The problem is that Iran's response mirrors the UKs behavior. They seize a tanker, Iran seizes a tanker. So if the UK fires on Iranian ships seizing a UK tanker, Iran might very well respond by firing on UK ships seizing the next Iranian tanker that's shipping oil to Syria. I mean... if the goal here is start a war with Iran, this certainly works. But if the goal is just about anything else, perhaps it's better if the commanders are constrained? I'm honestly a bit at a loss as to what exactly the US and UK position here is. What do they want to accomplish? Freedom of navigation? But they seized an Iranian tanker in international waters based on national sanctions. Do US sanctions now allow US enforcement outside of the US borders? If so that's awfully close to claiming literal world domination. Or is there some nuance I'm missing here?
2. Given the above, not sure why you see it this way — Is your view point defendable? IMHO, there is little or no basis to claim world domination by the US. Let me add 3 points to clarify:
4. IMO, ASSAIL (who a respected former Naval Officer) is just simply saying UK ROEs may be too strict — watch the video enclosed above for the Bridge to Bridge comms between a UK warship and the Iranians. He gave specific commentary on what could be improved for UK naval patrols to be more effective. Likewise, I would like to see if these ROEs need to be adjusted in light of the Iranian threat — it is clear that the Iran or it’s IRGC have attached limpet mines to merchant ships; attempted to intercept innocent shipping, from multiple countries; in particular, I dislike the fact that Iranian SAMs are being fired into airspace that has to be sanitised of civilian air traffic.
It’s not about “blundering into war”.
What must be kept in mind is that in the UK (as with us etc ) the justice system is kept separate from the government and the government is required to maintain this separation, While in Iran this is not always the case. The UK government, once it had signed up to the protocol of sanctions on Syria would have been bound by it's own judicial norms to take action. However Iran is not bound by the judicial norms and either does not understand or may even despise the judicial system of a western democracy and will act differently to the same situation than the UK.
The UK will have to send over a negotiating team to resolve this. Rallying military support within Europe will be far too slow and in the end will fall short of a good solution. If the UK cannot solve this through use of Naval assets then the EU won't.
I don't think that a war with Iran would be unwinnable. First and foremost a military victory depends on what objectives are set before and during the course of this war. Second, Iran really isn't powerful enough to stand up to the US. So I don't think the lesson here is that the US is now too weak to take on Iran. I think the lesson here is that when dealing with issues that are too small to cause a war by themselves, speaking with the US from a position of force gets results. It's a startling outcome because it strongly suggests that the legal niceties and general principles set up behind international relations over the past ~70 years are rapidly giving way to a different kind of behavior pattern.
Probably had thoughts similar to to post Iraq war #2 - After defeat a coherent democratic opposition would arise and it would be all kumba-ya's afterwards. Fantasy land stuff it was, made worse by poor planning and worse implementation. Mind you, modern Iraq only came into being after the partition of the Ottermman Empire and always has been a fractious entity and the chances of easily forming an effective government in an area torn by sectarian violence and no clear sense of an Iraqi identity must have been low.
An all out invasion would indeed be messy. But what about a limited, primarily aerial and naval conflict, over the Hormuz shipping lanes? Because at the end of the day, that's what was on the line here with the arrest of tankers by both sides. Despite the attempts made by Iran to develop modern systems in both fighter jets and air defense, it's not exactly a great power in either area. They could and quite likely would disrupt shipping for a time, but how long of time is up for debate. The ultimate outcome I think is not. The only real ending here is a defeat for Iran, and a return of the shipping lanes to their pre-war status quo, with additional restrictions on Iranian oil exports.