Eagle Tribune in Editorial published on Thursday, January 14, 2016 wrote: Conspicuously absent from President Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday night was any mention of the biggest news story of the day — the capture by Iran of two U.S. Navy patrol boats and the 10 sailors aboard.
While Obama touted his nuclear deal with Iran as guaranteeing that “the world has avoided another war,” the Iranians were doing their best to provoke a fight, scoring a huge propaganda victory in the Islamic world by displaying over state-run media the captive sailors as defeated aggressors. The incident followed another Iranian provocation in December in which Iran test-fired a live missile essentially across the bow of a U.S. aircraft carrier.
By Wednesday, the sailors and their patrol boats were returned to the United States. But the differences in spin placed on the incident by Iran and the Obama administration are telling. They show the Iranians eager to poke “The Great Satan” in the eye every chance they get. And they show an Obama administration that is willing to bear any insult, accept any lie to preserve its nuclear deal with a regime that clearly cannot be trusted.
The two American riverine patrol boats were sailing in the Persian Gulf between Kuwait and Bahrain when one developed mechanical problems. The boats drifted near Farsi Island, an Iranian outpost in the middle of the gulf. The boats and their crews were seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Iranians immediately began to ramp up the incident, claiming the Americans were “snooping,” stating that land-based missiles were locked on a U.S. aircraft carrier and demanding an apology for the intrusion into Iranian territorial waters.
Meanwhile, the Iranians began transmitting photos and video of the captured sailors — nine men and one woman. They showed them on their knees on the deck of a ship, their hands clasped behind their heads. They had been stripped of their weapons and a video showed an Iranian soldier rooting through lockers of weapons and ammunition, as well as charts and papers. A later photo showed the Americans in a room lounging on carpets, the woman wearing an Islamic head covering. A video showed a sailor apologizing for the intrusion into Iranian waters.
All this, according to David French of the National Review, is a violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits making a “public curiosity” of military captives.
In an incident that clearly merited a strong U.S. response, the Obama administration rolled over like the softest of lapdogs.
Secretary of State John Kerry spoke several times with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif about releasing the sailors. Defense Secretary Ash Carter characterized the incident as one of maritime cooperation noting that “the U.S. Navy routinely provides assistance to foreign sailors in distress.”