on Thursday said Iran received signals from the satellite, without elaborating. While American officials haven't acknowledged the satellite reached orbit, open-source data from the US military suggested the "Noor," or "Light" satellite now orbited the Earth.

Uzi Rubin, fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the founder of Israel's missile defense program, said the launch showed the Guards' "further gain in wresting for power and in building its own state within a state".

"The very act of launching a military satellite in the midst of the coronavirus crisis that is affecting Iran too is a statement of self confidence and perseverance by the ayatollahs to the West but mainly to its own population," Rubin said.

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