Iran has condemned a US deployment of a nuclear submarine to the Middle East as “warmongering.”
Washington rarely announces where its nuclear submarines are being sent but on Saturday, US Central Command said the USS Florida was en route to the region.
The Ohio Class submarine can circumnavigate the globe without surfacing and is capable of carrying 154 cruise missiles, each with a range of up to 2,500km, depending on the variant.
Cruise missiles, which are also used by Iran, are considered dangerous because they fly at low level, below radar systems, over long distances.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani accused the US of “warmongering and propagating instability and conflict in the West Asia region”.
The USS Florida is being deployed in support of the US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, to “ensure regional maritime security and stability”, said Commander Tim Hawkins, spokesman for Centcom, on Saturday.
The deployment was a sign of Washington’s “struggle to gloss over its decline in the world, as new regional equations are likely to shape a new order and eliminate the need for military forces from outside the region”, Mr Kanaani said.
Tension between the US and Iran has been elevated this year following a spate of attacks against US forces stationed in Syria, which Washington says have been conducted by Iran-supplied militias that answer to Tehran.
In the early hours of March 23, militias in northern Syria fired what the US said was “a one-way attack drone” at a base where American forces and allied Kurdish militias were based.
One US soldier was killed and six others wounded. The US immediately retaliated, bombing “facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps”, according to US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Nuclear deal falters
The escalation comes after the near collapse of talks over Iran’s nuclear programme, involving the US, EU, Russia and China.
The talks aimed to revive a 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which allowed UN inspectors access to Iranian nuclear sites in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
Amid the failure of the talks, Iran and Saudi Arabia have sought to rebuild ties, with Riyadh announcing the reopening of its embassy in Tehran, as well as potential bilateral investment.
The thawing of relations has been brokered by China and regional powers, including Jordan, Iraq and Oman. It comes after more than a decade of regional competition between the two powers in Syria and Yemen in conflicts that have produced no clear victors.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long insisted that if Iran’s nuclear research continues unchecked, it will use any option to stop Tehran developing an atomic weapon.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, says it is committed to finding a way of restarting the nuclear negotiations.
Israel is widely thought to have been behind the assassination of several of Iran’s most prominent nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the former head of the nuclear programme, as well as the sabotaging of Iranian nuclear sites.
Against this backdrop, the US has been conducting joint military operations with Israel, which has also been attacking Iran-linked targets in Syria.
In January, the US and Israel conducted a large-scale exercise, Juniper Oak, involving more than 140 aircraft.
Iran has long been building up its ballistic and cruise missile capability, as well as a large fleet of fast attack boats in anticipation of a possible conflict, either with the US, Israel or both.
In February, Iran announced the development of a new cruise missile, the Paveh, with a range of more than 1,650km.
