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PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   272 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 11, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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There's some messy legal philosophy stuff involved, here; the actual behaviors are not new.

'It's not illegal is a lawful president does it; it is illegal if Trump does it' would be a take on how it's being presented. Here is a 2020 Biden administration seizure of an Iranian vessel, and Obama administration naval seizures, also Iranian related.

The novelty here is the Iranian connection in the context of the ongoing US military buildup / gunboat diplomacy off of Venezuela. The seizure is quite plausibly pretextual, even if it turns out to be informationally accurate / procedurally legal under US law.

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