Iran, Framing Torpedoed Frigate as an ‘Atrocity,’ Floats Argentina’s Strategy With the Belgrano

America is being accused of a war crime for sinking Iran’s IRIS Dena. Charges range from the frigate being in international waters to its heading for “home.” It’s a tactic Argentina tried when the U.K. torpedoed ARA General Belgrano in the Falklands War, only for facts to emerge later that validated the strike as “legal.”The exact U.S. Navy submarine that scored the victory is unclear, but it struck the Dena off Sri Lanka on Wednesday with a Mark 48 torpedo. The explosion lifted the stern of the ship out of the water. She broke in two and sank. Sri Lanka rescued 32 and recovered 87 bodies.It’s charged that the Americans didn’t mount a rescue. This ignores the reality that a submarine, with cramped quarters, is ill-equipped to assist. Maritime law requires ships to help vessels in distress but not if it puts them in danger. Aware that the Sri Lankans were helping, the Americans can’t be said to have abandoned the Iranians to their fate.Thursday on X, Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Araghchi, posted that America had committed “an atrocity 2,000 miles from Iran’s shores.” He called the strike “without warning,” which is by design for the “Silent Service.” His complaint ignored that Iran has launched surprise attacks around the world against civilian and military targets.Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that America is “punching” Iran “while they’re down.” Tehran feels the blows and hopes to turn America’s first submarine kill since World War II into a scandal, trying to get America to reject President Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim that “the unforgivable crime is soft hitting.”Bloomberg on Friday reflected Iran’s emerging myth, calling it “of importance” that the Dena “was 2,000 miles away from home.” War, though, isn’t a game of tag with safe spaces. A ship can sit out a fight at a neutral port. The Indian Express reported today that India offered the Dena safe harbor; its captain chose to take his chances.Critics also allege that the Dena was unarmed — impossible to confirm with the ship on the ocean floor — and “heading home.” But as General Colin Powell said amid complaints about America creating “the Highway of Death” in the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi forces would be attacked rather than allowed to mount a tactical withdrawal and regroup.Had the Dena reached Iran, it was destined to attack American and neutral vessels. “This Iranian warship,” the White House tweeted on Wednesday along with footage of the frigate’s destruction, “thought it was safe in international waters. It wasn’t. The @DeptofWar is fighting to win.”Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher fought to win after the Argentine junta invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. As the British Empire struck back, Thatcher ordered the submarine HMS Conqueror to sink the Belgrano, a light cruiser. Cries arose that the ship was outside the exclusion zone that Thatcher had declared.The Belgrano was “a danger to our ships and to our people on them,” Thatcher stated on the BBC. “All of the facts,” she said, “in about 30 years’ time, will be published.” When the Thorp Report was released in 2011, it showed that Belgrano was not homeward bound. It was executing a “pincer movement” to trap the Royal Navy.Although a tactical victory that forced the Argentine navy to quit the conflict, sinking the Belgrano was a propaganda victory for the junta. Twenty-five years later, Belgrano’s captain, Hector Elias Bonzo, confirmed the pincer strategy and rejected charges that the Royal Navy had committed an atrocity.“It was absolutely not a war crime,” Bonzo said at a news conference. “It was an act of war, lamentably legal.” In a letter to La Nación in 2005, Admiral Enrique Pico of Argentina noted that being outside the Exclusion Zone “did not mean that” Belgrano “was withdrawn from the war,” backing Thatcher.The Iranian regime has long tried to keep attention focused on Washington’s actions so that it could strike from the shadows. America isn’t giving them the chance to execute that asymmetrical war. Tehran is sticking to its tactics — deploying the myth of the Dena to help them win through PR what they cannot achieve in battle.

Iran, Framing Torpedoed Frigate as an ‘Atrocity,’ Floats Argentina’s Strategy With the Belgrano

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