Iran now a pirate state?

[crescent]

Provoke a response? Yes. Scuttle the deal where they came out OK? No.

The nuclear deal is unpopular with many Iranian Conservatives.

Link

The deal is also opposed by hardliners in Tehran who may still be hoping to win over the enigmatic but ailing supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to their point of view. Elements of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), who control military sites which the IAEA will have to gain access to if it is to address the vital PMD issues, may be quite happy to find a way of sabotaging the deal. The IRG may even wish to see sanctions remain in place, as they have provided money-making opportunities for many of its leaders.

They actually did give up quite a bit:

These commitments include reducing the number of Iran’s installed centrifuges by two-thirds (from about 19,000 to 6,104, with only 5,060 allowed to enrich uranium); reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium by 97 percent (from 10,000 kilograms to 300 kilograms); to remove all advanced centrifuges (those that can enrich uranium at a much faster rate) and to place them in internationally monitored storage; to destroy the core of the Arak heavy-water reactor (which could produce a plutonium bomb), ship all its spent fuel out of the country, and forgo additional reprocessing; among other things.

If the Iranians honor these terms, they will not be able to build a bomb for at least a decade, maybe longer.

Then again, my little hypothesis seems to have blown out of the water by the unpaid dues issue.

 

[Noztradamus]

Originally Posted by dudalb View Post
That was my first thought. And it puts Obama in a tight spot. If these acts of piracy continue, he will have no choice but to respond.
Only bad thing for the Iranian pirates is their timing;Baltimore is going to dominate the news.

Not in the Rest of the World where the earthquake in Nepal is the major news event.

We've got a couple of drug dealers shot in Indonesia

 

[McHrozni]

Agreed, which is the whole point of sea power . However given the legality of the situation, I believe claims of piracy to be a gross over reaction. Mind you I am doubtful it was even a US flagged ship as also claimed by CNN. The Marshall Islands are in free association with the US but I don't know how that affects their standing in Maritime Law

The report said it was in international waters when harrasment by the Iranian revolutionary guard began. They forced them into their national waters. That fits the definition of piracy, I think.

McHrozni

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The report said it was in international waters when harrasment by the Iranian revolutionary guard began. They forced them into their national waters.

Which report?

Not this one:- CNN: U.S.-flagged ship intercepted by Iranian patrol

Iranian military contacted the vessel and directed the ship master to "divert further into Iranian waters,"...

the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian territorial waters,

 

[ponderingturtle]

At the risk of being called an Iran apologist, that was part of my point as well.

If a ship was in United States territorial waters, even if it was explicitly permitted to be there, it would not necessarily be "piracy" if the United States, or even the applicable individual state, decided that it was necessary to take the ship and its crew into custody.

Nonsense the US Coast Guard are well known as some of the worlds biggest pirates.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Please head to google and take a look at the transit passage deal in the Straits of Hormuz, which is internationally agreed.

We actually negotiated a deal with Iran for that at some point? Or is that the treaty the US does not recognize?

 

[ponderingturtle]

The report said it was in international waters when harrasment by the Iranian revolutionary guard began. They forced them into their national waters. That fits the definition of piracy, I think.

McHrozni

Just the the US coast guard intercepting suspected drug runners does.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Youse guys got it all wrong!

"After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Americans felt that a new force was beginning to materialize, namely the union between Sunnis and Shiites...In order to prevent this force from materializing, the Americans did many things. The first thing they did was to plan and carry out the events of 9/11, in order to justify their presence in Western Asia, with the goal of ruling it."
— Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, commander of Iran's ground forces

 

[McHrozni]

Which report?

Not this one:- CNN: U.S.-flagged ship intercepted by Iranian patrol

Hm, I missed that "further", apparently

McHrozni