Ratcliff, Ron

Zatarain, Lee Allen

English

U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 63Number 2 Spring Article 172010Tanker War: America’s First Conflict with Iran,1987–1988Ron RatcliffLee Allen ZatarainFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationRatcliff, Ron and Zatarain, Lee Allen (2010) "Tanker War: America’s First Conflict with Iran, 1987–1988," Naval War College Review:Vol. 63 : No. 2 , Article 17.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol63/iss2/17from numerous U.S. and internationalfigures who have played prominentroles in Afghanistan since before andafter 9/11. In fact, Jones’s many cita-tions and his approach of listing diverseplayers with one-line, anecdotal physi-cal descriptions or personality traits canbe overwhelming and even detract fromthe narrative.Nonetheless, this book does a superbjob of filling in the details of Afghani-stan’s complex politics for scholars whoare interested in gaining a better under-standing of the history, the state andnonstate actors involved, and the manycivil and military leaders who have at-tempted to calm the political upheavalin Afghanistan. Jones ably explainshow, after the United States and its al-lies quickly knocked the Taliban frompower, routed al-Qa‘ida, and set up apopularly elected central government,the country nonetheless failed to estab-lish an adequate justice system and se-curity for its populace—insteadallowing a robust insurgency to de-velop. With the experience of someonewho has walked the ground and talkedto the leaders on all sides, Jones effec-tively argues that the drug trade, high-level government corruption, and thelack of resources could, if not resolved,lead to one more headstone in Afghani-stan’s graveyard.DOUGLAS J. WADSWORTHColonel, U.S. Marine CorpsNaval War CollegeZatarain, Lee Allen. Tanker War: America’s FirstConflict with Iran, 1987–1988. Philadelphia:Casemate, 2008. 388pp. $32.95Lee Zatarain, an attorney, has crafted acompelling and immensely readable ac-count of one of the least-known chaptersof the U.S. Navy’s maritime combat op-erations, the tanker war of 1987–88. Thetanker war was fought by three now veryfamiliar foes—Iran and Iraq (who hadbeen at war with each other since 1980),and the United States, which becameembroiled in the conflict when an Iraqiaircraft attacked and nearly sank one ofits frontline warships in 1987. Using newinformation gained from the U.S. Navyand other U.S. government sources, aswell as extensive interviews with the offi-cers and crew who served in the PersianGulf during the fifteen-month war,Zatarain examines and explains withlawyerly precision the events that consti-tuted the U.S. Navy’s combat operationsagainst Iranian naval forces.Tanker War begins with a detailed ac-count of the Iraqi attack on the guided-missile frigate USS Stark in May 1987;the first successful antiship-missile at-tack on a U.S. Navy warship, it resultedin thirty-seven deaths. That attack,however, precipitated no military re-sponse against Iraq by the UnitedStates, largely because it was consideredto have been an unfortunate accident,and Iraq was more of a friend than Iran.Iran’s subsequent actions—layingmines in the heavily trafficked channelsof the Gulf to interrupt the flow of Iraqioil and attacking civilian oil tankers—forced the United States to side withIraq. As Zatarain explains in straight-forward fashion, the conflict that en-sued nearly cost the U.S. Navy anotherwarship, USS Samuel B. Roberts, andsubjected the Navy to several antiship-missile attacks by the Iranian military.In retaliation, the U.S. Navy destroyed agood part of the Iranian navy andB O O K R E V I E W S 1 4 9NWCR_Spring2010.psC:\Documents and Settings\john.lanzieri.ctr\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\5399_NWC_Review_Spring2010\NWCR_Spring2010.vpMonday, March 01, 2010 4:18:47 PMColor profile: Generic CMYK printer profileComposite  Default screen1Ratcliff and Zatarain: Tanker War: America’s First Conflict with Iran, 1987–1988Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 20101 5 0 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E Weffectively established the Americanmaritime dominance in the PersianGulf that exists to this day.Among the key issues that Zatarainraises in his gripping account of thevarious battles fought between theUnited States and Iran is the controver-sial claim by many U.S. Navy com-manding officers that Iran usedChinese-made Silkworm antiship mis-siles against American ships. Theirclaims were discounted by senior mili-tary commanders, who refused to ac-knowledge that any such attacks hadoccurred, despite extensive evidence tothe contrary—such attacks would haverequired a military response that theUnited States and the U.S. military wereneither willing nor able to undertake.As political tensions have continued torise in recent years between the UnitedStates and Iran, Tanker War is a must-read for those who have a desire or aduty to understand how recent historymay shape perceptions of these protag-onists in the future.RON RATCLIFFNaval War CollegeGraham, Bradley. By His Own Rules: The Ambi-tions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of DonaldRumsfeld. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. 803pp.$35In a speech given to Pentagon employeeson 10 September 2001, Secretary of De-fense Donald Rumsfeld stated that the“adversary that poses a threat, a seriousthreat, to the security of the UnitedStates” is not “decrepit dictators” butrather “the Pentagon bureaucracy.” Theblunt message of this speech was verysoon to be bound together in a tension-filled relationship with the ensuing warsinitiated by the terrorist attacks of thenext day. This tension gives dramaticshape to the career of Donald Rumsfeldas portrayed by Bradley Graham in hiswell researched book By His Own Rules.A veteran Washington Post correspon-dent, Graham intends that the title be re-garded literally, as his detailed storyfocuses on Rumsfeld as a master bureau-cratic infighter who did indeed work byhis own rules. (The rules encapsulatedRumsfeld’s views on serving and surviv-ing in government and were eventuallyprinted in the Wall Street Journal.)Rumsfeld applied the rules in his in-tense commitment to the type of U.S.military President George W. Bush hadcalled for during his campaign, an “ag-ile, lethal, readily deployable” armedforce. To build this force required a sig-nificant transformation of the outsizedand ponderous military developed dur-ing and immediately after the ColdWar. Graham portrays Rumsfeld as areformer who “had never met an orga-nization he didn’t want to change” andwho had come well prepared to trans-form the Defense Department, but fortwo untimely wars.Rumsfeld’s personal goal of transform-ing the military seemed to overshadowhis responsibilities for prosecuting thewars. Graham describes at length howRumsfeld’s missteps in managing thewars in Iraq and Afghanistan causedhim to become the “personification ofthe arrogance and misjudgments of theBush Administration,” from damaginginteragency power struggles to intoler-ance of differing viewpoints, to a lack ofability to acknowledge mistakes orchange strategies.NWCR_Spring2010.psC:\Documents and Settings\john.lanzieri.ctr\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\5399_NWC_Review_Spring2010\NWCR_Spring2010.vpMonday, March 01, 2010 4:18:47 PMColor profile: Generic CMYK printer profileComposite  Default screen2Naval War College Review, Vol. 63 [2010], No. 2, Art. 17https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol63/iss2/17

Tanker War: America’s First Conflict with Iran, 1987–1988

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Tanker War: America’s First Conflict with Iran, 1987–1988

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