Wow, that was quick!

Vacationing in an 8 million dollar estate on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, President Barak Obama suddenly, about an hour ago, signed defense legislation which contains provisions designed to stop other nations from buying oil from Iran. These are the sanctions Iran has promised would result in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.

The timing of the signing was ominous. Obama had said he would probably sign the bill, but not until next month.

What made him change his mind and interrupt his vacation with such a heavy decision?

It would appear that the Israeli sources mentioned in the previous post have it right: Iran must have, through trickery, closed the Strait for five hours Saturday morning, local time… despite the fact that one can find only a single mention of the event, and only if you already know to look for it.

As posited in the previous post, one possible reaction from the White House… if the bogus closing of the Strait did indeed take place… would be for President Obama to immediately sign the legislation that includes draconian sanctions against Iranian oil.

That occurred. To think that the immediate signing of the bill was not tied to the closing of the Strait assumes a level of coincidence too great to be even considered.

Now the ball is in Iran’s court.

Will they stand and deliver, as promised? Or back down. They have given no sign that they will not follow through with closing the Strait. Iranian official media has articles currently running that reiterate that promise. They would have to cower down to an extreme degree in order to break their pledge. After their ego-boosting downing of the U.S. stealth drone, and getting their blood up with the huge Velayat naval drill… which is still going on, and includes Iranian warships active in the Strait… it is difficult to imagine that they will back down.

Almost certainly, given the current state of affairs, the next time Iran closes the Strait… if they do close the Strait… it will be through military means, not light trickery.

When talking with my best friend just before writing this, going over the news together as we often do, I asked what they thought the bottom line was. They said, “Oh, clearly, it’s on.”

I think that entirely likely. And if so, the beginning of war may be not weeks away, or days away, but much sooner, since the escalation of the signing occurred so quickly.

(more…)

This seems more like April Fool’s Day than New Year’s Eve Day.

Israeli sources with Mossad connections, some of the finest reporters on the planet with guts to match, say that Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz Saturday. No one else in the world is reporting such a thing at this point in time, so far as I can see.

At roughly 4AM local time Saturday morning, Iran announced they were going to test-fire a number of different types of missiles. That was widely pre-reported in global mainstream media. The sources mentioned above say… and they are the only ones saying it… that Iran closed its territorial waters for the test. Iran’s territorial waters include the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iran’s reckoning.

No ship, merchant or military… except the warships of the Iranian Navy… moved through the Strait for 5 hours, according to the sources.

If true, Iran de facto closed the Strait of Hormuz. Through trickery, perhaps, but isn’t that what war is all about?

Around 9 AM local time, the Iranians said, um, changed our minds, no missile test today. We’ll do that sometime soon, ain’t tellin’ when. That announcement is now being widely reported with a reasonably absolute degree of reliability. Or uncertainty. You choose.

If the Strait was indeed closed… why is it not being widely reported?

Because if true, it throws serious egg all over the face of the United States. We pronounced in thundering tones that we would not allow the Strait to be closed. The Iranians said they could do it, ‘easy as drinking a glass of water’. If true, they were right and we were not.

And now?

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“I can’t get inside Iranian heads. I wouldn’t want to even if it were appropriate from this podium. But you know, we’ve seen quite a bit of irrational behavior from Iran recently. One can only guess that the international sanctions are beginning to pinch, and that the ratcheting up of pressure, particularly on their oil sector is pinching in a way that is causing them to lash out.”
– U.S. State Department Spokesperson victoria Nuland

I don’t know… it seems essential to ‘get inside the head’ of your adversary. Otherwise, how can you be prepared for what they will do?

Apparently the Obama administration is a little confused and surprised by the fact that if they ratchet sanctions on Iran up to a level where they will actually seriously harm the Iranian economy, Iran will push back in the most effective way they have at their disposal. Namely, closing the Strait of Hormuz. As they promise they will do if President Obama signs the sanctions legislation on his desk, as he says he will do ‘next month’, which starts next week.

The Iranian response does not seem at all irrational. The situation is very similar to the U.S. cutting off oil to Japan prior to our entry into World War II. Japan pushed back. Hard. Pearl Harbor. They saw the U.S. oil embargo as tantamount to economic war, giving them a limited time to respond by starting a shooting war.

Whether the oil embargo on Japan, purportedly in support of China, was a good thing to do or not, there is little doubt that the FDR administration knew it would have tremendous impact, and would make entry of the United States into the second World War (as FDR had devoutly desired for a long time) nearly a certainty. The FDR administration was definitely ‘inside the heads’ of the Japanese.

“I think we’re looking for trouble because we put these horrendous sanctions on Iran,”
– Presidential candidate Ron Paul in Perry, Iowa, on Thursday

Israeli sources with Mossad and military connections say their U.S. contacts believe that the method Iran will use to close the Strait of Hormuz is to use S.E.A.L. type assets to sow the 4-mile-wide bottleneck with marine mines. Those Israeli sources say they have been directly informed by their U.S. military connections that the United States Navy has ‘countermeasures’ already in place to take out the mines and make the Strait safe for transit within 24 to 48 hours… in absolute opposition to the previous statements by our Joint Chiefs of Staff which put the minimum timeframe at weeks or months.

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On Tuesday, Iran official English language media was talking about Iran being ‘capable of blocking the Strait of Hormuz’, while Western media was running a remark by Iranian First Vice President Rahimi: “If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil, not even a drop of oil will be allowed through the Strait of Hormuz.” It seemed that the Iranian government was actually downplaying Rahimi’s remarks somewhat. Keeping things genteel and talking of capabilities.

Now, Wednesday morning Iran local time, official Iranian headlines are saying “Iran will choke Hormuz oil flow”, and the Rahimi remarks being reported by the Iranians are: ‘the enemies need a crushing response from the Islamic Republic to abandon their plots against the Iranian nation’. Interestingly, his actual remarks were a little milder: “Our enemies will give up on their plots against Iran only if we give them a firm and strong lesson.” The Iranian government’s tone is now utterly hardline and very, very angry… crushing and choking… rather than a firm and strong lesson. Is that splitting hairs? Don’t think so. Changing the wording indicates a conscious change of policy. And resolve.

Any more sanctions, and… if Iran’s promises are to be believed… they will take the fatal step of closing the Strait, devil take the hindmost.

Apparently the Obama administration believes them. (more…)

As dawn breaks in the Middle East on Tuesday morning, Iran’s Velayat naval drill fills the southern seas of the Middle East for the 4th day of 10 scheduled days of fluffing their fur to look big to the West. Clearly, the goal is to prove to the U.S. admiralty that Iran’s domestically produced ships and missiles… beefed up by top-flight Russian and perhaps Chinese missiles… are sufficient to make a Western strike against Iran unprofitable.

Is it working? Don’t know. Whatever Western planners are thinking about Iran’s capabilities, they ain’t sayin’. No word about the vaunted new Iranian drones.

Yesterday the Iranians “shooed away” a reconnaissance helicopter from the area, according to the official news organ of the Iranian state (the phraseology demonstrating the degree of hubris being showcased in the exercise). No one is saying precisely which country’s helicopter was involved, but the Iranians mention that only U.S., British and French forces are in the area of the drill. According to Israeli sources with Mossad connections, USS John C. Stennis Strike Group and USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group are both patrolling the ’same waters’ in which the drill is being conducted.

The Iranians report that the ‘copter was given two polite warnings, and then a ’serious’ warning to vacate the area.

Which means we were a few seconds away from World War III.

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Turkish warships have been shelling a patch of open water in the Mediterranean since Wednesday, according to Israeli sources with Mossad connections.

Lest that be thought foolish, I should mention it is a narrow stretch of open sea that just happens to be next to the great Leviathan natural gas fields. It actually is the dividing line between the portion claimed by Cyprus and the portion claimed by Israel. The estimate of the natural gas reserves of the huge field has just been raised by 25 percent to 20 trillion (yes, with a ‘t’) cubic feet. That is enough to make both Turkey and Russia antsy about gas from this field replacing their current gas supply contracts with EU counties. Lots and lots of money and power at stake in the Mediterranean.

The Leviathan field is claimed by Cyprus and Israel and Greece. It is being worked by a Texas oil company, Noble Energy.

Part of the Leviathan field is also claimed by Turkey, in association with Turkish Cyprus, which no country except Turkey recognizes. (Lebanon also claims a portion, but that claim has not been in the news of late, which is a little odd.)

The conflicting claims stem from differing interpretations of the extent of each nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone, as defined by UN agreements. Those definitions are so large that there is arguably an overlap of Zones in the close confines of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

But some Russian once said that power comes from the end of a gun, and apparently the Turks are acting on that basis.

Why have we not heard of this previously? Like on Wednesday, when it started?

Because it is a tremendously sensitive problem at this point in time, with war hovering over the Middle East like a famished bird of prey.

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From the Persian Gulf… through the Strait of Hormuz… on through the Gulf of Oman between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula… encompassing the Arabian Sea south of Pakistan and India… and on to the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia… that is the 1,250 mile panorama that will be covered starting Saturday by Velayat 90, the largest naval maneuvers in the history of Iran.

According to a communique from Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the exercise will include destroyers, missile-launching vessels (small, fast speedboats with big, sophisticated, ship-killing missiles), logistic vessels, new costal defenses (with new, domestically produced missiles, certainly, but perhaps also some Russian and Chinese gifts that will taken out of their box for the first time) and… drones (I really wonder what the Iranian drones are like).

(more…)

Israeli sources with Mossad connections, and an inside track to military sources from a number of nations, say that the long-awaited preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities… is finally on.

Their informants say the critical December 16 meeting between President Obama and Israeli Defense Minister Barak at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland ‘ended with accord on the US and Israeli responses to the new situation arising in Iran’.

Both the U.S. and Israel now share the belief that Iran is quickly running down the path to a nuclear weapon… whether true or not… and that only a short time is left before Iran has an operational nuke. The Iranians have already publicly demonstrated they have missile technology to deliver a warhead anywhere in Israel, and perhaps further.

The Israeli sources say that both the U.S. and Israel agree that unless Iran stops their nuclear weaponization immediately, ‘the only option remaining will be a military strike to disable its nuclear program’.

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Iranian official English language news reports that eight techs involved in building a new power plant in the city of Homs, Syria, have been “kidnapped by unknown gunmen”. Five of the eight are Iranian electrical engineers. Iranian citizens.

This item is also suddenly being carried by the Israeli sources mentioned in the previous post, as well as mainstream Israeli media.

One wonders if these kidnappings are what the leader of the Israeli Air Force was referring to when he said ‘events in Syria’ were being ‘monitored’.

Iran has been saying that one more act of sabotage could cause them to close the Strait of Hormuz. If they come to believe that Israel or the U. S. was in any way responsible for the kidnappings, whether true or not, that could become the casus belli for them to ‘act outside their borders’.

As mentioned in the previous post, today would seem a good day to pay close attention to current events.

“The situation on Israel’s northern border is unstable. We are monitoring events in Syria.”
- Israeli Air Force Chief, Major General Eidan Nehushtan

The above is breaking news from Israeli sources with Mossad and military connections.

It is put in an exceedingly odd way. There is no further explanation. It is exactly what one would expect if war was about to begin.

Or it could just be a daily observation, overblown in the current tension.
That is why this post is in the High Alert category, but not the Imminent War category.
It is possible that it should not even be in the Alert category.
We just do not know what the message means, yet.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything.

It just might be wise to be a little extra vigilant for a while, until the meaning becomes clear.