The sinking of an Iranian frigate by a US submarine risks an expansion of the conflict beyond its main theatre in Iran – potentially even as far as South-East Asia, experts say.
The concerns stem from the torpedoing of IRIS Dena by an unidentified US submarine in the Indian Ocean, off Sri Lanka’s southern coast, on Wednesday.
One of Iran’s most modern warships, the Dena was armed with anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and a helicopter. Commissioned in 2021, it had indigenously built engines and armaments.
US President Donald Trump has declared that destroying the Iranian navy is one of the objectives of the joint US-Israeli strikes against Iran, which entered its sixth day yesterday.
The risk to South-East Asia depends on “how far the Trump administration wants to take things in terms of hunting down the last remaining Iranian sampan”, said Prof Joseph Liow, chairman of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore.
“There is probably reason to be concerned about the extent to which the US and Israel are prepared to execute their war plans,” he said.
“There is the element of unpredictability not only to war but really to this administration, which complicates any and all scenarios.”
With conflicts, there is always the “escalatory ladder” that risks expansion of the conflict in terms of intensity, geography and cost, among other things, Liow added.
And there is a lack of clarity about the US strategic objectives, which is troubling, he said.
“We’ve heard, at different times, that the war is about regime change, but also about the destruction of missile capabilities, taking out once and for all enrichment capacity, crippling the Iranian navy, and about decapitating the leadership. The list goes on.
“Without clarity on strategic objectives, battlefield objectives will also suffer from lack of clarity,” said Liow. “This raises the risk of expansion of the conflict.”
Gregory Poling, who directs the South-East Asia Programme and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the incident plays on anxieties about the Trump White House.
“I don’t know if South-East Asian governments will view this as bringing the war closer, but it will reinforce their anxiety about the Trump administration,” he said.
“The war is at best legally dubious and the frigate sinking is yet another example,” he added.
The rules governing warfare are clear-cut. The United Nations Charter bans the use of force except in self‑defence or under UN Security Council authorisation.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, naval engagements are permitted in international waters if they are tied to an active armed conflict.
The sinking shows the broad scope of how the US military views Iranian targets, said Assoc Prof Javed Ali, a national security expert at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
“This Iranian ship must have been tracked for some period of time.
“I’m not sure how the approval process came through, or (how) the decision was made to sink it there versus allowing it to go back to Iran.
“But the thought probably was to sink it before it goes back to Iran and assists with the defence of the country,” he added. — The Straits Times/ANN
