How Should we Proceed Vis-a- Vis Iran? Posted on 6/21/2019 at 14:33:04 by Bill Crawford, (14)
With all of the CNN/Fox/MSNBC news anchors talking this morning about what Trump did and did not do vis-a-vis the drone shoot down, the question arises as to exactly how we should handle the escalating situation in Iran.
With respect to Trump's not wanting to immediately take military action involving killing 150 Iranians in response to the shoot down of an unmanned drone, it looks like we could put a manned surveillance aircraft in the area; one with anti-missile capabilities and one which is definitely in international air space. If such a surveillance aircraft were fired upon, we would definitely be within our rights to take out the missile launching platform.
With respect to preventing the Iranians from attaching explosives to departing oil tankers. For one thing, we could have our warhsips accompany the tankers as they proceed through the straits.
But what about the situation where the explosives are attached while the tankers are in port. (See below excerpt from a commentary on the matter)
"..As for how the mines might have been placed, observers can only speculate until the US provides evidence of their origin. The earlier ones were probably delivered by boats that came up alongside the ship at some point during transit. But, these might have been placed while the ship was at the pier.."
In the event of the latter, it looks like we could place armed personnel in the tankers; this, so as to ward off the attachment of explosives while the ships were alongside the pier.