The seizure of a British tanker is inextricably linked to US pressure on Tehran. Negotiation, not sanctions, is the answer It was like something out of a movie. To shouts of Allahu Akbar! , masked soldiers drop down ropes from a military helicopter on to a British oil tanker while Iranian navy speedboats surround the vessel. By radio, a voice warns the ship’s captain in English: “If you obey you will be safe”. There is no doubt that the Friday seizure by Iranian Revolutionary Guards of a British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, was in part a piece of theatre intended to appease domestic clamour for Tehran to assert itself. It came in response to the UK military’s 4 July detention of an Iranian tanker , the Grace 1, in Gibraltar, allegedly for shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions. But the tit-for-tat response should also be evaluated as part of the Iranian attempt to push back against Donald Trump’s unilateral abandonment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran,