Two months ago, a U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship in the Persian Gulf changed course after what the US military subsequently described was an Iranian fast-attack craft “harassing” it by coming within 100 yards. At the time Defense Department officials dubbed the interaction “unsafe and unprofessional due to lack of communications and the close-range harassing maneuvering” and noted that uncovered and manned weapons were seen on the Iranian vessel.
Fast forward to today when in what was once again described by US DoD officials as an “unsafe and unprofessional” action, a small Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard vessel – which incidentally was sailing off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf, not in the Gulf of Mexico – pointed its weapon at a U.S. military helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz.
Cited by Reuters, officials said the incident took place when a Navy MH-60 helicopter flew within half a mile (0.8 km) of two Iranian vessels in international waters. One of the vessels pointed a weapon at the helicopter, the U.S. officials said.
“The behavior by our standards is provocative and could be seen as an escalation,” the officials said. On the other hand, they added that at no point did the crew of the helicopter feel threatened.
While the “incident” is the latest in a long series of similar actions by Iranian vessels this year, duly noted on this website before, it is the such act since Republican Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8.
What makes this time different, is that during his campaign, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessel that harassed the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be “shot out of the water,” if he was elected. Trump, who is due to take office on January 20, has also repeatedly threatened to end Obama’s landmark “nuclear deal” with Iran which could result in the reimposition of sanctions on Tehran.
The last time a similar incident was reported, Trump said that “when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.”
There was no immediate Iranian comment on the incident. Trump’s transition team has not respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.
As we have asked on previous occasions, perhaps an appropriate question is what the US naval response would have been had an Iranian helicopter flown in proximity of the US coastline… over international waters of course.
via http://ift.tt/2gqs0dr Tyler Durden