US Begins Huge Military Maneuvers Aimed at Iran

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Battle-ready troops on standby as tensions rise following dubious assassination plot

The United States will this week commence huge military maneuvers aimed at Iran, with a massive air fleet patrolling middle eastern skies ready to land at any time, in response to Irans involvement in an alleged assassination plot that experts have labeled dubious, amidst fears that US and Israeli targets could be hit by attacks.

As we reported last week, during US Defense Secretary Leon Panettas October 3 Tel Aviv visit, Israeli hawks attempted to persuade Panetta to give the green light for a military strike on Iran. Within ten days, details of an alleged assassination plot against a Saudi ambassador emerged and the foiled attack was blamed on Iran. Innumerable experts immediately voiced their doubts about the authenticity of the plot, with 21-year CIA veteran Robert Baer labeling the story a truly awful Hollywood script.

The US military will respond this week with a series of significant military maneuvers designed to threaten Iran, including, an American air fleet in Middle East skies ready to land at any moment for any contingency, reports DebkaFile.

The United States launches a large-scale exercise over the Middle East deploying 41 giant transports of the 22nds Airlift Squadron Monday Oct. 17, states the report, adding that the aircraft will be packed with fully equipped, battle ready troops.

A further seven warships from the Stennis Battle Group will also provide ground troops with combat support and strike land and sea targets.

The Israeli, Egyptian and Saudi armies have also been placed on maximum preparedness, echoing reports that U.S. troops being sent to the region have also been put on full alert.
The maneuvers are also linked to the scheduled release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas on Tuesday, an event that US intelligence officials fear could set off a chain of attacks in the region against US and Israeli targets. Should embassies be targeted, US troops will be in place to react swiftly.

Geopolitical experts have been consistent in their warnings that Israel was preparing to strike Iran this fall.

Back in July, CIA veteran Baer told KPFK Los Angeles that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning an attack on Iran in September to coincide with the Palestine bid for UN membership.

Whether the maneuvers are merely designed to be an act of belligerence against Iran or represent preparations for an actual military strike in support of Israel remains to be seen, but as Gulf News reporter Patrick Seale pointed out Friday, the window of opportunity for an attack on Iran is closing.

read more US Begins Huge Military Maneuvers Aimed at Iran
 
Iran threatenin' to sink Obama's boat...
:eek:
Iran warns US carrier to stay out of Persian Gulf
3 Jan.`12 - Iran will take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier which left the area because of Iranian naval exercises returns to the Gulf, the state news agency quoted army chief Ataollah Salehi as saying on Tuesday.
"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," Salehi told IRNA. "I advise, recommend and warn them (the Americans) over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Salehi as saying.

Salehi did not name the aircraft carrier or give details of the action Iran might take if it returned. However, last week a spokeswoman for the U.S. 5th Fleet said the USS John C. Stennis had left the Gulf. Iran completed 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf on Monday, and said during the drills that if foreign powers imposed sanctions on its crude exports it could shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, said it would not allow shipping to be disrupted in the strait.

Iran fires missiles

Iran said on Monday it had successfully test-fired two long-range missiles during its naval drill, flexing its military muscle in the face of mounting Western pressure over its controversial nuclear program. Iran also said it had no intention of closing the Strait of Hormuz but had carried out "mock" exercises on shutting the strategic waterway. Tehran denies Western accusations that it is secretly trying to build atomic bombs, saying it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity. The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to resolve the Islamic state's nuclear row with the West. The European Union is considering following the United States in banning imports of Iranian crude oil. U.S. President Barack Obama signed new sanctions against Iran into law on Saturday, stepping up the pressure by adding sanctions on financial institutions that deal with Iran's central bank.

Meanwhile, Iran said the new record low of the national currency to the U.S. dollar was not linked to the latest sanctions from the United States targeting the country's central bank. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Tuesday insisted there "is no relation" between the two. He said the American sanctions "have yet to be put into practice." The Iranian currency's exchange rate hovered late Monday around 18,000 riyals to the dollar, marking a roughly 12 percent slide compared to Sunday's rate of 15,900 riyals to the dollar. President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law a bill targeting Iran's central bank as part of the West's efforts to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program. It goes into effect in six months.

Source

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Iran Tells Departed US Carrier Not to Return
Tuesday, 3 Jan 2012 | Iran's army chief told the United States that a U.S. aircraft carrier which left the area because of Iranian naval exercises should not return to the Gulf, the state news agency reported on Tuesday.
"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," Ataollah Salehi told IRNA. France wants its European partners to agree by end-January on sanctions on Iran similar to those envisaged by the United States, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday.

"France ... wants sanctions toughened and the president (Nicolas Sarkozy) has made two concrete proposals on that front—the first being the freezing of Iranian central bank assets, a tough measure, and the second an embargo on Iranian oil exports," Juppe told i>tele, a French news TV channel. Washington is already in the process of imposing such sanctions, he said. "We want the Europeans to take a similar step by January 30 to show our determination," he said.

Iran, which denies Western accusations that it is trying to build atomic bombs, said on Monday that it had test fired two long-range missiles, flexing its military muscle in the face of mounting Western pressure over its nuclear program. It made the announcement at the climax of 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf, during which Tehran warned it could shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped, if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports. EU foreign ministers are due to meet on Jan.30

News Headlines
 
Obama gonna put the hurt on Iran...
:eusa_clap:
Talk of Iran war grows in Washington
Thu, Jan 05, 2012 - SPECULATION:Some of the same hawks who pushed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are now urging US military action to eradicate Tehran’s nuclear weapons capability
Fed by diplomatic tensions and election-year politics, talk about a coming conflict with Iran has reached a fever pitch in the US capital. Speculation of a possible war with Iran ebbs and flows, but a confluence of events has served to fuel dire predictions among politicians and pundits that war may be on the horizon — either by necessity or by accident. Some of the same hawkish voices that portrayed former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime as a dire threat requiring urgent military action are now warning that the US must be prepared for war with Iran, while accusing US President Barack Obama of lacking backbone.

John Yoo, a former US Justice Department official under former US president George W. Bush, has called on Republican presidential candidates to “begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.” Calling it an “unavoidable challenge,” Yoo wrote last week in the National Review that the US would have legal grounds to strike at Iran’s nuclear sites — similar to the arguments made before the invasion of Iraq. “It can argue that destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons is a combination of self-defense and protecting international security,” said Yoo, who during Bush’s tenure backed broad presidential powers to wage war and deny rights to terror suspects.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made a clear commitment to use military force if necessary, promising that if he wins the White House, Iran will not have nuclear weapons. Both in the US and Israel, lawmakers and commentators warn that time is running out on the Iranian “nuclear clock” and that at some point over the next year, economic sanctions will have to be abandoned in favor of bombing raids to stop Iran from securing the bomb.

US Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans have said any US military action would have to be broader than a few “surgical” strikes on nuclear facilities. “Their capability is so redundant you’d have to do more than go after the nuclear program, you have to neuter this regime, destroy the air force, sink their navy, go after the Revolution Guard and try to get people in the country to overthrow the regime. We need a regime change,” Graham told the CBS show Face the Nation in November. “If they get a nuclear weapon, the world is going to go into darkness,” he said.

MORE
 
Obama gonna put the hurt on Iran...
:eusa_clap:
Talk of Iran war grows in Washington
Thu, Jan 05, 2012 - SPECULATION:Some of the same hawks who pushed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are now urging US military action to eradicate Tehran’s nuclear weapons capability
Fed by diplomatic tensions and election-year politics, talk about a coming conflict with Iran has reached a fever pitch in the US capital. Speculation of a possible war with Iran ebbs and flows, but a confluence of events has served to fuel dire predictions among politicians and pundits that war may be on the horizon — either by necessity or by accident. Some of the same hawkish voices that portrayed former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime as a dire threat requiring urgent military action are now warning that the US must be prepared for war with Iran, while accusing US President Barack Obama of lacking backbone.

John Yoo, a former US Justice Department official under former US president George W. Bush, has called on Republican presidential candidates to “begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.” Calling it an “unavoidable challenge,” Yoo wrote last week in the National Review that the US would have legal grounds to strike at Iran’s nuclear sites — similar to the arguments made before the invasion of Iraq. “It can argue that destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons is a combination of self-defense and protecting international security,” said Yoo, who during Bush’s tenure backed broad presidential powers to wage war and deny rights to terror suspects.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made a clear commitment to use military force if necessary, promising that if he wins the White House, Iran will not have nuclear weapons. Both in the US and Israel, lawmakers and commentators warn that time is running out on the Iranian “nuclear clock” and that at some point over the next year, economic sanctions will have to be abandoned in favor of bombing raids to stop Iran from securing the bomb.

US Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans have said any US military action would have to be broader than a few “surgical” strikes on nuclear facilities. “Their capability is so redundant you’d have to do more than go after the nuclear program, you have to neuter this regime, destroy the air force, sink their navy, go after the Revolution Guard and try to get people in the country to overthrow the regime. We need a regime change,” Graham told the CBS show Face the Nation in November. “If they get a nuclear weapon, the world is going to go into darkness,” he said.

MORE

I'll be VERY surprised if he does....It most likely won't be his decision, he doesn't know how to make one when it comes to this kind of thing. Could you imagine him getting us into a war in an election year? I can't!
 
I think Obama is doing the right thing about this. the Iranians are making all kinds of weird threats about what they think they can do. US navy ships are on high alert in case they try anything, but there is no bluster from the white house. Just the usual pronouncement that we will defend international law regarding freedom of the seas as we have done since the Adams administration.

The message is clear. We are not going to start a fight. We will finish any fight the Iranians wish to start.
 
The US and our allies are starting to have an impact on Iran

Tough new sanctions are hitting them hard in the pocketbook and military maneuvers are showing the big stick
 
Do you think this smoke and mirrors will be able to hide our defense cuts and reduction in forces?
 
Iran is best left alone and ignored.
 
Do you think this smoke and mirrors will be able to hide our defense cuts and reduction in forces?

Iran? You kiddin'?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSh5XyNjuKY]Iran's new flying boats are combat ready - RIA Novosti 100930 - YouTube[/ame]
 
Iran is best left alone and ignored.

Except, when Iran supports al Qaeda, right, birdbrain? Treasury Targets Key Al-Qa





The whole arab world supports al Qaeda if you hadn't noticed. They are the modern days version of the Assassins. Alumut is no longer a place it is an idea. The Old Man of the Mountains is now many shadowy figures. Ideas are impossible to stamp out. Taking out al qaeda operatives is the real world version of "Whack a Mole". You kill one and three spring up. It's a no win situation.

The best we can do is kill the really bad ones who happen to stick their heads up, but that's all. So long as war is the only methodology to fight these guys we will never win. We won't lose, but we'll never win.

To defeat them you have to spend decades educating the indigenous population and supporting them so that they can take over their lives from the religious fanatics. You must elevate them to First World status, then when they see the advantages of living a nice life they will repudiate the fanatics. But it has to be THEM that does it. If WE try and force the issue, we fail.

It's as simple as that. The only other way to deal with the issue is to follow the Mongol way and kill every living thing in the region. That too would work. On the other hand, a group that would perpetrate such a monstrous crime is no better then those they kill.
 
Iran is best left alone and ignored.

Not when they start blocking trade routes.

But, mostly agree.





If they block the Starights, let the other powers deal with it. The US will only inflame the Mullahs and give them ammunition to build more hate against us. The Indians can handle the Straights just fine. Let them do it. Better yet pay them to do it. Only send in the USN if it is absolutley neccessary. And if we go in we destroy everything that makes it possible for the Iranians to fight.

In other words, if we're going to keep paying the pricks, make the damn UN do its fucking job.
 
Iran is best left alone and ignored.

Ignored? I say watched carefully with regard to their actions, but taken with a rather large grain of salt with regard to their "pronouncements".




We can buy all the intel we need from Israel. Better yet make them give it to us as a condition of our continued support.
 

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