War with Iran?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-31-2019, 05:54 PM)Dill Wrote: Pro-tip: worry less about condescension and refuting world views and follow closely the relation of statements to support.

Ugh, pro cringe. 

Quote:Support for my claim that the British seizure of the Iranian tanker at Gibraltar IS related to (i.e., a consequence of) the US trashing of the Iran Deal.

Cool, lets see it.

Quote:1. Tanker detained by Gibraltar on U.S. request to Britain, Spain says
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-iran-tanker-spain-idUSKCN1TZ0ZT
MADRID (Reuters) - Gibraltar detained the supertanker Grace 1 after a request by the United States to Britain, acting Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Thursday.
Spain was looking into the seizure of the ship, suspected of carrying crude oil to Syria, and how it may affect Spanish sovereignty as it appears to have happened in Spanish waters, Borrell said

So, Spain says it was at the behest of the US and the UK says it was not.  Your article has zero corroboration or proof other than the fact Spain made the claim.  Weak source, I'm surprised you even used it.  There's zero substance to this claim.

Quote:2. John Bolton, applauding the seizure, linked it to US efforts to cut off Iranian trade. Nothing about EU sanctions.
https://twitter.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1146877026751647756?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1146877026751647756&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.france24.com%2Fen%2F20190704-iran-us-uk-syria-sanctions-seizure-iranian-oil-tanker

Bolton hates the Iranian regime.  If a guy pissed in the Ayatollah's corn flakes Bolton would tweet in support of it.  He also points out that this was related to the ship being bound for Syria, as I said.  Again, not a shred of evidence in this source that the UK acted at the behest of the US in this instance.  You're literally 0-2 here.

Quote:3. As stated in my previous post, the co-chair of the EU Council on Foreign Relations says the EU does not impose EU sanctions on non-EU nations. Iran is not an EU nation.  This undermines any claim that the seizure was about EU sanctions. Let's add this to that:
http://theconversation.com/eu-silence-over-british-seizure-of-iranian-tanker-is-a-telling-glimpse-of-post-brexit-future-120437

The underlined is demonstrably false.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2019/05/17/syria-eu-renews-sanctions-against-the-regime-by-one-year/

"More broadly, sanctions currently in place against Syria include an oil embargo, restrictions on certain investments, a freeze of the assets of the Syrian central bank held in the EU, export restrictions on equipment and technology that might be used for internal repression as well as on equipment and technology for the monitoring or interception of internet or telephone communications."

You literally made a demonstrably false statement.  Knowing you you'll probably find a weasel loophole, but you just got caught making a false statement to bolster your argument.

Quote:Acting upon intelligence that Iranian oil was being shipped to Syria, the chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, requested help from the Royal Marines to seize the tanker. Picardo explained that Gibraltar was simply upholding sanctions laid down by the EU against the Syrian government by preventing a shipment of 2.1m barrels of light crude oil to one of its refineries. According to the British, once refined, it could have fuelled the regime’s tanks, armoured cars and troop carriers that operate alongside Russian forces currently waging havoc in Syria’s Hama region.

Despite this, there was no statement from the office of the European External Action Service, the EU body responsible for conducting the bloc’s foreign and security policy. Not a word of gratitude. Not even a nod. This was a deliberate and strategic use of silence. . . .

So the UK says it was and no one else said it wasn't  Let's see what comes next.

Quote:There was one tiny chink in the wall of EU silence that greeted news that the tanker had been seized. The European Council candidate to become the EU’s next foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, is an outspoken and often truculent Spanish politician. Unhappy in the first instance about the insensitive use of Gibraltar’s territorial waters, which Spain does not recognise, Borrell’s other preoccupation is European relations with Iran. In his role as Spain’s foreign minister he told media that the tanker had been seized following “a request from the United States to the United Kingdom”. He insinuated that the Americans had first offered the intelligence to Spain.

Ohhhhh, he "insinuated"!!!!!!!  That's iron clad proof right there!  Of course he's also known for being truculent about UK claims on Gibraltar's waters, so he has no ax to grind here at all.  Seriously, you're crushing me with your fact based logical argument here.

Quote:These points could be put in question by evidence that the EU regularly seizes assets of non-EU nations going to Syria. Still, you are left with the fact that both the Iranians and Bolton connect this event to a sanction regime re-activated in the wake of US trashing of the Iran Deal.  Were that deal still intact, there is no reason to believe the tanker would have been seized at Gibraltar, EU sanctions or not. 

So the Iran deal is directly connected to sanctions against Syria, which I have shown above to be in place by the EU?  Source please. 

You have not shown, at all, that Bolton connected this to the UK enforcing US actions against Iran, only that he celebrated the seizure.

Quote:Final point, if an effort to sort out what is actually going on with these seizures, what purpose drives them, is cast as "making excuses for Iran," then this frames out any disinterested effort to follow the logic of events. All analysis is implicitly presumed to be in service of supporting or attacking Iran.  That is, in effect, a requirement that analysis be biased in favor of one party or the other. Comments about my "excuses" for Iran, like my excuses for China in an earlier thread, are a kind of policing. They are complaints about absence of bias, absence of the right kind of bias.

You have a Tucker Carlson style history of defending vile regimes.  You're previously informed us that we can infer from a person's history.  Regardless, I have demonstrably disproved your claims about your sources.  You made claims that were not true (I'll abstain from using the term lying), you inferred and claimed your inferences are fact.  You've made a weak argument constructed of assumption and inaccuracy.  Feel free to obfuscate and claim otherwise.  I could make a lame analogy about bringing a knife to a gum fight.  Instead I'll simply say, try harder.