Then how does the USN get away with doing this without the flag nation permission?

Easy, someone on the squid boat called HQ and asked, "Who's boat is this, they're acting shady?" The shady boat probably had a flag flying off their stern with a homeport and country painted so our State Dept just called the home country painted on the stern. The shady boat probably wouldn't answer any hail's on the radio, trying to be sneaky. Or shut off their AIS. Shady stuff.

Just as a example. If it had a Maldives flag or Comore's flag we just call their government and asked if they claim it..it has their flag flying. Then when they ask why? we say "we think its doing shady stuff." They always say they never heard of 'em. That makes them stateless...no homeport, no country will claim them. Pirates in the day's of sail would fly a friendly flag until the last instant then drop it and pull a Jolly Roger as they tacked in for a broadside.

This arms smuggler was deemed "Stateless" so it was fair game. Whatever was painted on the stern for a home country threw them under the bus. And just in case there's confusion between a act of war and running down pirate scum, they have the Coastie's assault cuz we fill the slot between war and law enforcement. -WW

Outstanding!

There must be a big profit margin in arms smuggling, to absorb the cost of that load of weapons.

I wonder if the source of the weapons was a military unit that had them stolen, or were they made as contraband weapons and sold as such? Someone just took a big loss of money and product.

I hope the entire chain of smugglers kill each other off.

This amount of guns smuggled, I would think it's state organized smuggling.
DPRK to Iran
Iran to Yemen
China to Iran
Whatever.

it's not about "policing", it's about politics in the region
Somebody sold guns to somebody the US don't like
Had it been guns going towards a rebel group planning to overthrow the Ayatollah, the Police in this story wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

I'd say it is spot on.