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What Is The Purpose Of This U.S. Fleet Concentration Next To Iran?
The Obama regime claims that it wants to hold the Saudis back from further killing in Yemen:
Top Obama administration officials have failed for several days to persuade Saudi Arabia’s government to limit the scope of its airstrikes on cities and towns in Yemen, a campaign that authorities said killed nearly 50 people Monday in Sana, the capital.
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The White House would like Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies to curtail the airstrikes and narrow the objective to focus on protecting the Saudi border, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing internal deliberations.
The problem with this story is the acknowledged fact that the U.S. is still heavily supporting the Saudi attacks:
U.S. officials in Riyadh and Qatar are sharing intelligence from surveillance drones and spy satellites with officers from the Saudi-led coalition but are not approving individual targets, according to Pentagon officials.
“The air component is providing the Saudis intel on potential targets that include … civilian casualty mitigation procedures,” Lt. Col. Kristi Beckman, Air Force spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command, said Monday.
If the White House would really want to stop the Saudis it could simply stop supporting them. Without U.S. intelligence the Saudis would be blind. It could stop providing more bombs and the Saudis would eventually run out of ammunition.
The Obama regime is simply not serious about this. It does not care one bit about Yemenis or about the expansion of AlQaeda in the Arab Peninsula (which renamed itself into "Sons of Hadramout" to get more official Saudi support).
Meanwhile the U.S. is building up a fleet concentration in the Arab sea next to Yemen. Some 10 to 12 capital ships will soon be there. Several destroyers. Three helicopter carriers/landing ships with a battalion of Marines each, one air craft carrier and an unknown number of nuclear submarines. All this to prevent a non existing threat to international shipping lanes and to stop non-existing supply convoys from Iran to the Houthies. Claims by the White House that Iran supplies the Houthies are ludicrous propaganda. There is not much love between Houthis and Iran, Yemen is full of weapons anyway and there is no evidence that any supplies have ever been provided. Why then this propaganda and fleet concentration?
The administration has a problem. Sanction against Iran are coming to an end no matter how the nuclear talks with Iran will end. Iran has shown its willingness to resolve the issue. The U.S. is the party blocking it. If there is a pact signed in June sanctions will end. If there is no pact signed in June the U.S. will be blamed and the sanction regime will fall apart. The Russian decision to finally provide S-300 air defense to Iran was an explicit sign for that. The Chinese are currently heavily bribing Pakistan to get a land route to Iranian gas. The U.S. will soon no longer able to constrain Iran through an internationally supported "crippling sanctions" regime.
Before the U.S. attacked Iraq the sanction regime there was also falling apart. Without sanctions increased Iraqi oil production would have lowered the price of oil. The oil men, and the Bush administration had many of them, would have made much less money. The attack on Iraq prevented that oil dump.
Similar conditions apply to the Iran sanction regime. As soon as Iran can sell as much as it wants oil prices will go down even more. The major oil companies would suffer. The Saudis would lose market share. Is the Obama administration willing to go to war, or to at least create some "incident", to prevent that?
Why else is that fleet in the Arab sea? Pat Lang fears that some new Gulf of Tokin incident might unfold. Why would he think that?
Obama sincerely wants to avoid an Iran war
by an anon on the previoud thread. Jack Rabbit responded http://tinyurl.com/nrqwz97 that peace would not be achieved.
I gave the Iran deal a 50% chance of succes a while ago. Now I make it 60 🙂 b says the Iran sanctions are coming to an end, which is true, everyone is acting as if they were lifted. Cautiously, but that can’t be stopped now.
Some additional remarks. The USA’s main aim as is now clear, is to prevent an alliance between Europe (specially Germany) and Russia. Such an alliance would put an end to US hegemony, and it was edging closer, though the cordon sanitaire around Russia (e.g. NATO expansion, arm twisting, funding, etc. in the Baltics and other ex-USSR like Moldavia, see also Georgia etc., recently erupted spectacularly into genocidal war in Ukraine) are long standing. The EU hs been shown up to be a vassal (camouflaged before.)
The US cannot fight so many wars at once. An Iran-Russia-Syria-plus x axis is too powerful. So relations with Iran have to be normalised, Iran needs be neutralised, brought out of opposition, into ‘normal’ international relations where it can be manipulated. A mantra of sanctions don’t work is taking hold…and Iran can be seduced, Russia, no longer, aggro towards it has gone too far.
One aim is that Iran could serve to furnish FF (fossil fuels) to Europe, thus cutting off EU dependence on Russian supplies, as these are the sticking point in getting the EU ultimately on board, some sacrifices can’t be made as all might be at risk. Hungry, cold ppl tend to rebel, right? (If they are Ukrainians that is of no account. This can in any case be contained.) That trade needs to be opened up, sanctions lifted. All the other plans in this direction, bruited about, are pipe dreams, such as LNG from the US…where the fracking industry has collapsed. I have always said that the US, as the more powerful partner, would not support Isr. (or fight wars for the Jews or whatever expression one favors) when push comes to shove. As we see playing out now.
— The mollahs in Iran are not religious fanatics, they are oligarchs, and control (estimated..? who knows?) 40% of the economy. They use religious repression / control to their own ends, and the sanctions have served them in a way (an enemy, etc.), but it has gone on for too long, they are facing some oppo at home. Which means they are very open to new deals, for more profits, also to show the Iranian ppl that ‘normalisation’ can take place, GDP can be upped, more jobs, some modernity, etc. Provided they are left alone to control their ppl, which the US will guarantee, see KSA.
Posted by: Noirette | Apr 22 2015 16:36 utc | 28
There are concerning aspects about the Yemeni conflict and its regional implications, one of them is the recent announcement by Russia lifting the ban on the sale of the S-300 system. Even when Putin signed a decree to be carried out “without delays,” (more?) the reality is that Russia doesn’t have the S-300s it promised to sale Iran in 2007. The announcement got the usual jackals and hyenas howling to high heaven about how Iran will use its protected airspace to build a nuclear bomb, or to start an arms race, even though Putin try his best to clarify the “defensive quality” of the S-300s. The S-300s marked for sale to Iran have been either sold or disassembled; the reality is Russia doesn’t have them and is not producing them anymore, the system having been upgraded to S-400/S-500. That means Iran, who is sticking to the original contract and refused to get the Antey-2500, an upgraded version of the S-300, will not get its defensive system “without delays” as Putin promised. According to Russia & India Report,
There is also the issue of which missiles Russia will supply to Iran and when. According to Director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis Alexander Khramchikhin, the S-300 PMU-1 missiles are no longer being produced. It is still unclear whether Iran will accept the systems with the new modification, since Tehran had earlier refused similar proposals.
Furthermore, Khramchikhin believes that it will be difficult to supply systems that are already being used in the Russian armed forces, since they will need to be altered significantly. However, this alteration would be unrealistic to carry out in any acceptable period.
There are also problems regarding the supplies of the perfected S-400 systems. According to Khramchikhin, it will be difficult for Russian companies with the current potential to build the systems since they are already overloaded with orders up to 2020 for the army’s rearmament program. Khramchikhin believes that in this case the supplies may be postponed for eight to 10 years, which will is unlikely to suit Tehran.
Russia promised to deliver the S-300s in 2015, and Iran’s media has been saying the same. Regardless of the time taken for the delivery, there is a dangerous gap that can be exploited to prevent Iran from getting the S-300s on time for a showdown with KSA, Israel, and/or the US. Even if the S-300s are delivered this year, it will take about a year to make them operational, which means Iran will have only Putin’s promise to defend its airspace. Iran is boasting about its Bavar (Belief) 373 missile defense systems which were paraded on Army Day, and according to them are “even more powerful and more advanced than the Russian S-300.” That remains to be seen, and it raises the question of why they are so insisting on buying the Russian system, if they have an “even more powerful” one, an obvious contradiction in terms, objectives and cost effectiveness. Why don’t just ask for their money (plus penalties for breach of contract) back?
The other dangerous variable is the offer by Iran’s Defense Minister, at the recent Moscow’s International Security Conference, of a political-military alliance between Iran, Russia, and China. Any potential alliance between those giants (India may or may not partake of it), will kill once and for all the West’s ambitions in Eurasia, as the nature of it will be to prepare the burial ceremony of the Empire of Chaos global domination. Yemen might provide, as b pointed out, a Gulf of Tonkin that could nip in the bud the possibility of that alliance, and/or the delivery of the S-300s. OTOH, Israel will not miss any opportunity to hit Iran before securing its airspace. According to the President of the Institute of Middle East, Evgeny Satanovsky,
Israel has three options:
a) Destroy whatever they can, even the entire Iran, if they cannot destroy all the nuclear facilities, it is easier to destroy Iran. 15-20 objects, out of almost 40, Israel can destroy without America’s help. They don’t have enough for Iranian nuclear complex, but enough for the entire Iran. They have time until the systems are delivered and made operational, probably a year after they are delivered.
b) If a miracle happens, and God intervenes personally: Iran hates Israel, and it is mutual, but they enter a mode of mutual containment, just what happened between us and Americans after the Caribbean crisis.
c) Very similar to the first one: Israel learns to block radio-location systems of S-300. S-300 doesn’t work when Israeli programmers don’t want it to.
After all, Putin’s assurances to Israel that the S-300s are not a threat to Israel, might not be far from the truth, as ZeroHedge let us know in this video. Given the heated environment of Iran’s surroundings, with so many conflicts unfolding at the same time, the potential for a major eruption is always present. So far, Iran has been able to navigate among the rocky waters of sanctions, Iraq, Syria, ISIS, Lebanon, and now Yemen, with a steady hand. Let’s hope that continues to be the case, before its enemies take advantage of the gap between promises and their fulfillment.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Apr 22 2015 22:40 utc | 30
Saudis stopped bombing for few hours, apparently, so it is a bit of the mystery why they announced it. Perhaps indeed the king forgot what is it about and it took a few hours for the “war party” to change the standing order back.
Concerning the aims of the American fleet, they can “help” with the blockade, although it is a bit hard to see why. Would an Iranian vessel dock in a Yemeni port, KSA could bomb it. Although Iran has means to retaliate against KSA, given their position at the Strait of Hormuz, so there is that. The aims of such idiotic wars are another things altogether. One side declares that it bombed all “targets”, hence the victory, and the other sides declares that they won by surviving. Latest war of Israel were all of that kind. It is harder to do in a democratic system where you whip up the war fever and then, whenever you end it some folks are still unsatisfied. But KSA should have no problem getting all media astounded with the military genius of the armed forces.
About the Eurasian block. A loose block exists, and by putting pieces together, “preventative bombing” of Iran would have some huge consequences. Details are unclear, but high establishment (US military, various heads of states including even Harper of Canada) is dead set against such bombing, and that gives me a clue that there is something to various somewhat vague announcements of China and Russia. If all bets are off, China could even take Taiwan, Russia could disassemble a little part of the pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Black Sea, there is a smorgasboard of options. But this is reserved for dire circumstances,
China and Russia actually made a pair of big signals. One is S-300 announcement — the importance extends beyond the delivery that may happen or not. The second is that China will provide funds for Iran-Pakistan pipeline. They promised years ago, but due to some arm twisting they withdrew, Pakistan claimed that they can do it without foreign financing, but they did not — I assume again, American arm twisting. But Pakistan needs more electricity quite badly, so with China once again behind the deal they will go forward. And once the pipeline reaches Karachi, Indian market will be very close. Result one: scenarios how the economic stranglehold on Iran will be broken is already pencilled out, so Obama is indeed squeezed in that respect. Result two: no conflict between Russia and Iran in terms of gas markets. This already happened with Turkmenistan, Russia had a huge problem, but finally it was arranged that the gas from Turkmenistan goes to China (the story was almost funny, Russia made a big blunder and recovered using quite underhanded ways, but at the end of the day, Russia, Turkmenistan and China were all happy). And once the subcontinent gets Gulf gas, it can increase exponentially, we have a huge workforce ready for more manufacturing with insufficient electricity. In the same time, the market in Europe is somewhat limited, the economies there are expending slowly if at all.
The way I see it, USA was unexpectedly successful in meddling that hurt the economies of Iran, Pakistan and to a lesser extend, India, but that cannot go on forever.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Apr 22 2015 23:20 utc | 31
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