Its been a while but it looks like "gunboat diplomacy" is making a comeback.  The Pentagon is making plans to increase the U.S. Navy presence in the Persian Gulf as a means of putting pressure on Iran.  The last major U.S. naval buildup of this kind in the Persian Gulf occurred in the late 80's when the Iran-Iraq war spun into attacks on oil tankers and commercial shipping. 

Despite all the news about mines and speed boat attacks on oil tankers and the great lengths at which the U.S. went to both lessen the damage and make such attacks costly to the Iranians, one of the most underreported incidents of our last naval build- up in the Gulf was Operation Praying Mantis, when in response to an Iranian mine damaging the missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, the U.S. Navy destroyed two Iranian oil platforms and the Iranian Navy in the largest surface to surface naval battle since the Second World War.  Wonder if we're going for a twofer?