"If there's one thing that worries me, it's not on the football pitch," Solskjaer said. "It's other things that worry me more.

"We were looking at the Middle East but that's definitely not going to happen."

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Last week, Iran launched missile attacks on two military bases in Iraq that house US troops. The missiles were a retaliation following an American drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's powerful Quds Force.

In another incident, a Ukrainian passenger jet was shot down as it left Tehran by Iranian military, killing all 176 people aboard. Iran has said the jetliner was brought down "unintentionally" and blamed human error.

Man United, one of the world's most famous soccer teams, has been a frequent visitor to the Nad Al Sheba Sports Complex in Dubai in recent years, and the squad was looking to use the upcoming and newly introduced winter break in the English Premier League schedule for another warm-weather camp.

Solskjaer indicated he would instead give his players some time off to spend alone during the break, which will follow United's home match against Wolverhampton in the league on Feb. 1.

"I don't know where they'll all scatter around but we'll stay in Europe," Solskjaer said.

Solskjaer sees the mid-season break as vital for his players after an intense run of games.

With United still competing on four fronts, the FA Cup third-round replay against Wolves at Old Trafford on Wednesday will be the team's 15th game in 49 days, and the number will reach 19 in 66 days by the time they meet again at the start of February.

"I think the mid-season break is very, very important for everyone," he said. "We've got five or six games now until then, we've just got to stick at it, hang in there until then, get the performances and the results that we hope we're going to get, and then use that to get some vitamin D."

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But while Iran's ballistic and cruise missile programs were making headlines following Wednesday's brazen attack, Iran's most destructive response would be naval action in the Persian Gulf, both in terms of the American presence there and the world economy.

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The US comprehends the nature of the threat perfectly, and issued a rare warning to its ships in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf about possible Iranian raids that could come as retaliation for Soleimani's death.

The warning is not theoretical: this past year, Iran has raided a few vessels, most notably the British Stena Impero, which was a response to a similar British action against an Iranian tanker that was bringing oil to Syria.

The West is also claiming that Iran was behind attacks at Fujairah Port, one of the most important oil shipping ports in the United Arab Emirates, as well as attacks on oil tankers in open waters. Tehran never claimed the attacks, but the US disseminated footage of the IRGC's navy returning to the scene of the incident, and it resonated. Iran's belligerent maritime actions peaked when it shot down a high-tech US drone over international waters last June.

'One strike is enough'

Iran's growing prowess at sea is more confusing than anything. Along with building advanced weaponry such as missile ships and submarines, the Iranians also maintain a huge fleet of small boats that it operates secretly.

"What is important to understand in terms of Iran's naval power is that it is in effect two separate forces," explains Ido Gilad, a research fellow at the Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center and the Chaikin Chair for Geostrategy at the University of Haifa.

"Alongside Iran's official navy, which has an impressive number [of vessels], even if some are outdated; there is the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' naval force. That is a secret force that maintains a large, unknown number of small vessels and submarines designed to carry out actions that are 'extra-governmental,' or actually terrorism," Gilad says.

That is one of the ideas for which Soleimani was noted – sophisticated, high-level operations in a number of arenas, thus allowing for many different types of actions and responses. Indeed, the IRGC's naval forces are believed to be behind most of Iran's maritime terrorist actions this past year. It also frequently serves to send Iranian threats to the US. In 2015, the IRGC conducted a military drill that simulated the attack and seizure of an American aircraft carrier, an unequivocal threat to one of the US' most valuable military assets.

Then-commander of the IRGC's naval forces, Admiral Ali Fadavi, bragged at the time that "American aircraft carriers are easy to sink … They are full of missiles, ammunition, jet fuel, and torpedoes. One strike is enough to set off a wave of secondary explosions," he said. Since then, Iran has repeated its threat against US aircraft carriers multiple times.

According to Professor Shaul Chorev, director of the Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center, "It's very difficult to attack American aircraft carriers. There is definitely an element of braggadocio here. Aside from the planes and firepower it carries, that particular vessel is defended by an impressive group of [other] ships, submarines, and small boats.

"This doesn't eradicate the threat from the IRGC's naval forces. The US maintains an enormous navy - the Iranian navy doesn't come close to it, but the idea behind the IRGC's perception is to exact a price, to hurt, to deter conflict and escalation. Their tactics, such as using small missile-armed boats to confuse and attack larger ships; heavy use of surface-to-surface missiles and raiding vessels like they did the American patrol boat - these are operations that leave an impression and cost the enemy," Chorev explains.

No one wants to wake the sleeping giant

A maritime conflict in the Persian Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz, on any scale, is not merely a military question but also one of prestige for Iran and the US. Over 20 million barrels of oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day en route to the world's markets. Not only the national economies of local nations, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE depend on oil revenues - so does the world energy market. This makes any conflict in the Gulf, even a relatively small one, an international incident.

Nevertheless, Chorev thinks that there is a real chance Iran could opt to carry out a response in that region precisely because it is so exposed.

"The possibility of closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking some of the traffic there is definitely in Tehran's bank of responses. They might limit the extent of the closure or make some excuse for it or through a proxy force, without officially declaring it, like they have done in the past when raiding ships. It's not certain the US has a way of handling that scenario," Chorev observes.

Gilad, on the other hand, thinks that a complex operation to close the Strait of Hormuz, even temporarily, would mean Iran shooting itself in the foot. He says that Iran is dependent on its already-shrinking revenue from oil that passes through the strait, and that even a low-level conflict in the Gulf is the last thing Tehran needs.

Gilad sees Iran's actions in a different light.

"The maritime drill Iran conducted with China and Russia a couple of weeks ago, which caused an international storm, was aimed at not only showing that it was not diplomatically isolated but also that in cooperation with nations that have a clear interest in the region such as India, Russia, and China, it can ensure freedom of movement in the Gulf. They don't want to wake the 'American giant' at this stage," Gilad says.

Whether Tehran wants to calm the waters of the Gulf, or is preparing to relaunch its terrorist actions there, the maritime powder keg should worry leaders of the world at large, and leaders of the Persian Gulf region in particular.

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The agreement bans enrichment and nuclear material from Fordow. But with feedstock gas entering its centrifuges, the facility, built inside a mountain, will move from the permitted status of research plant to being an active nuclear site.

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"After all successful preparations ... injection of uranium gas to centrifuges started on Thursday at Fordow ... all the process has been supervised by the inspectors of the UN nuclear watchdog," the AEOI said in a statement reported by Iranian media.

Iran has gradually scaled back its commitments to the deal, under which it curbed its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions, after the United States reneged on the agreement last year due to Iranian belligerence across the region and ballistic missile tests.

"The process will take a few hours to stabilize and by Saturday, when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will again visit the site, a uranium enrichment level of 4.5% will have been achieved," AEOI's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV.

The United States, which withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, reiterated a statement from Tuesday, calling Iran's move a "big step in the wrong direction."

US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Tehran had no credible reason to expand its uranium enrichment program and Washington would continue its policy of economic pressure on Iran until it changed its behavior.

Under the pact, Iran agreed to turn Fordow into a "nuclear, physics and technology center" where 1,044 centrifuges are used for purposes other than enrichment, such as producing stable isotopes, which have a variety of civil uses.

"All the centrifuges installed at Fordow are IR1 types. Uranium gas (UF6) was injected to four chains of IR1 centrifuges (696 centrifuges)," Kamalvandi said. "Two other remaining chains of IR1 centrifuges (348 centrifuges) will be used for producing and enriching stable isotopes in the facility."

In pulling out of the deal, US President Donald Trump said it was flawed to Iran's advantage. Washington has since renewed and intensified sanctions on Iran, slashing the country's economically vital crude oil sales by more than 80 percent.

The Iranian move will further complicate the chances of saving the accord that European powers, Russia and the European Union have urged Iran to respect.

Speaking at a news conference at the end of a visit to China, French President Emmanuel Macron called Iran's latest move "grave," adding that he would speak with both Trump and the Iranians in coming days.

Responding to Washington's "maximum pressure" policy, Iran has bypassed restrictions of the deal step-by-step – including by breaching both its cap on stockpiled enriched uranium and on the fissile level of enrichment.

Iran said on Monday it was developing advanced centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster.

The biggest obstacle to building a nuclear weapon is obtaining enough fissile material – highly enriched uranium or plutonium – for the core of a bomb. A central aim of the deal was to extend the time Iran would need to do that, if it chose to, to a year from about 2 to 3 months.

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Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of Monday's 40th anniversary of the attack, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh acknowledged that the repercussions of the crisis still reverberate as tensions remain high between the US and Iran over Tehran's collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.

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Asgharzadeh cautioned others against following in his footsteps, despite the takeover becoming enshrined in hard-line mythology. He also disputed a revisionist history now being offered by supporters of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that they directed the attack, insisting all the blame rested with the Islamist students who let the crisis spin out of control.

"Like Jesus Christ, I bear all the sins on my shoulders," Asgharzadeh said.

At the time, what led to the 1979 takeover remained obscure to Americans who for months could only watch in horror as TV newscasts showed Iranian protests at the embassy. Popular anger against the US was rooted in the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that toppled Iran's elected prime minister and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The shah, dying from cancer, fled Iran in February 1979, paving the way for its Islamic Revolution. But for months, Iran faced widespread unrest ranging from separatist attacks, worker revolts and internal power struggles. Police reported for work but not for duty, allowing chaos like Marxist students briefly seizing the US Embassy.

In this power vacuum, then-US President Jimmy Carter allowed the shah to seek medical treatment in New York. That lit the fuse for the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover, though at first the Islamist students argued over which embassy to seize. A student leader named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later became president in 2005, argued they should seize the Soviet Embassy compound in Tehran as leftists had caused political chaos.

But the students settled on the US Embassy, hoping to pressure Carter to send the shah back to Iran to stand trial on corruption charges. Asgharzadeh, then a 23-year-old engineering student, remembers friends going to Tehran's Grand Bazaar to buy a bolt cutter, a popular tool used by criminals, and the salesman saying: "You do not look like thieves! You certainly want to open up the US Embassy door with it!"

"The society was ready for it to happen. Everything happened so fast," Asgharzadeh said. "We cut off the chains on the embassy's gate. Some of us climbed up the walls and we occupied the embassy compound very fast."

Like other former students, Asgharzadeh said the plan had been simply to stage a sit-in. But the situation soon spun out of their control. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the long-exiled Shiite cleric whose return to Iran sparked the revolution, gave his support to the takeover. He would use that popular angle to expand the Islamists' power.

"We, the students, take responsibility for the first 48 hours of the takeover," Asgharzadeh said. "Later, it was out of our hands since the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the establishment supported it."

He added: "Our plan was one of students, unprofessional and temporary."

As time went on, it slowly dawned on the naive students that Americans wouldn't join their revolution. While a rescue attempt by the US military would fail and Carter would lose to Ronald Reagan amid the crisis, the US as a whole expressed worry about the hostages by displaying yellow ribbons and counting the days of their captivity.

As the months passed, things only got worse. Asgharzadeh said he thought it would end once the shah left America or later with his death in Egypt in July 1980. It didn't.

"A few months after the takeover, it appeared to be turning into a rotten fruit hanging down from a tree and no one had the courage to take it down and resolve the matter," he said. "There was a lot of public opinion support behind the move in the society. The society felt it had slapped America, a superpower, on the mouth and people believed that the takeover proved to America that their democratic revolution had been stabilized."

It hadn't, though. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War would break out during the crisis. The hostage crisis and later the war boosted the position of hard-liners who sought strict implementation of their version of Islamic beliefs.

Seizing or attacking diplomatic posts remains a tactic of Iranian hard-liners to this day. A mob stormed the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011, while another attacked diplomatic posts of Saudi Arabia in 2016, which led to diplomatic ties being cut between Tehran and Riyadh. And Iran will commemorate the 40th anniversary of US Embassy takeover on Monday by staging a rally in front of the Tehran compound where it was located.

However, Asgharzadeh denied that Iran's then-nascent Revolutionary Guard directed the US Embassy takeover, although he said it was informed before the attack over fears that security forces would storm the compound and retake it. Many at the time believed the shah would launch a coup, like in 1953, to regain power.

"In a very limited way, we informed one of the Guard's units and they accepted to protect the embassy from outside," Asgharzadeh said. "The claim [by hard-liners] on the Guard's role lacks credit. I am the main narrator of the incident and I am still alive."

In the years since, Asgharzadeh has become a reformist politician and served prison time for his views. He has argued that Iran should work toward improving ties with the US, a difficult task amid US President Donald Trump's maximalist campaign against Tehran.

"It is too difficult to say when the relations between Tehran and Washington can be restored," Asgharzadeh said. "I do not see any prospect."

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But the limits of Iran's ability to go it alone were on display at the United Nations this week as it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic outreach amid increasingly crippling isolation by US sanctions that are eating into its economy and its ability to sell its oil.

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For months, the European nations that signed Iran's nuclear accord have been trying – unsuccessfully – to find ways around US sanctions that were imposed after President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement last year. Trump argues the deal, completed under the Obama administration, fell far short of the curbs needed to block Tehran's regional ambitions.

Addressing world leaders Wednesday, Rouhani's message pointed a clear way toward easing tensions and resuming negotiations: "Stop the sanctions."

But before getting to that, he opened his speech by paying homage "to all the freedom-seekers of the world who do not bow to oppression and aggression." He also slammed "US-and Zionist-imposed plans" against the Palestinians. Such language characterizes Iran's self-styled championing of Islamic causes worldwide.

Away from the podium this week, Iran has been engaging in nothing short of a public relations blitz with America's biggest news outlets. Rouhani met with leaders of media organizations including The Associated Press and granted an interview to Fox News as well.

The Tehran government's fraught history with the US has essentially locked it out of the global financial system, making it difficult to find partners, allies and countries willing or even able to do business with it.

Rouhani accused the US of engaging in "merciless economic terrorism" against his country, saying America had resorted to "international piracy by misusing the international banking system" to pressure Iran.

As Iran's nuclear deal with world powers unravels under the weight of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign, previously unimaginable alliances are emerging between Gulf Arab states and Israel, united by what they see as a common threat.

Across the Middle East, Iran's reach is consequential in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, where proxy wars have taken on a sectarian tone that pits Iran-supported Shiites against Saudi-backed Sunnis.

On the battlefields, Tehran's rivals see it as a menacing and destabilizing force that has exploited failed uprisings, military interventions, and chaos to expand its foothold in Arab states.

Iran counters that it was the US that invaded Iraq and Saudi Arabia that invaded Yemen. In his UN speech, Rouhani pointed to Iran's role in fighting Sunni Muslim extremist groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaida. He described Iran as a "pioneer of freedom-seeking movements in the region."

Iran's elite paramilitary force has led that charge, cementing Tehran's footprint far beyond the country's borders.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps, created after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution in parallel to the country's armed forces, is effectively a corps of soldiers charged with preserving and advancing the principles of the uprising that created modern Iran.

It answers only to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its power is not just theoretical but very real: The force directly oversees the country's ballistic missile program.

It is the Revolutionary Guard Corps that has become a major sticking point in Iran's relations, or lack thereof, with the United States under Donald Trump.

The Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel say Iran used money from sanctions relief under the nuclear accord to increase the Revolutionary Guard's budget.

Those nations say any new negotiations must include discussion about the Guard's activities in the region and its missile program, and support for that notion seems to be gaining traction.

This week, Britain, France, and Germany joined the US and other allies in blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil sites earlier this month. The implication: That because missiles were involved in those attacks, so was the Guard.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York this week, a top Saudi diplomat described Iran as being "obsessed with trying to restore the Persian Empire and trying to take over the region."

"Their constitution calls for the export of the revolution," Adel al-Jubeir said. "They believe that every Shiite belongs to them. They don't respect the sovereignty of nations."

"Iran," he said, "has to decide: Are you a revolution or are you a nation-state?"

As Rouhani departs a city that is effectively enemy territory and goes back home this week, he and Tehran's clerical leadership must decide which of those paths to take: Will they merely confront, as the 1979 revolution did? Or, as nation-states do, will they sit down and talk as well?

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The world's top oil exporter has said preliminary indications show Iran was to blame for the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi oil facilities, rejecting a claim of responsibility by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group. Tehran denies involvement.

SPA quoted King Salman as saying at the cabinet meeting that the attack represented a "dangerous escalation."

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Iran said on Tuesday that a statement by Britain, France and Germany accusing it of responsibility for the attacks on Saudi oil facilities showed that they lacked the will to confront US "bullying," the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

"The statement showed that the European parties have no strength or willpower to counter US bullying," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi was quoted as saying.

On Monday, Britain, France and Germany joined the United States in blaming Iran for the attacks, but the Iranian foreign minister pointed to claims of responsibility by Yemeni rebels and said: "If Iran were behind this attack, nothing would have been left of this refinery."

Fallout from the Sept. 14 attacks is still reverberating as world leaders gather for their annual meeting at the UN General Assembly and international experts investigate, at Saudi Arabia's request, what happened and who was responsible.

The leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany released a statement reaffirming their support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which the US exited, but telling Iran to stop breaching it and saying "there is no other plausible explanation" than that "Iran bears responsibility for this attack."

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The July 19 seizure of the ship, two weeks after Britain detained an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar, cranking up tensions in the region in the wake of attacks on other merchant vessels that Washington blamed on Tehran.

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Iran denied responsibility for those attacks, which took place along a vital international oil shipping route.

"The legal work and administrative procedures for the release of the English tanker have been completed but I have no information on the time of the release," said government spokesman Ali Rabiei, according to semi-official news agency ILNA.

The semi-official Fars news agency quoted Rabiei as saying: "The legal work for the oil tanker is over ... and the oil tanker can move, and the decisions indicate the end of the detention." He did not elaborate.

Relations between the United States, its allies and Iran have been gradually more strained since Washington withdrew last year from a global pact aimed at reining in Tehran's nuclear program and imposed sanctions on it aimed at shutting down Iranian oil exports.

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In a CNBC interview, Mnuchin said that even with the Tuesday ouster of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the administration is "executing on a maximum pressure strategy against Iran."

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"There's no question it's working," he added.

Mnuchin also said, "We have cut off their money, and that's the reason why, if they do come back to the negotiation table, they're coming back."

Regarding possible negotiations between Washington and Tehran, "If the president can get the right deal that he's talked about, we'll negotiate with Iran," said Mnuchin.

"If not, we'll continue the maximum pressure campaign."

"There's no question it's working," says Steven Mnuchin

In Israel, Nathan Sales told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that while the administration isn't seeking regime change in Iran, it will maintain its "maximum pressure campaign to get Iran back to the table" for a "better deal" than the 2015 nuclear deal, which the United States withdrew in May 2018 reimposing sanctions lifted under it along with enacting new financial penalties against the regime.

Sales declined to answer if Trump will meet with Rouhani at the United Nations later this month and if the United States would agree to a French $15 million assistance package for Iran in exchange for complying with the nuclear deal.

Mnuchin acknowledged there were "direct conversations" with the French about the matter. "They absolutely understand they would need waivers from the US, and that's not something we're contemplating at the moment," he said.

Despite Bolton leaving, Sales said that "US Iran policy is the president's Iran policy. The president has been very clear that it is the worst state sponsors of terrorism … and imposed historically severe sanctions on Iran."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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"The tanker has gone to its destination, the oil has been sold," spokesman Abbas Mousavi told the television station without disclosing whether the crude oil had been delivered.

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On Saturday, the Adrian Darya 1, which went dark off Syria earlier in the week, was photographed by satellite off the Syrian port of Tartus.

Maxar Technologies Inc., a US space technology company, supplied the images, which showed the tanker Adrian Darya 1 very close to Tartus on Friday, Sept. 6.

Ship-tracking data showed that the vessel appeared to have turned off its transponder in the Mediterranean west of Syria last Tuesday.

The vessel, formerly named Grace 1, was detained by British Royal Marine commandos off Gibraltar on July 4 as it was suspected to be en route to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions.

Gibraltar released the Iranian vessel on Aug. 15 after receiving formal written assurances from Tehran that the ship would not discharge its 2.1 million barrels of oil in Syria.

On Friday, the US Treasury Department blacklisted the tanker.

In a related development, Iranian state television reported Sunday that Iran might soon release a detained British tanker, pending the completion of legal proceedings.

"I hope the procedures will be completed soon and this tanker will be released," Mousavi told the station.

In July, Iran seized a British oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz for alleged marine violations, two weeks after British forces detained an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar accused of taking oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions.

The Iranian tanker was later released. Iran this week freed seven of the 23 crew members of the British-flagged tanker.

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The disappearance of the Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as the Grace 1, follows a pattern of Iranian oil tankers turning off their Automatic Identification System to try and mask where they deliver their cargo amid US sanctions targeting Iran's energy industry.

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US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and the imposition of heavy economic sanctions on Iran have blocked it from selling its crude oil abroad, a crucial source of government funding for the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, tensions have spiked across the Persian Gulf over mysterious tanker explosions, the shooting down of a US military surveillance drone by Iran and America deploying more troops and warplanes to the region.

The Adrian Darya, which carries 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude worth some $130 million, switched off its AIS beacon just before 4 p.m. GMT Monday, according to the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.com. The ship was some 45 nautical miles (83 kilometers) off the coast of Lebanon and Syria, heading north at its last report.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had alleged the US had intelligence that the Adrian Darya would head to the Syrian port of Tartus, just a short distance from its last reported position.

The actions of the Adrian Darya follow a pattern of other Iranian ships turning off their trackers once they reach near Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea, said Ranjith Raja, a lead analyst at the data firm Refinitiv.

Based on the fact Turkey has stopped taking Iranian crude oil and Syria historically has taken around 1 million barrels of crude oil a month from Iran, Raja said it was likely the ship would be offloading its cargo in Syria. That could see it transfer crude oil on smaller vessels, allowing it to be taken to port, he said.

"The Iranian oil going to Syria is not something new," Raja said. "This is a known fact."

The oil shipment website Tanker Trackers similarly believes the Adrian Darya to be off Syria.

"It is now safe to assume [the ship] is in Syria's territorial waters," Tanker Trackers wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Iranian officials haven't identified who bought the Adrian Darya's cargo, only that it has been sold.

The US, which has sought to seize the tanker, alleged in federal court that the ship is owned by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary organization answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US recently declared the Guard a terrorist organization, giving it greater power to pursue seizing its assets.

US officials have since warned countries not to aid the Adrian Darya, which previously said it would be heading to Greece and Turkey before turning off its tracker Monday. Authorities in Gibraltar alleged the ship was bound for a refinery in Baniyas, Syria when they seized it in early July. They ultimately let it go after holding it for weeks.

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