In the latest incident of Iranian bullying at sea, four Iranian boats again closed in at high speed to a Navy destroyer in the Straits of Hormuz on Sunday. Once again the U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Mahan, fired warning shots after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats did not respond to requests to slow down.

The weakening of the traditional Arab political and military centers, as a result of the upheavals in the Middle East, has spurred a change in the conduct of some of the Arab Gulf states and boosted their influence. 

In late November, Iran made an unusual announcement: it said it was planning to build naval bases in Syria and Yemen, which, as a state-run paper later posited, “could be ten times more efficient than nuclear power.” Although Iran has long striven to establish itself as a leading regional power, and naval outposts have been key to reaching that goal, this was the first time Tehran officially declared its intentions to build such bases beyond its own borders.

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