(REUTERS/Jason DeCrow)
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Iran is holding 10 American sailors after two US Navy riverine patrol boats drifted into Iranian waters, and US officials are trying to reassure the public that the sailors are safe and will be released shortly.

The ships were reportedly near Iran's Farsi Island to refuel. A senior US administration official told CNN's Jim Sciutto that there's nothing to indicate anything hostile on the part of Iran. Administration officials also reportedly said that releasing the sailors at night would be "unsafe."

But Iran's actions seem intentionally provocative to some experts. Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider that it's another example of Iran "pushing the limits" with the US.

"We continue to see in Iran these pushing the limits when it comes to a whole range of aggressive actions that are not a direct violation to" the landmark Iran nuclear deal between the country and a US-led group of Western powers that limits Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief, Schanzer said.

"It appears that the Iranians are testing the patience of the US," he added.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, at an Iowa rally on Tuesday night, also lamented what he viewed as Iran's lack of respect for the US.

"The Iranians like to taunt us because they don't have ... respect for our leaders, right?" he said.

The Obama administration might be eager to "deconflict" with Iran in this situation because of the deal, Schanzer said.

"The Iran deal is really the major victory of the Obama administration over the last seven years, so the last thing you want to do is jeopardize that," he said.

Indeed, judging from the US's history with nonproliferation agreements, it's unlikely that Iran's action would affect the implementation of the nuclear deal.

And Schanzer noted that there is a faction within the Iranian regime that strongly opposed the nuclear deal. US officials have said that part of that faction, the hardline Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, are holding the US sailors and have confiscated communications equipment from the ships.

"There are those who believe that the deal ... was worth it for normalization and sanctions relief," Schanzer said.

He added:

And there are the others who believe that the very act of negotiating with the US is a violation of the regime's principles. It's possible that what we're seeing right now is compromise between these two camps. So you enter into this [nuclear] negotiation while continuing to antagonize the US.