1/8/2008: Commentary: Iranian Navy Harassment Not the First Time:

Retired Rear Adm. Guy Zeller of Coronado knows something about going
muzzle to muzzle with the Iranian navy.

Zeller led a battle group aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise in
the Persian Gulf during the late 1980s, when Iranian warships
routinely harassed U.S. Navy and merchant vessels and planted mines in
the strategic waterway.

Zeller commanded a battle group for Operation Praying Mantis after one
of those mines crippled the Navy frigate Samuel B. Roberts and wounded
10 sailors in 1988. The retaliatory mission, which sank two of Iran's
naval ships and three armed speedboats and destroyed two of its oil
platforms, remains the largest U.S. naval engagement since World War
II.

Through two more wars in the Middle East, including the current Iraq
war, the U.S. Navy has never lost its supremacy in the Persian Gulf.
Which is why it stunned Zeller to learn that five Iranian gunboats
reportedly charged three U.S Navy ships in the gulf Sunday.