Strait of Hormuz 0
18 June 2020

CENTCOM Commander Kenneth McKenzie maintained that the International Maritime Security Construct “is not part of our maximum pressure campaign against Iran”, and, making the point that the IMSC was not escalatory, argued: “since the IMSC's founding, there have not been any Iranian attacks on maritime shipping in the area and there haven’t even been any serious confrontations with Iranian maritime forces in the area of the Strait of Hormuz… Our presence makes deniable attacks less likely to succeed. So they've chosen not to try”. “The exposure of Iranian activities is a powerful tool and it's a non-kinetic and a de-escalatory tool that we routinely employ”, he added. “A clear result of the IMSC has been a result of the drawdown in tensions”.

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