Protests in Tehran; brinkmanship in Strait of Hormuz

Protesters took to the streets of Tehran Feb. 14, one year after opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi were put under house arrest for supporting Iran’s last protest wave. Since their detention, their whereabouts have not been known. The opposition website Kaleme, which supports the opposition Green Movement, reported convergences of protesters at several points around the capital, holding generally silent marches, despite a heavy presence of riot police. (BBC News, DPA, Feb. 14)

That same day, the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, part of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, sailed through the Strait of Hormuz—and had what the Pentagon called a “close encounter” with an Iranian patrol boat. The commander of the Abraham Lincoln, Capt. John Alexander, said such encounters “could eventually lead to a fatal miscalculation.” (MSNBC, Feb. 14)

See our last posts on Iran and the regional revolutions.