Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
We're looking at what used to be termed in the Cold War as "escalation".
Putin got in office and now he's pushing his troops out to help rogue regimes remain in power. Mutual support.
Fighting terrorism my freakin' ass. The only people who will die now will be those stupid enough to try to fend off the Russians.
I've said it before and so has about everyone else on this board.... there has to be a "big dog" and that Big Dog is going to be Russia and the "New Soviet" regime that is up and coming.
For evil to thrive good simply has to sit on it's ass and not interfere....
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran
By MARK MAZZETTI and THOM SHANKER
http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/pic...&pictureid=305
WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.
The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict.
But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policy makers over the consequences of any Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those in the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.
The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.
The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.
The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon; in Tampa, Fla., where the headquarters of the Central Command is located; and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation.
In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.
American and Israeli intelligence services broadly agree on the progress Iran has made to enrich uranium. But they disagree on how much time there would be to prevent Iran from building a weapon if leaders in Tehran decided to go ahead with one.
With the Israelis saying publicly that the window to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb is closing, American officials see an Israeli attack on Iran within the next year as a possibility. They have said privately that they believe that Israel would probably give the United States little or no warning should Israeli officials make the decision to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Officials said that, under the chain of events in the war game, Iran believed that Israel and the United States were partners in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites and therefore considered American military forces in the Persian Gulf as complicit in the attack. Iranian jets chased Israeli warplanes after the attack, and Iranians launched missiles at an American warship in the Persian Gulf, viewed as an act of war that allowed an American retaliation.
Internal Look has long been one of Central Command’s most significant planning exercises, and is carried out about twice a year to assess how the headquarters, its staff and command posts in the region would respond to various real-world situations.
Over the years, it has been used to prepare for various wars in the Middle East. According to the defense Web site GlobalSecurity.org, military planners during the cold war used Internal Look to prepare for a move by the Soviet Union to seize Iranian oil fields. The American war plan at the time called for the Pentagon to march nearly six Army divisions north from the Persian Gulf to the Zagros Mountains of Iran to blunt a Soviet attack.
In December 2002, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who was the top officer at Central Command, used Internal Look to test the readiness of his units for the coming invasion of Iraq.
Many experts have predicted that Iran would try to carefully manage the escalation after an Israeli first strike in order to avoid giving the United States a rationale for attacking with its far superior forces. Thus, it might use proxies to set off car bombs in world capitals or funnel high explosives to insurgents in Afghanistan to attack American and NATO troops.
While using surrogates might, in the end, not be enough to hide Iran’s instigation of these attacks, the government in Tehran could at least publicly deny all responsibility.
Some military specialists in the United States and in Israel who have assessed the potential ramifications of an Israeli attack believe that the last thing Iran would want is a full-scale war on its territory. Thus, they argue that Iran would not directly strike American military targets, whether warships in the Persian Gulf or bases in the region.
Their analysis, however, also includes the broad caveat that it is impossible to know the internal thinking of the senior Iranian leadership, and is informed by the awareness that even the most detailed war games cannot predict how nations and their leaders will react in the heat of conflict.
Yet these specialists continue their work, saying that any insight on how the Iranians will react to an attack will help determine whether the Israelis carry out a strike — and what the American position will be if they do.
Israeli intelligence estimates, backed by academic studies, have cast doubt on the widespread assumption that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would set off a catastrophic set of events like a regional conflagration, widespread acts of terrorism and sky-high oil prices.
“A war is no picnic,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio in November. But if Israel feels itself forced into action, the retaliation would be bearable, he said. “There will not be 100,000 dead or 10,000 dead or 1,000 dead. The state of Israel will not be destroyed.”
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
ummmmmm....
/sigh
Sure wish I could make a comment here.
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
I'd say "driving a rocket" might end up being a one-way trip, and END in a catastrophic set of events, no?
LMAO
(Yes, I know you meant the vehicle and not the rocket, but could not resist poking fun)
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
WORLD WAR III: Countdown to Armageddon: USA and Israel Launches Massive Military Fleet of Super-Torpedoes, Gunboats and Sea-Bots as Iran Regime Threatens to Close Hormuz and Cut World Oil Supply!
7:35 AM Andre Heath No comments
United States President, Barack Obama has warned Iran’s leaders that “the window for solving the nuclear programme issue diplomatically is shrinking.” In accordance with this, the majority of Israel’s 14-member security cabinet now supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in launching a pre-emptive strike on Iran. This comes against the background of Iran's declaration that it will make no concessions, despite the high geopolitical tensions. And as the rhetoric escalates, the US navy will have three aircraft carriers positioned near Iran in the coming days, and is doubling the number of minesweeping ships and helicopters based in the Gulf.
Sending more aircraft carriers to the waters near Iran, it turns out, was just the start. Yes, the U.S. currently has more seapower aimed at Iran in the Persian Gulf than in the fleets of most countries on Earth, Iran included. But that was just the Navy cracking its knuckles. In the next few months, the Navy will double its minesweeper craft stationed in Bahrain, near Iran, from four to eight. Those ships will be crucial if Iran takes the drastic step of mining the Strait of Hormuz, one of the global energy supply’s most crucial waterways. Four more MH-53 “Sea Stallion” helicopters, another minesweeping tool, are also getting ready for Bahrain, to give the U.S. Fifth Fleet early warning for any strait mining. Then the Navy will prepare to get closer to Iranian shores. Much closer. It’s got five close-action patrol boats in the Gulf right now. Once the Coast Guard returns three that the Navy loaned out, the Navy will have five other patrol craft in the United States. All those boats are getting retrofitted. With Gatling guns. And missiles. Sure, the guns aboard the two aircraft carriers currently near Iran are the seapower equivalent of high-powered, long-range rifles. “But maybe what you need is like a sawed-off shotgun,” capable of doing massive damage from a closer distance, said Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy’s senior officer. All 10 of those patrol boats, Greenert told reporters at a Friday breakfast in Washington, will get strapped with the Mk-38 Gatling Gun and should make it to the Gulf next year. (Though, alas, they won’t have the Gatling/laser gun mashup BAE Systems is working on.) They’ll also get close-range missiles that can hit Iranian shores from four miles away — the same kinds Navy SEALs use. -
WIRED.
In addition, two Israeli naval vessels passed through Egypt's Suez Canal on Tuesday, headed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, Israeli and Egyptian sources said. "It was routine, they were on their way to Eilat" where Israel has its Red Sea naval base, an Israeli security source told AFP on condition of anonymity. A source at the Canal Authority named the vessels as the Lahav and the Yafo, without giving their size or type. Israel dispatched two missile boats to the Red Sea last August after Iran deployed a submarine and a warship there on what it called a patrol mission. The Israeli military said at the time that its own naval deployment was "part of a routine exercise." After fighting several wars since Israel's foundation in 1948, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, but Israeli vessels rarely pass through the strategic waterway. The military had no comment on Tuesday's crossing, which came to the backdrop of an international standoff over Iran's nuclear programme, which much of the world believes is geared toward developing atomic weapons. It also comes after four days of deadly fighting between Israel and militants in Gaza, some of whom were suspected of using Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as a launch pad for anti-Israeli attacks. -
AFP.
Meanwhile, Iran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz and world oil supply after trade links cutoff . Former Intelligence Minister Ali Falahian, Iran’s senior spokesman on sanctions, said Sunday, March 18, that if the US and Europe think they can ignore international law to promote their interests, they should know that Iran will respond in kind everywhere it can. “I suggest that the West take seriously our threat to close the Strait of Hormuz,” he said in Tehran’s first response to the SWIFT decision to sever ties with Iranian banks to enforce European sanctions on its nuclear program. A large fleet of 4 US and French nuclear aircraft carriers and a dozen or more minesweepers and mine-hunting helicopters have piled up on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 17 percent of the world’s daily oil supply passes, and Israeli naval vessels have deployed in the Red Sea. debkafile’s military and intelligence sources estimate Tehran may make good on its threats by trying to drop sea mines in the strategic strait and/or the approaches to the huge Saudi Ras Tanura oil export terminal. A small explosion by an unknown hand hit a major Saudi pipeline between Awamiya and Safwa on March 1. The damage was not great because the saboteurs used a small quantity of explosive but it appeared to be the work of professionals. While Saudi officials denied the incident, photos of a large fire appeared on the Internet. Gulf oil sources suspect that it was a warning from Tehran of the hazards facing the world’s largest oil exporter. -
DEBKA.
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
/chuckles
"Celestial Convergence Blog Spot"?
Come on.....
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
Your father didn't beat your ass that evening?
Mine would have, after my mother bitch-slapped me.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
My mother would say "Wait til your Father gets home." Which usually meant "Death" lol
If I pissed mom off, usually she had no qualms about knocking the shit out of me.
I learned not to piss mom off, and I RARELY heard the dreaded words "Wait til your Father gets home", if ever after once or twice. :)
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
Russia Again Warns West And Israel Not To Attack Iran
By Palash R. Ghosh: Subscribe to Palash's RSS feed
March 20, 2012 2:39 PM EDT
While much of the world’s attention has been focused on the relentless bloodshed in Syria, Russia brought another troubled Middle East nation back into the limelight Tuesday.
http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/imag...-fm-lavrov.jpg
(Photo: Reuters)
Russian FM Lavrov
Related Articles
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov again warned Israel and the Western nations not to perpetrate an attack in Iran to thwart its nuclear program.
According to a report from Agence France-Press, Lavrov suggested that if Iran were indeed attacked she would have no recourse but to seek to build atomic weapons to prevent future military strikes.
"The CIA and other U.S. officials admit they now have no information about the Iranian leadership taking the political decision to produce nuclear weapons," Lavrov told Moscow's Kommersant FM radio on Tuesday.
"But I am almost certain that such a decision will surely be taken after [any] strikes on Iran. … Scientists of almost all nations ... agree that strikes against Iran can slow its nuclear program. But do away with it, close it, eliminate it? -- never."
Lavrov further warned that any provocative action against Iran would spark a wider conflict in the Middle East and perhaps even a deadly nuclear arms race among poorer nations.
"This [situation is] forcing a lot of Third World countries to pause and realize that if you have a nuclear bomb, no one will really bother you,” he said.
"You might get some light sanctions, but people will always coddle you, they will court you and try to convince you of things.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei similarly warned that the Islamic Republic would retaliate with equal force against Israel or the U.S. in the event of an attack.
“We do not possess a nuclear weapon and we will not build one, but we will defend ourselves against any aggression, whether by the U.S. or the Zionist regime, with the same level [of force],” Khamenei told a crowd of people in the city of Mashhad, while observing Nowruz, the Persian new year, according to his government's Press TV.
“[Arrogant global leaders], those in positions of power and wealth, and their agents in our region are trying to intimidate the Iranian nation with all their financial, propaganda and political resources,” Khamenei added.
As they have with Syria, Russia keeps close military and trading ties with the Iranians although they have lent mild support to Western sanctions against Iran.
Nonetheless, Lavrov also criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his persistently belligerent language against Israel.
"This is completely unacceptable ... and we categorically condemn it," Lavrov said. "It is simply uncivilized and unworthy of a country as ancient as Iran."
Lavrov also seemed to contradict himself when he raised an interesting facet regarding potential Iranian retaliation against Israel.
"I am absolutely convinced that Iran will never decide to do this, if only because ... a threat to destroy Israel will also destroy Palestine," he said.
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
Companion Threads:
Russian president orders military to prepare countermeasures against US missile shield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/ima...JPEG-05435.jpg
(RIA Novosti Kremlin, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service/Associated Press) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, speaks in the Grand Kremlin Palace during the summit of the Euro Asian Economic Union, a Russia dominated economic community, in Moscow on Monday, March 19, 2012. Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov sits at left.
By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, March 20, 6:16 AM AP
MOSCOW — The Russian military must prepare to counter U.S. missile defense plans in Europe even as talks between Moscow and Washington are ongoing, President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.
Medvedev told a meeting of Russia’s top military brass that the country “isn’t shutting the door to dialogue,” but nevertheless must get ready to take military countermeasures.
The U.S. says the NATO missile defense plan is aimed at deflecting potential missile threats from Iran, but Moscow fears that in the next few years it will grow powerful enough to undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
“By 2017-2018 we must be fully prepared, fully armed,” Medvedev said in televised comments, referring to his earlier threat to aim missiles at the U.S.-led NATO missile shield if no agreement is reached.
NATO has said it wants to cooperate with Russia on the missile shield, but the alliance has rejected Russia’s proposal to run it jointly.
Without a NATO-Russia cooperation deal, Medvedev has sought guarantees from the U.S. that any future missile defense is not aimed at Russia and threatened to retaliate if no such deal is negotiated.
“Even though the talks are ongoing, we must get ready for a serious rearming of the armed forces so that we could be in a due shape and capable to respond to the missile defense in Europe,” Medvedev said.
Tensions over the system have strained ties between Moscow and Washington. They are expected to flare up again in May when Vladimir Putin heads to the United States shortly after being sworn in for his third presidential term.
Russian officials have voiced skepticism that Russia and the U.S. could reach an agreement in the short time left before the trip.
Putin hasn’t yet said whether he would participate in the NATO summit in Chicago beginning May 20 after attending the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations summit at Camp David. The alliance is expected to review its plans for the missile shield at the summit — a move likely to further vex Russia.
Re: Prepare Now for the Coming Middle East War
Utter bullshit:
Quote:
According to a report from Agence France-Press, Lavrov suggested that if Iran were indeed attacked she would have no recourse but to seek to build atomic weapons to prevent future military strikes.
"No recourse" my ass. NOW they are simply admitting they are already doing it and "Fuck you world".