This is the type of boat we're talking about here. Note couple of items clearly visible in the image: antennae for navigation, radio and satnav, and lots of guns. Really do you think a half dozen fiberglass runabouts with a few guys with AK 47's are going to take one if they don't want to be taken. Add to that these guys were most likely in communication with the USS Harry Truman task group, loaded with big ships and airplanes.... The Pentagon released a statement to wit:
"During the voyage leadership on the
RCBs made an unplanned course change during the transit in route to a refueling
stop with with USCGC Monomoy (WPB-1326) at about the midway point of the
trip.
The crews of the boats were
determining their position and repairing a mechanical problem with one of the
boats when forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN)
– the units responsible for costal defense in Iran – interdicted the U.S.
RCBs and took both the boats and their crews to Farsi Island.
Diplomatic efforts from the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry prompted their
release after 16 hours. [my hero, sigh]
"The general route, commonly used by
the small riverine boats used by the Navy to patrol close to shore, comes only
within a few miles of the 12 nautical mile territorial buffer around Farsi
Island – located in middle of the narrow and heavily trafficked Persian Gulf,
USNI News understands.
“The planned transit path for the
mission was down the middle of the Gulf and not through the territorial waters
of any country other than Kuwait and Bahrain,” according to a Jan. 18 timeline of events from
U.S. 5th Fleet.
"U.S. Navy 5th Fleet
spokesman Cmdr. Kevin Stephens would not comment on the navigational error and
told USNI News that the incident is currently under an administrative
investigation by Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command."
Of course. And they need to get the sailors back in CONUS so they can be "debriefed" and silenced.
Under the U.N. Law of the Sea
Convention – of which Iran is a signatory – the IRGCN forces could challenge a
ship in their territorial waters operating under the concept of innocent
passage but went over the line in drawing weapons, detaining the crew and
seizing the boats, James Kraska,
professor in the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the
Naval War College, said.
The lack of U.S. reaction
internationally to the seizure – which occurred mere days before the
implantation of the long negotiated nuclear treaty with Iran – creates a
troubling precedent for U.S. operations in the future, he said. [italics are mine]
Kraska compared the severity of the
Farsi Island incident to when in 1986 Libyan forces of under Muammar Gaddafi
fired missiles at U.S. Navy fighters operating in the Gulf of Sidra across the
so-called “line of death” 64 nautical miles off the Libyan coast and the 1988
Black Sea bumping incident in which a Soviet Navy surface ship rammed a U.S. warship
conducting an innocent passage in Soviet territorial waters.
In both cases, the U.S. raised a hue
and cry internationally complaining of the violations [which] Kraska said have not been
echoed in the aftermath of the current incident. [surprise, surprise]
“Why wouldn’t there be any reaction to this
incident [on the part of the U.S.]?” Kraska said.
“Other countries now understand there’s going to be no reaction to the similar incidents in the future.”
And that's not a good thing.
Until next time,
Fair Winds.
Old Salt
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