LOL

The fact that you think you need to say this means you're pretty clueless about international relations. No one but twitter strategists and you believes that our supposed commitment to defend the commercial activities of the Marshall Islands has a weight that is statistically distinguishable from zero.

It's extra-funny, because the U.S. actually does have a very important strategic interest in free navigation of international waters, which is why the U.S. did in fact react to this situation and will probably react further (openly or through back channels) if it turns out that Iran was just being provocative. But the idea that there should be some reaction because America's sacred honor is pledged to the defense of the Marshall Islands is like something out of a nineteenth-century London tabloid.

I'm super sorry you didn't take the time to wipe the spittle from your mouth between reading about this situation and making this thread. You might have saved yourself some embarrassment.

And uncounted thousands of dollars, shceckels or rubles

US wouldn't (and shouldn't) defend a ship that was just boarded, not sunk, even if it were flying the American flag. Marshal Islands government probably doesn't want US to overreact either.

Incident like this could be the proverbial straw but seriously this was nothing but a provocation to prove US is unwilling to bite now. As things stand, Iranians are probably out to prove a point that Obama/US wants the deal more than Iran does.

Congratulations, you just repeated the whole point of the OP.

For an Israeli, (just as a Ukrainian), just as anyone contemplating such an arrangement, a bold and earnest promise of strong US security guarantees - as an inducement to weaken their strategic position (i.e. trading away land in the "west bank" or Jerusalem or Crimea) - carries a weight that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

So we all agree, that nobody should bother suggesting it anymore as a potential solution to any conflict.

Has a promise of US Military intervention ever been a part of an I/P peace deal?

Obviously, based on history, like 1967, a UN presence is worthless.

The US doesn't do 6 day wars, or October wars, or summer wars anyway. By the time we got ready to go to I/P the war would be over.

So at least the first three actions Gamblor listed seen reasonable if this escalates or intefering with shipping becomes a thing, but seems like needless escalation now. The Marshall Islands hasn't asked for any assistance.

The fourth isn't going to happen, severing relations and stopping the nuclear deal over this is never happening. Right or wrong the US isn't going to go to war with Iran and isn't really going to be down with a preemptive attack from Israel an Iran is going to have a bomb some time in the future, so let's try to develop solutions with that reality in mind.

tbf it would be different if it were a US flagged vessel as the crew would be american and then Iran would essentially have American captives, even though what they did would still, possibly be legal under international law/ honestly it probably wasn't just depends on timing of their court order and how close to their shore the ship was..., I mean US flagged ships get arrested some times story so I don't think we would start firing even if it was US flagged. Would def be alot more provocative from Iran's standpoint...Iranians actually did surrond a US flagged vessel last week but didn't do anything more provocative than be an "escort"

If the crew were American and not instantly released it would have been insane in the US. Hard to overstate how big the hostage crisis was in 1979.

It's been floated as a carrot re Iran to get Israel to deal with the Palestinians.

Thomas Friedman has been pushing the idea of a US-manned NATO force in the Jordan Valley to provide a "security guarantee". You can imagine why Abbas loves that idea. And John Kerry criticized Netanyahu for rejecting that idea.

Today, in this very thread, we see that it's plainly obvious why Netanyahu rejected it and why he was absolutely right to reject it: American security guarantees are valued at something "statistically indistinguishable from zero", per bobman.

Correct. But also today, where UN observers fled Syria into Israel for safety.

UN presence isn't worth anything.

Anyway, back to US breaking promises: The Ayatollah was bang on.

Ya, edit out that personal attacks Gamblor! Don't spoil your triumphant return to the 2+2 Politics forum just yet.

Most empires are snot-nosed.

Glad to know we are finally trying to blow our noze and get the boogers out.

The key to security isn't more economic sanctions, more isolation, and more war; it's interlocking economic and social ties, so that, if one actor suffers, all suffer.

China can't trash our economy without trashing their own. And we can't trash theirs without trashing ours.

Of course, we also have the largest military by far if we start suffering too much. Any idea how many subs are in the Persian Gulf? In the Med? Tehran says 5 in the Persian Gulf.

And what is your fear of the proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank? You seem to suck up a lot of rightwing fear-mongering nonsense. The US should join the AIIB, not fear it. But, unfortunately, some here still cling to empire.

Putin is a far cry from the USSR. It was more bad policy of ours attempting to encircle Russia with US puppets, first in Afghanistan, then in Georgia, and then in Ukraine, along with all the Eastern European countries that have either joined the Euro Zone or NATO . Russians and Putin know their history and they'd like to have Russian-friendly neighbors (puppets) on their borders, same as anyone would, especially Russia after WWII. At any rate, Putin has lost most of Ukraine, which he was able to count on as a friendly buffer before. Hard to call that a slap in our face.

---------

UPDATE:

Iran says respects navigation freedom, day after ship is seized in Gulf

Zarif, speaking in NYC:

Perhaps if we lift sanctions against Iran, they won't be so broke and need to call in their bad debts by seizing debtors' ships on the high seas? argghhhhh!!!

And it's funny how you called the Yemeni civil war "Saudi Arabia's war with Iran in Yemen". That was a nice touch.

You must have been rooting for a confrontation when Iran's ships were cruising toward Yemen. Of course, still nobody knows what they had on those ships, but everybody was freaking out. Not me.

Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister is 30 years-old. 30. The son of their new King. He should be replaced. It's why Jordan headed to the UN for a weapons embargo resolution seeking an end to the Yemeni war.

Israel seems to like the guy though. All that enemy of our enemy jazz, I suppose.

It's strange that you wondered where the protestors for the Yemeni slaughter were, but when Iran offers to broker a peace settlement and sends aid, you are either silent or blame the entire war on Iran.

I said boarded and nothing about keeping the crew or even actually keeping the ship itself. The pretext (14 year lawsuit? yeah, it's a pretext) they chose is telling. It's easily resolved by just taking the cargo and sending the ship+crew on their merry way after a few days.

Another day, another just absolutely mint statement to add to the list of lols ITT
Right, gamblor, the US under Obama is totally isolationist like they were 70 years ago, you got it.

It is a little unfortunate you were so vague on the first one so I don't have an explicit time to bump this thread and prove you completely, irrevocably wrong.

maybe that's what you meant. it's not what you said.



Russia cant "move in" to the "rest of Eastern Europe". That would trigger Article 5. That would start World War 3. That would be Russia committing national suicide.

I'm hearing reports of riots and scenes of panic in the Marshall Islands. Airports are saturated with people trying to flee. #BringBackOurCommercialVessel and #JeSuisShip are the highest trending hashtags on twitter.

What in the world is Gambloooor doing out of the Israel Palestine thread? In any case, this thread is spectacular.

You are kind of bad at reading.

Trying to follow Gamblor's posts. So an Israeli ship floated into Iranian water or was it Palestinian waters? In any case Palestine has to get mentioned.

lol, says the guy who keeps repeating the main point of the OP as if nobody has said it.

Also, every word in the post is true, so feel free to carry on.

feel free to explain the difference.

"move in" does not mean declare shooting war or military occupation.

Is this how you operate? You take some ambiguity, interpret it in the most extreme way possible, then get all happy about blasting away at the straw man?

No, you insist on using agreements with the Marshall Islands (meaningless, because the Marshall Islands don't matter) as perfect analogies for agreements with regular countries (varying degrees of meaning). No one else is that simplistic.

Yes, a civil war just popped up out of nowhere by accident, and peaceful, loving Iran, who is funding and directing the Houthis who started this mess, is totally not empire-building.

And the Houthis, whose functioning logo - the symbol and core ideology of their cause - says Death To America, Death to Israel, curse the Jews. They're just fighting for their civil rights or something. Because US empire. right.

Yeah good call.

How do you repeat the point, and then completely miss the point?

Nobody cares about the Marshall Islands, that is obvious. But the US is happy to ignore agreements if a more important policy imperative comes along. If it abandons the Marshall Islands for its Iran policy, there's no reason to think it won't abandon other countries (even real ones, like Ukraine, Syria, and Israel) for some other policy imperative as well.

For example: Israel gives up security control of the Jordan Valley to a US-manned NATO-force. Islamist or Palestinian terror organizations, funded by Iran or by the PA, either or, begin guerilla warfare against that force and American soldiers start getting killed.

Are you going to support the US going to war in the Jordan Valley to defend its security mandate? Of course not.

Under the peace agreement Israel has lost the right to control of the Jordan Valley, they can't fight there without a diplomatic firestorm because it is Palestinian territory. Politically, it turns into "Israel has violated peace agreements, is imperialist, etc".

All because they shouldn't have trusted an American guarantee.