Right On The Right

The Presidential candidates said they agreed with the captains, and that they couldn't second-guess our military when it comes to when to open fire or not. These are folks auditioning for Commander in Chief. They're the ones that would set the policy, and obviously orders came down from high a while ago not to attack Iranians. We had the impetus, so if the Bush administration really wanted war, they could have brought about that scenario. The danger was there, via Hot Air:

In the simulation, General Van Riper sent wave after wave of relatively inexpensive speedboats to charge at the costlier, more advanced fleet approaching the Persian Gulf. His force of small boats attacked with machine guns and rockets, reinforced with missiles launched from land and air. Some of the small boats were loaded with explosives to detonate alongside American warships in suicide attacks. That core tactic of swarming played out in real life last weekend, though on a much more limited scale and without any shots fired…

In the war game, scores of adversary speedboats and larger naval vessels had been shadowing and hectoring the Blue Team fleet for days. The Blue Team defenses also faced cruise missiles fired simultaneously from land and from warplanes, as well as the swarm of speedboats firing heavy machine guns and rockets — and pulling alongside to detonate explosives on board.

The discussion in the comments section there is basically about whether the cruise missiles or the speedboats brought about the destruction of some of the ships. I think it's obvious from the language that some of the suicide bombings were responsible for the damage. What do I think? The ships should've opened fire.