Iran chose to violate those sanctions and paid the price.
They chose to then retaliate by seizing British Ships and will soon pay the price for doing so.
Iran never agreed with the sanctions to begin with. They didn’t sign on to the sanctions. There was nothing for them to violate because they don’t recognize the sanctions as legitimate.
You must have some inside information that no one else has. As of right now the Iranians have taken possession of the ships because the ships apparently violated their sovereignty and crossed into Iranian waters.
Perhaps it is a bargaining strategy concerning the Iranian ship that the British seized in an act of naked aggression.
You keep running with that and we’ll see where it gets you in a few days.
What exactly am I running with? It’s a fact. The Iranians don’t recognize the sanctions because they are not part of the European Union and they are not a state of the United States of America. Iran is a sovereign state all unto themselves. If they choose to trade with Syria that is their business. It’s an act of aggression to interfere in the activities of a sovereign state when those activities are not directly threatening or interfering with another sovereign state. Based upon what we are seeing the Iranians are reacting to British aggression.
Read y our own posts.
We’ll see in a few days how this works out but I’m sure Iran is going to pay a price for all of this escalation.
Neither the US nor the UK is going to sit back and let Iran exert control over the gulf and certainly not the Straits of Hormuz.
I keep reading opinion and I see absolutely no facts posted anywhere. Where are your facts?
Show me something that says Iran must observe sanctions and must not retaliate when attacked. Show me something that Iran has signed that indicates that.
I gave you the facts and of course you want to pretend otherwise.
Iran made a choice, they will pay a price.
US is a part of NATO, of course world leaders will pick up the phone to make the call to assess what another Allie is thinking! Not hard to figure out!
No you are right, US doesn’t need to get involved and will rely on NATO and it’s members to reach a consensus! This is an easy out for the US as this was not a US ship!
I don’t think we’ll get off that easy.
Just for the sake of keeping a United Front even if the US is not leading a response we’ll probably have to be a part of it.
This isn’t and should be about just one nation against another, it’s about protecting the entire industrialized world.
That is true and you are right, but in doing so they also choose to violate sanctions that has already been mandated under certain clauses by the UN not the US with another country such as Syria! Furthermore I reiterate that Iran is a sovereign country and if they choose to be aggressive by engaging in such provocative behaviour then they are responsible for their own actions. It’s when such aggressive behaviour is turned to US Navy ships operating in international waters that it has the potential to escalate!
This is a link to what the specific sanctions are and this latest development is more directed towards parties who seek to violate those sanctions and Iran’s actions are inconsequential and should not illicit a military response! In fact the ones who should be punished is the Swedish company for trying to violate those sanctions by trying to deceive under another country’s flag. If Iran seizes a Oil Tanker that strays into their waters merchants operate at their own peril, especially if they knowingly are trying to evade the sanctions!
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/iran.aspx
More details of this particular incident has to be learned first! As there are more questions that need to be asked such as:
Why did this tanker stray off course?
Why was this ship flying a British Flag?
Was the merchant trying to violate the sanctions that prohibits certain industries from trading with Iran?
I am just interpreting the law!
They don’t even have to target ships of the Navy for it to escalate further. So far they have avoided all ships carrying either a US flag or US cargo and if they do we’ll really have no alternative other than a military response.
If we fail to do so then we’re just abdicating to Iran and as much as Trump would like to avoid another war he’s not going to allow it.
We’re also pretty well bound to be involved if Iran targets ships flagged by any NATO member military or otherwise.
Again not disagreeing just stating that there is not enough info about this latest development of this oil tanker to make a judgement!
I don’t consider the Iranian Revolutionary Guard driving around the bay in speed boats as being a Navy.
Well it ain’t much of one but they are operating flagged, military vessels in open water owned by the Gov’t and wearing uniforms so they do meet the definition.
No not necessarily! If a US company is knowingly violating the sanctions by choosing to trade or smuggle goods out and into Iran then that would not illicit a military response by our military but warrant legal action against the company itself!
True but then I cant’ see Iran interdicting a ship violating the sanctions for their benefit.
Even if they did it would still be a US flagged ship so it would be an escalation I don’t think we could allow to go unchallenged.
Well such companies engaged in such behaviour probably wouldn’t be flying the US flag either so the chances of such companies being caught in the act is extremely Low. However, there are some grey areas when it involves European countries especially NATO ones that have been known to thumb their noses to the US sanctions so it remains to be seen what this ships true manifest was! That is what the main focus should be in getting to the truth of this situation!
With as high tech as maritime operations are today I’d be willing to bet they knew exactly who all was involved and their intent from the start.
You can’t hide a ship that large and with the integration of Intel and ownership database access it’s not like it was even 20 years ago.
Today you can’t put anything much bigger than a kayak on the sea without someone tracking it.
That is true, but there are ways to exploit certain loopholes in the sanctions themselves by using other countries as channels to import goods! I deal with this issue with the many Chinese National companies in the trade import export industry! For example and this of course is not my client so I am free to say this, a Chinese company using Vietnam to import honey into the US. This of course was recently found out and a stop was put to it, however this is continuing everyday and Iran is using the same methods. It’s impossible to stop, especially if countries like China and Russia are actively trading with Iran in large volumes.