Disabling a tanker makes no sense. Someone else has to fix it.
They then work for us and our oil(+Venezuela’s) gets sent to Europe-even China as they’ll be hurtin’
Not disabling a tanker leaves two choices: allow them to proceed to the Iranian port through a “blockade” which is a defeat, or boarding the vessel and seizing it.
We exist in such a risk-averse state now that a potentially risky boarding at sea could result in loss of life on the ship and in the boarding force, not to mention possibility the entire vessel. And there are no doubt Iranian hard liners who would find a way to put teams of hard-liners on vessels intended to run the blockade.
Doing so could result in a firefight, ending in a conflagration that could sink the ship in a narrow and shallow choke point. They certainly wouldn’t care if the Iranians were all killed as long as they took some of our people and equipment with them. After all, these were the same people who used humans as mine detectors in the Iran-Iraq war. And even if the same people aren’t still calling the shots, the exact SAME types of people are calling the shots.
Disabling it and having it towed to internment seems to be the least risky course of action.
It does if you want to disable the refineries without blowing them to bits.
The ships could be rigged as traps. It was the right call to just disable them.
Agree. The tankers should be prizes of war.