Reply #49: I don't like saber rattling by anyone [View All]

[NeedleCast]

and that includes the US and we're certainly guilty of it. However the straight is one of the most active water-ways in the world and assuming our ships were acting in concert with international law they have just as much right to use it as anyone else. I'm not saying we don't make mistakes, but it's pretty hard to mistake a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser for say, a dhow or a cargo ship. This sounds like Iran gauging a response to me. As others have pointed out, this is sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If we open fire on a couple of craptastic wanna-be torpedo boats then we're the bully and if we lose a billion dollar missile cruiser we look pretty stupid, a lot of people die, and everyone goes "why didn't we sink them?"

Not much question in my mind that this was an Iranian attempt to see how we'd react, especially with their fairly flippant "ahhhh, it's no big deal" response. It's a dangerous game, because had something happened, especially if Iran had initiated it (or if G-Dubs administration were able to spin it into Iranian aggression), that we'd use it as an excuse to start blowing some shit up in Iran.