The US Navy and Coast Guard were engaged in “operations” in the northern Persian Gulf, which is to say near Iranian territorial waters. This meant, inevitably, that Iran was monitoring what they were doing, and that the Navy viewed that monitoring as “dangerous and provocative actions.”
The US ships and helicopters are operating in the area, and the Navy released photos of much smaller Iranian boats coming nearby. The photos do not show the boats doing anything, but are captioned as “unsafe” by the Navy. The Navy claims in one case a boat was within 10 yards, but did not show such photos.
The Iranian government issued no statements related to the ships or boats, and seem to consider the matter to have been no big deal, just the usual tensions in the Gulf that happen so often.
That the US Navy is trying to blow this out of proportion represents the standard US reaction to anything they do near Iran being even sort of scrutinized, an excuse to ratchet up tensions at a time when the US and Iran have often been close to war.
True to form, the likes of the Guardian in the UK are printing the Pentagon line…
Mom, he’s threatening my fist with his nose…..
Good Lord, should one of those Iranian speed boats scratch the paint on just one USN vessel, my God, the paperwork, the paperwork!
Kinda like a palestinian kid jeering foreign military occupation forces…
Perfect analogy!
“foreign military occupation forces”
Ouch! That should set off the Hasbara.
Right, wars. It shouldn’t take long for the Hasbara Trolls to harass the rest of us posters here;D
What are our Navy ships doing in Iranian waters? It’s called the Persian Gulf, didn’t ya know!
The photos in question appear to show the US Navy ships DIW (no way on). There was no wake on two of the photos and one photo show the ship just getting underway. The small craft passing imposed no threat and were with in the requirements of the international rules. Perhaps the photos are misleading and the small vessels where hindering the US Navy progress, just difficult to believe based upon the photos.
No, the Iranian were having fun hot-dogging in speed boats; they aren’t allowed to do that.
The pickings must have been slim for us to whine about some flies buzzing around a raging bull’s head.
What is the bet the US were sailing within metres of Iranian National waters and the Iranian vessels were inside Iranian Waters.
“US Navy and Coast Guard ships …” … Wait, Coast Guard? I thought that was the one branch actually defending the US coasts, as opposed to the rest of the imperial military stationed all around the world? What the heck is the CG doing in the Persian Gulf?
You thought wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrol_Forces_Southwest_Asia
That’s depressing.
Depressing, but not entirely surprising, if you have a military budget which is more than the next six highest military spenders in the World, your coastline has to expand in order to spend all that money. The fact that tens of million Americans cannot afford healthcare – well, that is just bad luck on their part.
I always thought the same about the National Guard. Imagine if another Kent State needed some hippies slaughtered and the Guardsmen were off fighting the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When US has internationally Unrecognized exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles extending from the territorial sea baseline, why Not Iran…..?!!! So in reality the US ships were sailing in the Iranian waters…! They should have been more harassed…!