U.S., Iranian Ships Involved In Incidents In Strait Of Hormuz...

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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vL_0t-S_c]Iranian boats harass U.S.S. New Orleans - YouTube[/ame]


Iranian ships recently taunted two U.S. Navy vessels as part of escalating tensions in and around the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz.

The incidents in the strait, one of the world's most important oil routes, occurred last week and involved the USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport dock, and the Coast Guard Cutter Adak, the military said Friday in releasing videos of the incidents.

Iranian speed boats are seen in one of the videos approaching the USS New Orleans within about 500 yards last Friday.

"The Iranian boats did not respond to whistle signal or voice queries from the New Orleans, disregarding standard maritime protocols," Central Command said in releasing the videos. In the incident involving the Adak, "communications were established with a larger Iranian ship operating in the area and the speed boats ceased their harassment."

One senior defense official told FoxNews.com that the Iranians "intended to be harassing" but it didn't go much beyond that. No shots were fired.

Iran, which recently held war games in the area, has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if provoked, and it has warned U.S. Navy ships to steer clear.

The rising tensions coincide with increased pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, which the West fears is merely a front for Iran's clandestine work on developing nuclear weapons.



Read more: US, Iranian Ships Involved In Incidents In Strait Of Hormuz | Fox News

 

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[waltky]

Obama givin' `em fair warnin'...

Don't cross the 'red line' or we will take action: US warns Iran
Jan 13, 2012, WASHINGTON: The Obama administration is relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a "red line" that would provoke an American response, according to United States government officials.

The officials declined to describe the unusual contact between the two governments, and whether there had been an Iranian reply. Senior Obama administration officials have said publicly that Iran would cross a "red line" if it made good on recent threats to close the strait, a strategically crucial waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, where 16 million barrels of oil - about a fifth of the world's daily oil trade - flow through every day. Gen Martin E Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this past weekend that the United States would "take action and reopen the strait," which could be accomplished only by military means, including minesweepers, warship escorts and potentially airstrikes. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told troops in Texas on Thursday that the United States would not tolerate Iran's closing of the strait.

The secret communications channel was chosen to underscore privately to Iran the depth of American concern about rising tensions over the strait, where American naval officials say their biggest fear is that an overzealous Revolutionary Guards naval captain could do something provocative on his own, setting off a larger crisis. "If you ask me what keeps me awake at night, it's the Strait of Hormuz and the business going on in the Arabian Gulf," Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, said in Washington this week.

Administration officials and Iran analysts said they continued to believe that Iran's threats to close the strait, coming amid deep frictions over Iran's nuclear program and possible sanctions, were bluster and an attempt to drive up the price of oil. Blocking the route for the vast majority of Iran's petroleum exports - and for its food and consumer imports - would amount to economic suicide. "They would basically be taking a vow of poverty with themselves," said Dennis B. Ross, who until last month was one of President Obama's most influential advisers on Iran. "I don't think they're in such a mood of self sacrifice."

But Pentagon officials, who plan for every contingency, said that, however unlikely, Iran does have the military capability to close the strait. Although Iran's naval forces are hardly a match for those of the United States, for two decades Iran has been investing in the weaponry of "asymmetric warfare" - mines, fleets of heavily armed speed boats and antiship cruise missiles hidden along Iran's 1,000 miles of Persian Gulf coastline - which have become a threat to the world's most powerful navy. "The simple answer is yes, they can block it," General Dempsey said on CBS on Sunday.

Estimates by naval analysts of how long it could take for American forces to reopen the strait range from a day to several months, but the consensus is that while Iran's naval forces could inflict damage, they would ultimately be destroyed. "Their surface fleet would be at the bottom of the ocean, but they could score a lucky hit," said Michael Connell, the director of the Iranian studies program at the Center for Naval Analysis, a research organization for the Navy and Marine Corps. "An antiship cruise missile could disable a carrier."

Iran has two navies: one, its traditional state navy of aging big ships dating from the era of the shah, and the other a politically favored Revolutionary Guards navy of fast-attack speedboats and guerrilla tactics. Senior American naval officers say that the Iranian state navy is for the most part professional and predictable, but that the Revolutionary Guards navy, which has responsibility for the operations in the Persian Gulf, is not. "You get cowboys who do their own thing," Mr. Connell said. One officer with experience at the Navy's Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain said the Revolutionary Guards navy shows "a high probability for buffoonery."

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Iran Provokes US Ships As Speed Boats ‘Harass' Americans...

Iran provokes American ships after speed boats 'harass' U.S. Navy vessels as Obama fires warning not to block oil from Persian Gulf
14th January 2012 - Tensions rising by the day, the Obama administration said Friday it is warning Iran through public and private channels against any action that threatens the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. The Navy revealed that two U.S. ships in and near the Gulf were harassed by Iranian speedboats last week.

Spokesmen were vague on what the U.S. would do about Iran's threat to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but military officials have been clear that the U.S. is readying for a possible naval clash. That prospect is the latest flashpoint with Iran, and one of the most serious. Although it currently overshadows the threat of war over Iran's disputed nuclear program, perhaps beginning with an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear structure, both simmering crises raise the possibility of a shooting war this year, the Associated Press reports. 'We have to make sure we are ready for any situation and have all options on the table,' Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, addressing a soldier's question Thursday about the overall risk of war with Iran. Navy officials said that in separate incidents on January 6, three Iranian speedboats — each armed with a mounted gun — briefly chased after a U.S. Navy ship just outside the Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in the northern Gulf.

No shots were fired and the speedboats backed off. For several reasons, the risk of open conflict with Tehran appears higher in this election year than at any point since President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to try to bridge 30 years of enmity. A clash would represent a failure of U.S. policy on several fronts and vault now-dormant national security concerns into the presidential election contest. The U.S. still hopes that international pressure will persuade Iran to back down on its disputed nuclear program, but the Islamic regime shows no sign it would willingly give up a project that has become a point of national pride. A nuclear bomb, or the ability to quickly make one, could also be worth much more to Iran as a bargaining chip down the road. Time is short, with Iran making several leaps toward the ability to manufacture a nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so.

Iran claims its nuclear development is intended for the peaceful production of energy. Meanwhile, several longstanding assumptions about U.S. influence and the value of a targeted strike to stymie Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon have changed. For one, the White House is no longer confident it could prevail on Israel not to launch such a strike. An escalating covert campaign of sabotage and targeted assassinations highlighted by this week's killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist may not be enough to head off a larger shooting war and could prod Iran to strike first. The brazen killing of a young scientist by motorcycle-riding bombers is seen as almost surely the work of Israel, according to U.S. and other officials speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The killing on a Tehran street followed the deaths of several other Iranians involved in the nuclear program, a mysterious explosion at an Iranian nuclear site that may have been sabotage and the apparent targeting of the program with an efficient computer virus. Iranian officials accuse both Israel and the U.S. of carrying out the assassination as part of a secret operation to stop Iran's nuclear program. The killing came a day after Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a 'critical year' for Iran — in part because of "things that happen to it unnaturally." Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Panetta made a point of publicly denying any U.S. involvement, but the administration tied itself in knots this week over how far to go in condemning an action that could further the U.S. goal of stalling Iranian nuclear progress.

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See also:

Iran accuses IAEA inspectors of helping assassins
Saturday 14th January, 2012 - Iran's Foreign Ministry has accused International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors of disseminating confidential information about its nuclear facilities.

Press TV has reported a foreign ministry spokesman as saying that IAEA inspectors who arrived in Iran had identified Iranian scientists and given their names to otherparties, with the intention of stopping Iran's scientific advancements. Tehran has now said it will pursue the case with international bodies.

The comments came following the assassination of Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan on January 11th when a motorcyclist attached a magnetic bomb to his car near a college of Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran. He was killed immediately and his driver died a few hours later in hospital. Ahmadi Roshan worked at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

Other Iranian scientists have been killed over the past few years, with two people, Professor Majid Shahriari and Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, targeted in terrorist attacks. According to the Iranian foreign ministry, suspicion falls on the US where some political figures have openly called for covert operations to sabotage Tehran's nuclear program.

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