Could Iran's Drones Start Sinking Oil Tankers and Start a War?

Though Iran’s Great Prophet-9 military exercise ended last month, you can count on Tehran’s military to wring every last drop of bellicosity from the event—such as showing off an apparently armed drone taking a bead on a ship crossing the Strait of Hormuz.(This article by War is Boring originally appeared at War is Boring in 2015.)Iran conducted the exercise during the last week of February, and centered it around the theatrical, Michael Bay-esque destruction of a stationary wooden aircraft carrier prop floating off Iran’s Larak Island.The fake Nimitz-like mockup, which Tehran reportedly used as a set for an upcoming film, served as an effigy of the U.S. Navy’s most iconic warship. American carriers are a constant irritant to Iran as they loom off its coast.But the exercise contained another threat to a different U.S. strategic interest—shipping.