The US has announced… stress, announced… that we have released to Israel a large supply of bunker busters and other munitions whose purpose is to destroy underground and hardened underground targets.

We usually do not tell the world such things openly.

The reason given for the open announcement was that it is a quid pro quo for Syria arming Lebanese Hisballah with high-tech missiles. Of course that paints the action it as a defensive move. It essentially is not defensive. There is something to be said about it being a warning that if the Syrian-Lebanon war machine attacks, there are now stronger weapons in the Israeli arsenal with which to respond, so they would act as a deterrent against a war starting. But these weapons are much more exactly designed for use against Iran.

These are the weapons Israeli Defense Secretary Barak has been begging Washington for to make a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities effective. They are precisely the weapons I talked about in the post Bunker Busters to Diego Garcia.

Israel has them now.

Will they use them? I think so. The question is when.

The window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Perhaps that headline seems a little overblown and surprising, but  what is most surprising about it is that it accurately describes the path Iran has chosen.

As Vin Scully, famed announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers used to say, “It’s a whole new ball game.”

Iran is holding its largest naval exercises ever, over a period of eight days. Along with the usual testing of weapons and gauging the efficiency of the ships’ crews, an entirely new dimension has been added. In fact, the testing and the efficiency trials will come in the second and third phases of the exercise. The brand new part came first, and it was breath taking. (more…)

Last time I said there were many more things happening, and since then events have added to the backlog. I’ll do another list thing.

1. Although Arab League ministers have green lighted Abbas’ indirect talks with Israel via the US, Syria and Lebanon voted against the talks even taking place. That means whatever comes out of the talks, it will almost surely have no effect on the war plans between Israel and her neighbors to the north. It might even exacerbate them and move the timeframe up a notch.

2. On top of that, Iran and Syria have initialed an economic agreement to bolster the military agreements they already have in place. If the Obama administration ever seriously thought we could pry those two nations apart with some piddling economic carrots, they were sadly mistaken. (more…)

Drumbeats of War - So Many Things

There are so many things happening, I should make a list.

1. You may have seen in mainstream news (though I doubt it, since there was not much coverage) that an Iranian F-27 buzzed the US carrier Eisenhower.

What you probably did not see was (more…)