President Donald Trump has tweeted in the past few hours that he has instructed the Navy to “destroy any and all” Iranian gunboats that harass American warships at sea.
Trumps threat follows the harassment of six US warships by 11 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels on April 15th.
I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2020
The Military Times reports:
NAVCENT detailed in a previous news release that the IRGC vessels “repeatedly conducted dangerous and harassing approaches” of several U.S. warships while the American vessels were conducting air integration exercises with U.S. Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.
The 11 Iranian ships carried out an “unsafe” and “unprofessional” interaction with the following U.S. warships: the expeditionary mobile base vessel Lewis B. Puller, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Paul Hamilton, Cyclone-class of coastal patrol boat Firebolt, Cyclone-class patrol ship Sirocco, and Coast Guard ships Wrangell and Maui.
NAVCENT said the Iranian ships “repeatedly crossed the bows and sterns of the U.S. vessels at extremely close range and high speeds” and even came within 50 yard “closest point of approach” of the Puller and 10 yards of Maui’s bow.[1]
Now I ask you to watch the video below, it is the so-called harassment by the IRGC vessels back on the April 15th. Does this seem like something worth threatening to blow up human lives over?
Video of #IRGCN vessels conducting dangerous & harassing approaches on U.S. naval vessels in the international waters of the North Arabian Gulf. pic.twitter.com/zL9VKQ0eiQ
— U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) April 15, 2020
This year is certainly an interesting one to say the least. With the coronavirus pandemic now looking set to slowly fade away; for the time being at least it looks like we may have some serious geo-political tensions to move our attention towards. China is the COVID19 scapegoat, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un may be brain dead or even dead and US aggression on the up against Iran once more.
Don’t expect the rest of 2020 to be any less crazy!
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Sources:
[1] Military Times
