Subject: Re: WHY does Israel have to wait for
I am not an international lawyer. However, there is precedent. We've boarded DPRK ships to seize weapons. Because the Gulf is a hot-zone, the US (and other nations) could probably classify it as a security operation to aid "peace in the region" (or some such political platitude).

Maritime law is an insanely complicated field, so I would caution against drawing parallels between different circumstances. For example, in the below link we did ask to board a suspected DPRK transport ship - but it was flying under a Belize flag of convenience, and was going to enter the straits of Malacca, which at its narrowest point lies within the territorial waters of two nations that we have close cooperation with:

https://www.armscontrol.org/ac...

Just waving the phrase "peace in the region" and calling it a security operation isn't going to make it legal for the US to decide what ships can legally traverse the Persian Gulf without our say-so.

Again, this is not to argue that in exigent circumstances we wouldn't stomp all over international law to do what we want. It's to push back on the idea that there's some magical cost-free solution that involves little more than making threats to Iran and the problem goes away. That's just not the case. The US President doesn't have a Green Lantern ring that lets him change any unappealing situation in the world as long as he strong-willed enough. The US has a lot of power, but some of that power can only be wielded when we're willing to send men with guns to die in a foreign land. That's not where we are with the Houthis. Honestly, with the destruction of the Hawkish neo-con wing of the GOP, we're probably at the nadir of our domestic politicians willing to commit to sending men with guns into a new combat theater.