Stepping Through the Procedures

Just as the sailors stepped through their procedures with the IRGC, the administration has begun stepping through their procedures in dealing with the political aspect of the incident. AP reports:

The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest with Iran over a weekend incident in which Iranian speedboats harassed U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, the State Department said Thursday.

The protest, which repeats public U.S. complaints about the "provocative" action, was sent to the Iranian Foreign Ministry through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents U.S. interests in Iran, deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. He could not say if the Iranians had actually received and acknowledged receipt of the protest

"We have ... prepared and given to the Swiss a diplomatic note formally protesting this incident," he said. "It reiterates the points that we have made publicly in the last few days."

"We certainly don't want to see the Iranians taking any kind of provocative actions or provocative steps against our ships or against any ships that are transiting what is a primary international waterway," Casey said.

So the US is filing a formal diplomatic protest with Iran, but we don't have formal diplomatic relations with Iran, isn't that like shouting into an empty room? Bill Arkin made a similar point the other day.

Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, told the Boston Globe yesterday that he worried about misinterpretation resulting in military confrontation. "I do not have a direct link with my counterpart in the Iranian Navy," Roughead said. "I don't have a way to communicate directly with the Iranian Navy or Guard." How stupid is that?

I understand the formal diplomatic protest is the next step, but what I don't understand is what the expectation of this administration is for results with the formal diplomatic protest. If the Iranians want to sit down and talk about it, do they have to go through the Swiss too?

CDR offered an observation about the young men we hear on the videos released by the US Navy and Iran, his point being the young sailors aren't exactly projecting the commanding tone of James Earl Jones. These conversations communicated by our young sailors represent the bulk of communications between Iran and the United States of America. That means the communications aspect of our nations foreign policy for dealing with Iran ultimately puts these sailors in the position of being the primary spokesmen for our nation. That doesn't exactly give the impression of wisdom at work.

We are told by this administration that no formal relations, even at a low level, with Iran is a good policy, the implication being it gives us some sort of advantage. The advantage this extra layer of diplomatic bureaucracy gives us in dealing with Iran escapes me.