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talkpolitics Stop me if you've heard this one before.
The USA is engaged in a shadow war against a regime with ties to one of its bigger enemies, in this specific case a specific iteration of a Russian Empire. The regime in question sees itself as something heroic, defiant, challenging global imperialism even as it regularly treats any concept of neutrality like the main star of a Brazzers production and not so quietly wages not one but several wars against said neighbors. In pursuit of the shadow war the USA progressively escalates and proceeds to start launching naval raids on the regime in question. Eventually one of these raids hits the right/wrong target, depending on perspective, and the local defense base has a trigger happy fellow who shoots back when shot at, and follows this up with a local naval attack, which didn't even leave a shrapnel mark on the targeted ship.
Following that, a second attack was reported by jumpy US sailors who read a radar glitch as an attack and fired into thin air (think basically the 'Battle of Los Angeles 1942').
The result?
A little thing called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the USA's sliding into the self-inflicted tar pit that was the Vietnam War.
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/gulf-of-tonkin-resolution-1
In another element of history's wheel turning, shades of one of history's forgotten wars reappeared with a vengeance in the Hormuz Strait.
https://www.amazon.com/Tanker-War-Americas-Conflict-1987-88/dp/193203384X
At the end of the long and gruesome Iran-Iraq War, Iraq sought to emphasize US (and Soviet) involvement by launching attacks on tankers, which led the USA in turn to attack Iran. In a signal illustration that the illogic of Reagan was much that of Bush, this Tanker War matched the belated ability of Iraq to wield the world's fourth largest army with the most cutting edge technology of its time like that was actually the force at its disposal as a point to finally force the war to an end.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/13/oil-tankers-blasts-reports-gulf-of-oman-us-navy
And now history once again repeats itself. Two tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Hormuz, with what the USA officially says was an Iranian mine.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48633016
Of course we all know that the USA's ability to determine empirical reality has been weighed on the balance scale and found wanting. Case in point, of course, kicking the tottering remnant of Iraq over the edge in 2003 over WMDs that did not exist, in pursuit of a grand American bid for empire to make Cecil Rhodes or Suleiman the Lawgiver weep with envy, that also proved not to exist. In Iran's case the regime is clearly unstable, clearly incapable of acting in favor of its own interests (those terrorist attacks on EU territory when the EU is Iran's best buddy against the USA come to mind, as does Iran's disingenuous manchild temper tantrum at being told to stop shooting its dissidents on Dutch, French, Italian, and British soil).
So of course Iran says it didn't do this particular incident.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/448530-iran-pushes-back-on-tanker-attack-blame-says-it-controls-hormuz-strait
So who to believe? Trump's Administration has been remarkably consistent with its incompetence and I do not think they could organize an event on this scale in that vital a part of the world this cleanly, otherwise they'dve displayed far more competence and skill at any point in the history of their administration. What middling 'competence' at evil it displays is inaction and letting things atrophy. Orchestrating a USS Maine style war pretext requires these buffoons to magically display something for the first time in their entire lives, most of them, for them to do so. And I don't see it magically happening now when it hasn't in up to 70+ years.
Iran? Iran isn't that much better at shit given that it regularly gets caught doing it, which the really talented people tend to be about 20/30 years too late to do anything about it. Iran has been involved in tanker wars before, but it was not the one that initiated it, and its actions were mroe defensive and more to the point you'd think they'd remember that those results were not in their favor.
However since the Tanker Wars of yesteryear saw Iraqis blowing up a US ship to see the USA target Iranians, I daresay that odds could literally be that if anyone magicked up some competence out of nowhere, it was the goddamn Saudis and their ability to get away with that, again, would literally be a twisted throwback to the 80s in one of the more unpleasant prospects of same.
Mind you I have no doubt the USA is going to exploit this to the hilt, but I don't think the current iteration of the US military or intelligence apparatuses is anywhere near ruthless or competent enough to orchestrate something like this no matter how much or how badly it might want to do so.
The USA is engaged in a shadow war against a regime with ties to one of its bigger enemies, in this specific case a specific iteration of a Russian Empire. The regime in question sees itself as something heroic, defiant, challenging global imperialism even as it regularly treats any concept of neutrality like the main star of a Brazzers production and not so quietly wages not one but several wars against said neighbors. In pursuit of the shadow war the USA progressively escalates and proceeds to start launching naval raids on the regime in question. Eventually one of these raids hits the right/wrong target, depending on perspective, and the local defense base has a trigger happy fellow who shoots back when shot at, and follows this up with a local naval attack, which didn't even leave a shrapnel mark on the targeted ship.
Following that, a second attack was reported by jumpy US sailors who read a radar glitch as an attack and fired into thin air (think basically the 'Battle of Los Angeles 1942').
The result?
A little thing called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the USA's sliding into the self-inflicted tar pit that was the Vietnam War.
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/gulf-of-tonkin-resolution-1
In another element of history's wheel turning, shades of one of history's forgotten wars reappeared with a vengeance in the Hormuz Strait.
https://www.amazon.com/Tanker-War-Americas-Conflict-1987-88/dp/193203384X
At the end of the long and gruesome Iran-Iraq War, Iraq sought to emphasize US (and Soviet) involvement by launching attacks on tankers, which led the USA in turn to attack Iran. In a signal illustration that the illogic of Reagan was much that of Bush, this Tanker War matched the belated ability of Iraq to wield the world's fourth largest army with the most cutting edge technology of its time like that was actually the force at its disposal as a point to finally force the war to an end.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/13/oil-tankers-blasts-reports-gulf-of-oman-us-navy
And now history once again repeats itself. Two tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Hormuz, with what the USA officially says was an Iranian mine.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48633016
Of course we all know that the USA's ability to determine empirical reality has been weighed on the balance scale and found wanting. Case in point, of course, kicking the tottering remnant of Iraq over the edge in 2003 over WMDs that did not exist, in pursuit of a grand American bid for empire to make Cecil Rhodes or Suleiman the Lawgiver weep with envy, that also proved not to exist. In Iran's case the regime is clearly unstable, clearly incapable of acting in favor of its own interests (those terrorist attacks on EU territory when the EU is Iran's best buddy against the USA come to mind, as does Iran's disingenuous manchild temper tantrum at being told to stop shooting its dissidents on Dutch, French, Italian, and British soil).
So of course Iran says it didn't do this particular incident.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/448530-iran-pushes-back-on-tanker-attack-blame-says-it-controls-hormuz-strait
So who to believe? Trump's Administration has been remarkably consistent with its incompetence and I do not think they could organize an event on this scale in that vital a part of the world this cleanly, otherwise they'dve displayed far more competence and skill at any point in the history of their administration. What middling 'competence' at evil it displays is inaction and letting things atrophy. Orchestrating a USS Maine style war pretext requires these buffoons to magically display something for the first time in their entire lives, most of them, for them to do so. And I don't see it magically happening now when it hasn't in up to 70+ years.
Iran? Iran isn't that much better at shit given that it regularly gets caught doing it, which the really talented people tend to be about 20/30 years too late to do anything about it. Iran has been involved in tanker wars before, but it was not the one that initiated it, and its actions were mroe defensive and more to the point you'd think they'd remember that those results were not in their favor.
However since the Tanker Wars of yesteryear saw Iraqis blowing up a US ship to see the USA target Iranians, I daresay that odds could literally be that if anyone magicked up some competence out of nowhere, it was the goddamn Saudis and their ability to get away with that, again, would literally be a twisted throwback to the 80s in one of the more unpleasant prospects of same.
Mind you I have no doubt the USA is going to exploit this to the hilt, but I don't think the current iteration of the US military or intelligence apparatuses is anywhere near ruthless or competent enough to orchestrate something like this no matter how much or how badly it might want to do so.
