By BEN FINLEY<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The U.S. military said Wednesday that it boarded an Iranian-flagged oil tanker in the\u00a0Gulf of Oman<\/a>\u00a0that was suspected of trying to violate\u00a0the American blockade<\/a>, the latest action by the Trump administration to try to push Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n But President Donald Trump is facing his own pressure at home for shipping to resume through the vital corridor off Iran\u2019s coast. Fellow Republicans in Congress are battling political headwinds ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections as\u00a0gasoline prices skyrocket<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0global energy markets churn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Senate on Tuesday advanced legislation seeking to force Trump to withdraw from\u00a0the Iran war,<\/a>\u00a0with a growing number of Republicans defying the president in the 50-47 vote.<\/p>\n U.S. Central Command said on social media that the M\/T Celestial Sea was searched and redirected after being suspected of trying to head to an Iranian port. It\u2019s at least the\u00a0fifth commercial vessel<\/a>\u00a0to be boarded since the Trump administration imposed the blockade on Iranian shipping in mid-April, several days into a ceasefire, to pressure Tehran into opening the strait and accepting a deal to\u00a0end the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n The military boarded the tanker after Trump said Monday he had called off renewed military strikes on Iran in an effort to make progress in negotiations to end the war. Trump said he had planned \u201ca very major attack\u201d for Tuesday but put it off, saying America\u2019s allies in the Gulf asked him to wait for two to three days because they feel they are close to a deal.<\/p>\n Trump has repeatedly\u00a0set deadlines for Tehran<\/a>\u00a0and then backed off.<\/p>\n Before the U.S. blockade, Tehran had allowed some ships perceived as friendly to pass while\u00a0charging considerable fees<\/a>, leading to accusations it is holding the global economy hostage.<\/p>\n The U.S. military recently said that 1,550 vessels, from 87 countries, are currently stranded in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n Nearly three months since the war began with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28, Iran maintains a chokehold on the strait, while the U.S. military has enforced its blockade on Iran\u2019s ports as well as Iranian-linked ships that are far away from the Middle East.<\/p>\n Last month, U.S. forces boarded an oil tanker previously sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil in the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean. A couple days later, the U.S. seized another tanker associated with smuggling Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia.<\/p>\n In early May, Trump said the U.S. military would begin to \u201cguide\u201d stranded ships from the Iran-gripped strait. The next day, he announced that the effort to protect ships\u00a0was paused<\/a>\u00a0to see if an agreement could be reached.<\/p>\n Days later, U.S. forces\u00a0fired on and disabled<\/a>\u00a0two Iranian oil tankers after exchanging fire with Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military said the tankers were trying to breach the blockade. The day before, the military said it\u00a0thwarted Iranian attacks<\/a>\u00a0on three Navy ships and\u00a0struck Iranian military facilities<\/a>\u00a0in response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By BEN FINLEY WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The U.S. military said Wednesday that it boarded an Iranian-flagged oil tanker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[39,36869,41981,224],"class_list":["post-126414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-persian-gulf","tag-us-blockade-of-hormuz","tag-us-blockades","tag-us-iran-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116618951623263091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}