Rumors of wars keep popping up in the Middle East and around the world as the United States continues to have our allies prodded and provoked. The latest example is Iran, which U.S. military officials have fingered for the wave of oil tanker bombings over the weekend.
BREAKING: The Associated Press reports that an American military team’s initial assessment of the 4 ships that were bombed over the weekend in the Persian Gulf is that "Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies" were behind the attack
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 13, 2019
The Associated Press reported that a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “said each ship has a 5- to 10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line, and the team’s early belief is that the holes were caused by explosive charges.”
Was this the intelligence the United States received last month, likely from Ali Nasiri, that prompted the dramatic increase in our military presence in the Persian Gulf? If it is, then this could mark the beginning of actions taken by the United States and/or Israel against Iran.
Opinion
Not to sound too conspiratorial, but the timing of all this is strange. Now that the United States has a stronger military presence in the region, one would think it should have been enough to dissuade Iran from carrying out such attacks. This leads me to two possible conclusions:
- Iran wants to get attacked. Their economy is in such shambles and getting worse, they feel if they can prompt an attack against them while still being able to claim plausible deniability by using their proxies instead of their military, they will get the sympathies and aid from gullible nations around the world and continue to paint the United States and Israel as the aggressors.
- Someone staged the attacks to implicate Iran. Saudi Arabian proxies would be the most likely culprits.
The former is by far more likely than the latter, but nothing should be ruled out until we have all the facts.
Either way, Iran continues to play a very dangerous game, one they know they cannot win but that they hope they can survive until they get a handle on all of the moving parts in this situation. Even a massive attack from the United States could leave Iran with their current leadership structure intact; it would not behoove the United States to get involved in regime change now or any time in the reasonable future considering our track record in such things.
Quote
“We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything it will be a very bad mistake, if they do anything. I’m hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. We’ll see what happens with Iran.” – President Trump
Final Thoughts
I’m against getting involved in any wars that don’t involve us, but Iran continues to creep closer and closer to direct conflict. It’s as if they want us to attack while painting themselves as non-aggressors. These are dangerous times.
https://widget.civist.cloud/?api_url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.civist.cloud%2Ft%2Fc3a94636-74a7-482e-90b6-c4448a6919e5%2F#/RW1iZWRkaW5nOjVkN2I2ODQ5LWFkYWMtNGY0Yi1iNDAzLWJiMTdkZjE5NTkwOA==
