Clenched With A Fleet Of Staggeringly Dangerous IRGC Speedboats

U.S. Shouldn't Ignore Iran's Speedboat Threat: Jeffrey Goldberg:

Yes, the Revolutionary Guards have their own navy -- a bigger one, in fact, than Iran's traditional navy. (The traditional navy has 18,000 sailors; the IRGC's navy reportedly has 20,000 personnel, as well as a large fleet suitable for waging the sort of asymmetric warfare it favors.) And the guards -- protectors of Ayatollah Khomeini's dystopian vision for a radicalized Muslim world, enthusiastic exporters of terrorism, and rulers of a state within a state -- are becoming ever more aggressive in the Gulf. This year has seen a spike in such encounters. Western ships in the Gulf are now regularly shadowed by the smaller crafts of the Iranians. When U.S. strategists make lists of the many challenges posed by Iran, the capabilities of the IRGCN, as it is known, quickly rise to the top. The Gulf, of course, is indispensable to the smooth flow of energy resources (in 2009, more than 15 percent of oil traded worldwide moved through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint between the Gulf and the Arabian Sea), and the Iranians are well aware of their ability to strangle the global economy. Only Iran's nuclear program -- the one its leaders claim is entirely peaceful in nature even as they develop the technology to make triggers for nuclear weapons -- is a greater preoccupation.

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