Is the "reported" harassment by the Iranian navy going to lead to military action from the U.S.

Naw... The Saudis and Egyptians had been the prime movers in anti-Iranian and anti-Shiite agitation. When they are inviting Ahmadinejad and Mr. Larijani to their capitals, America's talk of isolating Iran sounds like a thing of the past. Ahmadinejad has been kissing-up, so no, nothings going to happen.

No , this is a game that hostile nations play with each other all the time. The last time an incident happened from these games of chicken was early in 2001 when Chinese jet pilot Wang Wei collided with an American Navy EP-3E signals reconnaissance aircraft . That created some tensions . Wei was killed and the American plane landed on Chinese Hainan Island .

I am sure the US Navy has tested the Iranian defense response also .

Probably not. It may, however, lead to an increased US naval presence in the Straits of Hormuz.

If it had been me in charge over there, I would have called for a live-fire test of my ship's weapons systems as the Iranians were pulling their little stunt. A couple of shots fired directly over the heads of the Iranians on those boats would have made them think twice about pulling a stunt like that again.

But then again, maybe that's why nobody has put me in command of a US navy ship or battle-group.

Elliot

It was a shame they didn't test the R2D2 to make sure it was in proper working order. I saw a demonstration of the thing on a dependent cruise and what a sound that thing makes. (It's a big machine gun that looks like our friend from Star Wars - have no idea what it is really called.)

Tom,

Yeah, I saw it. And he was dead-on. Every time the US military reacts in a way that can be seen as "backing down", it creates an increase in hubris in our enemies, which in turn eventually leads to an attack of some kind. Peters was right when he said that the naval commander's response will probably cost American lives in the long term.

That's why I would have taken the action I described above... a show of strength, rather than backing down.

Elliot