In a move that threatens to hugely escalate tensions between Iran and the US, British Royal Marines raided and seized an Iranian oil tanker at Gibraltar on Thursday. The tanker was accused by British officials of heading to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry confirmed summoning the British Ambassador to express “very strong objection to the illegal and unacceptable seizure” of the ship. Analysts expressed surprise at the unusually aggressive move against a commercial oil tanker.
British Premier Theresa May presented the raid as “firm action to enforce EU sanctions,” though Spain indicated that it was actually done because the Trump Administration asked Britain to do so. Spain said they’re looking into it, since the tanker was captured in Spanish territorial waters.
While the US hasn’t taken credit for the move yet, John Bolton was cheering the move,
saying it would keep Iran from “profiting off the illicit trade,” which
to be clear, is Iran shipping Iranian oil to Syria to sell it, when the
US insists Iran isn’t allowed to sell any oil, and the EU says Syria
isn’t allowed to buy any.
This is another outrage, and we wonder why China is building up a base in the S. China Sea???????
US sanctions will backfire badly when the US empire dies and asks for foreign aid to relieve Americans; and foreign populations demand quite forcefully that their governments give no aid to such a callous regime as Washington DC.
There is nothing illicit about Iran and Syria trading in oil… there is plenty illicit about the UK/US engaging in piracy just because they have the military strength to do it.
The schoolyard bully outsourced some work to its favorite ass kisser.
This is an indication that the Trump administration intends to conduct a “blockade” of Iranian oil. So they started it by seizing a ship in the Med outside of the Persian Gulf, under the bogus “sanctions against Syria and anyone helping Syria” trope.
What this does is establish a US history of seizing Iranian oil tanker which can then be applied later in the Persian Gulf under different excuses. That will be the start of an actual “blockade” of Iranian tankers, thus implementing Trump’s threat to “stop all sales of Iranian oil” (which is actually impossible absent such a blockade and ignoring any pipeline deliveries anywhere.)
That will constitute an act of war against Iran and force Iran to respond. An Iranian official already suggested Iran seize a US-flagged ship in retaliation – which is exactly what the neocons want as it will force Trump to start actual military operations against Iran.
Tell me again how the US is *not* going to start a war with Iran. No, they’re going to force *Iran* to start it and then claim they’re blameless. And Trump will agree to that since he is dumb enough to think it will save him from being blamed in the 2020 elections for starting a new war. And whether he gets blamed or not is *not* going to matter once the war starts.
This is an act of war.