7 Questions to Challenge the Kerry-Khameini Talking Points About Pirates of the Persian Gulf

If you buy the State Department line that two American Naval vessels strayed into Iranian territorial waters when one boat suffered mechanical problems, and that the rapid return of our sailors is a triumph of diplomacy…well then I have an island in the Persian Gulf I’d like to sell you.

We have seen photos and video of our sailors kneeling on the deck of their vessel, with hands behind their heads — a posture that can only indicate surrender at gunpoint. Keep in mind, they were surrendering to the forces of a nation into which we’re about to pump billions of dollars in cash in exchange for a 10-year hiatus in its nuclear weapons program.

The following are just a few of the questions we need to ask based on the information we already have:

1. What are the odds that two lightly armed American vessels would attempt an incursion into Iranian, or even disputed, territorial waters, hours before President Obama would deliver a State of the Union salute to his own foreign policy prowess?
2. What is the likelihood that all GPS devices on board both U.S. vessels were inoperable?
3. Why do you suppose the Navy sent two boats on this mission?
4. Why do you think the second craft didn’t tow the “broken” one?
5. What admirable “diplomatic” purpose was served by forcing our sailors to their knees at gunpoint, and then publicly releasing the video thereof?
6. Why were our sailors not immediately returned, but held overnight?

I would suggest that the minimal facts we now have indicate something other than an accidental drift and a swift diplomatic resolution.

The most anti-American scenarios imaginable are that our boys (and girl) were engaged in cloak-and-dagger hijinks and got caught with their pants down. Or perhaps they had turned their little flotilla into party cove and lost track of the time due to the influence of alcohol and drugs. I posit these absurdities to amplify the preposterosity of the State Department’s talking points — hereinafter called the Kerry-Khameini Kompact.

The more likely scenario is that our sailors were doing their duty, adhering to navigational channels and rules of (dis)engagement, and yet were approached by Islamic Republic Pirates of the Persian Gulf aboard vessels of superior firepower.

Of course, under the terms of the Kerry-Khameini Kompact, we’ll never know what really happened.

But for you students of history, I add a seventh question…

7. What would Thomas Jefferson do?