[Tams]

Iran warned the United States Tuesday not to return a U.S. aircraft carrier "to the Persian Gulf region."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/03/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2


I afraid a war is inevitable... probably within the next 90 days.

:-(

[MightyMouse]

BBC News - Iran nuclear crisis: Sanctions 'beginning to bite'

[UrmaBlume]

Originally Posted by Tams »

Iran warned the United States Tuesday not to return a U.S. aircraft carrier "to the Persian Gulf region."Iran warns U.S. over aircraft carrier - CNN.comI afraid a war is inevitable... probably within the next 90 days.:-(

You are probably right Tams - except sooner than 90 days and not just in the Gulf.

Don't forget that since the 1950's Turkey has been a US surrogate in certain covert areas (U2 Flights and the missles that settled the Cuban Crisis) and Syria is Iran's most significant surrogate.

From Debka:

"Military tensions are building up on Syria's borders. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Turkish military sources reported sighting an Israeli Eitan (Heron) drone in the sky above the Turkish Hawk Brigade 14 stationed on the northern Syrian border at Kirikhan in the Hatay district of southern Turkey. The Israeli drone was said to have hovered over the encampment for four hours.

A request by local Turkish officers to fire anti-air missiles to down the Israeli Eitan went unanswered by the Turkish general staff until the drone was gone. According to the Turkish sources, two Turkish F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from the Diyarbakir 2nd Air Force Command Strike Center and stayed overhead as long as the Israeli drone was present.

debkafile reports this is the first time Israeli UAV's have been reported monitoring events on the Turkish-Syrian border. On Dec. 16, our sources disclosed 21 Syrian Scud missile launchers had been stationed opposite Hatay province as a warning to Turkey, NATO and Arab forces to stay out of the Syrian uprising.

Then, on Dec. 27, our military sources reported that Qatar had organized and funded an airlift to Hatay of Libyan militia fighters under the command of former Abdelhakim Belhaj, ex-al Qaeda and commander of Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFG which seized control of Tripoli. He has established a command post in the Turkish town of Antakya (Antioch).

The Libyan and Free Syrian Army-FASA fighters are training together in Turkish military camps, the main
one being the Hawk Brigade 14 over which the Israeli drone hovered. It is expected to be the main jumping off base for any foreign military intervention in Syria.

Across the border meanwhile, Syria continues its military buildup.

At the opposite end of Syria, the southern Horan province, fierce battles raged Tuesday, Jan. 4 between Syrian troops and mutineers of the 38th Mechanized Brigade, the bulk of which has gone over to the anti-Assad opposition. Both sides fighting with heavy T-72 tanks and artillery around Sida, a village in the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle, suffered dozens of casualties.

The 38th Brigade belongs to the 7th Division which is stationed on the Syrian-Israeli border which cuts through the Golan. Sounds of gunfire were clearly heard in Israel. The brigade was the largest military unit to have deserted Bashar Assad's army in the ten-month popular uprising against his regime."

[UrmaBlume]

Seems like the situation in the Middle East just keeps on getting hotter and hotter.

Again from Debka:

"The armies of Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states stood ready Thursday Jan. 5, for Washington to stand up to Iranian threats and send an aircraft carrier or several warships through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. Riyadh has been leaning hard on the Obama administration not to let Tehran get away with its warning to react with "full force" if the USS Stennis aircraft carrier tried to reenter the Gulf or Iran's pretensions to control the traffic transiting the world's most important oil route.

Wednesday night, the Iranian parliament began drafting a bill prohibiting foreign warships from entering the Gulf without Tehran's permission.

debkafile's Washington sources report that Saudi Arabia has warned the Obama administration that Iranian leaders mean what they say; their leaders are bent on provoking a military clash with the United States at a time and place of their choosing, rather than leaving the initiative to Washington. To this end, Iranian officials are ratcheting up their belligerence day after day.

Notwithstanding their military inferiority, the Iranians believe they can snatch a measure of success from a military confrontation, just as the Lebanese Hizballah did in the 2006 war against Israel. In any case, they expect any clash to be limited – at least at first. The two sides will begin by feeling for the opposite side's weaknesses while endeavoring to hold the line against a full-blown war.

America's failure to rise to Iran's challenge will confirm its rulers in the conviction that the US is a paper tiger and encourage them to press their advantage for new gains.

The assessment of British military experts Thursday, Jan. 5, was that the question now is: Who will blink first? Will the US follow through on the Pentagon's assertion that the deployment of US military assets in the Persian Gulf will continue as it has for decades? Or will Iran act on its warnings and block those waters to the entry of American warships?
President Barack Obama can't afford to cave in to Iran, especially while campaigning for reelection in Nov. 2012; Tehran, for its part, has made too many threats to easily back down.

The entire region is now on tenterhooks for the next move, with US, Iranian and Gulf armies on the highest war alert. American and Iranian war planners both accept that their advantage lies in surprising the enemy – without, however, catapulting the Persian Gulf into a full-dress war.

US Navy publications as of Wednesday, Jan. 4 showed a sign of the times: One ran a series of photos of F-18 Super Hornet fighter-bombers standing on the runways of the USS Stennis aircraft carrier ready for takeoff at any moment. Another depicted for the first time ever row upon row of huge bombs in the carrier's hold to show the Iranians what they are taking on.

In the view of debkafile’s military sources, the fact that the US has deployed only one large aircraft carrier in the region does not signify any reluctance on Washington's part to preserve the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. There is no longer a need to rush more carriers to a flashpoint in these strategic waters. The US maintains five huge air bases in the Gulf region – two, the Ali Al Salem and Ahmed Al Jaber bases, in Kuwait; the Al Dhafra base in the UAE; and the largest air bases outside the US – Al Adid in Qatar and the Thumrait in Oman.

The concentration of aircraft carriers at any given location is no longer treated as the marker of an imminent US military operation."

[RealDemo]

Originally Posted by Tams »

I afraid a war is inevitable... probably within the next 90 days.

:-(

Inevitable? how would the US justify a war? is Iran attacking the USA? are Americans that insecure? what exactly is at risk here?

If Obama has any sense at all he'll stay well away from any warmongering.

American people don't want it.
Iranian people don't want it.
Israelis don't want it.

[Tams]

Originally Posted by RealDemo »

Inevitable? how would the US justify a war? is Iran attacking the USA? are Americans that insecure? what exactly is at risk here?

If Obama has any sense at all he'll stay well away from any warmongering.

American people don't want it.
Iranian people don't want it.
Israelis don't want it.

Every American soldier died in Afganistan was killed by Iranian supplied weapons.
Do you think USA will let this go?

[MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by RealDemo »

Inevitable? how would the US justify a war? is Iran attacking the USA? are Americans that insecure? what exactly is at risk here?

If Obama has any sense at all he'll stay well away from any warmongering.

American people don't want it.
Iranian people don't want it.
Israelis don't want it.

If Iranians didn't think they could benefit, they wouldn't be acting the way they are. If the Americans didn't think they could benefit, they wouldn't be acting the way they are.
There is a very long list of beneficiaries to what is occurring. Therefore, there is no incentive to stop it yet.

[RealDemo]

Originally Posted by Tams »

Every American soldier died in Afganistan was killed by Iranian supplied weapons.
Do you think USA will let this go?

Every soldier? come on lets discuss the issue without extreme propagandist statements.

Yes Iran supplies weapons..... but so do many other countries.

If you want to talk about letting things go why not attack Saudi arabia.