Just two days after the US Navy released a video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships featuring a chilling threat in English, the Navy said that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship. Of course, by then, Bush had been able to use it in a political scaremongering speech in Israel.

The near-clash occurred on January 6, 2008, in the Strait of Hormuz. On the US-released recording, a voice can be heard saying to the Americans, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."
The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited. It was definitely promoted as such during Bush's visit to Israel, where he used the tape as further evidence of Iran's aggressive nature - precisely what Israel allege Iran of being involved with. US President George W Bush described the incident as "provocative", adding that it was a "dangerous situation" that should not have happened.

But with most of the cameras gone, the spokesperson for the US admiral in charge of the Fifth Fleet clarified that the threat may have come from the Iranian boats, or it may have come from somewhere else. In short, there is no evidence that it was the Iranians and the tape should never have been used to scapegoat Iran once again.
"We're saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there," said the spokesperson. "It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."

The Iranians denied using the threatening language and said the US-released video was fabricated. The Iranian government aired its own video of the event on state-run TV. On the audio, the voice that the Iranians say is the communication from their vessel can be heard identifying itself to the American ship, "Coalition warship No. 73 this is an Iranian navy patrol boat." The Iranian parliamentary speaker has dismissed the affair as being part of a US propaganda campaign against Tehran.
The US Pentagon says the American ships were about to open fire when the Iranian boats withdrew.

The video, said to be shot from the bridge of the USS Hopper in the Strait of Hormuz, appears to show the small boats racing near the wake of the US ships and crossing close to each other. One boat is shown in close-up - a blue speedboat with at least two crew. After spotting the approaching vessels, a Navy crewman can be heard over the radio, warning them they are approaching a coalition warship. "Request you establish communications, identify yourself and state your intentions, over," he says.
He refers to "five unidentified small surface" boats, and the ships' sirens can be heard in the background. The four-minute video condenses what US officials have described as a 20-minute stand-off. At the end of the US recording, the screen goes black and the remainder is in audio only. Some of the communication is unclear.
The US issues a final warning that if the boats do not change course immediately they will be "subject to defensive measures". The speedboats, believed to belong to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, came within about 200m (650ft) of the US vessels, Pentagon officials said. The weekend stand-off happened in a major oil shipping route, in what the Pentagon insists were international waters. Iranian officials earlier played down the event, calling it an "ordinary occurrence".
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said: "This... happens for the two sides every once in a while and, after the identification of the two sides, the issue is resolved." Official media also reported the US statement about Iran's allegedly threatening behaviour with scepticism, implying that Washington was exaggerating the incident.

Although Tehran dismissed the incident as routine, Rice said that there was nothing normal about it. "At least I hope that's not what the Iranians consider to be normal behaviour, because it was provocative, and that kind of provocation is dangerous and I would sincerely hope that the Iranians would refrain from any such activity."
The incident follows a row that erupted last March when Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured 15 British sailors and held them for nearly two weeks. Iran said the crew had strayed into Iranian waters, a claim which Britain disputed. Later, it was stated that no border was ever officially ratified, and that hence the entire incident was easily staged.
Incidents such as these echo the Gulf of Tonkin and several other events that became a causus belli. With Bush's visit to Israel starting three days after the alleged incident, the US-Iranian tension was reduced when the US intelligence community released a report in late 2007 that said Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. A new series of overt "threats", equally showing Iran's aggressive nature, thus will have to be staged... shown.