Hello Sailor!

Yesterday an Iranian operated McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II crashed in Sistan and Baluchestan Province near the border with Pakistan killing both crew members.

Obviously some people may be a little surprised that the Iranian air force operates US made aircraft. However this particular model dating back to the 1960's was sold to Iran prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Since 1979 Iran has been under varying degrees of US and international sanctions. These have particularly affected the technology sector making it extremely difficult for Iran to not only import spare parts for aircraft but also the precision equipment needed to engineer spare parts. The main reason for Iran's nuclear program has been to build up their domestic science and technology sector.

So when I heard about yesterday's crash I simply dismissed it on the basis that Iranian aircraft do tend to be a bit crashy.

However the F-4 Phantom has played a significant role in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. Specifically on June 22nd 2012 (22/6/12) Turkey flew an F-4 Phantom into Syrian air-space without permission and it was promptly shot down. Turkey's intention here was that the shooting down would give it a pre-text to invade Syria.

This is just another in a long line of incidents where the international community have been forced to apply pressure to stop Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan doing something stupid and dangerous.

With US President Barack Obama continuing to refuse to join the international community in restraining Erdogan Turkey continues to behave in a stupid and aggressive manner. It is currently waging war against its own Kurdish minority and is attempting to use it's irregular Turkmen battalions to attack anti-ISIL forces in northern Syria. Yesterday Turkey carried out a bomb attack that killed 10 German tourists.

As such people in the US clearly assumed that yesterday's crash was a reference to Turkey's aggressive and reckless behaviour. So in response they sent 10 US sailors into Iranian waters near Farsi Island forcing the Iranian navy to rescue them. One of the big differences between Arabs and Persians such as Iranians is that Persians speak Farsi rather than Arabic.

This was an attempt to recreate a similar incident in 2007 when 15 British sailors were captured by Iran. What happened there was that the US who control the Global Positioning System (GPS) sent false co-ordinates to the British sailors so they genuinely thought that they were in international waters when in fact they'd illegally strayed into Iranian waters.

The US' intention then was to trigger a confrontation between Iran and the UK would lead to the UK demanding that the US helped it invade Iran. The US neo-conservatives who brought you the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have of course always wanted to invade Iran.

Despite what he may claim in public such as last night's State of the Union (SOTU) address US President Obama does not see ISIL as an enemy. Instead he views them as a vital ally in continuing this neo-conservative rampage against Iran. That is why ISIL have still not been defeated and Obama still can't see Erdogan for the maniac he is.

Clearly I really do need to get around to giving an update on the fight against ISIL in Iraq. However that is a large task and not one I'm going to be able to get done tonight.

17:35 on 13/1/16 (UK date).