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Iranian Irony

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on January 7, 2012.

U.S.S. John C. Stennis

While Iran was bragging about how their naval exercises had chased our aircraft carrier out of the Persian Gulf, and telling it to never come back, that carrier, the U.S.S. John C. Stennis, was rescuing some Iranian butt.

It seems that 13 Iranian fisherman had been caught by pirates. Their vessel, the al-Molai, was being used as a “mother ship” for pirate operations. The Stennis found the elusive ship and radioed the destroyer U.S.S. Kidd, sending it to intercept the pirates. The entire Iranian crew was rescued unharmed. The captain expressed his gratitude to the Americans, saying that without their intervention, he and his crew could have been held hostage for months, if not killed in any rescue attempt by a lesser force. The 15 pirates are in the Stennis brig. Their nationalities have not been disclosed.

What made the whole thing even more amusing was the fact that the Iranian government claimed that from their naval vessels during their exercises they were able to monitor all shipping activity in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and portions of the Gulf of Oman. Somehow, they missed the al-Morai and the pirate activity.

There has been no acknowledgment of the rescue from the government in Tehran. Oh, well, as Leonidas proved almost 2,500 years ago, Persians don’t wear egg on their faces very well. Okay, that was a cheap shot. It’s what President Ahmadinejad deserves after getting all red-faced and insulted over a comic book movie.