"The real lesson of Iran detaining those US sailors"

[$tevie]

Wednesday morning, Iran — as expected — released the American sailors. What does that say about the idea that American "weakness" is encouraging Iranian aggression?

To find out, I called up Robert Farley, a professor of international relations at the University of Kentucky. Farley tweeted a bunch of interesting thoughts on this subject as the incident unfolded, including a revealing comparison to the time in 2007 when Iran seized a number of British sailors and held them for 13 days. In our phone call, he explained why the theory claiming that signals of American "strength" are the only way to deter enemies is fatally flawed.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/13/10761906/ir...n-weakness

[hal]

Where were those critics when the chinese held a plane and the americans within for 10 days while refusing to even speak to the US on the subject or comment to the media.

The people were released (but not the plane) after the "Letter of the two sorries" was delivered and USA was billed for the whole thing.

In addition to paying for the dismantling and shipping of the EP-3, the United States paid for the 11 days of food and lodging supplied by the Chinese government to the aircraft's crew, in the amount of $34,000.

Where were those right wing accusers back then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident

[SteveG]

The real lesson is an exponential upgrade of the Powerball question:
"What would you do if someone was going to release $150 Billion to you on Friday?"

I'm surprised they didn't return them with travel souvenirs.

[Onamuji]

I think we've been sending "messages of weakness" to the Iranians for quite awhile now.

[Speedy]

The speedy release of these sailors has to be very disappointing to the Republicans.

[$tevie]

Speedy wrote:
The speedy release of these sailors has to be very disappointing to the Republicans.

:agree:

[pdq]

The rest of the Chinese story (as I recall it) was that when the event first happened, Bush came out blustering, demanding, and threatening, as usual, which accomplished absolutely nothing. The Chinese had the disabled plane and crew, and no one was going anywhere. They just sat back and waited for the empty bluster to end.

Some days later, came the quiet US apology and the payment.

One of the benefits of no-drama Obama.

[hal]

pdq wrote:
The rest of the Chinese story (as I recall it) was that when the event first happened, Bush came out blustering, demanding, and threatening, as usual, which accomplished absolutely nothing. The Chinese had the disabled plane and crew, and no one was going anywhere. They just sat back and waited for the empty bluster to end.

Some days later, came the quiet US apology and the payment.

One of the benefits of no-drama Obama.

Oh yeah, he made demands and blustered like crazy! and the chinese were 100% mute for a whole week.

[Ombligo]

$tevie wrote:
[quote=Speedy]
The speedy release of these sailors has to be very disappointing to the Republicans.

:agree:
Now they have turned on the Navy Lt who was in charge of the mission.

he admitted it was their fault and unintentional. He thanked the Iranians for their hospitality and treatment. So now some politicians and conservative commentators are saying he broke the UCMJ and should be charged with aiding & abetting the enemy.

Never mind that we aren't at war, so Iran is not our enemy and these sailors were not POW's.

The same armchair warriors also fault the sailors for kneeling when they were taken into custody, and the female for wearing a head covering. I guess they wanted them to open fire and create an international incident, and dead sailors.

Of course that would have been Obama's fault too.

[Lux Interior]

Ombligo wrote:
Never mind that we aren't at war,

We are always at war with Oceana.