Patterico's Pontifications


Iran claims it has arrested 17 CIA Spies (Updated x2)

Filed under: International — DRJ @ 7:41 am

[Headline from DRJ]

Iran says it has arrested CIA spies; UK to unveil response to ship crisis:

Iran said on Monday it had captured 17 spies working for the CIA and sentenced some of them to death, an announcement President Donald Trump dismissed as “totally false” amid an escalating international crisis over tankers in the Gulf.

The Iranian announcement came hours before Britain was due to unveil its response to Iran’s seizure of a British oil tanker, a move that has escalated a three-month confrontation that nearly drew the United States and Iran into a shooting war.

“The Report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth. Just more lies and propaganda (like their shot-down drone) put out by a Religious Regime that is Badly Failing and has no idea what to do. Their Economy is dead, and will get much worse. Iran is a total mess!” tweeted Trump.

The “spies” were reportedly arrested from April 2018 to March 2019 but this escalation seems like an attempt to drag in the US.

UPDATE: Britain to seek European maritime mission to counter Iran’s ‘piracy’.

UPDATE 2: I doubt Spain will be joining the “European maritime mission.”


27 Responses to “Iran claims it has arrested 17 CIA Spies (Updated x2)”

  1. Q: Who to believe when a liar accuses another liar of lying?

    A: No one.

    Dave (1bb933)

  2. That is the problem, and the UK is caught in the middle.

    DRJ (15874d)

  3. The UK opened this Pandora’s Box but doesn’t have the military strength or will to deal with it. It is now Trump’s decision. My guess is he will de-escalate it by convincing the UK to release the Iranian tanker, thereby letting Iran save face. If so, it will weaken the UK and free Iran to continue and even increase oil sales to Syria and others in violation of the sanctions.

    DRJ (15874d)

  4. This is the same regime that said Ahmadinejad won the popular vote.

    Paul Montagu (dbd3cc)

  5. This is the same regime that knows Trump balked at taking action to avoid people getting hurt, and now Iran has 23 hostages.

    DRJ (15874d)

  6. “Q: Who to believe when a liar accuses another liar of lying?”
    Dave (1bb933) — 7/22/2019 @ 7:55 am

    Trump should roll out Bush and Powell to lend some credibility to the denial.

    Munroe (0b2761)

  7. Bush and Powell didn’t lie.

    Dave (1bb933)

  8. I think it was Obama who said, “If you like your nuke deal, you can keep your nuke deal.”

    MasterBaker (bcae7b)

  9. I updated the post with the UK response.

    DRJ (15874d)

  10. we had one good asset in amiri, (he provided the counter to the 2007 nie) and he was compromised, perhaps through Hillary’s insecure server, the uk likely following the flawed advice of kim darroch signed on to the iran deal, and they’ve ended up the worse for it,

    narciso (d1f714)

  11. the uk is in the right, that tanker off Gibraltar was carrying sanctioned oil, the one in the gulf was operating legitimately,

    narciso (d1f714)

  12. From the UK response:


    He also said he would discuss how this would complement U.S. proposals in the area but that Britain would not join the U.S. plan as it wanted to preserve the nuclear deal.


    The navies of Europe.

    DRJ (15874d)

  13. How far has the Royal Navy fallen. 😒

    Frank (caf4c7)

  14. True. It may have to partner with the Spanish, if they even will!

    DRJ (15874d)

  15. How far has the Royal Navy fallen.

    Nah, it’s the same it’s always been.

    nk (dbc370)

  16. So the UK doesn’t want to partner with the United States (per DRJ’s update) because it wants to preserve the Iran deal, which makes the British tanker not our problem. I’m fine with that.

    nk (dbc370)

  17. Trump should roll out Bush and Powell to lend some credibility to the denial.

    Hard to imagine anyone that wouldn’t lend credibility.

    Time123 (36651d)

  18. Certainly but their learning curve is still blinkered

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  19. …and now Iran has 23 hostages.

    I assume you mean six Iranian-American dual citizens plus the seventeen just arrested. CNN called the recent arrestees Iranian citizens (thus not “hostages”), but I wouldn’t surprised if there were a few dual-citizen hostages in the mix.

    Paul Montagu (dbd3cc)

  20. In the midst of it all, this must warm DCSCA’s cackles:

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  21. It’s a very dubious bit of data;

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  22. Guess that terse letter hasn’t helped much…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  23. I added Update 2.

    DRJ (15874d)

  24. Obama really kinda started this recent tend, though of course you can go back to Carter or even Eisenhower if you want.

    Showing that we are afraid of taking life seems good. I genuinely respect that Trump is not cavalier about loss of life from military actions. Life is precious. But our enemies are evil. They have no advantage but this, so when they realize they can use it, they start taking hostages.

    Had Trump decisively responded to the downed drone, Iran would be complaining to Europe about it instead of hijacking their ships.

    There may be a factor we aren’t privy too, like a capability we don’t want to justify iran using, but I doubt that because this admin doesn’t keep its secrets.

    This will get worse unless Trump gets his hands dirty. We shouldn’t be the world’s police but we’ve been that for generations and Europe has happily mooched until they are kinda helpless.

    Dustin (6d7686)

  25. If the theory in DRJ’s second update is true, the UK was helping us out.

    Dustin (6d7686)

  26. Or we instigated it.

    DRJ (15874d)

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