Iran harassed the US Navy under Obama — here's why it stopped under Trump

[Onkel Neal]

Iran harassed and humiliated the US Navy under Obama — here's why it stopped under Trump

http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-humiliated-us-navy-obama-stopped-under-trump-2018-3

Iran's navy made a point of harassing and humiliating the US Navy in 2016 after then-President Barack Obama had sealed the Iran deal, but since August 2017, the US Navy says things have changed.

"It seems like they've absolutely made a conscious decision to give us more space," Navy Cmdr. William Urban recently said. "That is definitely a change in their behavior."

Iran would charge US Navy ships with fast attack craft, buzz fighter jets with drones, and even shine lasers at helicopters operating at sea during Obama's presidency.

But the worst, most embarrassing incident occurred in January 2016, when Iran's navy seized two US Navy rivernine boats and the 10 sailors on board after the ship wandered into Iranian waters due to mechanical issues. They broadcast footage of the sailors, crying, in detention, on television across the country. Iran later announced plans to build a monument commemorating the event.



https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/573dd4e252bcd0210c8c3d57-960-480.jpg

[Skybird]

So Iran stopped going after relatively meaningless symbolic propaganda scoring points and instead invests into effective policy-pursuing by strengthening its military engagement in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and in militias in other countries.

This way it will be a greater problem for the West. I wish they would still be obsessed with running circles around US destroyers.

[Aktungbby]

here's why it stopped under Trump

So Iran stopped going after relatively meaningless symbolic propaganda scoring points and instead invests into effective policy-...This way it will be a greater problem for the West. I wish they would still be obsessed with running circles around US destroyers.
WHY BOTHER WITH THE EXPENSE OF SEA HARRASSMENT WHEN IT'S MORE PROFITABLE TO USE NINE GUYS WITH COMPUTERS. https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-XZ310_0323ir_P_20180323222056.jpg Federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges Friday accusing nine Iranians of orchestrating years of cyberattacks on behalf of the Iranian government to steal data from hundreds of universities and businesses in the U.S. and abroad, in one of the largest state-sponsored hacking cases ever charged by the Justice Department.
Prosecutors say (https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/nine-iranians-charged-conducting-massive-cyber-theft-campaign-behalf-islamic) the defendants stole more than 31 terabytes of data for financial gain. Among the victims were 144 American universities, 36 American companies and five American government agencies, including the U.S. Labor Department....
Prosecutors say the hackers stole data and intellectual property across all fields of research, including science, technology, engineering and medical fields.
The stolen materials and login credentials were obtained for the IRGC’s benefit and sold to public universities in Iran, U.S. officials said. One service allowed customers in Iran to directly access online library systems of certain U.S. universities.
Prosecutors said universities had paid a total of $3.4 billion to access the academic materials that the hackers had accessed for free.
Prosecutors said the hacking campaign lasted from 2013 through at least late 2017.
The defendants—Gholamreza Rafatnejad, Ehsan Mohammadi, Abdollah Karima, Mostafa Sadeghi, Seyed Ali Mirkarimi, Mohammed Reza Sabahi, Roozbeh Sabahi, Abuzar Gohari Moqadam and Sajjad Tahmasebi—are at large overseas and haven’t been arrested. The U.S. doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Iran.

[August]

So Iran stopped going after relatively meaningless symbolic propaganda scoring points and instead invests into effective policy-pursuing by strengthening its military engagement in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and in militias in other countries.

Instead? Weren't they already doing both?

[Skybird]

Instead? Weren't they already doing both?
From Neal's link:


Instead, rushing US ships and putting them on the defensive, as well as capturing sailors, works mainly for propaganda purposes for Iran, whose authoritarian regime controls the media and pushes a heavily anti-US agenda. With Trump similarly focused on optics and pledging to revitalize the US military, Iran may have pivoted towards quietly pursuing its foreign policy goals, rather than making a scene that Trump could react to violently.
"There's another side of this," said Schanzer. "They understood that there was a change in the rules of the risk/reward calculus, but they also seem to understand that there was less of a policy with regard to their regional activity from Yemen to Iraq to Syria."
So while Iran has dropped the very visible, US-centric naval run-ins, it's picked up on recruiting militias, deploying its armed forces to Syria, and supplying anti-US and anti-Israel militant groups. "


A shift. A strengthening of the one policy, a greater ignoring of the other policy.

[Jimbuna]

@Catfish: I thought your deleted post was a fair one.

I'll add, you wouldn't see that form of naval harrassment against Chinese or Russian vessels whether friend or foe, the tolerance level would be at zero.

[August]

From Neal's link:



A shift. A strengthening of the one policy, a greater ignoring of the other policy.

Says some guy from some Washington think tank that nobody ever heard of, it isn't the Gospel Skybird. :)

For example the article makes a lot of use of phrases like "may have" and "seems to" and figures that these changes in activity coincided with the change in administration. Well imo that is far too early for Trumps policies however volatile to be implemented let alone for them to cause a real change in Iran's activities as a result. It's a lot easier to stop a single tactic like poking the US Navy with small boats off their own coast than it is to set up foreign military campaigns.

If there are indeed increased levels of activity now, just 14 months into Trumps administration, it's because Obama took his foot off their necks half a decade ago not because the Iranians have suddenly become militarily capable overnight.

The fact is Iran has been supplying militant groups, messing around in Syria and elsewhere and generally stirring the Pot of Trouble to varying degrees for decades. It's nothing new, but I understand the desire to make the implication that it's all Trumps fault.

[Skybird]

It has indeed, you must not tell me. It ust seesm that is has restrengthened certain efforts in this regard. Many mainstream media
since months say that Israel and Iran seem to head for a collision due to increased Iranian acivites over the past 6 months or longer. Iran gets also motivated by Russian patronage which has increased over Syria, and again: espcially in the last 6-12 months.

[Platapus]

Perhaps the US Navy has stopped moving into the disputed water area??

[August]

Perhaps the US Navy has stopped moving into the disputed water area??

So you're saying the US Navy was more agressive under the peace-nick Obama administration that it is under the war hawk Trump administration?

Naw I don't buy it.

[Catfish]

^ Obama just did not do it so openly, you know he thought about what the world might think about America. But maybe he just listened to one or two experts. :yep:

Regarding Obama bashing: Obama helped initialise the arabian spring, he tried to build up trust in the arabian world, he finally got Bin Laden, and he almost tied the Ukraina to the west; some of it did not work out mostly because of how the US had behaved in decades before, and some secret service screw-ups. However this is much more than some other presidents achieved. And other than Trump, he was no loose cannon on deck.

Regarding a provocation or an intentional breaching of territorial waters it was either aggressive behaviour aka willy waving, or a navigational error (incompetence). It also seems the engine of the rivererine command boat broke down at the wrong time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U.S.%E2%80%93Iran_naval_incident
You can of course blame it all on Obama.

But do you think that being openly aggressive is what makes a country?
You must really admire North Korea, China and Turkey then. I left out Russia, because its reluctant way is more like Obama behaved :O:

[Skybird]

Regarding Obama bashing: Obama helped initialise the arabian spring, he tried to build up trust in the arabian world, he finally got Bin Laden, and he almost tied the Ukraina to the west; some of it did not work out mostly because of how the US had behaved in decades before, and some secret service screw-ups.

NONE of it worked, due to the ME culture being what it is and the Ukraine being a corrupt paradise for oligarchic gangster regimes and the forseeable opposition of Russia.

Osama Bin Laden was a success of a military operation which was running for years with the aim to find and kill him, and was not initialised by Obama. Amercans would have hanged him in the garden of the WH if it would have become known that he refused to authorize the final strike.


However this is much more than some other presidents achieved. And other than Trump, he was no loose cannon on deck.
If the above total misconceptions of realities count as achievements, then I hope I am already dead once a so-called failure takes place.

Obama had style, he had agreeable manners, Trump has none, is obviously just an uneducated prolet swanking with gold. But the foreign political course of Obama was a complete fail as well. He did not understand that in many parts of the world only strength is seen as a viable form of communication.

[Catfish]

^ i do not see Obama's policy as a "total failure", but to each his own.
What other presidents achieved, is only considered by hindsight, and propaganda.
"The secret of success, tactical or otherwise, is to redefine your objectives".
This is how they bring sense where there never was, into history.

What is true though, is that Obama "[...] did not understand that in many parts of the world only strength is seen as a viable form of communication."
Willy-waving in 2018? A shame, in our so-called "enlightened times". I guess the strategy is to know this and act accordingly, while not let oneself being lowered to 'their' level in the process.

From his own education and mindset, he accepted all as equal, and equal in logical and reeasonable thinking, free of prejudice. But he was wrong. An arrogant dumb bully obviously has more chances.
What does that say about our times.. ?

OT i have always asked myself how people using computers or have read some books can at the same time have the state of mind of the stone age, but obviously all this does not matter at all. Call it elitist or arrogant, but I guess i can perfectly understand where Obama went wrong.

[Skybird]

^

LINK (https://www.amazon.de/Die-Welt-von-gestern-Erinnerungen/dp/3866478992/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522236638&sr=8-1&keywords=stefan+zweig)

I recently read this book, some months ago. It called back to life the feeling and cultural atmosphere of the Donaumonarchie before WW1. Everything was at peace, everybody was complacent, nobody imagined that things could ever change and that progress would ever stop from being made - and that drastic change could come so stunningly quickly.

It was not only a smooth, pleasant reading - I also felt like reading - in parts - a book about the present Zeitgeist.