Iran v US confrontation

The seized tanker is nothing to be overly fussed over.

Stena Bulk (the owing company of the vessel) is part of Stena Group which is a wholly Swedish owned holding company. In fact it's wholly owned by one family, the Olsson family. On top of that none of the sailors or officers aboard the ship are Brits. The vessel is simply registered in London which in shipping means basically feck all. Since the 1920s ship registries opened up and you could register any ship with any flag creating "flags of convenience".
 
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MadMike said:
The seized tanker is nothing to be overly fussed over.

Stena Bulk (the owing company of the vessel) is part of Stena Group which is a wholly Swedish owned holding company. In fact it's wholly owned by one family, the Olsson family. On top of that none of the sailors or officers aboard the ship are Brits. The vessel is simply registered in London which in shipping means basically feck all in shipping. Since the 1920s ship registries opened up and you could register any ship with any flag creating "flags of convenience".
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Yeah, they're trying real hard to create tension. It's pathetic, really.
 
Given how lightly Russia got away with state sponsored assassination attempts on British soil this should come as no surprise to anyone. Britain is a soft target due to their own internal turmoil and the weakness of their alliance with the EU and no one trusting Trump to not leave them hanging.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
Yeah, they're trying real hard to create tension. It's pathetic, really.
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Tbf this tension started when Trump decided to act like a baby and try to undo everything Obama did. Europe was united in saying that Iran was keeping their part of the deal on uranium enrichment which had stabilised the region. Now Iran believes whatever they do doesn't matter as Trump will take a hard line against them regardless, so they decide to act like mavericks as well.

To be expected
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
Given how lightly Russia got away with state sponsored assassination attempts on British soil this should come as no surprise to anyone. Britain is a soft target due to their own internal turmoil and the weakness of their alliance with the EU and no one trusting Trump to not leave them hanging.
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Tbf they got away with an actual assassination using radioactive materials in a public place in 2006 in London... At which point we were on a strong footing with the EU and trump was still doing the apprentice
 
sun_tzu said:
Tbf they got away with an actual assassination using radioactive materials in a public place in 2006 in London... At which point we were on a strong footing with the EU and trump was still doing the apprentice
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Wasn't that the last time they were hit with some bad economic sanctions which Trump recently let lapse?
 
Foxbatt said:
The issue is that Iran is not a party to EU sanctions. The ship was sailing in waters that have freedom of navigation.(Just like near Taiwan where China makes noise for military ships of other countries sailing there). So the British seizure was not actually correct in this sense. Furthermore this is not oil from Syria but maybe crude going to Syria. Iran is not under sanctions by the EU at all. This is why the EU is not saying anything much about this. Now if this was UN sanctions then it is a different story.
Furthermore, according to the Spanish the US informed them first about the ship and the Spanish rightly ignored it.
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This is the sanction.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48865030

The Baniyas refinery, in the Syrian Mediterranean port town of Tartous, is a subsidiary of the General Corporation for Refining and Distribution of Petroleum Products, a section of the Syrian ministry of petroleum.

The EU says the facility therefore provides financial support to the Syrian government, which is subject to sanctions because of its repression of civilians since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

The refinery has been subject to EU sanctions since 2014.
 
Redshaw the issue is that these are EU sanctions and not UN sanctions. That means that there could not be any physical attempts to stop anything. Even the Americans are not really physically stopping anything with their sanctions. They are sanctioning any US sanction breakers. So the UK has no right to stop any ship in an international waterway as they have no proof at all whether the ship is even going to Syria or not. Only the UN can put an embargo on the world like the one in North Korea. EU cannot physically stop it.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
Given how lightly Russia got away with state sponsored assassination attempts on British soil this should come as no surprise to anyone. Britain is a soft target due to their own internal turmoil and the weakness of their alliance with the EU and no one trusting Trump to not leave them hanging.
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Not to mention the austerity our forces have endured.. Navy at it's lowest level ever.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
Given how lightly Russia got away with state sponsored assassination attempts on British soil this should come as no surprise to anyone. Britain is a soft target due to their own internal turmoil and the weakness of their alliance with the EU and no one trusting Trump to not leave them hanging.
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Very good point. Our military has been cut to way lower than the necessary capability to defend ourselves.
Our politicians like to pretend that we are strong and robust but we all know that is very far from the truth.
You have to laugh. We have gone to the Europeans to ask them to help us because we have so few surface ships.
 
Foxbatt said:
Redshaw the issue is that these are EU sanctions and not UN sanctions. That means that there could not be any physical attempts to stop anything. Even the Americans are not really physically stopping anything with their sanctions. They are sanctioning any US sanction breakers. So the UK has no right to stop any ship in an international waterway as they have no proof at all whether the ship is even going to Syria or not. Only the UN can put an embargo on the world like the one in North Korea. EU cannot physically stop it.
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Hadn't considered this point but it's one that has rarely been explained on the news.

Saying that i think most understand this is tit for tat and neither were really justified. If anything i think it's a very measured response from iran, they're sending a message by using the same posturing that the UK (read US) did.

We should stop participating in Trumps tactics.
 
Redplane said:
So with crazy Boris now taking over in the UK I assume this invasion has become a lot more likely, no?
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No.

We don't have the means necessary for an invasion and I seriously don't think US would entertain the idea despite all their bravado.
 
Spot on Smores. The Iranians have been pretty laid back in the sense that no one in Europe is keeping their end of the bargain in the treaty with them. The treaty is a UN backed treaty and the US was absolutely terrible in kicking it down. The Spanish have come out and told the truth that the US wanted the Spanish to hold that ship first. It has got nothing to do with Syria but everything to do with Iran and the US.
 
BBC News - Iran tanker: US offers captain millions to hand over ship

The US state department has confirmed it offered millions of dollars to the captain of an Iranian oil tanker which is at the centre of a diplomatic row.

Brian Hook, head of the department's Iran Action Group, emailed the captain of the Adrian Darya 1 about sailing it somewhere the US could seize it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-49589075

Is this normal practice? :wenger:
 
I just never seize to be amazed the Repubs just are a-ok with a President who quite literally acts like the bitch of all the bad actors in the world. Yet again - imagine if Obama would care what any other leader thought and make statements that portray him as taking orders from those folks. Ffs. I know the politicians are badically a lost cause but I hope enough voters wake the f up.
 
Grinner said:
Odd that John Bolton is out days before Iran tensions ratchet up.
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Yeah but one minute he’s talking about bailing them out then a few days later he’s talking about military action. He’s obviously been told by his bosses that nothing short of Iranian military defeat is acceptable
 
Typical America. Saudi Arabia spends years bombing the shit out of Yemen, but the moment someone hits them back suddenly the US has to leap in to defend them. Given that SA have a very expensive army of their own which is apparently more than capable of being used aggressively, why exactly do they need the US to protect them?
 
Kentonio said:
Typical America. Saudi Arabia spends years bombing the shit out of Yemen, but the moment someone hits them back suddenly the US has to leap in to defend them. Given that SA have a very expensive army of their own which is apparently more than capable of being used aggressively, why exactly do they need the US to protect them?
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They're defending the oil, not the Saudi's. It's always about the oil. They have been waiting to attack Iran for years for their oil. They attacked Iraq for it's oil.
 
Kentonio said:
Typical America. Saudi Arabia spends years bombing the shit out of Yemen, but the moment someone hits them back suddenly the US has to leap in to defend them. Given that SA have a very expensive army of their own which is apparently more than capable of being used aggressively, why exactly do they need the US to protect them?
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Totally agree.
As a country Saudi Arabia spends a truly massive amount on defence equipment. So they should be perfectly capable of both defending themselves as well as attacking their enemies.
They have a large number of British fighter jets including Tornado which is a precision bomber and Typhoon. In addition the US F15.
In fact they probably have a far more capable airforce than we do.
 
Kentonio said:
Typical America. Saudi Arabia spends years bombing the shit out of Yemen, but the moment someone hits them back suddenly the US has to leap in to defend them. Given that SA have a very expensive army of their own which is apparently more than capable of being used aggressively, why exactly do they need the US to protect them?
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Fitting that the modern US is more loyal to the country that bore most of the 9/11 hijackers than they are to most of their own citizens.

Never has “9/11 never forget” been a more ironic statement.
 
Buster15 said:
Totally agree.
As a country Saudi Arabia spends a truly massive amount on defence equipment. So they should be perfectly capable of both defending themselves as well as attacking their enemies.
They have a large number of British fighter jets including Tornado which is a precision bomber and Typhoon. In addition the US F15.
In fact they probably have a far more capable airforce than we do.
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I wouldn't doubt it one bit.
 
George Owen said:
So oil price 20% up since the attack.

Good news to the biggest oil producer in the world.
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Win-win for Donald. Gets to wag the finger at Iran misbehaving and saying he was right for getting out of the nuclear deal, maybe blow something up if it gets serious.

Meanwhile the oil sector that has help the US economy keep humming along steadily gets a much-needed boost when previously there were some bearish indicators.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
Win-win for Donald. Gets to wag the finger at Iran misbehaving and saying he was right for getting out of the nuclear deal, maybe blow something up if it gets serious.

Meanwhile the oil sector that has help the US economy keep humming along steadily gets a much-needed boost when previously there were some bearish indicators.
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If there was some way to give proof to this, it would be the biggest scandal since the Iran-Contra crisis or the early '70s machinations of Kissinger-Nixon. This would even dwarf the "weapons of mass destruction" hyperbole.
 
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