Just weeks after an incident in which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard seized a Marshall Islands-flagged ship over a legal dispute with the Maersk shipping company, the guard fired warning shots at the Alpine Eternity, a Singapore-flagged tanker vessel.
The Alpine Eternity incident appears to be another attempt to settle a financial dispute, as back in March the ship had accidentally rammed an Iranian offshore oil platform.
Unlike the Maersk Tigris, however, the Alpine Eternity was in international waters at the time, and managed to flee into United Arab Emirates waters.
Though both incidents were related to existing legal procedures in Iranian courts, they have fueled a lot of unease among shippers in the region, and have been played up by the Pentagon, which at times has used it as a pretext to escort cargo ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
This is getting way out of control. And unlike the repercussions from Bush's invasion of Iraq which didn't really affect daily life for most Americans, generally, the blowback from a war with Iran is going to hit every American. Iran is not Iraq and to think this will be a "cakewalk" is pure insanity of the first order.
Might — Makes right
Now if this would have happened to a NATO nation, the world would think how silly of those shipping lines to offend the most awesome power combine on earth.
But, because it happened to a country being picked on by NATO, a country so fooled into fearful submission that it thinks that if it begs for mercy long enough that economy destroying sanctions will be removed by members of NATO, surely the general opinion is that Iran needs a few more sanctions to square itself away.
The US enforces its court orders on ships the same way. I myself have helped seize a tanker over a legal dispute involving an injury to one crewman. We call it "arresting the vessel."
We lost the Iraq War.
We lost the Afghan War.
We lost in the Libyan fiasco.
We'll lose in Iran. If there is one thing worse than a war, it is losing that war. And we will, just like all the others.
No one "wins" a war my friend. It's not about winning or losing. It's about avoiding at all costs. The world is upside down right now. Stop the aggressive behavior and the aggressive thinking and then the world will start to know what a "Win" feels like.