I can't help but be sceptical about the suggestion that Iran attacked the oil tanker.
They're trying to be friends with Japan, but they attack a Japanese vessel while the PM of Japan is actually visiting? Really?
They aren't a superpower, and the US has bases all the way around Iran. Maybe I'm a strategic simpleton whose entire diplomatic experience is playing Civ, but it just doesn't seem smart.
Plus you have to wonder about the evidence for the Iraq war. That seemed pretty flimsy too. And it involved some of the same senior staff.
If international diplomacy were a reality TV show, it would make sense though.
The phrasing of your first paragraph confuses me. “I can’t help but...” as if this sentiment were hard to justify. The US government is notorious for lying its way into wars, and the current administration is full of psychopaths who would love a justification to invade Iran.
It’s like finding a notorious serial killer standing over a body holding a knife who says, “a ghost did it.” “I can’t help but be skeptical about the ghost....”
It was painfully obvious bullshit in 2003 and we must not fall for it again. If we do, it’ll make the disaster of Iraq look like a fun little game.
I guess it's a nuance of what that phrase means. It seems to me there are many reasons to disbelieve that the Iranians would do this. Reasons that can't be ignored no matter what logical contortions I were to make.
The reason it doesn't make any sense is that its all a bunch of lies and excuses to start a war, its not like the US hasn't been barking up this tree for quite a while now.
And there were no weapons of mass destruction, all lies. It's public information but you'll have to search for it yourself because it will never be reported in the mainstream media, people might start asking the wrong questions.
Even from an imperialist point of view makes no sense to me. It would be a huge distraction from actual threats to US imperialism, Russia and China. Sitting presidents are more likely to stay in office during wars though.
My hope is that ordinary citizens across the globe will become more connected via the internet, and as a result, will develop a strong distaste for war in general.
That was the idea 20 years ago. Now search engines, social networks, and national firewalls are more effective propaganda machines than television ever was because they're individually targeted. It's going to take a new generation of people who are not just ready to swallow anything they read in their newsfeed.
HN isn't very representative of the general population, but this is a good start. I'm thinking along the lines of someone in Wisconsin chatting about fishing with someone from Indonesia via an online forum, for example. That kind of thing could really help dissolve blind nationalism.
I think this means that someone else tries to ignite a war.
Could be similar to the USS Liberty incident, but it all needs an investigation by neutral parties.
Does the US needs all that oil?
The USA doesn't need to use the oil for the USA to claim there is either a "national security" or world geopolitical rationale for going to war to "protect" it.
Petrodollar Warfare[1] is a theory that the US can and does attack (or otherwise undermine) any oil producing country that tries to transact its oil in any currency (or commodity) other than USD.
We do have video of what appears to be Iranians removing an undetonated mine from one of the ships. It is entirely possible, and it is known, that the Iranian military isn't exactly cohesive like other countries. There are fractures and some rogue elements. It's entirely possible a rogue element did this, or it's possible it came from the top down.
Iran knows that the US public doesn't believe its own US intelligence after Iraq, so it could easily be behind the attacks knowing that the US is on a leash of public opinion to do anything about it.
We have video of some people doing something next to a big ship. Any interpretation beyond that from the US government can’t be trusted. Remember the photos of Iraqi WMD?
You’re right, Iran might have really done this. It’s also highly, highly likely that this is a big steaming pile of bullshit from the US.
What to do? Well, the consequences of acting on a US lie would be catastrophic. The consequences of failing to act on a real act by Iran would be negligible. The choice is clear. I pray we choose wisely, for once.
Even taken at face value, removing something in full view of US Navy (present at the scene for 4 hours) is not the same thing as "attaching" mines. It may well be that they were collecting evidence, on the record helpfully provided by US.
It is also interesting that a 3rd world country's navy has better camera equipment than the premiere power.
Then what do you make of Iran showing up afterwards and forcing a ship that actually saved some sailors to hand over said sailors at gun point before the US could get there, therein making it seem like Iran rescued the sailors?
Or the photo of what looks like a mine, and the Iranian boat being in the exact same place...then that item just disappearing? Seems like a lot of coincidences.
That's even excluding a huge surge in activity of the Houthis, which are Iranian funded.
"It is also interesting that a 3rd world country's navy has better camera equipment than the premiere power."
I also don't know where you're getting this, the video the US Navy has is clearly taken from a drone miles and miles away from the ship, completely out of view of anyone.
> It is also interesting that a 3rd world country's navy has better camera equipment than the premiere power.
Defense acquisitions at it's finest. Various bits of that camera have been certifiably touched by workers in all 50 states, and it took 10 years just to work out the contract details. That thing is bomb-proof but will fail catastrophically when exposed to a firm sneeze, and the CMOS sensor was "commercial off the shelf" tech from the lunar landing era.
Iran knows that the US public doesn't believe its own US intelligence after Iraq, so it could easily be behind the attacks knowing that the US is on a leash of public opinion to do anything about it.
That's a very optimistic take on U.S. public opinion. I think this is going to be a lot easier than you assume. If you start with Trump's approval rating, which is somewhere in the low forties, you just need another ten percent of the country to find it unbelievable that somebody would fake a casus belli against Iran and U.S. intelligence would go along with it. Once the mobilization is in swing, there will be an additional cushion of people who don't think the government should be second-guessed during a war, or who shrug their shoulders because they think Iran has it coming anyway. The media can't help cooperating; their editorial content might be against the war, but war coverage is inherently exciting and will stoke people's appetite.
If Trump does this -- and I think he regards it as his best shot at re-election -- I wouldn't be surprised if his approval rating goes to over 60% in the first week of the conflict.
Iran also has a complicated internal power structure the players in which are not necessarily always in agreement or in full knowledge of each others' actions. It makes it a trickier state to deal with compared to your run-of-the mill unitary dictatorship.
Ironically this was very true in imperial Japan. I recently listened to Craig Nelson's "Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness" and this was stressed repeatedly.
The factionalism, not just between the civilian government and the military, but between the Navy and the Army was vast. There was no unitary government, in any sense. Their Navy never thought they could defeat the United States over a protracted war, but the internal factionalism forced their hand.
Reminds me of when the freshly minted new strong men of china visited india, only to be greeted with " you know your army just marched over some parts of the border?"
Militarily defeating the Iranian government would be easy no matter what. The hard part is winning the peace. And by “hard” I mean “essentially impossible, and trying to do so will wreck us.”
This is what the assholes who want a war with Iran either fail or refuse to understand.
Honestly I can't get past the idea that somehow an image of Iranians removing a mine from an oil tanker is somehow a smoking gun proving that they put it on ... It all screams fake news, information warfare, to me.
As far as who would like the US to go to war with Iran (apart from Bolton) Saudi Arabia and Israel spring to mind ...
Remember how we were railroaded into war with Iraq using fake news about weapons of mass destruction (from the Whitehouse that time), fool us once shame on you fool us a second time shame on us.
I think this a perceptions issue. IRGC done VERY well recently, successes in Syria, Houthis, Iraq, much closer ties and success in Gaza/Hamas. They feel good about themselves and view US as impotent(as in Syria). It could be a threat and demonstration of what they can do.
These are hard experienced and utterly committed men. They do not feel weak at all. Trump is a bit of a joke to them as Obama was before.
If Iran didn't attack the ships who did? It would be impossible for the US Govt to orchestrate this and keep it secret. Enough people inside government would be horrified that it would 100% leak immediately if not beforehand.
If not Iran, why is there video of an Iranian navy vessel pulled up alongside the attacked tanker?
Iran's regional rivals, Saudi Arabia and UAE have been staunch proponents of a US attack on Iran and they stand to gain enormously if such an attack happens: a major oil supplier gets removed, increasing demand for their oil; the war increases the price of oil; their only serious rival in the region gets destroyed; and to top it all, it will be at no cost to them—US will pay for the war with money, lives, and reputation and they stand to gain all the benefits.
It would be very convenient if Iran does something to legitimize, even force US to destroy the country to rubble, wouldn't it?
> Enough people inside government would be horrified that it would 100% leak immediately if not beforehand.
Saudi Arabia does not have the same limitation. If they could orchestrate and get away with Khashoggi murder in another country, a tanker attack in their backyard is a piece of cake for them.
if they could orchestrate and get away with Khashoggi murder in another country
They totally didn't get away with it though. They were incompetent, bungled it and totally got caught. Faking an Iranian mine attack, including getting an Iranian navy vehicle filmed at the scene is orders of magnitude more complex and difficult. No way a gulf state could do it. US could do it, but couldn't keep the secret.
Thing is that SA is incompetent. Really incompetent.
You can say many things about IRGC but they are not incompetent.
The only possible actors are..(without taking video into account). Iran, Israel(incredibly unlikely but they could do it and keep it secret for a while), Houthis(same thing as Iran really).
US is just incapable of an operation like this and keeping it secret.
Somewhat related is this latest supposed attack by Iranians on the two Japanese tankers... now one of the Japanese tanker owners is saying it was a projectile while US Centcom says it's limpet mines.
We definitely don't want to get into another situation like after 9/11 when some people did everything they could to connect Iraq to 9/11 so they could invade. Not sure if there are people right now who are hellbent to go to war Iran. I hope not.
>I have bad news for you. The same people are pushing for war then are pushing for war now because that's how they make their living.
Those same people spent the later part of the Obama years drooling over the idea that relations with Iran would thaw enough that they'd be able to make a killing selling to both sides of the Iran/Israel standoff.
> . Not sure if there are people right now who are hellbent to go to war Iran.
Erm, yes, there are. Saudis, Israelis and the MEK are hell bent for us to go to war with Iran. They've also publically greased John "neocon mustache boy" Bolton, who will hopefully be looking for a job soon.
IIRC, it was retired General Wesley Clark who stated[1] in an interview that someone he knew at the Pentagon told him about plans that had already been drawn up to attack 7 Middle Eastern countries:
> We're going to take out seven countries in five years.' And he named them, starting with Iraq and Syria and ending with Iran.
> And he named them, starting with Iraq and Syria and ending with Iran." While Clark doesn't name the other four countries, he has mentioned in televised interviews that the hit list included Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan
Pompeo believes in dispensational premillennialism. Which is to say that he thinks the world will end in literal Armageddon when the Antichrist comes to earth and the forces of Heaven and Hell do battle on the plains of Megiddo in Israel. Of course, Pompeo will have been swept up in the Rapture, so he'll be a-ok.
I learned this year that the commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident is The Doors' Jim Morrisson' father. Small world.
"In his book, Body of Secrets, James Bamford, who spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst, writes, that the primary purpose of the Maddox "was to act as a seagoing provocateur—to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its five-inch cannons up the nose of the communist navy. ... The Maddox' mission was made even more provocative by being timed to coincide with commando raids, creating the impression that the Maddox was directing those missions ..." Thus, the North Vietnamese had every reason to believe that Maddox was involved in these actions."
The US was already neck deep in Vietnam, what they needed was an excuse for going all in. So they started poking the bear, which is exactly what they're doing right now with Russia, Iran, China and probably more.
Wars are not started by coincidence, they are very well planned and always come with a hidden agenda.
And war allows Congress to spend unlimited[1] funds, which, it seems to me, is a terrible moral hazard. I don't know what the answer is, but surely there's a way to stop war from crowding out more responsibly budgeted needs.
1. By policy. Obviously the money can still run out.
It feels like something the (non-corrupt) left and right should be able to agree on. Plenty of people on the right seem disappointed that Trump seems to have lost his pre-government isolationist tendancies.
I suppose the only hope is this time around it's a 'trumpian' ploy. i.e. War or give us what we want, with the emphasis on getting some deal. Not that that is ok. The impression very much is that the deal may be in fact that he may get is give the 'deep state' a war and then he gets some media support and a chance at a second term.
I always wonder what he really wants from them (Total surrender is probably not going to happen and he rejects the nuclear treaty so what's the endgame?). I also don't understand how nice he is to North Korea in comparison to Iran. North Korea's government is probably the most brutal government on the planet right now and makes Iran almost look nice.
> I also don't understand how nice he is to North Korea in comparison to Iran. North Korea's government is probably the most brutal government on the planet right now and makes Iran almost look nice.
Because North Korea says nice things about him in public. He literally made it clear that all he wants with Iran is that he make a deal. He wants the photo ops, he wants the opportunity to look good. A not insignificant number of Trump's base already believe he "solved" the North Korea issue, and that's what he wants with Iran.
Personally I seriously doubt that Trump will initiate a full-on war with Iran. I said it in 2016 after the election and I'll say it now: Trump has a preternatural instinct for survival and spinning narratives, and wars are invariably lose-lose for everybody involved. He's not stupid enough to believe Iran could possibly turn out any better than Iraq. He may drop a few bombs to punish the IRGC for making him look bad, but then he'll find an opportune time to claim victory and move on or otherwise shift attention. Iran's regime is safe just like North Korea's is safe.
That's what I mean by preternatural instinct. Yes, he's impulsive and a textbook narcissistic archetype. But that's not all he is. He's Donald Trump for a reason--someone who is successful almost despite himself. For decades everybody around him loses but he always worms his way out before the house of cards falls. However, avoiding the consequences is nearly impossible to do if he attempts to invade Iran, even if he had objectively good reason to.
At the very worst we may end up fighting a proxy war through Israel and Saudi Arabia and wrecking even more havoc in the ME, but there won't be another Iraq.
In that sense he's reliable and predictable. Russia knows this. China knows this. Iran, Saudia Arabia, and Israel, however... they may be cocky enough to try to manipulate Trump into doing things he simply won't do and is perhaps incapable of doing, and things will go sideways for them. For the U.S. our cost will be in treasure and reputation, which will be par for the course.
This event led to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which granted the president sweeping military powers in southeast Asia. It amounted to a declaration of war on North Vietnam
It passed the senate with flying colors; only two votes against:
> The Senate conferred its approval by a vote of 88–2. Some members expressed misgivings about the measure, but in the end, Democratic Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska cast the only nay votes.[12] At the time, Senator Morse warned that "I believe this resolution to be a historic mistake."
When the US starts wars, it's always with massive popular support - at least in the beginning.
It's easy to forget just what a boogeyman decades of propaganda had turned communism into by the 1960s. A similar thing has happened with "radical islam" today. There's currently a nascent movement to do the same thing to China.
When the next big war comes, expect it to be met with wild applause regardless of how asinine the justification is.
My father, a yeoman in the Navy at the time, has been telling me this for years. But try to make that point 20 years ago, and you would be labeled a conspiracy nut.
In 1971, 60 Minutes, the most watched TV show in the country won an Emmy for it's story on "What Really Happened at Tonkin Gulf?". The truth was out pretty early, and well accepted.
In 1964, the White House and Defense Department lied and misrepresented a supposed act of naval aggression in order to fraudulently justify launching a war they sought for other reasons.
Its relevance to the present day is left as an exercise for the reader.
The United States government decided that they wanted to escalate the war in Vietnam. For public relations reasons, they manufactured an incident and used it as an excuse.
Somewhere between 1.5 million and 3.5 million people died. The United States got Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian restaurants, and also 60,000 dead soldiers and 300,000 wounded soldiers.
Basically declassified evidence points to Sec of Defense at the time intentionally lying to Congress to get the US involved in Vietnam regarding Gulf of Tonkin attack.
They're trying to be friends with Japan, but they attack a Japanese vessel while the PM of Japan is actually visiting? Really?
They aren't a superpower, and the US has bases all the way around Iran. Maybe I'm a strategic simpleton whose entire diplomatic experience is playing Civ, but it just doesn't seem smart.
Plus you have to wonder about the evidence for the Iraq war. That seemed pretty flimsy too. And it involved some of the same senior staff.
If international diplomacy were a reality TV show, it would make sense though.