The winds of war are picking up speed in the Middle East as the clouds have not only darkened, but have already been raining squalls of death in country after country… Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran… the list goes on and on. There so much happening now that we must increasingly perform triage on the news, or the posts become much too long and dense (I’m hearing ‘too late’ from many of our exceptionally intelligent readers).

That said, here’s a quick list of important happenings, and then on to what possibly could be even more important.

Israeli sources with Mossad connections say that the two Russian warships mentioned in previous posts have made landfall at the Syrian main military port of Tartus… and Russia’s flagship, the venerable Admiral Kuznetsov, has joined them. Whereabouts of that large Russian aircraft carrier has been a matter of speculation for many weeks. Now we know. Flights of Russian fighters from the ship paid honor to the Commander of the Syrian Navy when he visited the carrier.

Russia is placing a stack of red chips on Syria in an attempt to give the U.S. an open warning before making a final bet on a war against Iran.

Perhaps of even greater import was Russia’s announcement on Saturday that they will use their ruble and the Iranian rial for reciprocal trade exchanges, which of course includes oil. That’s another ding for the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and a firm statement of comradeship with Iran. India, the country with the strongest ties to the U.S. on the Asian mainland, has also made arrangements to pay for the billion dollars worth of oil they get from Iran each month in Indian rupees. Other nations are also considering a bypass of the dollar to get the oil they require. So much for the new sanctions President Obama recently signed.

The European Union has moved forward to January 23 the meeting where they will approve strong oil sanctions against Iran - which Iran has firmly promised will result in the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. In the light of so many nations moving to make sanctions on Iran moot, one wonders if the establishment of EU sanctions are more a military move than an economic one.

Back in the definitely military realm, USS Stennis… subject of an Iranian edict forbidding it from using the Strait of Hormuz ever again… is cruising in the Sea of Oman not far from the Strait. Apparently that patrol zone off the Iranian coast was what had been preplanned before all the flap about the Strait came down. Right. In any event, U.S. military sources say that this weekend, Stennis launched a Global Hawk UAV “to monitor sea traffic off the Iranian coast and the Straits of Hormuz”.

The Global Hawk is a huge UAV, very expensive, and configured for high-altitude surveillance from a greater distance than most UAV’s… particularly the kind the Iranians downed a few weeks ago. This was the first time a Global Hawk ever took off from an aircraft carrier on a mission. The Israeli source says the Hawk actually flew over Iranian coastlines, but given the Hawk’s capabilities, that may not be accurate.

Either way, the take-away from the event is that the Strait continues to be the publicized center of attention. No recent mention anywhere of operation Austere Challenge, a joint U.S.-Israel exercise which includes the long-term deployment of nearly 10,000 U.S. military personnel in Israel, many or most of which are boots on the ground (see post U.S Troops Deploy in Israel)

In the meantime, France has posted their warship Forbin, an anti-air destroyer, off the Syrian coast. Israeli sources mentioned above call this a countering move to the Russian warships around Tartus. Forbin was created to protect capital ships, especially the pride of the French fleet, their one and only nuclear powered supercarrier, the Charles de Gaulle. Guess what ship is headed for the Middle East? Charles de Gaulle, which the same Israeli sources say is scheduled to arrive at the same time as the HMS Daring (see post Middle East War Scheduled).

Not clear is where Charles de Gaulle will appear in the Middle East… off the coast of Syria? Or off the coast of Iran in the Sea of Oman? Occam’s razor, which suggests that the simplest answer is the most likely one, would say the carrier will join Forbin in the eastern Mediterranean. But reports seem to suggest it will pop into view in the Sea of Oman alongside USS Stennis. Which makes me shake my head. The French are exceedingly parsimonious in their deployment of their flagship. They do not often let it get anywhere near harm’s way. The eastern end of the Mediterranean is dangerous enough, but placing their pride and joy in the increasingly critical Sea of Oman would represent a unique and signal commitment by the French.

Now… all you sensible people can quit reading, ’cause this post is about to descend into the deep murky waters of strange thoughts.

First of which is the uncanny resemblance of French Forbin to England’s HMS Daring.

The silhouettes of the two ships are remarkably similar, with their high perched radome and flat surfaces for ’stealth’. They were launched within a year of each other, and have almost the same length and beam.

But there the similarities end. Daring displaces over a thousand metric tonnes more than Forbin, and has both offensive and defensive capabilities which put it in a totally different league. It is not a frigate which supports a carrier. It is a stand-alone destroyer, with superior radars and missiles that can pluck an ICBM out of the stratosphere, according to the British. And it seems that it is definitely headed for the Sea of Oman, then on through the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, it certainly seems that way.

Today, Daring was the subject of an extremely dismissive second article in Iranian official English language media… far more dismissive than yesterday’s article that called it “insignificant”. Once again, the amount of attention Iran is paying to it says that they think it anything but significant.

The headline is “UK’s HMS Daring: A Moving Target for Iran”. The text goes on at great length about the unfortunate incidents and breakdowns Daring has suffered during the six years since it was launched, all of them in Daring’s official public records. But the Iranian article uses quite sarcastic language, and calls the Queen’s billion-dollar ship “not so advanced”. Interestingly, almost incredibly, the photo in the Iranian article is not of Daring. It is of HMS Exeter, an old Type 42 destroyer. And Exeter is looking pretty shabby in that particular photo. It is an extreme put-down. One that any naval person will take in at a glance, with the blatant error-on-purpose making the seawater in their blood boil.

Meant to antagonize… absolutely. But there is something else.

Ignoring the oft-repeated claim of the British that the stealth features of Daring give it the tiny radar signature of a fishing boat… and entirely dismissing the cataclysmic synergy of defensive weaponry of the destroyer (untried by combat, it is true to say)… the Iranians are saying that the actual size of the ship “make it a moving target for any missile battery as military experts say any attack with more than three cruise missiles has a good chance of hitting the vessel”. (They do not name the referenced ‘experts’.)

Radar stealth is a huge advantage on the open ocean. But in tight straits, not so much. The Strait of Hormuz, which every nation agrees is within the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman, is only 34 miles wide at its narrowest point. The single inbound sea lane that large ships normally use is just two miles wide. The lane is less than 20 miles from Iran’s large island in the Strait, Jazireh-ye Qeshm… or in terms of the flight time of the most advanced shore-to-ship missiles, perhaps one minute away. Much less, just seconds, for a missile fired from Iran’s small speedboats.

And the Bab el Mandeb Strait is only 17 miles wide.

And this is where we get much further into the depths of speculative guesses, an endless abyss which I try to avoid. Well, at least most of the time. But today we throw all caution to the winds.

I now take you back to July 22, 2010, when this blog published the post Eritrea. Here are excerpts:

Eritrea hugs the western shore of the Red Sea, including the bottleneck at the south end, the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is only 17 miles wide.

Iran has entered into a formal partnership with Eritrea to help upgrade their gasoline refining capacity. They will work together to restart a Russian-built oil refinery that was shuttered for economic reasons in 1997. That is mainstream news. I see the picture of Iranian President Ahmadinejad shaking hands with Eritrean President Afewerki, sometimes called Dictator Afewerki, or much worse, by his opposition, who have little access to the state-controlled media of Eritrea.

But in the shadows, there are unconfirmed reports, hints and allegations wafting around the shores of Eritrea like supernatural fog from a Pirate movie. Are they true? Don’t know, but they have a certain ring of credibility about them.

They center on the prime Eritrean port of Assab, just a few miles from Bab el Mandeb, where that old refinery has been corroding in the African sun and saltwater spray of the Red Sea. The rumors are that Iran is turning Eritrea into a fortress. There are wild speculations about Iranian diesel submarines lying in wait on the shallow underwater shelfs of the Red Sea. And of course whispers about Iranian military personnel, the usual missiles, and other weapons…

… and small boats like those the Iranians have deployed in large numbers in the Strait of Hormuz, whose ’swarm’ tactics are thought by our Chiefs of Staff to be effective enough to close that oil-filled bottleneck.

So. Are the Iranians thinking of closing not only the Strait of Hormuz, but the other sea lane around Saudi Arabia and the other sheikdoms of oil-rich sands, if there is a great sea battle in the Middle East?

As I said, supposition… laid on top of very little information that is a year and a half old. Extrapolations of that nature are pretty shaky. If I were reading such a thing, I would be inclined not to take it very seriously.

But. I must admit. When I read today’s Iranian article about Daring, somewhere in the back of my mind the Eritrea post sprang up like the venerable months-old cabbage Koreans call Kim Chee. The smell may knock you off your feet, and the masochistically hot marinade may bring tears to your eyes… but you can’t ignore it.

If it is so easy for the Iranian Navy to close the Strait of Hormuz… and note I say if… then how much easier would it be for Eritrean ‘pirates’ to fire some cruise missiles they got from ’somewhere’ at HMS Daring? Or would that not be good enough for Iran? Must the Iranians do whatever they’re going to do where they said they would do it… at the Strait of Hormuz?

Reference the bottom line of the previous post.

 

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Tags: Admiral Kuznetsov, Eritrea, HMS Daring, Iran close Strait of Hormuz, Iran oil sanctions, Iran war, Middle East war, Persian Gulf, pirates, Russian aircraft carrier, Strait of Hormuz, USS Stennis, war with Iran
This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Thoughts, drumbeats of war.
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