BRITISH/ EU/ NATO COMPLICITY

FINIAN CUNNINGHAM—For the past two months there have been a series of sabotage incidents against commercial shipping which the US has blamed on Iran. Iran denies any involvement and has instead speculated that the incidents are being orchestrated by malign forces to incriminate Tehran. The seizure of the Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar earlier this month by British commandoes fits into the same pattern of deliberate provocation. So when Britain’s Jeremy Hunt gets on his high horse of legal probity and righteousness, the hubris is way too much to stomach.

MoA—The ships’ arrest today is another consequence of Trump’s idiotic anti-Iran policies which the British minions seem to support. The U.S. tries to build some military escort service for ships in the Strait of Hormuz. But no other country wants to join:

ERIC ZUESSE—”In the current hyper-partisan American political climate, when a vast majority of the supporters of each of the two Parties hates the opposite Party so much as to be closed-minded — blinded to the reality of their own Party’s evilness, and to its incessant lying and cover-ups — I should make clear that there is nothing in this article that is, at all, supportive toward either Party. My personal view is that, ever since at least 1981, only Deep State controlled people have lived in the US White House and controlled Congress…”

MoA—The people who planned these provocation do not understand how Iran acts and reacts. Its military forces are obviously under orders not to react to provocations as such could allow the John Boltons of this world to escalate towards a war. Iran will react to these provocations and especially the British seizure of its tanker. But, as we noted in an earlier piece, its responses to such incidents are nearly always asymmetrical and come at an unexpected place and time.