A dramatic escalation in the tension between Iran and the West took place over the weekend.
On Friday, a UK-flagged tanker was seized by the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic maritime passageway in and out of the Gulf. Tehran said the vessel was “violating international maritime rules.” The British government is warning Iran, saying “there will be serious consequences” if it doesn’t release the tanker.
Tehran claims the ship was involved in a collision with an Iranian fishing boat and ignored the boat’s distress call.
US President Donald Trump, who is spending the weekend in New Jersey, told reporters that the incident confirms what he believes the Iranian regime is all about: “This only goes to show what I’m saying about Iran – trouble, nothing but trouble.”
But Iran isn’t backing down. Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted on Sunday that President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, was “turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire.”
The Media Line spoke about the issue with Brian O’Toole, a member of the Atlantic Council and a former senior official at the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
https://themedialine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Brian-OToole-1.wav [3]For some facts about the Strait of Hormuz, The Media Line has prepared a short presentation.