• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Iran Super Thread- Merged

E.R. Campbell said:
No, I'm going with my (assumed) consensus - which I believe is, very largely, bipartisan - that dictates the main policy assumptions without reference to the president's inclinations or even wishes.

Here's hoping you are right.  :salute:
 
cupper said:
Here's hoping you are right.  :salute:
Moi Aussi.

"Haha.. you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is: Never get involved in a land war in Asia."


edit to remove link - computer security systems are reporting embedded trojan horse activity from within the linked site.
 
Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike
Article Link
An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent  15 Sep 2012

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.
More on link
 
Battleships? Did we reveal our secret time travel strike force too soon?  >:D
 
Thucydides said:
Battleships? Did we reveal our secret time travel strike force too soon?  >:D

The journalist must have saw an armed canoe....
 
GAP said:
Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike
Article Link
An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme.

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent  15 Sep 2012

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.
More on link

Nothing sensationalized there, is there - trumping up an annual exercise - though yes, it is something show of force aimed at Iran.
 
While there arent any battleships ,there is a significant naval presence. Remember you dont need bunker busters to takeout the centrifuges. Recently the Iranians complained about sabotage of power line running to the centrifuge facility at Natanz.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-18/iran-claims-sabotage-at-nuclear-plant/4266792
 
A little show of force in the Gulf. An attempt to calm down Israel and remind Iran of the consequences of trying to close shipping lanes. Unfortunately accusations and threats are increasing between Israel and Iran.

The U.S. does not want anything happening in the Gulf until after the election. Because of this the U.S. cannot be seen as a big ally to Israel or too hardline with Iran. I personally believe that U.S. / Israel relations are better than what is being reported.

The strategic plans are most definitely already made. A timeline is in place but won't be revealed to us. Diplomacy is running out of time and the clock is ticking.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/09/u-s-beefs-up-presence-closer-to-irans-shores/
 
Great coverage by the New York Post:

A3pkZ7qCQAAEpyt.jpg

 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/iran-warns-its-citizens-that-canada-is-a-dangerous-place-to-travel/article4569769/

Iran warns its citizens that Canada is a dangerous place
PAUL KORING
The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Sep. 26 2012, 2:30 PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 26 2012, 2:36 PM EDT

Tehran has officially warned its citizens and expatriates that Canada is a dangerous place in the latest swipe as both government’s trade accusations.

So many Iranians live in Canada’s largest city that it’s often called ‘Tehranto’ among the moneyed elites in the Islamic Republic and thousands among the Iranian diaspora travel back and forth annually.

But with relations so seriously soured between the two governments that Canada has closed its embassy in Tehran and kicked Iranian diplomats out of Ottawa, the ruling Islamic theocracy and the conservative Harper government are now trading insults in the form of travel advisories.

“Avoid all travel,”  the Harper government warned Canadians in the latest ‘red’ advisory.

Not to be outdone, the Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday issued a stark warning about the risks for Iranians travelling to Canada .

Tehran warned – for instance – of the risks of police violence, citing clashes between students and authorities in Montreal over threatened tuition increases.

In the wake of the embassy closing, “Islamphobia and Iranphobia have not stopped in Canada, rather escalated over the past few days,” reported the semi-official news agency Irna, quoting from the Foreign Ministry travel warning.

It added Iranian expatriates has been arrested and expelled and deprived of basic rights, including banking transactions – apparently a reference to financial sanctions imposed by Canada and other governments on Iran over its controversial nuclear program.

Iran warned that murder and other violent crime was on the rise in Canada, adding that the forced closing of its embassy in Ottawa meant there were no diplomats available to assist Iranian citizens.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, has been strident in denouncing the Harper government in recent weeks. At one point he said the “hostile attitude of the Canadian racist government is …. dictated by the Zionist regime and the UK.”

Meanwhile, Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird has called the Islamic Regime the greatest threat to world peace.

In the battle of the travel warnings, Ottawa struck first.

“In the context of heightened regional tensions, Iranian-Canadian dual citizens may be particularly vulnerable to investigation and harassment by Iranian authorities,” Ottawa said in its travel advisory posted online. It also warned about the risk of visitors and dual nationals getting swept up in protests.

“On several occasions, demonstrations resulted in violent clashes. People near demonstrations have been assaulted, and deaths have been reported,” Canada’s warning said.

In Tehran, the government took a not-so-veiled slap at the “Canadian government’s double-standard about human rights [which] has been the focus of the world and Canadian public opinion,” it said, an apparent reference to the Harper government’s staunch support of Israel.

Few Canadians, other than those who hold dual citizenship or have family ties in Iran, have visited Iran in the decades since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. So Ottawa’s travel warning is aimed primarily at Iranian-Canadians.

However, thousands of Iranians, both tourists on group tours and individual travelers have routinely visited Canada in recent years. The flow has been so significant that Ottawa used to assign additional consular officers to the Canadian embassy in Tehran to cope. That ended last spring as relations worsened and Ottawa told Iranians they would need to get visas issued in Turkey.
 
I keep hearing about how fragile the situation between Israel and Iran is, and it makes me question how much more each side can take before all-out war is waged.

Granted, diplomacy may prevail, but as of yet, this does not seem to be the case.

I recall reading some articles about Canada's role in all of this, but has Canada committed to anything in the event that war breaks out, or is it remaining relatively dormant?

:salute:
 
dannyboy41 said:
I keep hearing about how fragile the situation between Israel and Iran is, and it makes me question how much more each side can take before all-out war is waged.

:salute:


Well if you go by this photo, not much longer.

Full story here:
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/world/archives/2012/09/20120927-165046.html

Photo credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
 
That's in Netanyahu's dreams, and he hardly has support in Israel, never mind from the US for an attack. Interesting piece from the New York Times arguing that an attack would actually hasten Iran getting a bomb.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/sunday-review/how-to-help-iran-build-a-bomb.html

Shared under the usual provisions of Fair Use etc.

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: September 28, 2012
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
GOOGLE+
E-MAIL
SHARE
PRINT
REPRINTS

ADVOCATES of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have long held that the attacks would delay an atom bomb for years and perhaps even buy Israel enough time to topple the Iranian government. In public statements, the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, has said that an attack would leave Iran’s nuclear program reeling, if not destroyed. The blow, he declared recently, would set back the Iranian effort “for a long time.”

Quite the opposite, say a surprising number of scholars and military and arms-control experts. In reports, talks, articles and interviews, they argue that a strike could actually lead to Iran’s speeding up its efforts, ensuring the realization of a bomb and hastening its arrival.

“An attack would increase the likelihood,” Scott D. Sagan, a political scientist at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, said of an Iranian weapon.

The George W. Bush administration, it turns out, reached an even stronger conclusion in secret and rejected bombing as counterproductive.

The view among Mr. Bush’s top advisers, recalled Michael V. Hayden, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was that a strike “would drive them to do what we were trying to prevent.”

Those who warn against attacking Iran say that such a move would free officials in Tehran of many constraints. An attack, for instance, would all but certainly lead to the expulsion of international inspectors, which, in turn, would allow the government to undo hundreds of monitoring devices and safeguards, including seals on underground storage units. Further, an Iran permitted to present itself to the world as the victim of an attack would receive sympathy and perhaps vital imports from nations that once backed trade bans. The thinking also goes that a strike would allow Iran to further direct its economy to military ends.

Perhaps most notably, an attack could unite what is now a fractious state, these analysts say, and build an atmosphere of mobilizing rage. As the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland wrote earlier this year, “It’s difficult to see a single action more likely to drive Iran into taking the final decision.”

History, the analysts say, demonstrates that airstrikes and military threats often result in unbending resolve among the beleaguered to do whatever it takes to acquire nuclear arms.

“People always assume the bad guys want nukes,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation specialist at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “But I think there’s usually a hesitation about the balance of risk. My sense is that the threat of military action makes bad guys feel like they need the bomb.”

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, seemed to have embodied that kind of determination when he said famously in 1965, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”

Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior nonproliferation official at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a prominent arms analysis group in London, said in an e-mail interview that it was “almost certain” that a military strike on Iran would result in “a Manhattan-style rush to produce nuclear weapons as fast as possible.”

These analysts maintain that the history of nuclear proliferation shows that attempting to thwart a nuclear program through an attack can have consequences opposite of those intended. Mr. Lewis of the Monterey Institute and other experts often cite Iraq. Israel’s attack on the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981, they argue, hardened the resolve of Saddam Hussein and gave his nuclear ambitions new life.

“All of the historical evidence that I have seen,” Mr. Lewis wrote recently, “suggests Saddam had yet to decide to seek nuclear weapons until the humiliation of the strike.”

Top Israelis disagree. Amos Yadlin, one of the pilots who attacked the Iraqi reactor and a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, argued early this year that Iraq’s nuclear program “never fully resumed” and cited the bombing episode as a compelling rationale for military action against Iran.

But a number of former Israeli officials have echoed those who think the attack emboldened Mr. Hussein and worry that an attack on Iran could do the same there.

Yuval Diskin, who retired last year as director of Israel’s internal security agency, told a gathering in April that “many experts” cite the acceleration risk. “What the Iranians prefer to do today slowly and quietly,” he said, “they would have the legitimacy to do quickly and in a much shorter time."

Nuclear historians say intimidation alone can spur an atomic response, as when American hostility prompted China to seek nuclear arms. Beijing succeeded in 1964 with a thunderous blast.

In “China Builds the Bomb,” John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai wrote that Washington’s threats provoked “defiant anger and the decision to undertake the costly nuclear weapons program.”

The question of what prompts the speedups would seem to go far beyond the Iranian crisis and atomic history because the number of latent nuclear states (ones that could make bombs but choose not to, like Japan and Germany) has risen around the globe in recent decades. The estimated number now stands at around 40.

Scholars have long debated the social factors that keep countries from crossing the line.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told his colleagues before they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 that the bomb decision often turned on nothing more complex than a “sense of security or insecurity.”

In a turbulent world, he added, that kind of evaluation could change rapidly. “Thin,” he called the margin of safety, “and worrisome.”

A New York Times reporter who has written extensively about weaponry.
A version of this news analysis appeared in print on September 30, 2012, on page SR9 of the National edition with the headline: How to Help Iran Build A Bomb
 
Iranian economic implosion. Let's hope the sanctions (and maybe a few helpful nudges) can finish the job. The potential upside is enough economic misery could lead to a widespread revolt against the theocracy and the Green Revolution will finally achieve victory:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/01/irans-economy-on-the-verge-of-collapse-as-currency-loses-14-of-its-value-in-seven-days/

Iran’s economy ‘on the verge of collapse’ as currency loses 1/4 of its value in seven days

Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters | Oct 1, 2012 4:58 PM ET
More from Reuters

AP Photo/Bebeto MatthewsMahmoud Ahmadinejad listens during a news conference after addressing the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly last week.
  Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Email Comments More
Iran’s rial plunged against the U.S. dollar in open-market trade on Monday, taking its loss in value over the past week to more than a quarter in further evidence that Western sanctions are shattering the economy.

The freefall suggests sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program are undermining its ability to earn foreign exchange and that its reserves of hard currency may be running low.

The rial traded at 34,200 per dollar according to currency-tracking website Mazanex, down from about 29,720 on Sunday. It was trading at 24,600 last Monday, according to website Mesghal.

Related
David Frum: Can Iran’s nuclear program be stopped without war?
Foreign Minister John Baird delivers scathing attack on UN inaction in Syria
Canada getting tough on Iran, but Harper not backing Netanyahu’s ‘red line’ for strike
Canada’s act to sever diplomatic ties with Iran ‘act of moral clarity,’ Netanyahu says in meeting with Harper
There is no clear sign that economic pain in Iran has reached levels that would prompt the government to compromise on its nuclear program, which Western nations say aims to develop an atomic bomb but which Tehran insists is peaceful.

However, the currency crisis is exposing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to criticism from enemies in parliament.

The rial’s losses have accelerated in the past week after the government launched an “exchange centre” designed to supply dollars to importers of some basic goods at a special rate slightly cheaper than the market rate.

Instead of allaying fears about the availability of dollars, the center seems to have intensified the race for hard currency by linking the special rate to the market rate, meaning that even privileged importers will face sharply higher costs.

“The government’s initiative … brought to the surface a tremendous lack of confidence in its ability to manage the currency,” said Cliff Kupchan, a Middle East expert at the Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm. “The attempt to fix it triggered a worse crisis via market psychology.”

The exchange centre is operating and once the next phase of the plan is implemented, the price of currency will drop
The rial’s sinking value will fuel inflation, officially running at about 25 percent; economists estimate the real rate is even higher. Rising costs could worsen the job losses which Iranians say are hitting the country’s industrial sector.

On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Iran’s economy was “on the verge of collapse” and estimated the government had lost $45-50-billion in oil revenue because of the sanctions, which have slashed the country’s oil exports and largely frozen it out of the international banking system.

But that kind of language is premature, said Hassan Hakimian, of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, because Iran has stockpiled some basic goods.

“I am not aware of any shortages of basic necessities as yet,” he said. “Well before that, the government will resort to some kind of basic rationing so as to introduce a safety net.”

The United States and its allies have tightened sanctions this year, notably via a European Union embargo on Iranian oil and U.S. sanctions targeting banks that deal with Iran’s central bank.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said sanctions were “cutting deeper and deeper into the Iranian economy” and she urged Tehran’s leadership to change policy on its nuclear program.

The United States and other countries are seeking to intensify pressure on Tehran “so that it will understand that the international community is not going to tolerate Iran with a nuclear weapon,” she added. “They have to make a choice.”

When the exchange centre provides only 10% to 20% of the market’s demand, one cannot expect it any more to play a role in the exchange market
Some Iranian officials continued to insist on Monday that the exchange center, which is supposed to be funded by dollars earned with Iran’s oil exports, would eventually meet demand for hard currency and thus strengthen the rial.

“The exchange centre is operating and once the next phase of the plan is implemented, the price of currency will drop,” said Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, who heads parliament’s planning and budget committee, according to the Mehr news agency.

But the rial’s accelerating slide indicates many Iranians have lost faith in authorities’ ability to support it, and are scrambling to buy hard currencies to preserve their savings.

“There is very little, effectively, the central bank and authorities can do to calm the situation because even when they take extraordinary measures to calm the market … the market interprets those additional measures as a sign of abnormality,” Hakimian said.

At the end of last year, Iran had $106 billion of official foreign reserves, enough to cover an ample 13 months of imports of goods and services in normal times, according to the International Monetary Fund.

But Nader Habibi, economist at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University in the United States, estimated last month that the government now had about $50-70 billion of hard currency reserves left.

Iran does not disclose timely data on its reserves but if they have dropped steeply, the central bank may have become reluctant to run them down by supplying dollars to the market.

In a statement on Sunday, the central bank said just $181 million had been traded on the new exchange center since its launch six days earlier – a fraction of Iran’s imports of goods and services, which total around $2 billion per week in normal times.

“The president has deliberately kept the market agitated,” Elias Naderan, who sits on parliament’s economic committee, said on Sunday, according to Mehr.

“I really don’t know what Mr. Ahmadinejad is thinking. What plan does he have, what is his expectation of the system, and how does he plan to manage this disorder?”

The crisis has also prompted criticism of the central bank and authorities by private businessmen.

“When the exchange centre provides only 10% to 20% of the market’s demand, one cannot expect it any more to play a role in the exchange market,” Mohammad Nahavandian, head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, was quoted by Mehr as saying on Monday.
 
A couple of pretty recent reports from the U.S. Congressional Research Service (courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy Blog)....
 
How much NATO support do you guys think Israel would receive for an attack like this?
 
Thucydides said:
Iranian economic implosion. Let's hope the sanctions (and maybe a few helpful nudges) can finish the job. The potential upside is enough economic misery could lead to a widespread revolt against the theocracy and the Green Revolution will finally achieve victory:

Helpfull nudges come in all different forms and are especially potent when they cause internal strife and most importantly when they are internally created.
According to this article from Al Aribya News and shared with provisions of The Copyright Act
Tehrans financial support to Damascus has caused a "rift" to root itself in the Iranian regime.

Tehran split over billions spent to support Assad’s regime: report
Monday, 01 October 2012
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/01/241150.html

Tehran spends billions of dollars in the form of military and financial support to Damascus, causing a rift in the Iranian regime, a report published by The Times on Monday said, as fighting resumed across the war-torn country, leaving more deaths.

Citing Western intelligence reports, The Times said that the support provided by Tehran to the Syrian regime of President Bashat al-Assad has caused a split between Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the country’s spymaster Qassem Suleimani, due to the failure of the latter to end the Syrian conflict in favor of Assad.

Iran has paid the salaries of the Syrian regime troops for months, in addition to providing Assad with weapons and logistic support, The Times reported citing members of the Syrian opposition.

The Syrian opposition has often accused Tehran of supporting the Syrian regime with weapons. The last few weeks have witnessed several statements by Iranian officials regarding means of Iranian interference in Syria.

Western members of the U.N. Security Council had blasted Iran for providing Assad with weapons to help him crush an 18-month-long uprising by rebels determined to topple his government.

“Iran’s arms exports to the murderous Assad regime in Syria are of particular concern,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice had told the 15-nation council during a meeting on the world body’s Iran sanctions regime.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Sunday vowed his country would stop and search any flights from Iran over its territory suspected of carrying weapons to Syria, as requested by the United States.

Iraq plans to randomly inspect Iranian airplanes flying to Syria, the Iraqi foreign minister, Zebari told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper in an interview.

“We have informed the Iranian officials to stop these flights and to stop arming the Syrian regime or fund any side in this crisis, we have affirmed that Iraq doesn’t accept to be a path for this, or its lands, skies and water to be used for arming or funding.”

International efforts to end the 18-month conflict in Syria have failed to stop the violence as rebels continue the fight, which began in March 2011, to overthrow President Assad. The conflict has killed 30,000 people, according to estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group.

Fighting has been deadlocked in Aleppo since rebels pushed into the city in July. Government forces have resorted to heavy weaponry, including attack aircraft, helicopter gunships and artillery, to dislodge rebels from their positions.

The army, for its part, shelled several other districts of Aleppo and battled rebels in Aleppo’s northern district of Jandul, the Observatory said.

In Damascus province, rebels killed nine soldiers when they attacked a military checkpoint on the road linking the capital with Qatana to the southwest, the Observatory reported.

A Kurdish activist, Raad Basho, was gunned down outside his home in the Kurdish city of Hasakeh in the northeast, the Observatory said.

The northern province of Deir Ezzor, Hama in central Syria and Deraa in the south came under heavy shelling by regime forces, the Observatory said.

It reported a total of at least 114 people killed in violence across the country on Sunday, including 57 who died in Damascus province and 39 in Deir Ezzor.
 
Back
Top