A drone is shot down, tankers are sabotaged, recriminations fly. What is going on between the US and Iran and how did it come to this?
Suddenly we’re hearing a lot more about Iran, and the drums of war between the United States and Iran are beating.
This talk is supported by what appears to be an escalating series of incidents: a US “spy” drone shot down by Iran, oil tankers holed with missiles or mines, and claims by the US Navy that fragments recovered from one of the tankers bore a “striking resemblance” to Iranian limpet mines (a type of mine attached by magnets to its target). Then there was the grainy, black-and-white footage of a small boat at the side of one of the stricken tankers, which the US military says were Iranians.
In response, the United States has sent 2500 additional American troops to the region in the past month.
Some have likened the escalating atmosphere to the feeling leading up to George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
So why are we suddenly using the “w” word in the Middle East again, and should Australia brace to be invited into another Coalition of the Willing?
Read the article by Michael Bachelard in The Sydney Morning Herald.