US media has glossed over the fact that the US naval forces were violating Iranian territorial waters. The US navy, despite being the largest and most powerful in the world, does not have the divine right to disregard the territorial sovereignty of any country’s waters, not even countries that our government dislikes.

Reminding the public of this fact is important.

But the US media has hardly mentioned it, preferring instead to amp up the drumbeat of possible military action in response and raise the barely veiled specter of the US Embassy hostages in 1979 by referring to it as a “crisis.”

There was never any real chance that Iran was going to keep the sailors indefinitely. The Iranian nuclear deal’s sanction-lifting provisions are set to begin as early as next Monday. A diplomatic row with the US over the holding of naval personnel could derail this.

It would not only have been illogical, it would have been stupid for the Iranians to keep the sailors held indefinitely over a minor territorial violation in this context. The Iranian government is not stupid. The nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions was a major win for the Iranians- why would they want to end the deal before they saw any of the benefits?

But, of course, the US media and political class saw it differently. As usual. The Iranians were portrayed over and over again as an insane, despotic, scheming regime that only cares about sticking its thumb in the American eye to prove some point about how tough it is.