U.S.-led Gulf War Game Aims a Message at Tehran

With sanctions unlikely to deter Iran's nuclear program, Washington draws Arab allies into a dress rehearsal for intercepting suspect ships.

Frigates, patrol boats and intelligence and law enforcement officers from 23 nations are massing in Bahrain over the weekend, poised to stalk and intercept a British-flagged ship as it steams across the Persian Gulf with a cargo purported to be parts for a nuclear weapons program. If all goes as planned the vessel will be intercepted Monday before it reaches a destination that a senior U.S. official would identify only as a "country of proliferation concern." But he added, "I understand the exercise has gotten the attention of the Iranian government."