The Iranian Speedboat Threat

While their statements might be true in a court of law, their careful construction leave a misleading impression, because it is patently bogus on logical and empirical grounds to concatenate the verbal threat to the actions of the speedboats in order to support the contention that the incident is a major provocation.

To wit: It is clear from the information available that the exchange took place on Channel 16 VHF, before switching to another open channel (Channel 10, I think). It is also clear that the Iranians in the speedboats were communicating with the Americans. Channel 16 is the international hailing channel. Everyone at sea is supposed to monitor this channel, and use it to communicate when boats/ships are in close proximity. All marine VHF radios come with the same set of open channels. So, for a third party to monitor an exchange, all one has to do is listen on Channel 16, then switch when one of the speakers names the channel to switch to. And, because these channels are open to the public, the third party can inject himself into the exchange any time he wants to.

According to a report in the Navy Times, there is (are) a well known VHF heckler(s) near the Straits of Hormuz, sometimes called the 'Filipino Monkey'. Obviously, to heckle, the heckler must have a VHF radio (a marine version only costs about $120 dollars and is readily available at any marine store), so all he (they) had to do to monitor all traffic on Channel 16 is to leave the radio on and listen, much like reporters monitor police communications. It was easy for the heckler to monitor the exchange between the US Navy and the Iranian speed boats and interject his voice anytime he chose to do so. In fact, he could infer enough from the Navy's side of the conversation (which could be heard over a much longer range due to the higher altitude of the ship's transmitting antenna) to make the threat. Since such heckling is a frequent occurrence, particularly in the Straits of Hormuz, it also stands to reason that the heckler(s) routinely monitors channel 16.

There is nothing in the AP report to indicate this possibility, yet only two days after the AP report was written, the Navy Times reported that, according to Navy ship drivers, the heckler was well known and a very likely possibility ...and had been in action for 25 years. So, given the information that has been released to date, it is not logical to use the "verbal threat" to support the contention, because there is a demonstrated nontrivial likelihood that this particular threat came from a well-known prankster.

Whether or not the incident in the Straits of Hormuz was a truly provocative act is a legitimate question. But to settle this question, one must show that the "swarming" of a few boats that one is in communication with, but without the verbal threat, was in itself a major provocation.

Whatever the case, there is one issue that is truly clear: When two multibillion dollar Aegis ships and a $700 million frigate, together with helicopter air cover, feel threatened by a few open speedboats, costing less than $15,000, milling around, to the point that such an incident could be interpreted as a major provocation to the United States, there is an even larger, more important question about whether a country that spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined is getting a reasonable return on its defense investment.

Chuck Spinney is a former Pentagon analyst.