Grifo, it is sometimes a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" problem, with USS Cole incident as the spectre haunting the back of any US Captain in that region.
At some point, if the warnings aren't heeded, your RoE set up a decision matrix that amounts to "shoot, since the taxpayers don't want you bringing back a broken ship and dead sailors."
That is how it works out, from the inside, regardless of how you choose to see it from the outside. There is duty of care to one's nation invovled here. The Pols know this and send ships into that situation anyway.
Yes, it's messy. *shrugs* That's life.