Por Brad Lendon, CNN

Mientras el presidente Donald Trump considera la posibilidad de ordenarles a los buques de la Marina de EE.UU. que escolten a los petroleros a través del estrecho de Ormuz, los analistas navales e historiadores tienen una clara sensación de “esto ya lo hemos hecho”.

Hace casi 40 años, los buques de guerra de la Marina estadounidense se enfrentaban al mismo enemigo al que se enfrentan ahora: la Marina y las fuerzas navales del Cuerpo de la Guardia Revolucionaria Islámica (CGRI).

La llamada guerra de los Petroleros de finales de la década de 1980 presentó algunas de las mismas armas y problemas a los que se enfrentaría hoy una fuerza de escolta estadounidense, y ofrece lecciones sobre cómo, en la guerra, las cosas pueden salir mal rápidamente de maneras inesperadas, con consecuencias mortales.

Aquí les mostramos cómo se desarrollaron los acontecimientos.

Las semillas de la guerra de los Petroleros se sembraron en 1980, cuando el líder secular de Iraq, Saddam Hussein, receloso del Gobierno revolucionario teocrático de Irán liderado por el ayatola Ruhollah Jomeini, lanzó una invasión a su vecino oriental.

Tras los avances y retrocesos de ambos bandos a principios de los años ochenta, la situación había llegado a un punto muerto en la guerra de desgaste en 1984. Fue entonces cuando Hussein decidió cambiar de táctica y atacar los petroleros iraníes, con el objetivo de dañar la economía de Teherán y, con suerte, lograr que las potencias mundiales intervinieran para proteger el acceso al petróleo.

Iraq utilizó aviones armados con misiles para atacar la infraestructura petrolera iraní en la isla de Kharg (el mismo lugar donde Estados Unidos bombardeó instalaciones militares en los últimos días). Irán respondió atacando buques mercantes neutrales que transportaban suministros y armas a Iraq, muchos de ellos a través de Kuwait, en el extremo norte del golfo Pérsico.

“Iraq comenzó entonces a atacar a los buques cisterna que iban y venían de la isla de Kharg, y así comenzó la ‘guerra de los Petroleros’”, escribió el historiador Samuel Cox en un libro de historia de 2019 para el Comando de Historia y Patrimonio Naval de Estados Unidos (NHHC, por sus siglas en inglés).

Los ataques a buques por parte de ambos bandos aumentaron considerablemente en los dos años siguientes, y en noviembre de 1986, Kuwait, cansado de ver cómo atacaban sus barcos, solicitó ayuda extranjera para protegerlos.

La Unión Soviética fue la primera en prestar ayuda, escoltando buques cisterna a través del Golfo.

Washington, para no perder influencia frente a Moscú, ideó un plan para cambiar la bandera de los barcos kuwaitíes a estadounidense, lo que les permitiría obtener protección de la Marina de Estados Unidos bajo la ley federal.

Para el verano de 1987, numerosos buques de la Marina y la Guardia Costera de Estados Unidos se habían adentrado en el Golfo para escoltar a los antiguos petroleros kuwaitíes.

Pero incluso antes de que comenzaran las misiones de escolta, los marineros estadounidenses se encontraron en peligro.

En la noche del 17 de mayo de 1987, la fragata de misiles guiados USS Stark se encontraba patrullando en el centro del golfo Pérsico, justo afuera de una zona de exclusión de guerra, cuando un avión de guerra iraquí supuestamente confundió el buque de guerra estadounidense con un objetivo iraní y disparó dos misiles antibuque Exocet contra él.

“Los dos misiles mataron en el acto a 29 miembros de la tripulación del Stark, ocho fallecieron a causa de sus heridas y quemaduras, mientras que otros 21 resultaron heridos”, escribió Cox, del NHHC.

“El esfuerzo del Stark por controlar los daños fue sencillamente heroico”, escribió. A pesar de las bajas y de que la tripulación

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CNN

By Riane Lumer, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Sunday border czar Tom Homan will be in charge of deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports on Monday, with Homan telling CNN the agents will help with security at entrances and exits to ease the Transportation Security Administration’s workload.

“This is about going to helping TSA do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick as they can while adhering to all the security guidelines and the protocols,” Homan said on CNN’s “State of the Union with Dana Bash.”

Long security lines have been seen at airports around the country, as TSA officers have quit their jobs or called out sick as they continue to work without pay amid a partial government shutdown. Homan said his “opinion is that we concentrate on the airports where the longest waits are, we prioritize those large airports with those long waits like three hours.”

“We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine — Not training that, we won’t do that,” Homan said. “But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant roles, such as guarding an exit so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker, and we’re just simply helping our fellow officers at TSA.”

The border czar said ICE will continue conducting immigration enforcement operations while aiding TSA. He added that planning discussions are taking place Sunday in coordination with the heads of ICE and the TSA, and that the public can expect more details of “a well thought out plan to execute” later Sunday.

Trump first announced the move to deploy ICE agents on social media Saturday, as lawmakers worked toward reaching an agreement to fund DHS amid mounting travel disruptions. Democrats have refused to fund the department as they demand changes that would rein in Trump’s immigration policies after two people were killed during an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Bipartisan appropriators held a brief meeting with Homan on Friday evening that sources from both parties called “productive.” Another meeting with Homan that Senate Majority Leader John Thune had previewed for Saturday was cancelled, a GOP leadership source said, but it was unclear why.

Talks are expected to continue Sunday as Republicans await a counteroffer from Democrats after receiving a proposal to break the impasse from the White House on Friday. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing to reach a deal by the end of the week, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Two of the big sticking points remain whether to require judicial warrants on an immigration enforcement action and require ICE

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By Tim Lister, Daria Tarasova-Markina, CNN

(CNN) — Russian forces have begun a spring offensive in eastern Ukraine, including the use of dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, according to the Ukrainian military and analysts.

The assault is gathering pace as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has a “very bad feeling” about the consequences of the Middle East conflict for his country.

“You see that our diplomatic meetings, trilateral meetings, are constantly postponed. There is one reason: war in Iran,” he told the BBC in an interview Sunday.

“Putin will want a long war. For Putin, a long war in Iran is a plus,” he said – as rising oil prices and the suspension of US sanctions on some Russian crude benefit the Russian economy.

Against that background, Russia is stepping up assaults in eastern Ukraine.

“With changing weather conditions, the Russian aggressor has stepped up pressure across several sections of the front,” Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Friday.

“For several days running, the number of combat engagements has exceeded 200,” he added – claiming that the Russians were losing more than 1,000 soldiers a day.

“Active troop movements, reinforced artillery, tactical aviation and the widespread use of UAVs (drones) are being observed across all sectors, indicating that the Russian army is preparing for a further offensive,” Dmytro Zaporozhets of Ukraine’s 11th Corps told Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne on Saturday.

One focus of Russian attacks has been the town of Lyman in Donetsk, at the edge of what’s known as Ukraine’s fortress belt in the region, and a key strongpoint guarding the larger city of Sloviansk.

Ukraine’s Third Corps said Saturday that the Russians had used nearly 30 armored vehicles along with more than 500 infantry in the area. But the Russian “attacks were thwarted on all fronts,” said the Corps’ commander, Brig. Gen. Andriy Biletsky.

The size of the assault represents a change of tactics for the Russians, after using small infantry units for much of last year in an effort to infiltrate Ukrainian positions.

“This battalion-sized assault is considerably larger than most Russian mechanized assaults in recent months,” noted the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

There are signs that Russian forces plan intensified ground operations against other parts of the Fortress Belt to the south, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Kostantynivka, key defensive hubs for Ukraine, according to ISW.

The Russians have brought in armored vehicles and motorized units and doubled their use of artillery and tactical aviation in the Kramatorsk direction, according to Ukraine’s 11th Corps.

Ukrainian forces are heavily outnumbered along much of the front, and highly reliant on drones to break up Russian assaults. But ISW estimates that while Russia may make some tactical gains this year in Donetsk, it’s unlikely to seize the fortress belt. It describes Russian units in the area as exhausted, poorly trained, and overstretched.

Russian forces have reduced basic training for personnel involved in ground assaults from one month to one week, probably because of heavy casualties, according to Maksym Bilousov, spokesman for a Ukrainian unit in the east.

Ukrainian forces also control high ground to the east of Sloviansk. “For the enemy, stopping is tantamount to death, as we will destroy them in the lowlands,” said Zaporozhets of the 11th Corps.

With the war now into its fifth year, the battlefield is increasingly dominated by surveillance and attack drones, making resupply of frontline positions almost impossible in some areas