Iranian Government Says American Video Fake: Did Anyone NOT See This Coming?

The American military released recordings of small, fast Iranian boats zipping around U.S. Navy ships Sunday morning.

An officer of Iran's Revolutionary Guard says the video, and audio, are fake.

No big surprise there. Particularly since the Iranian line is that the nice little boats were just minding their own business, asking the great big warships who they were and what they were doing.

The video and audio show speedboats playing chicken with the three warships, and airing threats ("you will explode" - a threat, yes?). After violating quite few rules of the road (seas, rather), and dropping boxes, the Iranian crews went back to whatever they do on shore.

That was just as well, because at least on of the warship commanders was close to giving the 'open fire' order.

Iran could wind up with perforated boats and scrambled Guards is they try that stunt again. I doubt that the American military is willing to risk another USS Cole.

I hear that the American military re-released the video and audio, with quite a bit of the static and crackle taken out. The 'you will explode' dialog is much easier to hear now.

Could it have been faked? Maybe. As I wrote yesterday, the audio could easily be a fake. The video would have been harder to fake. It's one thing to make a crystal-clear special effects shot, and quite another to produce something with the haze, jiggle, foreground figures,and all the rest that we saw in the video.

But I suspect that the country that produced the special effects artists and technicians behind Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could have faked the video.

Getting the officers and crews of three American Navy ships to lie about what happened isn't so likely. I know that a tiny percentage of the American military's officers and enlisted personnel have, at one time or another, lied: generally to cover up some crime they committed. That's one of the things courts martial are around for.

But this time, a lot of people are involved: and I simply don't believe that the conspiracy explanation is true.

However, I'm pretty sure that this isn't Iran's last word. And, I'm even more sure that Iran's 'we were just minding our own business' claim will be taken very, very seriously.