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U.S. military leadership said to oppose Iran strike as ineffective - GERTZ
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| Iranian policemen try to prevent students from getting out of Tehran's Amir Kabir university in December 2006. Now, 17 Iranian students have been hospitalised after going on a hunger strike to protest strict rules at a university in the northwestern city of Tabriz, according to press reports. AFP |
Again, the USA created a weapon so reliable using U235 density differences from U-238 in 10 months (1944-45) it did not need testing to use over Hiroshima, and 40 years later, AQ Khan and Pakistan REPEATED this, creating an untested but reliable STOCKPILE before testing publicly for strictly political reasons)
"A bombing raid would not knock them out forever," Terrill said in an address to the Bahrain Center of Studies and Research on May 15. "They will rise again."
Neither did Osirak. History and the future are neither predictable nor linear.
Terrill has been regarded as a leading U.S. military analyst. His opposition to a U.S. war with Iran was said to reflect the feeling of most of the military brass.
The lecture merits attention because it offers an insight into the way the new leadership in Tehran approaches issues of international politics. According to Abbasi, the global balance of power is in a state of flux and every nation should fight for a place in a future equilibrium. The Western powers, especially the United States, still wield immense military and economic power that "looks formidable on paper." But they are unable to use that power because their populations have become "risk-averse." "The Western man today has no stomach for a fight," Abbasi says. "This phenomenon is not new: All empires produce this type of man, the self-centered, materialist, and risk-averse man." Abbasi believes that the US intervention in Iraq, which involved "slightly higher risks" than the invasion of Afghanistan, was the very last of its kind. And even then, the US went into Iraq because of President George W Bush's "readiness to do what no other American leader would dare contemplate." According to Abbasi, the US knows that the only power capable of and willing to challenge it across the globe is the Islamic Republic. The reason is that the Islamic Republic not only enjoys "strong backing from its people", but also has the support of millions who are prepared to kill and die for it across the globe.
Terrill called on the Bush administration to deny Iran nuclear weapons
capabilities through its likely suppliers.
They need NO SUPPLIERS for the P-2 centrifuges creating the reliable U-235 weapons, only for the Bushehr plants and the more complicated plutonium processes. More, both Russia and China have clearly decided that if the USA or it's close ally Israel suffer one or two nuclear detonations, no nuclear war would ensue, and they may well benefit in the end. No other explanation fits their incredible behavior. Both of them should simply SHUT IRAN OFF.
He said Iran was still far away
from being able to place a nuclear weapon on a missile.
What kind of moron thinks thinks a missile would be the preferred weapon at first?
"We must keep talking to the Russians, the Chinese and all others who are helping the Iranians with their nuclear capabilities not to do it, and we must, at the same time, keep other channels of communication open," Terrill said.
Uh, excuse me, but haven't we been doing all this all along with what to show for it? Therefore isn't it prudent to make other plans?
Terrill said the United States must launch a dialogue with Iran.
The
professor said Teheran was driving toward nuclear weapons capability, and
that U.S. air strikes would not change Iranian policy. "Delay them by two or three years?" Terrill asked regarding the effects
of a possible U.S. strike. "Would that help? Would that stop them from
supposedly interfering in Iraq? "The U.S. is already spending $12 billion a month just to stay in Iraq,
and people are increasingly asking whether it is worth it," Terrill said.
What happened to the "CAN DO" attitude?
If we cannot be effective, shouldn't the question be HOW DO WE BECOME SO, rather than uh oh we better talk, especially from a perceived position of weakness?
Would 'talking' be much more effective if we could demonstrate we know what they have and where they have it?
Andrew Terrill is a perfect example of Hassan Abassi's risk averse western man
Let's make sure that message sinks in and gets out. In planning for the future the US Army, in planning what they would do, believes HIZBALLAH = IRAN.U.S. sees Hizbullah holding key to to fighting future assymmetric wars
The U.S. military has come to see Hizbullah as the next major threat.
The U.S. Army has determined that Hizbullah was becoming the model for low-intensity warfare throughout the world.
The army believes Hizbullah would fight much of Iran's wars against the West -- whether in Asia, Europe or even South America.
Beat Hizballah, beat Iran.
The Center for Army Analysis determined that Hizbullah demonstrated that guerilla tactics combined with missiles could stop a modern military.
Shiite Muslim militants of the Hizbullah movement during a parade in the southern Lebanese village of Tair Debba, home to assassinated top Hizbullah commander Imad Mughnieh on February 17. AFP/Mahmoud Zayat
The study cited Hizbullah's war with Israel in mid-2006, in which the Iranian-sponsored militia fought the Jewish state to a draw.
The study stressed Hizbullah's capabilities in combining the use of human shields with stealth tactics and precision weapons.
Human shields, are tools against the conscience of your enemies. They don't kill anyone. They don't stop a tank, a bullet or a shell. But they are not conscientious objectors, pacifists, or engaging in civil disobedience against the enemy. They are the enemy population. Let's be clear. Their only hope to live is our mind. They are the inhabitants of Hamburg, Wurzburg, Dresden, and the Ruhr in 1943. They live in Tokyo in 1945.
Has the army accepted the idea that civilian enemy populations are now sacrosanct? What does this mean for OUR CIVILIAN POPULATIONS? You know, the mushrikim?
Hizbullah's combat doctrine was meant to block the advance of a modern military through the use of improvised explosive devices, surface-to-surface rockets, underground facilities and small commando squads.
The study pointed to the need to revise army and Marine Corps procurement to encounter an enemy that uses both guerrilla and conventional military tactics. Under such a scenario, the U.S. military would be equipped with additional armored vehicles, body armor as well as tactical unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Hizbullah model was expected to be adopted by a range of adversaries to the United States. The most likely adversaries would include Taliban in Afghanistan and the Al Qaida-aligned Islamic Courts in Somalia.
A powerful weapon in any Hizbullah arsenal has been anti-tank missiles -- the first time a guerrilla force was supplied with precision-guided weapons. Hizbullah proved its capabilities in knocking out Israeli Merkava Mk-3 and Mk-4 main battle tanks with the Russian-origin AT-14 Kornet anti-tank guided missile.
Hizbullah has already been training anti-U.S. forces in such countries as Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Hizbullah method that concerns the U.S. Army has been the use of computers and secure cellular phones to send messages to fighters.
A key lesson for the U.S. military was the need for well-trained and mobile forces with plenty of firepower that could surprise the enemy. The air force could help monitor the action below, but would not determine the battle.
Didn't you know we control everything? Can't you tell from the spiral of the dollar, the price of oil and gold? Can't you tell? Huh?Iran's bad behavior blamed on Bush by Obama's most senior military adviser
March 15, 2008By Rowan Scarborough - Sen. Barack Obama's most senior military adviser says President Bush is to blame for Iran's bad behavior.
Maybe McPeak never heard of MEMRI, which only goes back to Clinton. Or maybe he never read Khomeini's words. Looks like Mr Bush has no monopoly on having incompetent people in his employ.
The assessment from an interview with retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak provides a glimpse into how an Obama administration would deal with Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called repeatedly for the destruction of Israel, is pursuing nuclear weapons in the opinion of some national security experts, and his Revolutionary Guard is training Iraqis to kill American military personnel in Iraq.
Earlier this month, Mr. Ahmadinejad said of Israel, "the world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast."
In the view of Gen. McPeak, the most-senior retired officer to back Mr. Obama's presidential run, Iran's behavior is a reaction to Mr. Bush's tough talk.
They were SCARED, douchebag.
"They were a big enemy of the Taliban," the retired four-star general (McPeak) said. "They cooperated with us quite completely in the initial phases of our Afghanistan operation.
Iran is HOUSING and shielding some of Al Qaeda, did so from the start. Iran's long term objective parallel Al Qaeda with respect to Dar al Harb, but I guess you've never heard of that.And it was us that insulted them by including them in the 'axis of evil' and making sure they understood we didn't like them very much."
Gen. McPeak, an Obama campaign co-chairman, was referring to Mr. Bush's post-September 11 speech in which he referred to North Korea, Iraq and Iran as an "axis of evil."
"That drove us apart," Gen. McPeak said. "Obama's idea is: 'Why not talk to them? Why not see if there isn't some common ground?' Certainly, the fight against al Qaeda would be one of them."
Mr. Obama who will, if the MSM even mentions this, deny his knowledge of his key adviser's thoughts, and/or deny he is a key adviser, and/or say as he did with Zbig, he only had lunch with him once continues to demonstrate, thru the people he appoints to deal with the day to day minutiae of operations in what would be his admin, that he is completely unfit for the job, and will be far worse than Bush in any measurable objective way . Prepare yourselves for more Islamic republics if he is elected, and/or the caliphate. His people, who after all, reflect his beliefs are simply deluded, or incompetent or lazy or stubborn about their ideal views of the world or some combination of all four.
National security officials note that Iran's rogue behavior long predates Mr. Bush's speech. In June 2001, the Justice Department indicted 13 members of a pro-Iranian group, Saudi Hezbollah, for carrying out the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 American service members in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Hezbollah, a terrorist group, held regular meetings in Iran, the FBI said.
"With all due respect to General McPeak, what drives the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran apart -- and has since 1979 -- is the unwavering antipathy of the regime in Tehran towards the United States, its ally Israel, and freedom-loving, non-Islamist nations more generally," said Frank Gaffney, a Pentagon policy-maker in the Reagan administration who heads the Center for Security Policy.
Added Mr. Gaffney: "It is not simply naive, it is reckless to ignore serial statements by the mullahs and their front man, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, about a world without America, their goons parading in Iranian cities shouting 'Death to America,' their active efforts to kill and maim Americans and Iraqis in the hope of defeating the United States in Iraq, and rendering the latter an oil-rich satellite and new safe-haven for Iranian-backed terror, and accumulating evidence that Iran's Hezbollah proxies and their intelligence agents are developing cells capable of unleashing deadly violence here as well as elsewhere.
"Even an individual without appreciable expertise in such matters, like Senator Obama, should be able to discern these realities. It is inexplicable how a professional military officer like General McPeak could fail to do so."
Mr. Obama, who leads in the race for the Democrats' presidential nomination, has said he will meet with any leader of any state, including Iran's Mr. Ahmadinejad, without preconditions.
Washington (CNSNews.com) - When third grade school children in Iran turn to page 113 of their textbook "Let's Read," they find a passage that says, "At that time, the Israeli officer pounded (three-year-old) Muhammad's head with the rifle's stock and his warm blood sprinkled upon his (six-year-old brother) Khaled's hands."
The Iranian textbook was published in 2004, before the controversial Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president of Iran in 2005. In another third-grade text, "Gifts of Heavan," an illustration of a monster wearing the Star of David is seen going through a tidy Muslim town leaving garbage everywhere.
Let me submit, that if things changed TODAY it would take 2 generations for what has been inculcated into these kids to be diluted into some kind of normalcy.
While those examples could seem shocking to some, it gets worse, said Arnon Groiss, director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, who recently completed a study of 115 Iranian school textbooks. (Most of the books reviewed in the study had been published in 2004.)
"Indoctrination is less felt in the lower grades and increases in the higher grades," Groiss said, speaking at a forum Monday on the topic at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
What kind of impetus drives adults to warp children in this way?
Note that this dialectic has been subtly reinforced by the attitude of the Foreign Minister of France. This is the measure of the size of what we face. Our own 'friends' are unable to reject the dialectic in a forthright, unembarrassed, and confident manner, because the arrogant religious superiority manifested by these people, to whom we represent all that najas stands for, strips them of the will to resist, by any and all means. The goal of the west is to be reasonable and avoid both confrontation and violence. The goal of the other side is victory for god even if confrontation and violence are needed.
The books are part of an overall indoctrination effort aimed at school children. This effort includes rewritten Iranian history and the inclusion of Jihadist political views in science and geography texts, he said.
The seventh grade text "Islamic Culture and Religious Instruction," which refers to the West and Israel as the "Arrogant Ones," tells students that war is unavoidable and victory is guaranteed "in order to continue with all our power our revolution against the Arrogant Ones and the oppressors."
An eighth grade text says the "army of Islam would make the Arrogant Ones fall in holy Jihad and heavy attack."
"This is a form of child abuse rejected by all civilized countries," said Groiss, who for 30 years was an Arab-language journalist and is currently deputy director at Israel Broadcasting Authorities Arabic Radio. "This pictures a regime bent on global war to the point of self-destruction."
On page 20 of the high school textbook "Humanities," the United States is described as an "imperialist country" that "does not refrain from massacring people, from burying alive soldiers of the opposite side and from using mass-destruction weapons. It makes use of atomic bombs. ... It creates the greatest dictatorships and the violent and torturous security-oriented regimes, and defends them."
The good news could be that most Iranian families dismiss the teachings in the books, telling their children to simply memorize the material for the test, but nothing else, said the Iranian-born Shayan Arya at the forum.
"To the Iranian youth, America is the most popular country," said Arya, a member of the Constitutionalist Party of Iran - an international group of one-time Iranian citizens pushing for the establishment of a liberal democracy in that country. However, even a small number influenced by the books could be damaging, he said.
"The Islamist regime does not need to be 100 percent successful, only a small portion," Arya said. "If 10 percent are exposed, that's 5 million. If 1 percent is exposed, that's 500,000. If it's a half of a percent, that's 250,000. That's more troops than we have in Iraq."
Iran plans province-by-province takeover of Iraq using militias
WASHINGTON -- A leading U.S. analyst said Iran has been organizing and equipping militias throughout southern Iraq. Iran wants to establish a nine-province Shi'ite enclave in Iraq under the authority of Teheran, he said."The level of Iranian activity in the south is very high," Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. "The level in Basra is seen as a major threat."
Cordesman, a former Defense Department official who returned from a tour in Iraq, said the Iranian threat has become a major concern of the U.S.-led coalition. He said Teheran was supporting all the Shi'ite factions in Basra, which contains the largest crude oil reserves in Iraq.
Members of the anti Al Qaida 'Awakening' movement during a joint operation with U.S. soldiers on the outskirts of Baghdad in January. Baghdad's intelligence chief has claimed that Iranian secret service agents are working to "sabotage" the operations of groups fighting Al Qaida in Iraq. AFP/Jewel Samad
"It was made repeatedly clear, not simply by our intelligence experts but by those of allied countries, that Iranian influence is still continuing to build up the militias, to provide training, to provide weapons," Cordesman said in the Feb. 14 briefing. "There have been statements about Iran pausing or reducing its capabilities. I think that these have been episodic and cyclical."
Now, Sadr upon advice from the IRGC wouldn't have extended his truce in the hope that the coming American election would provide an even MORE favorable correlation of forces in the ME would he?
Cordesman said he did not envision a flood of Iranian weapons into Iraq or a Shi'ite offensive against the U.S.-led coalition. He said Teheran was supporting both the Sadr militias and the Badr organization on a "target of opportunity basis."
Still, the Iranian effort could eventually spark a war for control by Shi'ite militias in Iraq, particularly that of the Mahdi Army against the Badr group. Cordesman said the Shi'ite war would be larger than the struggle for control within the rival Sunni community.
"The struggle there is probably going to be more serious in the future than the struggle of the Sunnis," Cordesman said. "The Badr organization has had I think much better sort of coherence in training. The question is, does it have the same populist or popular base that the Sadr militia does."
Still, Iran has not yet formed a strategy for Iraq, Cordesman said. He said Iran plans to support a range of Iraqi options before any selection.
"Its ultimate goals, whether they are to have a major level of influence in Iraq, whether they are to create a friendly power, whether they are to create a strategic buffer, I think the answer at this point is possibly all of the above because I don't think Iran has that kind of clear single strategic option," Cordesman said. "And I think it is being very clever in the way that it is trying to exploit all of the Shi'ite factions at the same time and basically find out what it can get."
Oil Briefly Tops $103 a Barrel for 1st Time As US Dollar Weakness Draws Investors
Oil prices briefly surpassed $103 a barrel for the first time Friday as persistent weakness in the U.S. dollar and the prospect of lower interest rates attracted fresh money to the oil market.Light, sweet crude for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped to a new trading record of $103.05 a barrel in electronic trading before slipping back to $102.07 a barrel, down 52 cents, by midday in Europe.
Obama? Hello? What's your FOUR YEAR PLAN for total energy independence? How much are you planning on investing in fusion electrical generation? Coal to liquid fuel research? Oh, that's right you are too busy arguing with Hillary over being certain every American has health insurance provided ultimately by the govt, something which is IMPOSSIBLE to afford.
Attributed to de Tocqueville :
A democracy cannot exist
as a permanent form of government.
It can
only exist until the voters discover
that they can vote themselves
largesse
from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority
always votes
for the candidates promising the most benefits
from the
public treasury
with the result that a democracy
always collapses over
loose fiscal policy
How much time have you spent explaining to the american people why this should be our top priority, Obama? Why haven't you? Mr. McCain? Give in on that one? What's the matter Exxon-Mobil talking to you and Barack too much?
Americans, both parties have failed to do their duty, and since 1973, when it became obvious what the real cost was going to be, have done almost no real thing to give this nation independence from religious, socialist, and vanilla dictatorial loons, who sit above dead dinosaurs and plants? The presidents have failed to design realistic plans, and congresses have failed to authorize any plans that might have helped, INCLUDING EXPLORATION, and drilling, the simplest of answers. Now the needs are dire, and the problems inching towards economic desperation as a real, and viewable possible outcome.
Why is that?
Dollar Sinks Ahead of Income Reports
Friday February 29, 6:37 am ETCurrency Investors Brush of Fed Statements; Dollar Hits Another Record Low Friday BERLIN (AP) -- The dollar struck another record low Friday in Europe as comments from the U.S. Federal reserve chief appeared to instill little confidence.
Uncertainty over the U.S. economy continued to drag on the dollar a day after Fed chief Ben Bernanke said the American economy was not "anywhere near" the dangerous situation of the 1970s.
The lack of confidence the amoral judgment of capital has pronounced upon america right now goes right back to a lack of forthright acceptance of the age we are in , and it's compulsory solutions. This is a fault of leaders, and of people,and the world sees it clearly americans. No soft power kumbaya, or old school old boy method have yet sufficed to change the dynamic or the challenges of THIS age.
Gold price hits record 976.32 dollars per ounce in London
The price of gold rose to a record high point of 976.32 dollars per ounce in morning trading here on Friday as the dollar struck fresh historic lows against the euro, traders said.
The previous record high price for an ounce of gold was 964.99 dollars, reached on Wednesday.
A weak US currency boosts demand for dollar-denominated raw materials such as gold because it makes them cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies. However the increased demand eventually leads to higher prices.
Demand for gold tends to rise at a time of uncertainty about political or economic conditions, and when inflationary pressures appear to be building up.
Just what kind of lesson will it take for Americans to come to grips with the challenges we face? What will it take for us to push forward people who challenge us with difficulties and not attempt to buy us with impossible promises? We have to produce more than software. We have to generate more than debt. We have to invest in more than stocks. We have to look further than the next quarter's report. We have to arm ourselves with more than Raptors What's it gonna take to wake us up?
BAGHDAD -- Iranian-backed militias are apparently preparing for major strikes against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, military officials said."In just the past week, Iraqi and coalition forces captured 212 weapons caches across Iraq, two of those inside Baghdad, [which have] growing links to Iranian-backed Special Groups," U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.
Officials said that despite assertions by the State Department, Iran has maintained or increased support to the Special Groups. The organization was deemed a splinter of the Iranian-financed Mahdi Army, led by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Maybe Obama can hope hard enough that they will behave, schedule a 'why can't we all just get along conference'.
"What we're seeing is an increase in the use of weapons by Iranian-backed Special Groups," Smith told a briefing on Sunday.
Smith said the number of weapons caches -- which included rockets and improvised explosive devices -- discovered in January 2008 was the highest in a year. He said the Special Groups, directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were hoarding weapons for strikes against the coalition.
"Many of these caches have been in Iraq for some time now," Smith said. "And through, I guess, the vigilance of both our operations and that of the tips by local citizens, we're uncovering more and more of these caches. What's significant is that there are still attacks occurring daily by Iranian-backed Special Groups against coalition and Iraqi security forces."
Officials said the Mahdi Army has maintained its ceasefire declared in August 2007, a move that has resulted in a significant drop in Shi'ite violence. At the same time, they said, Special Groups -- supported, trained and financed by Teheran -- have increased their attacks.
What does that mean?
"Iraqis go to Iran, receive the training, and return back to Iraq and participate as both training other individuals in the conduct of those same skills, but also organizing to conduct operations," Smith said. "The Special Groups' activity has not decreased in recent months. They continue to be probably the most violent of the extremist groups that we're seeing from Shia sects. But the intent of Iran in supporting the training and financing we believe continues."
Until 2008, Iran warned that GCC states, most of whom host American troops, would become targets in any war with the United States."We realize that there is worry among neighboring Muslim countries whose lands host U.S. military stations," Gen. Mohammed Ali Jaafari, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said.
In a television interview, Jaafari said Iran reserves the right to respond to any attack. But the IRGC commander said civilians in GCC countries with a U.S. military presence would not be harmed.
"If the United States launches a war against us
and if it uses these bases to attack Iran with missiles
then through the strength and precision of our own missiles
we are capable of targeting only the U.S. military forces
that attack us," Jaafari said on Feb. 2.The United States has deployed troops, aircraft and other military equipment in such GCC countries as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain contains a pro-Iranian Shi'ite majority.
"We do not trust either one of them [the United States or Iran]," Adel Al Maawada, chairman of Bahrain's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, defense and national security, said. "But I hope Gen. Jaafari is telling the truth."
Bahrain hosts the US Navy's main and major base in the gulf. BY THE WAY. So WTF?
Gulf analysts said the prospects of an Iranian-U.S. war in 2008 were low. They cited a change in Washington's position since the release of an intelligence report in December 2007 that asserted that Teheran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
NATO's Afghan Failure
February 1, 2008We feel Stephen Harper's pique. Maybe France, Germany and other so-called NATO allies will as well and heed the Canadian Prime Minister's call to share the war-fighting burden in Afghanistan.
Miracles happen. For the time being, however, the Continentals are in no apparent hurry to break a five-decade habit of enjoying a free ride on security. None seriously answered NATO's call for up to 7,000 more troops for Afghanistan. So the U.S. last month announced a "temporary" deployment of another 3,200 Marines, the second large reinforcement in a year. That brings the U.S. deployment to nearly 30,000, with about half those troops as part of the NATO force of 42,000.
![[Stephen Harper]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-FR328_Harper_20051018114537.gif)
The plight of the Canadians ought to shame other allies. Mr. Harper warned that his country wouldn't extend its 2,500-strong mission in Afghanistan's unstable southern provinces unless Europe ponies up troops and equipment. His minority party will soon put the deployment to Parliament, where the opposition wants a withdrawal. "If NATO can't come through with that help, then I think, frankly, NATO's own reputation and future will be in jeopardy," he said this week. Canadians aren't known for hyperbole.
In the past year and a half, the alliance has successfully fought a resurgent Taliban. But the struggle isn't over, and the success of NATO's first ever deployment outside Europe is far from assured. The U.S., Britain, the Netherlands and Canada -- which alone has lost 78 soldiers -- are carrying a disproportionate load.
Though the mission flies a NATO flag, Germany, Italy and Spain put caveats on their troops, preventing them from leaving more peaceful areas to reinforce the Canadians and others in the south and east. With a limited presence on the ground, France would appear best placed of the big European countries to contribute 1,000 new troops or more.
The Continentals fill up lots of air space at policy conferences talking about Europe's readiness to play a prominent role in global affairs. The Canadians are now usefully calling their bluff.
It's clear that despite massive advantages of weapons, men, freedom, independent women, and millenia of development, when it comes to these murderers, they have the advantage.
Why?
90% of life is just showing up.
WASHINGTON — Security officials said Iran set up a series of naval confrontations with the United States in the Gulf in recent weeks.Officials said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy sought to provoke the U.S. Navy at least three times in less than a month. They said the incidents appeared to establish an aggressive IRGC policy in the Gulf.
"They are testing our responses and measuring our defenses for their new swarm strategy," an official said. "I wouldn't say they want a fight, but they appear to be ready for one."
U.S. Navy image shows speedboats suspected to be from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard maneuvering near U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz, on Jan. 6. AFP/US Navy-HO
So far, the Defense Department has only detailed the U.S. Navy encounter with five IRGC fast attack craft in the Strait of Hormuz on Jan. 6.
Officials said this was the most serious of the three Iranian provocations even though no shots were fired.
"This is one of these moments where there's no time to be spending a lot time on the phone trying to figure out what to do," President George Bush said on Jan. 15. "These are highly trained professionals who I thought dealt with it in a very professional way."
On Dec. 16, the U.S. Navy fired warning shots toward an IRGC speedboat. Officials said the USS Whidbey Island, an amphibious warship, had been approached by an IRGC vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for about 30 percent of global oil shipments.
I still believe the best response would have been to turn them into shreds without another word
Officials said the IRGC speedboat veered away when shots were fired by Whidbey Island. They said the IRGC vessel did not return fire.
So they now understand how close they can come before warning shot is fired.
Another IRGC confrontation also took place in December 2007. Officials said the USS Carr, a guided missile frigate, was confronted by three IRGC speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz.
The USS Carr blew its ship whistles to scare off the Iranian vessels, which came within 500 meters. Officials said no clash was reported.
What's the range of RPG's? 500
meters is also the maximum range of rocket assisted flight, which
enables a flatter trajectory and more accurate aiming. You don't think these boys are thinking about real damage do you? A dozen RPG's headed at you is quite distraction. From what?
Officials linked the three incidents and said the Jan. 6 confrontation was the first in which IRGC simulated the laying of mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The mock mines turned out to be white boxes.
"We had not seen Revolutionary Guard boats behave in this aggressive a manner in this number before, in combination with all the other things I just outlined — ignoring warnings, dropping the boxes and of course the fact that there was a threat simultaneous to that added to the tension," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said on Jan. 15. "The combination of all those things is what differentiates this incident from previous incidents."
Time for Diet Pepsi Max with Ginseng, Geoff. These guys REALLY BELIEVE god will guide them to a big win some sunday afternoon after the coin toss.
THE BLOTTER:The standoff between three U.S. Navy ships and five Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz Sunday was one step away from turning violent."They were a heartbeat from being blown up," a Pentagon official, speaking of the Iranians, told ABC News.
According to the Navy intelligence report on the incident, the Iranians radioed, "I am coming at you. You will blow up in a couple of minutes."
The Navy ships radioed back, presumably transmitting a warning. All three ships also engaged in "evasive action," and according to senior Pentagon officials, the "prepare-to-fire" order had been given and the gun stations manned.
Pentagon officials today expressed surprise the Navy ships allowed at least one of the Iranian speedboats to get so close -- just 200 yards away -- without firing.
They say at least one of those speedboats boasted a machine gun, and all were behaving as if they were packed with explosives.
A Navy official told ABC News that while there have been similar incidents in the Gulf, Sunday's differed because of the "aggressive actions" taken by the Iranians.
"I've never seen a provocation like this is in international waters," another military official who has served for more than 25 years said.
Abbasi, in a speech in Iran’s Khaje Nasser University, said a “martyr deals directly with god and sells his soul only to god.” He added “Only certain people deserve to participate in the suicide operations.” Abassi noted that “The members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah are dear, because they only sell their soul to the god.”
Folks, that these 'speedboats' are not now toothpicks and fiberglass insulation is a strategic mistake. Restraint towards the Iranians will be taken for granted by our friends, and get knowing nods from our enemies. AND WE HAVE THEM. Restraint is the precursor of DEAD SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN.
There should nothing left of them, and the fleet should simply have sailed on......"WHAT IRANIAN SPEEDBOATS?"
Senior U.S. national security officials (SUCH AS? Step up to the plate, gents) suspect the Iranian government successfully carried out a disinformation operation against U.S. intelligence agencies that led to the recent National Intelligence Estimate reversing earlier assessments of an active Iranian nuclear arms program.Not just that, but information paced with naifs who want to hide from the worldThe officials said there are indications that the intelligence used for the estimate, published in part last month, was based on deliberately misleading information.
No details of how the estimate was produced have been made public, but there have been reports that it was based on both intercepted communications and human sources.
Both types of sources have been used in the past by American adversaries to spoof U.S. intelligence, according to the officials.
Asked if the NIE reversal was the result of a deliberate Iranian strategic deception operation, one senior U.S. intelligence official who defended the estimate said “we did hold this up to the light.”
“One of the alternative scenarios, and we gamed more than half a dozen, was could this be on the part of the Iranian government a strategic deception in order to conceal a continued nuclear weapons program?”
“And I think the overall judgment is that is plausible but not likely and that the overall assessment of the community is contained in the words you see in the key judgments: high confidence, high confidence, high confidence.”
But two other senior officials said the likelihood that the CIA, which took the lead in formulating the analysis, was fooled, is very high.
U.S. intelligence agencies have no spies inside the Iranian government and large amounts of intercepted communications are suspect and believed to be a main source of intelligence disinformation, these officials said.
Iran making push into Nicaragua
Web Posted: 12/18/2007 10:25 PM CST
MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — The second military helicopter in as many days hovered over the jungle and then landed to a most unwelcome reception from several dozen angry Rama Indian and Creole villagers.Rupert Allen Clear Duncan, a leader of some 400 Creole who live along the shoreline, confronted the foreigners dressed in suits and military uniforms that day in March and demanded to know the purpose of their aerial trespasses.
"This is our land; we have always lived here, and you don't have our permission to be here," Duncan spat, when refused the courtesy of an explanation.
Not until Duncan threatened to have his machete-waving followers damage the aircraft did they learn that some of the men were from the Islamic Republic of Iran and had come promising to establish a Central American foothold in the middle of their territory.
As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and its Venezuelan allies plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point on the wild Caribbean shore, and then plow a connecting "dry canal" corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the populous Pacific Ocean. Iran recently established an embassy in Nicaragua's capital.
The real problem here is not juts this, but the greater than 30 members of the Iranian embassy and consulate staff, completely out of line with the sizes of both nations. What do Misters, Brill, Van Diepen, and Fingar have to say
about this?
The following are STILLL wanted for murder in Argentina:
Ali Akbar Rafsanjani , Iranian president, widely heralded as a pragmatic moderate.
- Ali Fallahijan , Minister of Intelligence and Security.
- Ali Akbar Velayati , Foreign Minister.
- Mohsen Rezai , commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
- Ahmad Vahidi , commander of the Qods Force.
- Mohsen Rabbani , in 1994 Iranian cultural attaché in Buenos Aires.
- Ahmad Reza Asghari , (also known as Mohsen Randjbaran ), third secretary of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires .
- Imad Moughnieh , head of Hezbollah's External Security Service in 1994, a position he holds to this day, as well as serving as Hassan Nasrallah's military deputy.
Israel: US report on Iran may spark war
JERUSALEM - Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also cast doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month.
Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East.
He compared the possibility of such fighting to a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 by its Arab neighbors, which came to be known in Israel for the Yom Kippur Jewish holy day on which it began.
"The American misconception concerning Iran's nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened," Dichter said in a speech in a suburb south of Tel Aviv, according to his spokesman, Mati Gil. "Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat."
Dichter didn't elaborate on the potential scenario but seemed to imply that a world that let its guard down regarding Iran would be more vulnerable to attack by the Islamic regime.
Actually the scenario I have in mind is more along the lines of an Israel isolated in a world which always has either participated in or ignored the killing of jews as a historical game, and did NOTHING (or helped) as the majority of jewish people on the planet were made the product of industrial extermination, STRIKES FIRST with the only weapons which can ensure that Iran's weapons program is destroyed
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had disputed the U.S. intelligence assessment this month, saying that Iran continues its efforts to obtain components necessary to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran still poses a major threat to the West and the world must stop it, Olmert said.
Israel has for years been warning that Iran is working on nuclear weapons and backed the United States in its international efforts to exert pressure on Iran to stop the program. Israel considers Iran a significant threat because of its nuclear ambitions, its long-range missile program and repeated calls by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for the disappearance of Israel.
Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.
Israel will work to change the American intelligence agencies' view of Iran, said Dichter, a former chief of Israel's Shin Bet secret service agency.
"A misconception by the world's leading superpower is not just an internal American occurrence," Dichter said.
Any future faulty U.S. intelligence on the actions of Palestinian security forces could damage peace efforts, Dichter said.
"Those same (intelligence) arms in the U.S. are apt to make a mistake and declare that the Palestinians have fulfilled their commitments, which would carry with it very serious consequences from Israel's vantage point," Dichter said.
Iran 'hoodwinked' CIA over nuclear plans - Telegraph UK
By Tim Shipman in Washington, Philip Sherwell and Carolynne WheelerBritish spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.
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The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.
The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.
A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East
and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.
The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.
"It's not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq."
A US intelligence source has revealed that some American spies share the concerns of the British and the Israelis. "Many middle- ranking CIA veterans believe Iran is still committed to producing nuclear weapons and are concerned that the agency lost a number of its best sources in Iran in 2004," the official said.
America and Israel aren't the only ones worried about the mullahs getting a nuclear bomb.
BY MAX BOOT
Sunday, December 9, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
Sultan Qaboos of Oman, King Abdullah of KSA, and Mr. World without Zionism
on the day the NIE was released. Gravitation to the STRONG HORSE
The release of the new National Intelligence Estimate will provide more fodder for those who claim that "neoconservative ideologues" and the "Israel lobby" are overly alarmed about the rise of Iran. In reality, some of those most worried about the mullahs wear flowing headdresses, not yarmulkes, and they have good cause for concern, notwithstanding the sanguine tilt many news accounts put on the NIE.
I recently visited the Persian Gulf region as part of a delegation of American policy wonks organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Throughout our meetings in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the top issue was Iran's ambitions to dominate the region.
Evidence of those imperial designs is not hard to find. The Iranians are aiding extremists who are undermining nascent democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. The beneficiaries of Tehran's largess include Hamas, Hezbollah and even, the evidence indicates, al Qaeda. (Saudi officials are quietly furious that Tehran has given refuge to some suspects in the 2003 Riyadh attacks.) Iran is building up its military arsenal, and has threatened to shut down the Persian Gulf (or, as Arabs call it, the Arabian Gulf).
What particularly concerns Gulf Arabs is the possibility that Iran could go nuclear--a concern unlikely to be erased by the ambiguous findings of the new NIE. While this NIE claims that Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 (in direct contradiction to an NIE finding issued just two years ago that "Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons"), it concedes that "Iran's civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing." Such a "civilian" program could be converted speedily and stealthily to military use. As the new NIE notes, "Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so."
That thought fills Sunni Arabs
with dread. "If we accept Iran as a nuclear power that is like
accepting Hitler in 1933-34," warned one senior Arab official, using
the kind of analogy that back in Washington would get him dismissed as
a neocon warmonger.
It should be obvious to all that the result
of the NIE is that neither
Israel NOR the Arabs
see the USA as reliable
WaPo has published a comical op-ed by Vali Nasr, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, and the author of "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future."