[af_vet_rr]

The Saudis could not succeed at a frogman op. They are even worse frogmen than they are at being fighter pilots at night. Scratch the Saudis.

It was an Iranian boat pulling off the unexploded mine. Only the folks who built that thing would dare to remove it, they all are built with multiple anti-removal devices.

First of all, I'm a little suspicious of that footage in light of the owners of one of the ships saying the US is spreading misinformation. We are talking about John Bolton here, and he wants to get us in another shooting match or two, even if we haven't wrapped up our previous ones.

If the footage is real though, we are talking about the Saudis - they can easily pay somebody to do that. They are currently in a proxy fight, well it's not so proxy at times, with the Iranians via Yemen.

Help us out Travis: What do the Iranians gain by starting a direct war with us or our allies (which would pull us in)?

How does it help the Iranian leadership to lose their navy, their air force, potentially the lives of some of the leadership, oh and it opens up the chances that the younger folks finally get the revolution they've been wanting.

How does any of that benefit Iran?

It benefits the Saudis in spades though - wipe out the power behind the Shiites, and you leave the Saudi brand of Islam as the sole brand.

[Travis McGee]

The Iranian regime is on the ropes. They don’t want the only other person in the equation to be Trump....they lose.

They want to freak out Europe, Japan and Korea over the threat of the strait being closed. (Iran can do it, with 1,000s of truck-mounted Chinese Silkworm and other missiles.)

They perceive that the very real risk of war, and closure of the strait, will cause our allies to put incredible pressure on Trump to call of the dogs, to save the world economy.