The Gulf of Tonkin Incident: Is Iran Next?

On August 2, 1964 the destroyer the USS Maddox by reports was patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin and was attacked. The scenario formed the basis of Lyndon Johnsons escallation of the then Vietnam conflict. Since the mid 1980 till present scores of evidence has revelaed that at the very best, the US may have proviked the Vietnames into attacking the ship. At the worst there may never had been an attack. Information comes from one time vice presidential candidate, and war hero, James Stockdale, who was flying cover over the ship and felt that the targets on thier radars were best described as "phantoms"

As the reports began emerging of U.S. clandestine spying and drone flights I began to wonder if we are looking at history repeating itself. Is Iran being provoked into taking action? No doubt, shooting down a dron on a spying mission would hardly be used as a pretext to war, but what if it is part of a larger overall effort to heighten the Iranian posture and tension level than can lead to an mistake or provacation. Some commander of an exocet or silkworm shore battery gets sppoked and puts a missile into the side of a US frigate patrolling the gulf. This would give the justification to going in an at the very least bombing suspected nuclear facilities. Given the faulty intelligence on Iraq, and the fact that infighting has consumed out intelligence services since 9/11 it is possible that they would fail to get all of them and drive the somewhat visable program totaly dark.


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would be kind of hard to do that
wouldnt more then one country be also be looking over iran with their sats?

Originally posted by bodrul
would be kind of hard to do that
wouldnt more then one country be also be looking over iran with their sats?

To do what? Provoke an attack? We have moved beyond looking with satelites and now are flying drones over Iran. Perhaps even the Dark Star/Tier III Minus followon. How hard is it to have a frigate drift into territorial waters like a fat juicy target?

i am talking about other countries
shorly other countries are looking at iran closely these days
not just the US

Really start messing with Irans "head"
Issue an apology for the accidental attack that has not happened yet.

[edit on 13-2-2005 by Kinja]

FredT,

I believe the scenario you brought up already happened on July 3, 1988. I'm sure you're familiar with the U.S.S. Vincennes killing 291 civilians on Iran Air Flight 655.

What a lot of people seem to overlook are the events that led up to the shoot-down. The Vincennes, at the time, was engaged in a battle with four Iranian patrol boats. The reason why I say your scenario already happened is because not only were those four Iranian patrol boats displaying NO HOSTILE intent (yes, there is tangible evidence of this), these Iranian patrol boats were attacked when they were inside their OWN TERRITORIAL WATERS.

In addition, Rogers' primary reason for engaging the patrol boats was because the pilot of an SH-60B Seahawk monitoring the Iranian boats back to their waters, Lieutenant Mark Collier, THOUGHT he saw gunfire from the Iranian patrol boats. Hostile action, right? The Seahawk was not hit and Collier later testified he had violated the U.S. Navy's exclusion zone when approaching hostile vessels. There is also no proof the gunfire was even gunfire.

So there you go. It's already happened. Now this scenario does not display any intent by the U.S. to provoke Iran into a war, but it could've gotten real ugly anyway.

For those who like war and are pro-U.S. government, the four Iranian patrol boats were destroyed and apparently there were no survivors. I guess sunbathing and smoking a cigarette in front of U.S. naval warships was considered a hostile action to Commander Will Rogers'.

[edit on 13-2-2005 by sweatmonicaIdo]

While it is pausable, the USS Vincenes was out of exocet/silkworm range. If the Tonkin scenario was in play, you would have expected the destroyer to be closer in???

Originally posted by FredT
While it is pausable, the USS Vincenes was out of exocet/silkworm range. If the Tonkin scenario was in play, you would have expected the destroyer to be closer in???

See, that's assuming that the whole Gulf of Tonkin Incident was fabricated. Assuming that it was, if the scenario was in play, I don't know if the cruiser would've been closer in. For one thing, the Vincennes incident was something instigated by a single man, Commander Will Rogers. So he obviously had little regard for politics and all that stuff. If the U.S. was truly trying to get Iran to shoot first, then the U.S. would have to do it without breaking any rules. Iran must be shown violating rules. But since you are implying that the Silkworms can't reach ships deep into the Persian Gulf, I don't see how the U.S. can do it without entering Iranian territorial waters.

To at least give you an answer, I would say no. If it turns out the cruiser was in Iranian territorial waters, then the rules don't apply for Iran. Thus the U.S. plan would fail horribly.

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
FredT,

I believe the scenario you brought up already happened on July 3, 1988. I'm sure you're familiar with the U.S.S. Vincennes killing 291 civilians on Iran Air Flight 655.

What a lot of people seem to overlook are the events that led up to the shoot-down. The Vincennes, at the time, was engaged in a battle with four Iranian patrol boats. The reason why I say your scenario already happened is because not only were those four Iranian patrol boats displaying NO HOSTILE intent (yes, there is tangible evidence of this), these Iranian patrol boats were attacked when they were inside their OWN TERRITORIAL WATERS.

In addition, Rogers' primary reason for engaging the patrol boats was because the pilot of an SH-60B Seahawk monitoring the Iranian boats back to their waters, Lieutenant Mark Collier, THOUGHT he saw gunfire from the Iranian patrol boats. Hostile action, right? The Seahawk was not hit and Collier later testified he had violated the U.S. Navy's exclusion zone when approaching hostile vessels. There is also no proof the gunfire was even gunfire.

So there you go. It's already happened. Now this scenario does not display any intent by the U.S. to provoke Iran into a war, but it could've gotten real ugly anyway.

For those who like war and are pro-U.S. government, the four Iranian patrol boats were destroyed and apparently there were no survivors. I guess sunbathing and smoking a cigarette in front of U.S. naval warships was considered a hostile action to Commander Will Rogers'.

I love this stuff,
Iran = A free democratic nation with no bad intentions. Iranians enjoy all sorts of freedoms including speech and religion. Iranian women are treated as equals and Irans court system is a model for the rest of the world. Islamic museums house the worlds history and muslim scientist work feverishly to save people from disease.

USA = The Empire of The United States Against A Free World and their Evil King GW Bush use their military to oppress the world. Americans are slave owning SUV driving elitists bent on total world domination. America's Patriot Act is widely used to suppress disiddents. American Gulags house innocent muslims and using bizzare S&M tourtre to further oppress muslims. Americans hold the rest of the world hostage by housing the UN and uncovering secret business deals ment to help their nations and keep America's greedy CEO's away from the few bread crumbs America leaves for the billions of starving peoples on the earth. Most are choking from America's polution. Setting up a puppet government in China America's number 1 agent Walmart keeps the chinese enslaved so that they can squeeze every penny there is to make from these poor souls.

Sounds about right. now I need to go iron my white sheets.

*knock knock* Iran is not a democracy by any stretch. All of the power lies with the ruling clerics.

USA = The Empire of The United States Against A Free World and their Evil King GW Bush use their military to oppress the world. Americans are slave owning SUV driving elitists bent on total world domination.

Does it count if my SUV was made in Germany??? Really, someone get up on the wrong side of the rhetoric bed this morning???

Originally posted by FredT
*knock knock* Iran is not a democracy by any stretch. All of the power lies with the ruling clerics.

USA = The Empire of The United States Against A Free World and their Evil King GW Bush use their military to oppress the world. Americans are slave owning SUV driving elitists bent on total world domination.

Does it count if my SUV was made in Germany??? Really, someone get up on the wrong side of the rhetoric bed this morning???

No, I want to make sure that I had it right.

Iran is next on Bush's list of invasion.
After that will be N.Korea.


Hell,I don't know if this Bush going to be tired of all this invasion and war he's doing.What is he some kind of a police to the world?Who says so?

The only option the USA has with Iran is Nukes. The Neo-cons may want to liberate Iran but there not living in the real world.
If the USA and its allies cant defeat the insurgency in Iraq how are they going defeat the resistance in post war Iran?

Bush and his cronies are working on the flawed theory that a stable democratic Iraq will spread democracy thou the middle east. Bushs half baked policy's are leading Iraq down the road of disater and the Iraqi people will be blamed for not fighting for there freedom.
Once the civil war is over Iran will use the lastest nut case to take over Iraq as Justification to continue there nuclear weapons program.

Even if a stable democratic Iraq is created the likes of Iran see freedom as a bigger threat then saddam. The day could come when the US and some of its allies go to war with Iran perhaps we should watch Chinese interests in the middle east.

xpert11,I agree with you!

What Bush is doing with Iraq is disastrous and is heading for the wall with his policy.Furthermore,Iran is nothing similar to Iraq,they'll fight like what a standard army would.Unlike Iraq,the Iranian soldiers are high in morale and are a determined bunch of dudes.

U.S has to stop whatever it's doing.The future of the world won't be as bright as what Bush thought.His actions affect the future.

Originally posted by thehamsamiam
I love this stuff,
Iran = A free democratic nation with no bad intentions. Iranians enjoy all sorts of freedoms including speech and religion. Iranian women are treated as equals and Irans court system is a model for the rest of the world. Islamic museums house the worlds history and muslim scientist work feverishly to save people from disease.

USA = The Empire of The United States Against A Free World and their Evil King GW Bush use their military to oppress the world. Americans are slave owning SUV driving elitists bent on total world domination. America's Patriot Act is widely used to suppress disiddents. American Gulags house innocent muslims and using bizzare S&M tourtre to further oppress muslims. Americans hold the rest of the world hostage by housing the UN and uncovering secret business deals ment to help their nations and keep America's greedy CEO's away from the few bread crumbs America leaves for the billions of starving peoples on the earth. Most are choking from America's polution. Setting up a puppet government in China America's number 1 agent Walmart keeps the chinese enslaved so that they can squeeze every penny there is to make from these poor souls.

Sounds about right. now I need to go iron my white sheets.

So not the point...

So not the subject...

So not what I was saying...

This thread is so not for you! There are plenty of other threads suitable for you, don't screw this one up, please!

Iran may be provoked, but I doubt it. We are spread out as
much as we want to be (can be?) at the moment. Iran now has
democracy on both sides where only a few short years ago it
had the Taliban nutz on one side and Saddam on the other.
It is well known that the younger Iranians (under 30 years old)
for the most part want nothing to do with the religous fanatics
that run the theocracy there. Given time, and given the freedom
that is on either side of Iran ... the theocracy will either fall or
be over thrown by the young of Iran. It will fall on it's own.
No one has to engage in a overt war to make it happen. We
probably are aiding the youth of the country to take down
their theocracy .... but I doubt we'll be doing much more than
that any time soon.

Let the youth and gravity do the work sounds after the older mullahs die from age sounds plausible, however do not underestimate the sense of patriotism/nationalism among iranians, think american patriotism on steroids, with the added religious component and the historical battles with the sunni over Mohammeds legacy...

As long as a hardliner non-muslim Bush pressures the iranians and calls them axis-of-evil, i am inclined to believe that this will actually keep the "floating" iranians in the camp of the mullahs... ????

I would like to hear some iranian opinions about this .....

[edit on 14-2-2005 by Countermeasures]