New footage from Iran shows their troops seizing a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Fox News. Iranian commandos rappelled down from helicopter while the tanker was flanked by Iranian gunboats. The ship, the Stena Impero, was detained along with another UK flagged vessel on Friday. The 2nd ship was released by the Stena Impero remains detained in what Iran is calling a "reciprocal measure" after the UK seized an Iranian ship two weeks ago. Leadership in the UK as well as the United States have condemned the move.
My Comment:
I don't think this incident is in itself that serious. Ships get detained all the time and it's only the heightened tension between Iran and the west that is making this to be a big deal. Those tensions are extremely high and this will do nothing to calm them down though, but if war did not break down over the shooting down of drones on both sides, it's not going to start over a tanker being seized. Especially considering Iran has actually attacked tankers in the recent past.
The only complicating factor is the fate of the crew of the Stena Impero. They are essentially hostages right now and there will probably have to be some kind of negotiation to get them released. I don't think Iran would be so bold and so stupid to actually harm them but they are holding them against their will.
This seemed like a pretty complex operation for the Iranians. They had several smaller gunboats coordinating the mission and an entire team of commandos raided the ship. It looked fairly professionally done from the video I posted above but it's always possible that they edited out any difficulties. It's very obviously a propaganda video.
It does seem like the entire raid could have been easily defeated by a few guys with AR's or a single deck mounted .50 machine gun. It would have been impossible to land on the ship if there was anyone willing or able to shoot back. Doing so might have caused an even bigger incident though, but I had thought that most of the ships that operated in the region had PMC's for protection due to the threat of piracy.
It also seems that both the US Navy and the Royal Navy dropped the ball here. They were supposed to be escorting these vessels and keeping the peace in the Strait of Hormuz but seemed to have been unable to prevent this attack. The US Navy is stretched thin due to global commitments and the Royal Navy is a mere shadow of it's former glorious self, but you would have thought they would have had a vessel or two close enough to respond.
No matter what happens though, Iran remains one of the world's few remaining tinderboxes and it seems likely that Iran is at least considering setting it off. This action would be meaningless in itself but it is significant due to the various other bad actions Iran has been doing in the recent past. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and we can avoid a military conflict.
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