Iran will continue to broaden the scope of its Navy’s reach, Armed Forces Deputy Chief of Staff Aziz Nasirzadeh has announced.
The push to challenge American naval supremacy and break out into the world’s oceans “can be realized by increasing our defense power…Iran’s regional and extra-regional power in the seas toward the Indian Ocean should be developed, and there are plans for this in the General Staff,” Nasirzadeh said, speaking at a military conference in Tehran on Sunday.
Praising the role the Navy’s 86th Squadron’s 63,000 km+ jaunt across the world last year had in demonstrating the country’s naval prowess and challenging American assumptions about Iran’s capabilities, Nasirzadeh emphasized that the squadron’s “achievements should never be forgotten.”
The general pointed out that the history of 20th century conflicts showed that great power conflict on land always extends to the sea, and that the US strategy of maritime expansion to countries across the globe make it necessary to challenge its domination. The 86th Squadron’s “ocean voyage challenged the first principle of the Americans’ theory of globalism, providing Iran with global maritime access,” “humiliating” America and debunking the idea of its naval exceptionalism and serving as a source of pride for Iranians. “Despite this, we should not let this process stop, but continue development,” Nasirzadeh said.
Iran is in “a very important geopolitical position because we are at a very strategic point,” Nasirzadeh stressed, noting that of the nine key strategic straits in the world, three are situated in Iran’s backyard.
Iran achieved an unprecedented naval milestone in 2021 by taking the Makran (a 121,000 metric ton oil tanker converted into a forward base ship) and the IRIS Sahand Moudge-class destroyer on a 45,000 km+ round-the-world journey to St. Petersburg, Russia and back. The Islamic Republic repeated the feat in 2023, sailing the Makran and the Dena, another Moudge-class warship, on a 63,000 km+ world-spanning tour, through the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, around South Africa, back to the Indian Ocean and home to Iran.
The naval component of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has emulated the Navy’s tanker conversion warship strategy, commissioning the 36,000-ton Shahid Mahdavi multipurpose vessel last spring and fitting it out with the latest Iranian weapons systems.
Iranian Navy Commander Shahram Irani announced late last month that the Islamic Republic’s next major destination will be Antarctica, with the country planning to “raise our flag” at the South Pole alongside other major powers.
A State Department spokesperson rushed to assure that the recently unfrozen $6 billion in Iranian funds released by the US would not be used “for any activities in Antarctica.”