Rep. Poe: US Weakness Prompted Iran’s Seizure of Cargo Ship

By Greg Richter

Iran felt emboldened to seize a cargo ship because the United States isn’t standing up to the Islamic Republic, Rep. Ted Poe tells “Newsmax Prime.”

Iranian forces boarded a Marshall Islands-flagged ship traveling through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday and remained on board Wednesday.

“Iran is a world threat. Iran is a state sponsor of terror,” Poe, a Texas Republican, told host J.D. Hayworth on Newsmax TV. “They’re trying to show who’s the boss . . . of the Middle East, and they’re testing the West . . . by confiscating this ship. There will be more incidents like this and more aggression on the part of the Iranians in the Middle East.”

An Iranian cleric recently said that Secretary of State John Kerry had told his counterpart in the nuclear negotiations that he wished the United States had a leader like Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Poe told Newsmax he doubts the truthfulness of anything the Iranians say.

“But it is true that the U.S. has weak leadership when it comes to foreign policy, and the Iranians, of all people, they know it,” Poe said.

“We’ve pandered to the Iranians, we’ve pandered to this government, and backed off every time that we are pushed, and so, we do need a leader that will at least lead the nation, and we don’t have that person. We don’t have a person that says, you will not mess with the United States.”

Former State Department official Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. told Hayworth there is a better way to get the Iranians to leave ships in the area alone.

When Iran mined the Persian Gulf during his years at the Pentagon, the United States re-flagged all oil tankers with the American flag so the U.S. Navy could defend them, he said.

“We sunk a lot of Iranian vessels, and that threat went away,” Bloomfield said.

Yes, those were the days of a government who had a spine.

This government is too busy lying and cheating – they don’t have time to protect anything.  A good example during the riots in Ferguson.  They let all of the looters and rioters go because they said “there would be too much paper work involved” if they charged every one.  So these people go free and showed up in Baltimore and did the same thing and will they be charged?

kommonsentsjane