Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio – part II

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
January 8, 2012

The situation with Iran seems to be getting worse by the day with tensions rising due to the actions of both Western nations like the United States, Israel, and allied states in the region and sadly Iran as well.

As I recently outlined in part one of “Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio”, this issue is a multifaceted and convoluted one with serious consequences, just as is the case with NATO.

It is quite unfortunate that this escalation is continuing – if not accelerating – as there is nothing good that could come from yet another bloody conflict.

Coming on the heels of a large-scale 10-day-long naval exercise carried out by Iran in the Persian Gulf, which included several test missile launches, Iranian officials have announced yet another drill.

According to Russia’s RIA Novosti, the Iranian Fars news agency has reported that Iran is going to conduct a new “massive” naval exercise, which will unsurprisingly be held near the Strait of Hormuz.

Not only is the Strait of Hormuz an area through which an estimated 40 percent of the world’s oil supply flows, but also one which has been sparking heated rhetoric from Iran and the United States Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain.

The Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would be conducting the “greatest naval war games” near the strait.

The drill is codenamed “The Great Prophet” and will likely coincide with, or at least be quite close to, the immense joint naval exercises to be carried out by the United States and Israel in the near future, which I covered in part one of this series.

Recently, the Associated Press reported on this “largest-ever joint drill” codenamed “Austere Challenge 12” while citing an unnamed senior military official who stated that the exercise would be held in the next few weeks.

The Associated Press makes sure to point to the Israeli military’s claim that the drill was planned a long time ago and thus not tied to recent events, although this buildup is far from something that has just occurred recently.

The announcement of “The Great Prophet” comes soon after the United States passed new sanctions which target Iranian oil experts and European Union Foreign Ministers are planning to meet and discuss banning Iranian oil imports in late January.

The sanctions are aimed at forcing Iran to drop their alleged secret nuclear weapons program but since Iran denies these claims entirely, this can only mean that the West expects Iran to stop pursuing peaceful nuclear technology as well.

This leads one to wonder why it is only Western nations and those aligned with Western interests that are allowed to pursue civilian nuclear technology.

This is especially questionable given the non-existent moral authority the West can claim, especially when it comes to the usage of nuclear weaponry.

A great example of this is the situation with India and Australia, where the latter nation is furnishing natural uranium to the former which is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Unsurprisingly, the West stays silent since India is a key player in the United States and NATO’s move to dominate the Asia-Pacific region with a multilateral alliance between India, Australia, Japan, America and NATO.

Despite the West’s constant pressure and new sanctions, Iran just announced that their Bushehr nuclear power plant is only weeks away from operating at full capacity.

The state-run IRNA stated that the plant will be able to create 1,000 megawatts of energy by Feburary 1 while the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Feireidoun Abbasi, stated that they have already shown the new domestically produced centrifuges to an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) representative.

The naval commander of the IRGC Ali Fadavi stated that exercises coming up in February would focus directly on the Strait of Hormuz.

It is hard to argue that the Iranian military is attempting to display dominance over the region as Iranian officials recently threatened to close the strait if more sanctions are brought against the nation.

As I mentioned in my previous writing, Iran has also made an ambiguous threat to the United States if another aircraft carrier were to sail through the strait.

Yet the Vancouver Sun states that the Bahrain-based United States Fifth Fleet “is far more powerful than Iran’s naval force” while pointing out to the counter-threats made by the American military and an equally opaque threat from the British who stated that any attempt made at closing the strait would not only be illegal but unsuccessful.

One might assume that they are implying that the West would make sure it was unsuccessful, obviously employing force of some kind or another.

The upcoming “Great Prophet” exercise, which is actually Great Prophet-7, part of a series of exercises, is in fact not the only drill to be or being conducted by Iran.

Today a senior military commander reported that the IRGC has in fact already started military drills, codenamed “Martyrs of Unity.”

The Commander of IRGC Ground Forces Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour stated that phase one of the drills began today near Khaf city in the Khorasan province of Iran.

Pakpour added that the main phase will begin this coming Monday, according to Iran’s Press TV and China’s Xinhua.

Despite the Pentagon’s warnings in late December against interfering with maritime transportation through the Strait of Hormuz, the Deputy Commander of the IRGC, Brigadier General Hossein Salami stated that Tehran need not seek Washington’s permission to implement its defense strategies in the Persian Gulf.

A bit of a different impression was given by Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast who stated that the Persian Gulf is critical for the global energy supply and as such Iran is not intentionally creating tension.

“But if the atmosphere changes into a war spirit and the situation in the region changes, all the decisions (of Iranians) would be made on the basis of new condition,” Ramin Mehmanparast told China’s Xinhua.

This gets in to the ambiguous territory of the other threats issued by Iranian officials as well as those so-called warnings the United States has given.

When asked about the possible sanctions by EU member states, which will be debated on January 30, Mehmanparast said that the Iranian oil supply cannot be replaced in the global crude oil trade and thus the market cannot easily cut the nation with the fourth largest oil reserves in the world out of the equation.

This is quite accurate as it would not only hurt the Iranian people, it would also create stratospheric gas prices here in America.

The Vancouver Sun reports that the people of Iran are already being negatively impacted by the Western sanctions, writing, “The sanctions are already hurting ordinary Iranians, faced with rising prices and a falling rial currency. They have been lining up at banks to convert their savings into dollars.”

This is precisely what so many individuals, myself included, in the alternative news community have been saying since these sanctions were first being pushed for.

It is inevitable that the only people who are hurt by sanctions are those at the bottom of the food chain, the everyday people who do not have the ability to combat the crippled economic climate.

Of course this is never what is highlighted by the government and establishment media outlets when covering the successes of non-violent intervention via sanctions, but it is the ugly truth as we have seen in the past with Iraq.

The most concerning aspect of these latest developments is the possibility that both the joint American-Israeli exercises and the Iranian drills could occur simultaneously and some conflict could ensue.

Hopefully it is just more saber rattling on both sides but the timing of these maneuvers couldn’t be worse in terms of the possible implications.

If the IRGC decides to temporarily close the Strait of Hormuz as part of one of their exercises, one can only imagine the brutal response that would follow at the hands of not only the United States Fifth Fleet but also the other forces that will be participating in the operations with Israel.

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January 13, 2012 | Categories: Iran, news, tyranny, war | Leave a comment

Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
January 5, 2012

As the days go by, the situation with Iran just gets increasingly complex and worrisome given the egregious saber rattling coming from both the West and Iran alike.

As I outlined in my article entitled “Positioning for war with Iran?”, it has become clear that the West is either arming surrounding neighbors as a deterrent, preparation for an unprovoked strike, or perhaps even to goad Iran into attacking Western interest first, thus justifying brutal retaliation.

My fledgling series about the global growth of NATO and the Western empire also covers aspects of this greater trend and how these issues constantly evolve and how so many seemingly disconnected events are in fact inseparably linked.

While these issues may seem disconnected for some, I think it is quite important to point out that in fact they couldn’t be more closely related in that they are both symptoms of the cancerous war profiteering industry that is not only robbing the American people blind in the name of freedom but also eliminating our civil liberties and slaughtering innocent people around the globe.

The situation surrounding Iran is just a microcosmic example of this greater trend to isolate and eliminate anyone who bucks the status quo and attempts to throw a wrench into the works of the global geopolitical-financial machine.

Recently, Iran closed their 10-day-long naval exercise in the Persian Gulf by testing multiple missiles, a move which clearly enraged the Western powers which believe that only they are allowed to wield any military power.

Three missiles were tested, including the shore-to-sea Qader missile, shorter range Nasr and surface-to-air Nour missile.

These tests come on the heels of a medium-range surface-to-air missile was successfully launched just days earlier.

The timing of these missile tests are very unlikely to be pure coincidence given the heated rhetoric coming from both sides, not to mention the presence of American vessels in the region.

Part of the large-scale exercises being conducted in the Gulf by the Iranian navy included “mock” exercises focusing on closing the Strait of Hormuz.

What exactly a mock exercise could be is not clear to me given that an exercise, by definition, is mocking a real event.

Despite the implications of such an exercise, Iran claimed to have no real intention to close the strait, a move which the American Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain spoke out against.

“No order was give[n] for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But we are prepared for various scenarios,” the chief of the Iranian navy, Habibollah Sayyari, said to Iranian state television.

The French government quickly spoke out against the testing and exercises, although France is hardly capable of claiming moral authority given their involvement in the Ivory Coast.

The French called the Iranian missile testing a “very bad signal sent to the international community,” since, once again, only Western nations who do what they’re told are allowed to defend themselves or develop weaponry of any kind.

Bernard Valero, the spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, said that the Iranian government should remind themselves of the “freedom of navigation in straits and the need to maintain a favorable climate in respect to this freedom.”

Of course Valero is taking the typical double standard approach which has become all too common because I am sure Valero would have no problem with restricting Iranian movement if they decided it was necessary “to maintain a favorable climate.”

I find it interesting that the Iranian commander Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi told Iranian state media that the newly tested Qader missile was “built by Iranian experts,” given that one of their most key ballistic missile experts was killed in a mysterious explosion back in November.

Mousavi also stated that the Qader missile is “ultra-modern … with an integrated, ultra-precise radar whose range and intelligent anti-detection system have been improved over previous generations.”

The emphasis on the anti-detection system is quite interesting given the build-up of anti-missile defense systems in the region, including the nonsensical American funding of Israeli systems.

That being said, the Qader is an anti-ship missile, leading me to speculate that it might be attempting to send a message to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet which has been operating in the region.

This is the same fleet that warned Iran against any attempt at closing the Strait of Hormuz recently.

The Nour missile is reportedly based on a Chinese design, something which would likely result in China getting a great deal of flak if it was ever used against Western interests.

Despite the growing international opposition to just about everything Iran does, the powers that be in Iran remain defiant and even boastful.

This is evidenced by the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that there has been “eye-catching successes” in the Iranian confrontation of Western powers in spite of sanctions.

Khamenei stated that the trend will not end and that, “The enemy is repeatedly suffering defeats and setbacks, despite its all-out security and political measures against the Islamic Republic.”

Iran has also just commissioned their first wholly owned oil drilling rig in the Persian Gulf, according to a statement from the North Drilling Company’s managing director to the Tehran Times.

Since all of the rigs which have been installed over the past 29 years have been rented, this is a considerable step forward for Iran and involved an investment of $153 million.

This development is also interesting due to the fact that the oil field where the new Sahar-e 1 will be deployed is shared with nearby Qatar, a nation which is totally aligned with Western interests as evidenced by them admitting that they were running operations on the ground during the sham Libyan revolution.

There is also the matter of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announcing that they successfully produced and tested their first domestically produced nuclear fuel rod made out of natural uranium.

Despite the fact that Iran repeatedly insists that their program is a purely peaceful one, individuals in the West have seen this latest development as a significant threat, despite all the indicators that Iran has no interest in preemptively striking Western interests or allies.

Olli Heinonen, former deputy director general of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency and head of the safeguards department claimed in the British Guardian that “this show of ostensibly civilian nuclear progress could end up further stoking international tensions.”

Heinonen’s analysis appears to be the typically politicized, highly biased information coming out of all UN agencies.

Even James Acton, a senior associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Bloomberg, “This has some diplomatic significance and virtually no military significance.”

Furthermore, Iranian news agencies have stated that the fuel rod will be used in the core of Tehran’s research reactor in order to make isotopes for cancer treatments.

Recently Iran also stated that Iran would not tolerate another instance of an American carrier entering the Persian Gulf as the John C. Stennis did recently.

“Iran will not repeat its warning … the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf,” Iranian army chief Ataollah Salehi said according to IRNA, the Iranian state news agency.

While Salehi did not pinpoint which vessel he was talking about nor what actions they would take if any returned, it is clear he was talking about the John C. Stennis and associated vessels which entered the region during supposedly routine operations.

The situation in the Strait of Hormuz is complicated greatly by some new developments including the United States Navy announcing the development of new long-range drones, some of which will be assigned to the Fifth Fleet – the same fleet which has been countering Iranian threats to close the strait.

Others will be deployed to the Sixth Fleet out of the Mediterranean, specifically operating out of Sigonella, Sicily and the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific, specifically operating out of Guam.

There are also four of the currently unnamed Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) systems to be deployed to a “secret location in the Middle East.”

This is pertinent because one naval expert cited by Stars and Stripes claimed that BAMS could be used to track “Iranian threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf.”

No specifics on the missions these drones will carry out have been released, although the crafts are able to fly 24-hour-long missions every three days and can reportedly track hundreds of suspicious vessels at one time.

The relevance to the unfolding Iran imbroglio was highlighted by retired Navy Captain and senior follow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington D.C., Jan Van Tol, who said, “This is obviously an important mission, especially in view of current tensions.”

The new drones will supposedly help prevent Iranian vessels packed with explosives from swarming American vessels, a threat which appears to have been pulled out of thin air just as most justifications for absurd military spending and intervention are.

The initial contract for just two drones is worth a shocking $1.6 billion and Northrup Grumman expects to manufacture 68 more, but the price is still being negotiated.

How can we continue to justify this massive expenditure when there is no real threat to our national security, nor is there any money to be spending in the first place?

Apparently our so-called leaders have no problem putting the American people on the hook for decades to come in order to keep the money flowing into their cronies’ coffers.

Raytheon also just announced that they have delivered the first upgraded Patriot missile radar to Kuwait, a nation which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia, while also sharing the Persian Gulf and thus obviously quite close to Iran.

This dovetails with the Western moves to arm other nearby countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia which I covered in my previous article.

The upgrading of Kuwaiti systems is being done under a U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command contract and the phony justification that it is being done to protect against missiles, while once again I must point out that Iran have never shown any intention to strike first as they clearly realize it would be a death sentence for the entire country.

This delivery is just the first of six radar modernization deliveries to Kuwait to supposedly “counter evolving regional threats,” a statement which clearly is pointing to Iran.

The Patriot systems defend against both manned and unmanned aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles all of which seems unjustified given that Iran really is not a threat.

There is also an upcoming missile defense exercise between the United States and Israel, which is billed as the largest ever exercise, which according to the Jerusalem Post is “expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel.”

The timing of this drill, coming up in spring, is quite interesting indeed given the greater developments in the region, all of which seem to be tied together.

Back in September of 2011, the Jerusalem Post revealed that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and United States European Command (EUCOM) would be conducting the Juniper Cobra missile defense exercise followed by the massive Austere Challenge exercise this year.

Austere Challenge will include establishing American command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at the EUCOM headquarters in Germany, which the Jerusalem Post says has “the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces for the vevent of a future large-scale conflict in the Middle East.”

This looks even more likely in recent months and the timing of these two operations, along with these other developments covered in this article, must be either purposeful or ludicrously coincidental.

It appears that the United States and allied forces are attempting to do whatever it takes to provoke Iran and get them to do something which will justify an all-out, overt assault with the approval of the oft-invoked and laughably vague “international community.”

Once again, I must state that above all I just hope that I am completely wrong and that nothing will happen and these tensions will slowly fade and any and all threats from both sides will become a distant memory.

Unfortunately, that does not look like it is the case, at least at this stage.

Related posts:

1. Positioning for war with Iran?
2. Israeli strike on Iran looking more likely as Iran counters with their own threats, seeks Russian support
3. Iran ‘recommends’ US stay out of Persian Gulf
4. Is the Israeli Mossad conducting a covert assault on Iran?
5. Oil standoff: Iran, West on brink of war?

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January 13, 2012 | Categories: Iran, news, tyranny, war | Leave a comment

Positioning for war with Iran?

The United States Navy's USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74)

By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
December 30, 2011

There are some distinct geopolitical rumblings occurring in the general region surrounding Iran that is quite concerning for someone like myself and I’m sure Tehran as well.

This includes a major sale of cutting-edge F-15SA fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, Iran spotting the John C. Stennis aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, a sale of advanced missile interceptor systems to the United Arab Emirates, warnings from the Russian envoy to the United Nations of global destabilization in 2012 and new awards for Raytheon for the AESA radar system and contracts for US/NATO missile systems.

After Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the West continued to push for sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the United States’ Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain countered with similar saber-rattling.

The Iranian navy chief, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, stated that closing the Strait of Hormuz would be “easier than drinking a glass of water.”

“Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated,” the Fifth Fleet responded in an e-mail to Reuters.

Iran is currently engaged in a massive 10-day-long naval exercise in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz, in an apparent attempt to show their naval might in the region.

However, Reuters has reported that the entire Iranian navy cannot hold a candle to the US Fifth Fleet, which boasts over 20 ocean-range warships and some 15,000 personnel.

The Strait of Hormuz is not only a tactically crucial region but also a critical trade route with up to 40% of the world’s oil supply passing through the strait.

The United States and Europe are some of the most major consumers of this oil supply, so it is quite obvious that if Iran decided to close the strait there would be a significant backlash from the West.

Yesterday Russia Today published an article based on reports from the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, which stated that an Iranian warplane had spotted an American aircraft carrier as it was entering the Gulf of Oman from the Persian Gulf.

This report also comes from Admiral Sayyari, who told IRNA, “An Iranian vessel and surveillance plane have tracked, filmed and photographed a US aircraft carrier as it was entering the Gulf of Oman from the Persian Gulf.”

Sayyari also stated that the US fleet would be “warned by Iranian forces” if it were to move into the area of the Iranian naval exercise.

It is unclear if they mean a peaceful warning, perhaps via radio contact, or a more forceful warning, which could very well bring retaliation from the American fleet.

Yesterday the US Navy confirmed that the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis was indeed traveling to the Gulf of Oman with guided-missile cruiser Mobile Bay and several other vessels.

Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, the spokesperson for the US Fifth Fleet stated that this was merely a “pre-planned, routine transit” due to the fact that the group was headed to provide support for coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Regardless, the timing of the “routine transit” and the route they are following is quite suspicious and likely a matter for concern on the part of the Iranian navy.

There is also the deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia for $29.4 billion worth of new F-15SA fighter jets manufactured by Boeing.

This includes 84 brand new aircraft and the modernization of 70 existing aircraft, along with the required munitions, spare parts, training, maintenance and logistics.

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest said that the F-15SA is “the most sophisticated and capable aircraft in the world.”

This is noteworthy because Saudi Arabia shares the Persian Gulf with Iran along with American allies Bahrain and Qatar.

While military deals with Saudi Arabia and other allies in the region is far from new, the timing of this latest agreement is likely to fuel the fire of possible conflict between Western nations and their allies and Iran possibly along with Russia and China.

The United Arab Emirates has also signed a deal worth some $2.49 billion for the newest missile interceptor system sold by Lockheed Martin, according to anonymous government officials.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is being billed as the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s planned regional defense system in the Middle East, which will supposedly thwart Iranian medium- and long-range ballistic missiles.

The batteries of the land-based missile interceptor systems will be linked to the US Navy’s detection systems, which are on Aegis-class destroyer and cruiser vessels.

The first installment of the so-called “undefinitized contract action” between the United States and the UAE is valued in the neighborhood of $1.96 billion, according to the unnamed US official who requested to remain anonymous due to the fact that they are not authorized to discuss the signing of the deal prior to the Pentagon’s announcement.

The official said that the Pentagon may officially announce the contract action as soon as next week but a Lockheed Martin spokesperson refused to discuss timing of the announcement while confirming that they continue to work with the Pentagon’s missile Defense Agency on contracts.

The construction of the THAAD system reads like a who’s who of the defense contracting world.

The system’s radar is manufactured by Raytheon, the missile’s mission computer by Honeywell, the THAAD’s rocket motor provided by Aerojet (part of California-based GenCorp) and the missile seeker by an American subsidiary of UK-based BAE Systems.

The deal was discussed first in September of 2008 when the Pentagon estimated the deal to be worth as much as $6.95 billion.

However, in August 2010, the UAE reduced the acquisition roughly one third from 144 interceptors to 96.

Similarly, the UAE scaled back the purchase of Raytheon’s AN/TYPY-2 mobile search and tracking radar from four to two units.

According to the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, the new radar systems are capable of supporting two missile batteries, whereas previously it supported three.

The Russian envoy to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, also said that the steadily increasing confrontation between Western nations and Iran could “drastically destabilize the international situation in 2012,” according to the Voice of Russia.

Churkin stated that Russia is currently doing its best to help stave off such a grim scenario while adding that Iran very well may decline to continue dialogue with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over the Iranian nuclear program.

In November, Russia expressed doubt over the credibility of the IAEA’s report regarding the military nature of Iran’s nuclear program.

The West continues to insist that the Iranian program has military goals while Tehran continuously states that the program is purely civilian in nature.

Churkin said that they hope to resume six-party talks on the Iranian nuclear program in 2012.

Raytheon has also received orders valued around $320 million for the cutting-edge AESA radar system, along with an additional $72 million in contracts for US/NATO missile systems.

United Press International (UPI) reported yesterday that the identities of the parties who ordered the AESA system, which is an active electronic beam scanning radar system, have not been disclosed.

The delivery schedules for the contracts have yet to be announced as well.

The AESA system has a radar beam, which can be used to garner near real time air-to-air and air-to-ground information with a radar beam that is directed close to the speed of light.

Raytheon stated that they have delivered over 300 units of the AESA system to what UPI calls “a variety of customers in the United States and overseas.”

“We expect to see continued growth in this area,” Mark Kula, the vice president of Tactical Airborne Systems, Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, stated.

The first award of the total of $72 million was from the US Naval Sea Systems Command and is reportedly for the Phalanx, land-based Phalanx, SeaRAM, and SeaSparrow surface missiles that are used by NATO.

The first contract will include Raytheon providing both engineering and technical support services for the Phalanx systems, which currently provides the missile defense for American ships.

A provision of an unknown number of SeaSparrow MK57, MOD 12/13 systems along with missile launchers and spare parts are included in the second award.

The fact that the parties who ordered the AESA system are not being disclosed is somewhat concerning given the rest of the geopolitical maneuverings we are witnessing right now, however I do not think we should jump to conclusions just yet.

If the West is planning to go to war with Iran – which looks increasingly likely – these developments fit in perfectly with such an operation.

At this point, all we can do is hope that Western nations aren’t insane enough to actually strike Iran, which could very well ignite a global conflict.

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January 8, 2012 | Categories: Iran, news, tyranny, war | Leave a comment