Absolutely none of that would happen. It's in Iran's interests to keep the oil flowing at a fee that everyone can stomach and that doesn't offend the sensibilities. $1 a barrel for a year of unprovoked war crimes costing them hundreds of billions of dollars, with the cost effectively shared by all, fits this description. Nor has Iran responded with the kind of zero-sum, suicidal, totalitarian foreign policy that is always attributed to them by their enemies. Serious commentators have all remarked at how restrained they've been during this war. It's almost as though sane people who intend to come to a realistic agreement that everyone can live with are running their foreign and defence policies.
As you say, the shadow fleet exists because of sanctions. In other words, because the biggest bully on the block is committing de facto piracy with their navy. Pretty much the definition of blocking freedom of navigation. Their insurance paperwork not being in order justifies their seizure?
That's a half truth at best. The sanctions in question are hardly unilateral, particularly in the case of Russia. The shadow fleet exists due to a combination of factors; dodging the sanctions is only one of them.
As I understand it (but I'm certainly no expert) the insurance paperwork isn't in order and the fleet not properly registered as a result of the general state of the vessels involved. The US is hardly alone in this - the UK has also recently taken to seizing such vessels that pass too close to them. But generally yes, if due to the risks no country wants to officially register a vessel and no insurance provider want to cover it then it seems entirely justified to seize it in order to protect the commons. These aren't pleasure boats we're talking about here, they're ridiculously large merchant vessels. There's approximately zero legitimate excuses for them to be flying a fraudulent flag.
Ponder for a moment why it might be that the countries involved don't want these vessels flying their own flags and don't want to extend them insurance policies themselves.
Just pointing out that for the volume of these ships, it's not really a massive toll. It's honestly a bargain, paid for in a really easy to stomach way by the people who allowed this to happen: Everyone else.
Doesn't explain why UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrian, and Saudis would tolerate a fee transiting the strait. Let alone why America would agree to that in negotiations given they have little incentive to agree to any large demands.
If that is agreed upon it's going to come with some concessions by Iran which is even less likely.
They'd tolerate it because they all poked a giant in the eye and it didn't go down. It's by far the cheapest route to peace any of them have.
USA could agree to it because it's not particularly dependent on that fuel supply and therefore would only pay the costs indirectly via market forces, which as the thief-in-chief pointed out, does (the parts he cares about of) their economy no harm as a net petroleum-product exporter, and above all else, they are losing the war.
I realise he was making comedy, but breaking that down further I'd argue that dumb people can fool smart people for a little while that they're smart.
My social acuity has developed slowly, only after being repeatedly pounded into shape from mistakes, and quickly reading people is something that does not happen intuitively for me. I've been misled multiple times by people who, overall, I would now describe as just not that bright, with horrible consequences as the relationship developed. What they had in common is that they were all good at mirroring. Eg, They hear me use a technical term in an early conversation, they drop one or two confidently not much later, and before I picked up on what they were doing, I mistook them for an intellectual peer and let that early impression colour later ones. These days I'm much more attuned to it and have caught people doing it, along with the little microexpressions they pull when they think they've successfully deceived me. It's fun now, but it certainly didn't start that way.
I remember the set of his shoulders and generally pained body language during that address. He knew it was bullshit, and knew that the world could tell that he was bullshitting. They sent him because out of the four (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, and Powell), he was the only one regarded as somewhat reliable.
He sold his soul that day and regretted it almost instantly. I agree that the people who put him up to it were also setting him up as they knew he already wasn't really with them on this thing. They were politicians, after all. I have no sympathy for the personal toll it took on him. He's a war criminal like the rest.
The E3 fleet is aging and difficult to keep airworthy. Of the 32 or so planes the US has, it sounds as though they struggle to keep the operational number above 16, and moving more to the gulf means they have to pull them from other theaters. In short, they simply don't have enough to provide coverage of all the areas they want them.
This was completely foreseeable and is a situation that appears to have arisen entirely due to vest interests stifling procurement of a suitable replacement in order to spruik up business for their own competing, but unfinished offering. Prior to the war in Iran, total cancellation of the procurement of E7's had been announced.
Okay, so this is clearly corrupt, but is it illegal?
If not, add it to the United States Congress' many failings. If it is, since they spy on everything, it really shouldn't be hard to convict everyone who spilled the beans early. There's two halves to every transaction, and every trader probably told at least one other person, so there should be no shortage of people willing to rat on each other.
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