With just hours to go before Obama's last State of the Union address, the US president suffered his latest foreign policy fiasco when around noon local time, Iran arrested 10 US sailors in a boat that has allegedly entered deep into Iranian territorial waters.
Needless to say, there was no mention of this in Obama's address and the scandal was quietly swept under the rug when the 9 young men and 1 woman were released earlier today, and all questions just why the soldiers were released only well after the SOTU's conclusion (were they a hostage bargaining chip in case Obama said something out untoward last night regarding Iran) were soundly ignored.
However, while there may have been some doubt as to Iran's intentions yesterday, all doubt was eliminated moments ago when Iran's state broadcaster just released photos not just of the 10 captured soldiers, which were shown earlier, but of their arrest as well as the seizure of the boat and their weapons.
Here is the just released TV footage, courtesy of Sobhan Hassanvand:
Fars news shows the video of capturing the US navy sailors pic.twitter.com/7kbsUe8kDR [6]
— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) January 13, 2016 [7]
Here is a video of the US Commander apologizing (via Fox [8]):
Video from Iranian state television shows a US Navy sailor apologizing while being detained. https://t.co/Ymr632ThF1 [9]
https://t.co/IlvSh46NLn [10]
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 13, 2016 [11]
And here are excerpted photos, showing US sailors being treated as common Somali pirates:
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Finally, putting Iran's aggression in context:
