You Didn't Forget About the Need to Pre-empt Iran, Did You?

Lest we get to November without having attacked Iran…

In what U.S. officials called a serious provocation, Iranian boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, threatening to explode the American vessels.

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Five small boats began charging the U.S. ships, dropping boxes in the water in front of the ships and forcing the U.S. ships to take evasive maneuvers, the Pentagon official said.

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There were no injuries but the official said there could have been, because the Iranian boats turned away "literally at the very moment that U.S. forces were preparing to open fire" in self defense.

  USA Today

Whew! Close one! John Woo would be proud.

I think this is another one of those incidences where actual details will trickle in, and who knows, it wouldn’t be unprecedented that things are a bit exaggerated.

The article (taken from an AP report) does say the State Department spokesman said he was unaware of any plans to lodge a complaint. How serious could it have been then? The "threatening to explode the American vessels" comment doesn’t receive any further explanation. "Dropping boxes in the water in front of the ships" is left unexplained. And I don’t see anything in the report about where exactly the U.S. ships were headed, other than they were “making a normal transit into the Gulf." Normal "show of force" transit, perhaps? The Yahoo offering identifies the US ships as a cruiser, a destroyer and a frigate. The UK Guardian says a Pentagon official said…get this…

…he didn't have the precise transcript of communications that passed between the two forces, but said the Iranians radioed something like "we're coming at you and you'll explode in a couple minutes."

Something like. And the State Department spokesman rattles his saber:

"Without specific reference to this incident in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States will confront Iranian behavior where it seeks to do harm either to us or to our friends and allies in the region," McCormack told reporters. "There is wide support for that within the region and certainly that's not going to change."

Our friends and allies in the region are about to be one in number: Israel. Wide support from Israel perhaps.

And perhaps we won’t specifically refer to this incident, because there’s nothing there. Or perhaps there’s something else there that we don’t want to have to admit. You'll have to forgive my skepticism, but there are precedents.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update Trickle:

On Friday, the U.S. Navy announced the same team of naval ships had been searching in the Arabian Sea for a sailor missing for a day from the USS Hopper.

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Iran and the United States do not have diplomatic relations. Switzerland represents U.S. interests in Tehran, while Pakistan represents Iranian interests in Washington.

  CNN

Update: 1/08/08

Trickle Update 1/12/08: 'Filipino Monkey'

Update 1/17/08 Final word