Spencer Ackerman says “Hormuz” may be Farsi for “Tonkin” as he reads Robin Wright report that, in fact, the Pentagon has no idea what happened and the radio threats “may not have come from the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats that approached them” and may not have been directed at US forces.
Yes, that’s right, the threats against US Navy ships made by IRGC speedboats may not have been made by IRGC speedboats and may not have been against US Navy ships. Nevertheless, the Bush administration chose to leap to conclusions and warmongering.
Now the converse is that I wouldn’t hang too much on the idea that this whole thing was just made up by the Bush administration. If the Bushies cooked it up out of nothing, then it’s not a good idea to raise tensions with Iran. If things went down exactly how they were originally reported, then it’s not a good idea to raise tensions with Iran. The problem is with the administration’s misguided strategic approach to Iran, not with the details of this or that possibly-made-up incident.