{"id":36269,"date":"2016-02-19T19:28:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T19:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2016\/02\/19\/republican-candidates-say-u-s-sailors-capture-by-iran-shows-obama-s-weakness\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:48:17","slug":"republican-candidates-say-u-s-sailors-capture-by-iran-shows-obama-s-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/2016\/02\/19\/republican-candidates-say-u-s-sailors-capture-by-iran-shows-obama-s-weakness\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican candidates say U.S. sailors\u2019 capture by Iran shows Obama’s weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iranian hard-liners\u2019s leaders are not alone in using<\/span>\u00a0Republicans are seizing on\u00a0T<\/span>the recent\u00a0surrender of 10 U.S. sailors in the waters of<\/span> the Persian Gulf has been seized upon<\/span> as an important<\/span> political symbol in the presidential primary race in South Carolina.\u00a0\u00a0symbol of\u00a0to Iran in January\u00a0to score political points.\u00a0aren\u2019t the only ones exploiting the video of 10 captured for political gains. <\/span>Several Republican presidential<\/span> candidates have highlighted last month’s\u00a0the <\/span>tense stand-off, in\u00a0which Iranian forces the sailors were <\/span>arrested the sailors at gunpoint, as a are using the incident as a cudgel on the Obama administration, saying the whole incident is a <\/span>symptom of a weakened military under President Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas,\u00a0told an audience on the stump in South Carolina that if he\u2019s elected president, sailors weren\u2019t going to be “on their knees with their hands over their heads.” And\u00a0Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida,\u00a0and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush have portrayed the incident as a sign of the U.S. military’s eroding power.\u00a0TK\u00a0also pointed to the incident as sign of American military weakness, and pledged to restore strength to the military if elected.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emergence of the incident on the campaign trail has come in the run up to the primary in South Carolina, which has a large military and veteran population, with\u00a0\u00a0as a campaign issue comes as the campaign is swinging through a state with a large military and veteran population, with <\/span>candidates jockeying to be the strong foreign policy candidate. But military advocates say using the\u00a0But some question whether using the <\/span>sailors\u2019 capture as an indication of military weakness is unfair while so much remains unknown. An investigation continues into an apparent navigation error by the riverine boat crews that saw them cut through Iranian\u00a0territorial waters. in the Persian Gulf<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t know what was going on when their hands were behind their heads,” said Tom Snee, the head of the Fleet Reserve Association, which advocates for enlisted in the sea services.\u00a0“To make this a political issue? Come on. It makes them scapegoats for a political football.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruz highlighted the incident in a is the most recent candidate to point to the incident. In a <\/span>Feb. 16 speech on <\/span>aboard the museum carrier Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina, saying he would\u00a0Cruz said he was going to <\/span>restore the military\u2019s pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Starting next year, our sailors won’t be on their knees with their hands on their heads,” Cruz said, “Instead, they will be standing on the decks of the mightiest ships the world has ever known with their heads held high, confident that the great country that they volunteered to serve has their back.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days earlier, Rubio cited entioned <\/span>the incident as a sign that Obama\u2019s policies have emboldened had created a lack of respect for the military among <\/span>America\u2019s adversaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Around the world, America’s reputation is in decline,” Rubio said during the Feb. 13 CBS News debate. “Our allies don’t trust us, our adversaries don’t fear us, Iran captures our sailors and parades them before the world on video.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Republican attack line on Obama\u2019s handling of the military is a tried-and-true tactic that dates to the\u00a0bit of red meat that goes back to the <\/span>Truman administration and the debate over who allowed communists to conquer China,\u00a0who was responsible for allowing China to be taken over by communists in 1949, <\/span>said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, <\/span>at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It can all be boiled down to a Republican criticism that goes back decades: You can’t trust Democrats on defense,” Kondik said, “that they are too soft on foreign policy and too soft on our enemies.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attack line, while undoubtedly aimed at the Obama administration, in this instance may unnecessarily pile on the sailors involved in the incident, especially since it’s still under investigation, said Tom Snee, a retired master chief and head of the Fleet Reserve Association in Alexandria, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio is going after Obama on his Iran policy and the perception of American weakness, said,<\/span> Bryan McGrath, a retired destroyer skipper who is supporting his campaign.\u00a0,\u00a0consultant with the Ferrybridge Group and Rubio supporter.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I believe that candidates who use those sailors as props to support their\u00a0political agenda are probably making a mistake,” McGrath said.\u00a0“But I don’t think there is a problem with\u00a0what Rubio has done. What he has said on the stump is\u00a0the fact that the sailors\u00a0were taken is emblematic of a lack of regard for the United States on the part of\u00a0Iran, and the\u00a0perception of a lack of consequences is at the heart of that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesman for the Navy secretary Navy <\/span>declined to comment on the candidates\u2019 statements, citing the ongoing investigation into the incident<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Iran state television has been broadcasting images of the captured riverines since the January incident, including one video released Feb. 10 of one sailor crying while in detention on Farsi Island, a stronghold of Iran’s hard-line paramilitary forces.of the sailors crying.<\/span> The video latest salvo <\/span>sparked a fierce condemnation of the whole incident from the Navy, which called the use of the sailors\u2019 images for propaganda “outrageous and unacceptable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sailors were captured while transiting from Bahrain to Kuwait in riverine command boats Jan. 12 and released nearly 16 hours later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Candidates are citing the sailors’ capture as a sign that Obama’s policies have emboldened America’s adversaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":69993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3231],"class_list":["post-36269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VHN4GXYZ5VD6TGYNU4LPGD5CDE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/2016\/02\/19\/republican-candidates-say-u-s-sailors-capture-by-iran-shows-obama-s-weakness\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\nRepublican candidates say U.S. sailors\u2019 capture by Iran shows Obama's weakness - Navy Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Candidates are citing the sailors' capture as a sign that Obama's policies have emboldened America's adversaries.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Republican candidates say U.S. sailors\u2019 capture by Iran shows Obama's weakness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Candidates are citing the sailors' capture as a sign that Obama's policies have emboldened America's adversaries.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/2016\/02\/19\/republican-candidates-say-u-s-sailors-capture-by-iran-shows-obama-s-weakness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Navy Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-19T19:28:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T19:48:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David B. 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