The Straits of Hormuz seem to be warming - due to Geoplolitical Games and Brinkmanship

[Ed Jewett]

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2012

Eyes Wide Shut: With EU Oil Ban U.S. Calls the Shots in Iran Escalation

When the European Union declared on Monday that it will impose an oil embargo on the Islamic Republic, it set the stage for a new escalation of the Western-created crisis over claims that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program.

In Tuesday's State of the Union address, President Obama declared amid thunderous applause and a standing ovation from Congress, "Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal."

Similar to sanctions legislation signed into law by Obama on December 31, the EU-approved measures ban imports on future and existing contracts beginning July 1 of crude oil, petrochemical products; as well, the measures forbid the export of equipment and technology to Iran's energy sector.

The EU sanctions also hit Iran's Central Bank, freezing its assets. Also on Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Iran's third-largest bank, Bank Tejarat; a sign that the administration intends to further isolate Iran from the global financial system.

The New York Times claimed that the EU's "phased" ban on oil purchases "was needed to help force a shift in policy and avert the risk of military strikes against Tehran."

France's Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, told reporters that in order to "avoid any military solution, which could have irreparable consequences, we have decided to go further down the path of sanctions."

"It is a good decision that sends a strong message and which I hope will persuade Iran that it must change its position," Juppé said, "change its line and accept the dialogue that we propose."

Writing in Asia Times Online, Pepe Escobar rejected the foolish notion that the West is interested in defusing the crisis.

"The EU defends its strategy--or economic war--as the only way to avert 'chaos in the Middle East.' Yet the economic war may end up sparking the full-blown war it is theoretically trying to avert; talk about an array of unintended consequences waiting in the wings."

"The EU insists on spinning its so-called 'dual track' approach towards Iran," Escobar averred. "Stripped of spin, dual track essentially translates in practice as 'shut up, bow to our sanctions, stop enriching uranium and sit on the table to negotiate on our terms'."

"Senior EU officials," The Guardian disclosed, "concede that the move could be risky and send oil prices rocketing at a time of extreme economic difficulty in the west."

Reflecting the growing danger to the world economy by this stunt, "oil prices rose on Monday after the European Union agreed to ban imports of Iranian crude," Reuters reported.

"Brent March crude rose 72 cents to settle at $110.58 a barrel, having reached $111.36 intraday but unable to threaten front-month Brent's 200-day moving average of $112.19." One analyst warned, "heaven knows what will happen between now and the first of July" when the EU's date for full implementation of the embargo takes effect.

On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned "that global crude prices could rise as much as 30 percent if Iran halts oil exports as a result of U.S. and European Union sanctions," Reuters disclosed.

Accordingly, if the Islamic Republic stops exporting oil to the EU and other countries that join the "attack Iran" coalition of the feckless, "it would likely trigger an 'initial' oil price jump of 20 to 30 percent, or about $20 to $30 a barrel, the IMF said in its first public comment on a possible Iranian oil supply disruption."

"In addition the oil embargo, the EU also decided to freeze the assets of the Iranian central bank, arguing that the aim was to choke off funding for the nuclear programme," according to The Guardian. The EU's move against Iran's Central Bank follow policies put in place by the United States.

"The Iranian programmes are proceeding apace and represent a strategic threat," an unnamed "senior diplomat" The Guardian. "The aim is to have a big impact on the Iranian financial system, targeting the economic lifeline of the regime."

The Guardian also informed us that "David Cameron, the German chancellor Angela Merkel, and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, issued a joint statement calling on Iran to suspend its nuclear activities."

"Our message is clear," the statement read. "We have no quarrel with the Iranian people"--a diplomatic cliché that generally means: do what we say or else--"but the Iranian leadership has failed to restore international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. We will not accept Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon."

In a day filled with joint statements by imperial shills, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Henry Kissinger's wunderkind in Obama's cabinet) and Secretary of State Hillary (bomb the Libyans back to the Stone Age) Clinton said that "the measures agreed to today by the EU Foreign Affairs Council are another strong step in the international effort to dramatically increase the pressure on Iran. This new, concerted pressure will sharpen the choice for Iran's leaders and increase their cost of defiance of basic international obligations."

Commenting on the slow-motion apocalypse in progress, Robert Fisk wrote in The Independent: "Bring on the sanctions. Send in the Clowns."

More Israeli Threats

How did America's "stationary aircraft carrier in the Middle East" react?

According to Debkafile, a right-wing publication privy to leaks from Israel's intelligence and military establishment, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that a "new round of sanctions will not stop Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon ... stressing that Israel's hand was always near the trigger."

Barak's comments were "aimed at cooling the optimistic notes emanating from Washington, Europe and some Israeli circles Monday after the European Union foreign ministers approved an oil embargo against Iran from July 1 and froze its central bank's assets."

The Defense Minister said "that because Iran had not stopped developing a nuclear weapon Israel had not removed any options from the table. We say this 'very seriously,' he stressed."

Barak's noxious statements were amplified in a lengthy piece published this week in The New York Times.

Titled "Will Israel Attack Iran?," Ronen Bergman, a political analyst with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper who, likeDebkafile, has cozy ties to Israeli defense mavens, wrote: "After speaking to many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012."

Speaking at the Davos economic summit on Friday, Barak warned "that a situation could be rapidly reached when even 'surgical' military action could not block the Tehran regime from getting the bomb. 'We will know early enough whether the Iranians are ready to give up their nuclear weapons'," The Independentreported.

"We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear," Barak said. "It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them."

Barak's message to Washington and the "international community": "We're ready to attack, now!"

'Europe Will Burn in the Fire of Iran's Oil Wells'

The new sanctions, coupled with escalating threats from Israel and the West are hardly "bridge builders" aimed at resuscitating stalled talks, but in fact are economic acts of war designed to force Iran into a corner.

Rejecting demands to "dialogue" with guns pointed at their heads, Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Kowsari, the deputy leader of the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee told Press TV that "in the event of US 'military adventurism' in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will respond in the shortest possible time by making the entire world unsafe for Americans."

Kowsari reiterated Iran's long-standing promise to "definitely" close the strategic Strait of Hormuz "if there is a disruption in the sales of the country's crude, stressing that the "US and its allies will not be able to reopen the strategic waterway."

Hardly fazed by Western threats, and apparently ready to take "preemptive" measures of their own, Seyyed Emad Hosseini, a spokesperson for Iran's parliamentary Energy Commission said on Friday that "Iran has the world's third biggest oil reserves and cannot be eliminated from global energy equations," Press TVreported.

Hosseini said that parliament "is considering a plan to completely stop oil exports to EU members which will initially paralyze the economies of Italy, Spain and Greece."

"Iran is powerful [as a country] and oil sanctions imposed by European countries will only harm the European Union." Hosseini added, "Europe will definitely lose its oil war with Iran because European countries are grappling with numerous domestic challenges and disruption of Iran oil flow will lead to the escalation of domestic pressure and crisis in EU member states."

On Saturday, Fars News Agency reported that "members of the Iranian parliament finalized a draft bill on cutting the country's oil exports to the European states in retaliation for the EU's oil ban against Tehran."

Nasser Soudani, the vice chairman of the parliamentary Energy Commission told Fars that "the bill has 4 articles, including one which states that the Islamic Republic of Iran will cut all oil exports to the European states until they end their oil sanctions against the country."

Soudani told Fars earlier this week when the oil cut-off bill was introduced, "Europe will burn in the fire of Iran's oil wells." Takethat, Cameron, Merkel and Sarkozy!

Driving home the point, Bloomberg News reported Friday that "Fitch Ratings cut the credit ratings of Italy, Spain and three other euro-area countries, saying they lack financing flexibility in the face of the regional debt crisis."

In addition to Italy and Spain, the ratings agency also downgraded the credit worthiness of Belgium, Slovenia and Cyprus. And with Greece currently negotiating with creditors on how to avoid a default, soaring oil prices would severely impact the ability of EU countries to climb out of the economic ditch and is a further sign that the 2008 capitalist economic crisis is accelerating.

Commenting, Asia Times Online political analyst Pepe Escobar again warned: "According to the EU sanctions package, all existing contracts will be respected only until July 1--and no new contracts are allowed. Now imagine if this preemptive Iranian legislation is voted within the next few days. Crisis-hit Club Med countries such as Spain and especially Italy and Greece will be dealt a deathblow, having no time to find a possible alternative to Iran's light, high-quality crude."

"Not surprisingly," Escobar averred, "the losers lost in these Cold War tactics anachronistically applied to a global open market are the Europeans themselves."

"Greece," Asia Times pointed out, "already facing the abyss--has been buying heavily discounted oil from Iran. The strong possibility remains of the oil embargo precipitating a Greek government bond default--and even a catastrophic cascade effect in the eurozone (Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain--and beyond)."

Not that any of this matters to the Americans who are exacerbating the manufactured "Iran crisis," partially as a hammer to beat down their EU competitors--under the tattered flag of Western "unity"--while gambling that war and their delusional hope for "regime change" in Iran will bring them one step closer to energy hegemony in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Eyes Wide Shut

Which brings us back to Iran's "red line."

"Tehran has repeatedly said that it would close Hormuz only if--and we should repeat--only if Iran is blocked from exporting its oil," Asia Times warned.

"This would represent a deathblow to the Iranian economy--totally dependent on oil exports--not to mention the regime controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Regime change is the real agenda of Washington and its European poodles-- but that cannot be spelled out to global public opinion," Pepe Escobar noted.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Press TV that "in the absence of Iranian supply, oil prices will go up and they (the Western states) know it. However, Iran will never allow itself to be in a situation in which it cannot sell oil but other regional states can."

And how did the global godfather react to Tehran's warning? Why with more bellicose rhetoric of course! The United States and their "partners" have pledged to "do what needs to done" to keep the strategic waterway open, U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder warned.

The ambassador added: "These situations, the choices are very, very difficult. I have not looked at the exact military contingency plannings that there are ... But of this I am certain: the international waterways that go through the strait of Hormuz are to be sailed by international navies including ours, the British and the French and any other navy that needs to go through the Gulf; and second, we will make sure that that happens under every circumstance."

The Defense Department announced last week that it will maintain a fleet of 11 nuclear-armed aircraft carriers despite budget constraints, as a threat to Iran but also to geopolitical rivals China and Russia.

Russia Today reported that "with Washington's decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU's attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region."

Ramping things up even further, Interfax reported Thursday that the U.S. "plans to deploy a third convoy of warships led by USS Enterprise to the Gulf in March."

"The country's second aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and its battle group entered the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz last Sunday, accompanied by UK and French warships."

Last Saturday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told sailors aboard the USS Enterprise, that "the ship is heading to the Persian Gulf and will steam through the Strait of Hormuz in a direct message to Tehran," the Associated Press reported.

While Iran reiterated its threat to close the narrow Strait, through which 20% of the world's oil passes, Tehran has done so as a defensive response to an aggressive military build-up along their borders, the assassination of scientists, terrorist bombings of defense facilities, surveillance overflights by U.S. and Israeli drones and economic sanctions by the West that could crater their economy.

"That's what this carrier is all about," Panetta blustered. "That's the reason we maintain a presence in the Middle East ... We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it's better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy."

Yet despite Israeli threats to "go it alone," they do not possess the assets capable of mounting a decisive military offensive against the Islamic Republic.

On Thursday, Time Magazine reported that an unnamed "senior security official" told Netanyahu's cabinet last fall that the prospects for "success" were "not altogether encouraging."

"'I informed the cabinet we have no ability to hit the Iranian nuclear program in a meaningful way,' the official quoted a senior commander as saying. 'If I get the order I will do it, but we don't have the ability to hit in a meaningful way'."

Short of launching a preemptive nuclear first strike on Iran, the Israelis will heel when the master whistles. Only the United States has the requisite military assets capable of inflicting damage on the Islamic Republic, but they are well-aware of the risks an Iranian counterstrike would pose.

As Global Research analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya cautioned: "U.S. naval strength, which includes the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, has primacy over all the other navies and maritime forces in the world. Its deep sea or oceanic capabilities are unparalleled and unmatched by any other naval power. Primacy does not mean invincibility. U.S. naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are nonetheless vulnerable."

Noting the findings of a Pentagon war game, Millennium Challenge 2002, Nazemroaya wrote that "even the small Iranian patrol boats in the Persian Gulf, which appear pitiable and insignificant against a U.S. aircraft carrier or destroyer, threaten U.S. warships. Looks can be deceiving; these Iranian patrol boats can easily launch a barrage of missiles that could significantly damage and effectively sink large U.S. warships. Iranian small patrol boats are also hardly detectable and hard to target."

During that $250 million war game, the "scenario hypothetically pitted the Blue Team (representing US warships) against a Red Team that launched a coordinated assault using swarming boats and missiles--the kind of tactics Iran might employ," The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Red Team commander, Lt. General Paul K. Van Riper, told The New York Times back in 2008 that "the sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack."

"The whole thing was over in 5, maybe 10 minutes," Van Riper told the Times. "It is not a matter of size or of individual capability, but whether you have the numbers and come from multiple directions in a short period of time," the general cautioned.

"Iran's strategy of asymmetric warfare recognizes that, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has little chance of winning any face-to-face military contest with powerful enemies like the United States," the Monitor noted.

"Instead," journalist Scott Peterson averred, "Iran aims to 'exploit enemy vulnerabilities through the used of 'swarming' tactics by well-armed small boats and fast-attack craft, to mount surprise attacks at unexpected times and places' which will 'ultimately destroy technologically superior enemy forces,' writes Iranian military expert Fariborz Haghshenass in a 2008 study based on published doctrines of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)."

"Part of Iran's strategy includes decentralized decision-making."

A "former European diplomat" told the Monitor that "the entire [IRGC] structure--if you look at how air defense is organized, the land forces, the combination of the Basij [militia] and the [IRGC]--this is all geared toward what they call the Mosaic Strategy, where you have individual military units who have a great deal of independence to decide what they can do without referring back to the center."

"When the Red Team sank much of the Blue navy despite the Blue navy's firing of guns and missiles," the Times grimly observed, "it illustrated a cheap way to beat a very expensive fleet. After the Blue force was sunk, the game was ordered to begin again, with the Blue Team eventually declared the victor."

Nazemroaya warned, "Iran would react to U.S. aggression by launching a massive barrage of missiles that would overwhelm the U.S. and destroy sixteen U.S. naval vessels--an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and five amphibious ships. It is estimated that if this had happened in real war theater context, more than 20,000 U.S. servicemen would have been killed in the first day following the attack."

Undeterred by warnings from their own military experts, Washington and Tel Aviv are heading towards the edge of the cliff and seem eager to jump.

On Friday, Russia Today disclosed that the mysteriously "delayed" Austere Challenge 12 joint missile defense exercise with Israel "originally slated for this spring, will be scheduled for October 2012."

Amid conflicting reports that first had the Obama administration, and then the Israelis, postponing the exercise, allegedly because "a series of events," according to Inter Press Service, "impelled the Barack Obama administration to put more distance between the United States and aggressive Israeli policies toward Iran." On the other hand however, Debkafileaverred that Netanyahu called it off "as a mark of Israel's disapproval for the administration's apparent hesitancy."

Well, it's on again.

As Russia Today reported, the drill will "signal a surge of American troops to Israel by the thousands" and Iranian authorities "fear that the exercise will try out more than just the missile capabilities of the allies. Also being put to the test is Iran's patience."

"Now after a brief delay," RT averred, "America will send thousands of troops and its anti-missile defense systems to Israel, albeit a few months later than planned."

"With the exercise back in the books, it could mean that an eventual war between the US and Iran is still in the works--and now the world has a timeline to see it through."

Indications are that Washington's timeline is shrinking as the Pentagon accelerates plans to rush new weapons into the deployment phase.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that "Pentagon war planners have concluded that their largest conventional bomb isn't yet capable of destroying Iran's most heavily fortified underground facilities, and are stepping up efforts to make it more powerful."

"The 30,000-pound 'bunker-buster' bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs."

However, "initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, wouldn't be capable of destroying some of Iran's facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them."

"The push boost the power of the MOP is part of stepped-up contingency planning for a possible strike against Iran's nuclear program," the Journal disclosed.

Having already spent some $300 million for 20 bombs, designed by military-industrial-complex heavyweight Boeing, the Pentagon sought an additional $82 million this month in a secret request to Congress.

Warning of the "grave consequences" of a U.S.-led attack on Iran, last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described "the scenario Russia and the global community could face if things in the Middle East, especially in Iran, get out of hand,"Russia Today informed us.

"As for the chances that this disaster (a military attack against Iran) could occur, this question would be better addressed to those who keep mentioning this as an option that remains on the table," Lavrov said in a comment apparently intended for Israel and the United States. "The consequences will be really grave, and we are seriously concerned about this."

Pointedly, the Foreign Minister said "this will not be an easy walk, and it's impossible to calculate all of the possible consequences."

Earlier this month, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister and former NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, warned that "Iran is our close neighbor, just south of the Caucasus. Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security."

Braggadocio aside, unlike the Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise, American forces will not have the luxury of a "do-over" if events really do spin out of control.

Posted by Antifascistat 11:46 AM

[Ed Jewett]

Vol. 11, Issue 526, January 27, 2012

Obama (Also) Prepares for War
Massive US Military Buildup on Two Strategic Islands:Socotra and Masirah



While quietly casting lines to draw Tehran into talks on their nuclear dispute, PresidentBarack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Socotra is situated 80 kilometers east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers southeast of the Yemeni coastline. It lies athwart the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A military base there is in a position to oversee the shipping moving in and out of those strategic naval waterways.
Lushly verdant, Socotra is approximately 120 kilometers long by 40 kilometers wide. Its population of 55,000 has its own distinct language and culture. Since 2010, the US has been quietly building giant air force and naval bases on Socotra with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for flying stealth drones, as part of a linked chain of strategic US military facilities in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
The Socotra facilities are so secret that they are never mentioned in any cataloguelisting US military facilities in this part of the world, which include Jebel Ali and Al Dahfrain the United Arab Emirates; Arifjan in Kuwait; and Al Udeid in Qatar all within short flying distances from Iran.
Additional US forces are also being poured into Camp Justice on the barren, 70-kilometer long Omani island of Masirah, just south of the Hormuz entry point to the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea.
US military facilities were established there after the signing of an access agreement with Oman in 1980.
Up to 100,000 US troops present by early March
For the new buildup on Socotra, Washington had to negotiate a new deal with Yemen's ousted ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Injured in an assassination attempt last year, Saleh demanded permission to travel to the United States for medical treatment. The Obama administration first refused, then relented whenSaleh made it his condition for consenting to additional troops landing on the island.
Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands tellDEBKA-Net-Weekly that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
Then, 100,000 American troops were massed in Kuwait ahead of the invasion. Today, those sources estimate from the current pace of arrivals on the two island bases, that 50,000 US troops will have accumulated on Socotra and Masirah by mid-February. They will top up the 50,000 military already present in the Persian Gulf region, so that in less than a month, Washington will have some 100,000 military personnel on the spot and available for any contingency.
US air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra andMasirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America's biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away. The US military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are theUSS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
A fourth US carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days' sailing time from the water off Iran's coast.
Obama may debunk Republican charges that he is weak on Iran
By early March, therefore, America will have piled up enough military strength within reach of Iran to exercise its consistently avowed military option.
Tuesday, Jan. 24, in his State of the Union address, the president said: "Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations."
Our military sources have also picked up reports of British and French air, naval and special forces landings this month in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
All these military concentrations and Obama's latest word on the Iranian nuclear issue tend to confirm that nothing has changed since DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources in Washington first reported in November 2011 on the US president's resolve to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in the course of 2012.
(See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 515 of Nov. 4: Targeting Tehran: Obama Set to Attack Iran's Nuclear Sites by the fall of 2012),
The only difference may be the possibility of the date moving up from fall to spring, depending on three developments:
1. The outcome of the secret exchanges taking place between Washington and Tehran on which we have reported exclusively;
2. An Israeli decision to go ahead with a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Obama has not been able to convince Israel to drop this option and leave military action entirely to the United States.
3. The US presidential election campaign: Obama may decide to go for an attack to cripple Iran's nuclear program and preempt its production of a bomb to gain a winning hand for trumping his Republican rivals' accusation that he is weak on Iran.

http://www.pacificrimcoins.com/pacrim/co...nd-masirah

****

Debka is less than reliable about these things, but if it turns out to be true, the implications are alarming. Neither Socotra or Masirah are positioned to seriously affect the invasion of Iran, especially Socotra. Neither island has existing facilities useful for military purposes. Even the airport runways are for light aircraft only, so this is a total garrisoning from the ground up and a very expensive operation.
If this turns out to be true, it means the US is getting ready to seize control of both the Straight of Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden, to hold the rest of the world hostage with a threat to cut off the flow of Mideast oil unless the rest of the world goes along with the US agenda, which is really the Israeli agenda.

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[Ed Jewett]

Iran War Reality Check; U.S going to war with Iran

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go1PilTjM...dded#!what to expect.(1/2)

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[TD]Questions: How much Iranian oil flows through the Straits of Hormuz?

Who has the highest economic, or military, incentives --

be brutally specific for those in the bleacher seats or those watching from home --

to keep those Straits open, and who has the highest incentives to keep them closed?

And for the sake of the question, or extra credit:
Has no one yet figured out the easiest way to close those straits
for weeks or months?




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[Ed Jewett]

US strike group simulates war with Iran

February 8, 2012 by legitgov

ShareThisUS strike group simulates war with Iran 07 Feb 2012 The United States' oldest aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, and its strike group are running naval drills, which seem to indicate potential conflict with Iran, off the US East coast ahead of being deployed to the Persian Gulf. The drill map, referring to Florida shores as "The Treasure Coast," depicts nine countries, two of which - Garnet and North Garnet, are identified as 'fundamentalist Islamic theocracies' suspected of supporting terror groups, Russia Today reported on Tuesday. According to the report, the drill map also depicts a 56-km (35-mile) wide strait located some 320 km (200 miles) from the coast. The mock strait's shape and width is identical to the Strait of Hormuz.

[Magda Hassan]

And now for some thing completely different.

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon

FEBRUARY 9, 2012 | ISSUE 4806


TEHRANAmidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America's uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. "Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran," said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and "everything they need" to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material. "Obviously, the prospect of this happening is very distressing to Iran and all countries like Iran. After all, the United States is a volatile nation that's proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat." Iranian intelligence experts also warned of the very real, and very frightening, possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/iran-wo...r-w,27325/

[Christer Forslund]

Magda, LOL :lol:

[Ed Jewett]

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[TD="class: contentheading"]Super Savage Sunday: Obama Tightens the Screws on Iran[/TD]
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[TD="colspan: 2"]WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD [/TD]
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[TD="class: createdate, colspan: 2"]TUESDAY, 07 FEBRUARY 2012 00:51[/TD]
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[TD="colspan: 2"]Arthur Silber follows up the post we linked to yesterday with some more specifics on how an effective campaign against the war with Iran might look: "The First Ad: Who Are the Nazis Now?" Ads like these would be a devastating Zen slap in the head to the stunted American consciousness. Get on over there and read it now.

Meanwhile, the Peace Laureate is tightening the screws on Iran even further. Barack Obama took a few minutes away from the big game on Super Bowl Sunday and imposed still more sanctions on Tehran -- to punish them for legally pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program under close international supervision. (The pure, unmitigated evil of these Persians, eh?)

Again, it must be stressed that not a single government in the world -- including Israel -- believes that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Not one. No one is making that claim. In fact, leading figures in both the United States and Israel have made it very plain in recent weeks that they do not believe Iran is building a nuclear weapon. There is no Iranian nuclear weapons program. It does not exist. And yet these same leaders, at the same time, tell us that we must put more and more pressure on Iran -- we must assassinate its scientists, we must carry out covert ops inside its territory, we must surround it with bristling military bases, we must belly up to its shores with vast fleets, we must fill its skies with spy drones, and we must drive its ordinary citizens into ruin and suffering with an ever-increasing array of sanctions -- in order to .... what, exactly?

Again, let's make it clear, in great block letters ten feet high and five feet wide: the elites pushing us rapidly toward war do not believe Iran is building a nuclear bomb. What's more, they would not feel threatened if Iran did have a bomb. There is only one thing they want: regime change in Tehran. And there is only reason they want it: domination of strategic oil lands of the Middle East. They certainly aren't concerned about the actual nature of the Tehran regime -- which is far less repressive than the West's beloved extremists in Saudi Arabia -- nor are they concerned in the slightest about the Iranian people. The sanctions themselves prove that.

Wise man William Blum is also on the case in his latest Anti-Empire Report:
[Last month] we could read in the New York Times (January 15) that "three leading Israeli security experts the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel."

Then, a few days afterward, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio (January 18), had this exchange:
Question: Is it Israel's judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: People ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now ... in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case.
Lastly, we have the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in a report to Congress: "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons. ... There are "certain things [the Iranians] have not done" that would be necessary to build a warhead.
But as Blum notes, these statements are "never put into headlines by the American mass media; indeed, only very lightly reported at all." Instead, the fierce watchdogs of the American media are more than happy to shape their stories in the service of the greater cause of warmongering -- even though, again, our elites know full well that the "Iranian bomb" is an empty threat:
On the Public Broadcasting System (PBS News Hour, January 9), the non-commercial network much beloved by American liberals, the Panetta quote above was reported as: "But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that's what concerns us." Flagrantly omitted were the preceding words: "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No ..." 5

One of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, was interviewed by Playboy magazine in June 2007:
Playboy: Can the World live with a nuclear Iran?

Van Creveld: The U.S. has lived with a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear China, so why not a nuclear Iran? I've researched how the U.S. opposed nuclear proliferation in the past, and each time a country was about to proliferate, the U.S. expressed its opposition in terms of why this other country was very dangerous and didn't deserve to have nuclear weapons. Americans believe they're the only people who deserve to have nuclear weapons, because they are good and democratic and they like Mother and apple pie and the flag. But Americans are the only ones who have used them. ... We are in no danger at all of having an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us. We cannot say so too openly, however, because we have a history of using any threat in order to get weapons ... thanks to the Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from the U.S. and Germany."
And so the beat goes on. Ordinary Iranians are going hungry, getting poorer, having their futures destroyed for the sole purpose of augmenting the wealth and power and privilege of our American elites and their colonial outriders. And if this domination is not handed to them on a platter by the current Iranian regime, our elites are quite happy to kill countless thousands of innocent people to get it.

That's the reality. That's the world you're living in. Do you like it? No? Then change it.
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[TD="class: contentheading"]Runaway Train: Stop the War Against Iran -- Now[/TD]
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[TD="colspan: 2"]WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD [/TD]
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[TD="class: createdate, colspan: 2"]MONDAY, 06 FEBRUARY 2012 00:20[/TD]
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[TD="colspan: 2"]Almost every day brings some new barrage of fear-mongering lies and vaporous accusations from leading members of the Obama Administration and other nabobs at the top of the political-media elite, all of them aimed relentlessly at one goal: justifying military action against Iran.

It is an almost exact replay of what we saw in 2002-2003 during the build-up to the war of aggression against Iraq with one significant exception. The "progressive" opposition to the baseless warmongering is virtually non-existent this time around because the warmonger-in-chief is their own champion, their partisan standard-bearer. Many voices that hurled thunderous denunciations at the Bush Regime for its brazen manipulations toward a baseless and unjustified war are now silent that is, if they are not actively supporting the increasingly rabid saber-rattling by the Peace Laureate. To them, Obama's re-election is more important than anything on earth: certainly more important than the thousands (or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of innocent people who will die in the long-running, far-reverberating hellstorm that an attack on Iran will create.

So now there is even less resistance to the fever-stoking against Iran. Yet what is playing out before our eyes is even more brazen than the build-up to the war crime against Iraq. Right now, in real time, in real life, the Obama administration and its allies in warmongering are telling the American people, over and over, that Iran is preparing terrorist strikes in the United States, that Iran is joining hands with Al Qaeda, that Iran is killing American soldiers in Afghanistan (just as they did in Iraq), that Iran is building long-range missiles that launch their nearly-completed nuclear weapons straight into the Heartland. The Obama administration is carefully and deliberately and knowingly building up the Iranian "threat" to such monstrous heights that it will be impossible to back down: Tehran terrorists striking in the Homeland with Al Qaeda while they ready their nukes to destroy America we're supposed to negotiate with such monsters? There is only one way to save our sweet little children from nuclear obliteration strike the Persian aggressors before they kill us! It's a plain case of self-defense.

There is of course absolutely no substance to any of this. There is no substance to the claim that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. And there would be no "threat" to the United States if they did build one. (And no threat to Israel either, which is sitting there with its vast nuclear arsenal, fully able right now, in real time, in real life to "wipe Iran from the map" at the push of a button.) The only "threat" Iran poses with or without nuclear weapons is to the domination of the Middle East and its oil wealth by the American elite and its international partners.

Yet here we are, genuinely on the brink of another war a war which will make the mass-murdering, $3 trillion FUBAR in Iraq and Afghanistan look like the Summer of Love. Yet the "professional Left" is bending all its might to re-elect the perpetrator behind this Bush-like push for aggressive war. (And of course the professional Right is fully on board.) Can anything stop this runaway train?

In his latest post, Arthur Silber lays out a number of practical, effective steps that can be taken today to bring the danger of this lunatic course to public consciousness. They are there if anyone wants to take them up especially those in the "dissident" world who already have a broad media platform, and could leverage that position to force this issue to the forefront.

Will anyone do it? Like Silber, I have my doubts. But the alternative is a numb acquiescence to an enormous evil being prepared right in front of us. If it happens, no one can say that they didn't see it coming. When the thousands lie dying and the world grows darker, the only question will be this: Did you try to stop it, or not?
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[Peter Lemkin]

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to Iran, which is claiming it has made significant new advances in its nuclear program, citing new uranium enrichment centrifuges and domestically made reactor fuel. According to state media reports, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has inserted the first Iranian-manufactured fuel rod into a Tehran test reactor. In a speech broadcast on state television, Ahmadinejad hailed Iran's uranium enrichment efforts.

PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD: [translated] I am announcing that within the regulations of the agency, we are ready to share our nuclear know-how with the IAEA member states. The nation of Iran has found its bright pathnuclearone that our martyrs opened for us. We saw the mother of the martyrs say one thing: continue in the path of the martyr. Our nuclear path will continue.

JUAN GONZALEZ: U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland downplayed Ahmadinejad's announcement by saying the Iranian uranium enrichment advances were neither particularly new nor impressive. However, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu had a far harsher response. He called Iran, quote, "the world's greatest exporter or terror," and said Iranian aggression threatens the safety of countries around the world.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Iran is the world's greatest exporter of terror. During these very days, Iran's terror actions have been revealed to everyone's eyes. Iran upsets the stability of the world. It harms innocent diplomats in many countries. And the countries of the world must condemn Iran's terror actions and demarcate red lines against Iranian aggression. If such aggression is not stopped, it will spread to many countries.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Israeli officials are blaming Iran after Israeli diplomats were targeted in nearly simultaneous bombings in India and the former Soviet state of Georgia. Four people were injured in India, including the wife of the Israeli embassy's defense attaché. The bomb in Georgia was disarmed after it was discovered on a vehicle parked at the Israeli embassy. Iran denied responsibility for Monday's bombings, saying the Israeli accusations were part of a "psychological war" against it. Yesterday, two Iranians were arrested and charged with plotting the bomb attack in Bangkok, according to Thailand's foreign minister. Iran has also accused Israel of being behind the recent assassinations of five Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran.

Well, for more, we're joined now by two guests. Reza Marashi joins us from Washington, D.C., research director at the National Iranian American Council. And Glenn Greenwald joins us via Democracy Now! video stream, constitutional law attorney, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. He's been writing about what he calls irresponsible media fear mongering around Iran.

Reza Marashi and Glenn Greenwald, welcome to Democracy Now! Glenn, let's start with you. You know, we just finished a conversation with Jeremy Scahill about the targeting of American citizens in Yemen, the killing of Awlaki, his son, and the killing of many other Yemenis by drone attacks. Can you talk now about what we're seeing with Iran and Israel?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, what's so bizarre is that if you listen to the media, you would see Iran as this sort of irrational aggressor, this country that is just kind of lashing out arbitrarily at other nations, and specifically at Israel and the United States, for no reason. And what's so amazing about that is it completely ignores the context of what the United States and Israel have been doing to Iran for the last several years.

On a virtually daily basis, you can pick up newspapers in either of those countries and see constant threats issued to attack Iran. There is widespread belief, among virtually everybody, that those two nations jointly were responsible for a very sophisticated cyber warfare attack on the nation's nuclear facilities with the Stuxnet virus. There have been a string of Iranian scientists who have been murdered through means that are clearly terroristic, whether it means bombs exploding on Iranian soil or magnetic bombs strapped to cars, where scientists have been killed, their wives have been severely wounded. And you even have an NBC report from last week that says that a dissident organization that has long been devoted to the overthrow of the Iranian government, the MEK, a group that the United States government has long classified as a terrorist organization, is being armed, funded and trained by Israel. And we've known for a long time that numerous prominent American officials and politicians from both parties are on the payroll of the MEK and have been advocating on their behalf.

So when you talk about Iran's terrorist network and engaging in terrorism and aggression, what I think we need to realize, first and foremost, is that they've been the target of exactly those sorts of attacks by the U.S. and Israel, at the same time that the U.S. virtually has Iran militarily encircled with military bases in virtually every bordering country. And just like Jeremy described how, when you drone attack and kill citizens in a country like Yemen, you generate severe blowback and anti-American animus, the same thing is obviously going to happen when you target a country like Iran with those sorts of series of attacks. And it's why diplomacy and negotiationexactly what the U.S. government refuses to dois the far better course.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Glenn, one of the points that you've made in some of your writings is that the astounding press clamor around Iran is somewhat different from the clamor in the lead-up to the war against Iraq, in that the press seems to be even more vociferous than the administration, whereas, at least in the situation with Iraq, it was the administration that was using the press, and the press was going along. But in this case, it seems that the press is its own agent in drumming up war.

GLENN GREENWALD: Right. I mean, by all appearances, the top levels of the Obama administration are not particularly anxious for a military conflict with Iran, whether that's because they believe it's not the right course of action or because it would be politically harmful to the President in an election year. I think all signs have been pretty clear that the Obama administration would like to avoid a military confrontation and is not really out there beating the drums of war. They're certainly demonizing Iran. They're orchestrating very severe sanctions that are harming the people of Iran in increasingly serious ways. But they don't really seem to be eager for a confrontation with Iran the way the Bush administration was with regard to Iraq in 2002 and 2003.

I think what you're seeing is the militarythe American media speaks to people other than top-level Obama administration officials. They speak to Israeli officials. They speak to neoconservatives who are very much in positions of influence. They speak to other people who are probably hawkish within the Obama administration, who do seem to want a confrontation with Iran. And the American media is leading the way, as usual, in demonizing Iran, in ratcheting up fear levels. There was an extraordinarily irresponsible report yesterday from ABC News, Diane Sawyer and Brian Ross, claiming that synagogues and other Jewish facilities in New York City and around the country are now targets of Iranian terror, even though there is zero evidence for any sort of claim like that. There are now claims from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post that Iran has an operational relationship with al-Qaeda. And so, what you see is exactly the same kind of techniquesthey're not even hiding itthat were used to lead the nation to war in 2002 and 2003 are now being employed for Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, we want to go to a clip of that report on ABC News that you just referred to by Diane Sawyer and Brian Ross. Sawyer begins by warning a kind of shadow war being waged by Iran around the world.

DIANE SAWYER: Evidence of a kind of shadow war now being waged by Iran around the world. Tonight, Israeli and Jewish facilities everywhere, including here in the U.S., are on heightened alert. Overseas today, three U.S. warships defied Iranian threats and entered the vital oil gateway, the Strait of Hormuzour own Martha Raddatz right there on board, and she'll bring us her report in a moment. But first we want to tell you what is causing this new concern and the evidence of secret Iranian attacks. ABC's chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross has been talking to the FBI all day. Brian.

BRIAN ROSS: Well, Diane, it appears to be hit squad versus hit squad, with the FBI telling ABC News tonight it is worried the violence could spill over to the U.S. Israeli diplomatic facilities and Jewish places of worship in at least 10 U.S. cities have been told they could be targets.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the report by Brian Ross and Diane Saweyer on ABC. Reza Marashi, let's bring you into this discussion. You're with the National Iranian American Council. Your response, and how Iranians are responding right now as the escalation of rhetoric against Iran continues?

REZA MARASHI: Well, this Iranian government has recently changed its strategic calculus and its strategic outlook, and has said very plainly multiple times that they will now respond to pressure with pressure. And, you know, I think we need to look beyond and move past this chicken-and-egg argument of who's doing what to who and who did it first, and focus on how do we stop it, because there is a steadily increasing chance of conflict between the United States and Iran, and Israel, that could draw in the rest of the world, that I think all parties would independently seek to avoid.

What makes this so dangerous and increasingly likely is there's little to no communication going on between the parties. And when you don't communicate, that increases the likelihood for misperceptions and miscalculations. And when you misperceive and you miscalculate and you're not communicating, very, very bad things can happen.

And, you know, the Obama administration started its Iran policy when it came into office in an effort to try and shift the paradigm. And various domestic and international political forces, including the Iranian government's own actions, but not limited to, have caused the Obama administration to shift back to what's essentially what the Bush policy was when Bush left office. And we're in a dangerous place now. I don't think that means that war is going to happen tomorrow, next week or next month. But again, when you don't have channels of communication that can prevent escalation and let people know what red lines are and things like that, then you are setting a dangerous precedent that could quickly spiral out of control.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Reza Marashi, what do you make of the announcement by President Ahmadinejad yesterday in terms of progress in Iran in nuclear enrichment?

REZA MARASHI: It's a great question. You know, I don't think it's a coincidence that the same day that the Iranian government responded positively to a letter from the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, to resume negotiations, they make these nuclear announcements, they put on a nuclear show. I think what they're doing is signaling to the United States and the international community that they'll come to the table and negotiate, but they will not give up their rights through pressure. They will not let pressure force them to capitulate their nuclear rights at the negotiating table.

And right now, if that message isn't internalized in Washington to the degree that it seriously considers what Iran's security interests and preferences are, and Washington doesn't seriously consider whether or not it can address them, then these negotiations are going to fail. So, we need to take a step back and shift the paradigm. We need to take a step back and say, "All right, this is what the Iranian government is doing. This is what they're seeking to accomplish." Not all of our interests overlap with the Iranian government, but there are some interests that do overlap. So, focusing on the nuclear issue exclusively, where there really isn't a lot of overlap, is going to doom negotiations to failure. The agenda needs to be broadened to focus on areas of mutual interest, mutual concern, increase the likelihood of not only a way to find a peaceful solution to this crisis and diffuse it, but also figure out a way to get back on the same page, because there's been little to no dialogue and conversation going on. And that's the right way to move things, in my opinion.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, President Obama said in an interview with NBC that the United States is working in lockstep with Israel to deal with Iran's disputed nuclear program. I want to go to that clip.

MATT LAUER: Has Israel promised you that they would give you advanced warning to any such attack, should they give you that warning?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: You know, I won't go into the details of our conversations. I will say that we have closer military and intelligence consultation between our two countries than we ever have. And my number one priority continues to be the security of the United States, but also the security of Israel, and we are going to make sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this, hopefully diplomatically.

AMY GOODMAN: Reza Marashi, talk about the U.S.-Israel relationship in relation to Iran. And especially in watching the media in these last few days, with the attempted assassinations of Israeli officials in various placesin India, in the former Soviet state of Georgiavery little reference tohow horrendous that is, but very little reference to what happened before, with the assassinations of the Iranian scientists. And I'm wondering what Iranian public is feeling about this.

REZA MARASHI: Oh, you're asking great questions. Let's unpack that a little bit. I mean, there is no relationship between Iran and the United States. I think we should be very honest about that. That's one of the most dangerous things about this situation as it moves forward. You know, when you bring Israel into the equation, I think President Obama has been a great friend to Israel. There are no greater friend to Israel than President Obama, and his track record speaks to that, irrespective of what neoconservative officials in the United States or right-wing officials in the Israeli government may say.

I think, at the end of the day, the United States and Israel are on the same page. They're not in lockstep, though. I think the Israeli government is more hawkish on the Iran issue than the United States government is. Interests don't entirely overlap, but Prime Minister Netanyahu will be coming to Washington for the AIPAC conference in the coming weeks, and, you know, they'll continue to try to get on the same page. But, you know, the United States realizes that negotiations are going to be necessarysustained negotiations, because negotiations can'texcuse me, can't work in a day, a week, a month. It's going to take some time. And they realize that, and I think Israel is slowly coming around to that conclusion, as well.

But speaking about the assassinations, I mean, at the end of the day, terrorism is terrorism. And we shouldn't sit here and talk about one form of terrorism being OK and another form of terrorism not being OK. It should be condemned in no uncertain terms, irrespective of who's doing it. And, you know, Israel takes pride in the fact that it calls itself the only democracy in the Middle East. So, engaging in acts of terrorism, irrespective of who those acts of terrorism are targetingand it does fit the U.S. government's own definition of terrorism, state sponsorship of terrorismis unbefitting of the country that considers itself the only democracy in the Middle East. So, we need to take a step back, establish what the rules of the game are, or at least acknowledge what they are, because we do know what these rules are, and proceed accordingly to try and diffuse the crisis. I think right now we're locked in this paradigm of conflict management rather than conflict resolution. And I think the most dangerous part about that is, rather than the governments controlling the conflict dynamic, the conflict dynamic is beginning to control the governments.

AMY GOODMAN: Reza, we only have 30 seconds, but the Green Movement, how powerful it is right now? They were protesting in New York recently. They're against war with Iran. They're against sanctions against Iran. And they're not supportive of the Iranian government of Ahmadinejad.

REZA MARASHI: I think that the Green Movement can be considered to be a very diverse socioeconomic swath of Iranian society. The Iranian government's own repression has made, you know, mobilization and movement towards a more democratic future in Iran much more difficult, but I would argue that it's a marathon, not a sprint. Iranians are capable of achieving their goals indigenously. And the United States should follow the lead of the Iranian people, rather than vice versa.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you for being with us, Reza Marashi, with the National Iranian American Council, and Glenn Greenwald, joining us from Brazil, constitutional law attorney and blogger at Salon.com. This is Democracy Now! We'll be back in a minute. We're going to go south to look at the hundreds of prisoners who just died in a prison in Honduras. Stay with us.

[Keith Millea]

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn, we want to go to a clip of that report on ABC News that you just referred to by Diane Sawyer and Brian Ross. Sawyer begins by warning a kind of shadow war being waged by Iran around the world.

DIANE SAWYER: Evidence of a kind of shadow war now being waged by Iran around the world. Tonight, Israeli and Jewish facilities everywhere, including here in the U.S., are on heightened alert. Overseas today, three U.S. warships defied Iranian threats and entered the vital oil gateway, the Strait of Hormuzour own Martha Raddatz right there on board, and she'll bring us her report in a moment. But first we want to tell you what is causing this new concern and the evidence of secret Iranian attacks. ABC's chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross has been talking to the FBI all day. Brian.

BRIAN ROSS: Well, Diane, it appears to be hit squad versus hit squad, with the FBI telling ABC News tonight it is worried the violence could spill over to the U.S. Israeli diplomatic facilities and Jewish places of worship in at least 10 U.S. cities have been told they could be targets.

I never watch MSM reports anymore,and so I'll tell you,when I watched this clip with Diane Sawyer,I just really wanted to puke.My God,and to think so many people put "Democracy Now",and Amy Goodman down.

And to Brian Ross.........I'm soooo glad you were at the FBI all day getting the story.You never have to worry about wearing out your shoes that way.:thumbsdown:

[Ed Jewett]

SWIFT READY TO BLOCK IRANIAN BANK TRANSACTIONS

February 18th, 2012When I studied International Relations in college, we were taught that economic sanctions could be on par with, "Rockets and bombs," as one professor put it, and potentially much worse. Questions about economic sanctions amounting to collective punishment and other violations of International Law are ignored by the perpetrators. These types of policies resulted in a holocaust in Iraq.
The only conclusion that I can draw from the news below is that the decision has already been made to militarily engage Iran and this is an attempt to cause Iran to lash out first. In the event that Iran doesn't strike first, a false flag incident could be fabricated easily.
If SWIFT actually pulls the plug, I'd consider the fuse to be lit. Also, if SWIFT does it before 20 March, this is probably the real reason:

Last week, the Tehran Times noted that the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than the dollar from March 20. This long-planned move is part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vision of economic war with the west.
"The dispute over Iran's nuclear programme is nothing more than a convenient excuse for the US to use threats to protect the reserve currency' status of the dollar," the newspaper, which calls itself the voice of the Islamic Revolution, said.

Via: Reuters:
Belgium-based SWIFT, which provides banks with a system for moving funds around the world, bowed to international pressure on Friday and said it was ready to block Iranian banks from using its network to transfer money.
Expelling Iranian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication would shut down Tehran's main avenue to doing business with the rest of the world an outcome the West believes is crucial to curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
SWIFT, which has never cut off a country before, has been closely following efforts in the United States and the European Union to develop new sanctions targeting Iran that would directly affect EU-based financial institutions.
The United States and EU have already moved to sanction Iran's central bank.
"SWIFT stands ready to act and discontinue its services to sanctioned Iranian financial institutions as soon as it has clarity on EU legislation currently being drafted," the company said in an emailed statement.
The United States has been pushing the European Union to force SWIFT to evict the Iranian firms but it was unclear whether the EU would reach an agreement.
For one, SWIFT's home country, Belgium, does not think the global banking firm should be the only company of its kind required to comply with sanctions.
The Obama administration said it welcomed SWIFT's intention to stop transactions involving designated Iranian banks. "We will continue to be in contact with our EU partners to urge action on this issue," a U.S. Treasury official said.
SWIFT, with headquarters just outside the Belgian capital Brussels, is vital to international money flows, exchanging an average 18 million payment messages per day between banks and other financial institutions in 210 countries.
Research Credit: GP
Posted in Dictatorship, Economy, Elite, War