Exactly. He seems to think that the world is governed by SOFAs, though has no idea how they might be enforced.
His administration is ripe for conspiracy theories because of both his foreign and domestic actions. Were they just stupid or were they deliberate? Some of the answers may arrive soon.
The ship was in Gibraltar waters, so the UK was within the law to enforce the embargo with its territory
Based on what? Reports on Fox News? Trump's bleating? Did you think all this stuff up by yourself, or is this what you heard in the Angry Middle-Aged White Male Rightwing Religious Traditionalist Open Mouth Media Echo Chamber?
The idea everything was settled in Iraq in 2011 is ludicrous. Obama used the lull in Anbar as the excuse to keep his election promise to get out of Iraq and thereby helped create the ISIL mess. Bush created the larger Iraq mess in 2003.
Conservatives are trying to get Brexit over the finish line when a majority, albeit slight, of the British people have had second thoughts. If it looks like a free trade deal with the U.S. can be had, maybe the British people will buy the horse turds the Conservatives are selling. The truth is trade deals are not easily had even if you are rich in natural resources like Canada and Australia. Trump can't deliver a deal even if the Brits kiss his ring. There's little doubt Trump is using Brexit for his own purposes. His attack on the UK ambassador is a warning to all Brits a trade deal with the U.S. may not happen.
When you mix ignorance, delusions and racism with partisanship, you end up with the kind of arguments I see here about the Iraq war and who was responsible for how it unfolded. Stepping back a bit, though, the facts are clear. In this regard, the very fact that the push to get the US out of Iraq was led by an Iraqi government that the US had ostensibly installed -- with Maliki becoming prime minister in Iraq as America's choice to replace a prime minister that was seen too close to Iran -- tells you all you need to know about who had won the Iraq war. While it is common folklore among certain Americans that the surge was successful, the surge and America's "Redirection" were actually the necessary precursors to the greater rise of sectarian divisions in Iraq and eventually the rise of ISIS. Indeed, ISIS was born from US policies to strengthen, support and arm sunni tribes and militia's tasked with checking Iranian influence in Iraq. As a consequence, with the US developing a 100,000 strong sunni army ("Sons of Iraq") composed of a mix ex Baathist, former sunni jibhadists and sunni tribal forces, all of whom were a direct threat to the Iraqi government, the man the US had itself installed in Iraq began tilting back to Iran to ensure his own safety and to make sure there wouldn't be a sunni take over or coup to replace him. At that point, before the US withdrawal, the Iraqi government was itself much closer to Iran than to the US, with America's own diplomats cabling home that Iran's Quds force commander General Soleymani was the most powerful man in Iraq. In theory, the US could have done what the British had done decades earlier (when in response to shia uprisings led by Persian clerics, they supported Iraq being dominated by sunni leaders) and what the US would do when it tilted in favor of Saddam against Iran, and come out publicly and clearly in support of a sunni dictatorship in Iraq. But things had gone too far to continue to keep the Shia down to check Iran's influence in Iraq and, besides the optics of what such a policy would have meant for the ostensible slogans which the US had advertised as among its goals in Iraq, the end result this time would have been a huge and bloody civil war in Iraq, except one which the forces that later became ISIS might have (with open US support) even won. But what kind of "victory" would that be? Anyway, the partisan bickering in America on who lost the Iraq war notwithstanding, and leaving aside the conclusion of the report recently published by the US army declaring Iran the winner of that war, the truth is that it might all turn out that the Iraq war will have been won in the final analysis by the Iraqi people. At a far greater cost than would have been required to simply unseat Saddam and install a genuinely popular form of government there, but perhaps in the long run with greater rewards.
Gibraltar isn't in Spanish waters. Gibraltar is an English territory. So for all purpose it was in English waters.
I have a sense that you are one of those who wants the UK to be an American poodle. The problem for folks like you, however, is that while it is one thing to seek to be America's poodle when the US is looking for a pet, its altogether another thing to be a poodle of someone who is way too narcissist and self absorbed to even have much time for his pets.
I don't see how you can interpret the "Redirection" as an attempt to seed sectarian divisions in Iraq. Everything I know about it points to the opposite. The truth is that all peoples have their demons, and the Shia Iraqis and, yes, Iranians, have shown theirs. The Iranians have made the choice to fight American hegemony, and Israeli/Saudi influence. I can respect that, but I hold all leadership accountable for the outcome of that decision. Chavez tried to struggle against the monster, to the detriment of his own people. Mossadegh did the same. I'll spend 95% of my time on this subject speaking against American aggression. I am American, I have more responsibility for what my own country does, and the fact of the matter is that the United States, as the most powerful actor, carries a greater burden of responsibility for whatever outcome we see. But the Iranians do share some burden. The institutional weakness of your political leadership is scary, it allows the warhawks in both of our countries greater leverage.
I direct you to this article by Seymour Hersh in 2007. In many ways, it was prophetic. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
