Iran Seizes a Second Tanker, Embarrassing the US

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President Biden was silent after Iran seized an oil tanker headed to Houston last week. This week Iran seized yet another oil tanker. How many more tankers does Iran need to seize before Biden responds?

Iran seized a second oil tanker in a week on Wednesday in Gulf waters, and the U.S. State Department called for its release, reports Reuters.

The Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet of the U.S. Navy said the Panama-flagged oil tanker Niovi was seized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) at 6:20 a.m. (0220 GMT) while passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

In Iran’s first response, Tehran’s prosecutor announced the oil tanker was seized on a judicial order following a complaint by a plaintiff, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said.

The incident comes after Iran on Thursday seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman called the Advantage Sweet. That tanker is being held by Iranian authorities in Bandar Abbas, the Marshall Islands flag registry said on Tuesday.

This one is very embarrassing to the United States.

Maritime security firm Ambrey has said it believed the Advantage Sweet’s seizure was in response to a recent seizure via a court order by the United States of an oil cargo aboard the Marshall Islands tanker Suez Rajan.

The Niovi oil tanker seized on Wednesday had been traveling from Dubai toward the UAE’s Fujairah port when it was forced by IRGCN boats to change course towards Iranian territorial waters, the Navy said.

Vedant Patel, a deputy spokesperson at the U.S. State Department, told reporters the Biden administration and the “international community” call on Iran and its Navy to release the ships and their crews. “Iran’s harassment of vessels and interference with navigational rights in regional and international waters are contrary to international law and disruptive to regional stability and security,” Patel said.

Emphasis added.

The US is very weak, and you can sense Barack Obama’s hand in this. It’s Obama on uppers. Biden begs for a bad nuke deal with Iran; nothing else matters.


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