The Iranian parliament, Majlis, was preparing a bill that would prohibit all foreign warships from entering the Persian Gulf unless they received permission from the Iranian navy. The proposed bill was introduced on Wednesday [Fars News Agency, 5 January].
Iran’s armed forces commander has already warned the US not to send its aircraft carriers to the strategic waterway. The remarks, when it was made on Tuesday, surprised many Iran watchers as out of synch with the country’s policies of not initiating overt hostile actions in the region. But the proposed legislation suggests that at least some Iranian officials are serious about trying to stop the US Navy from entering the Persian Gulf, notwithstanding its status as an international waterway.
18 comments:
Posturing to drive up the cost of oil, in an effort to offset the discounts provided in its recent oil deals to the East.
Posturing to drive up the cost of oil, in an effort to offset the discounts provided in its recent oil deals to the East.
Bang On!!! The US couldn't give a rats ass about freedom in Iran or anywhere else for that matter.The whole world watched while they bombed millions of Iraqis in the name of freedom. It's all and have always been about OIL. The Chinese seem to be racking up all the oil deals in Asia lately, much to the dismay of Uncle Sam. Afghanistan just signed a massive oil deal with China ($3 Billion) while the US is still there wasting Billions in chasing Taliban shadows.
Turkey's foreign minister just visited Iran and they've agreed to increase trade this year. At the end of the day, every sane country will look after their own interest. What the US is doing is dragging their supposed "allies" down with them.
Mark, you might be right and the bill introduced in Majlis and the comments by the army chief and the IRGC deputy commander might have been planned posturing to drive up oil prices. I understand the concept, but this is dangerous and reckless posturing, if that’s what it is. Iran’s winning card in the region has always been that it was not the aggressor. The hostile statements made in the past 48 hours in Tehran negate the image. Is few dollars more per barrel worth it?
This is my concern: the comment by army chief of not letting US Navy ships passing the Strait of Hormuz; the comment by IRGC deputy commander that Iran’s position against the US has moved from strategic to “operational,” and now the introduction of this bill in Majlis together hardens Iran’s position and pushes the country to a corner with the danger of leaving it not much room to backtrack and be forced to start a naval confrontation, an unqualified disaster for the country, for the region and for all actors involved. And the worst case scenario is that these comments were actually cleared with Khamenei’s office and is part of a new strategy.
if this rhetoric continues and the regime finds itself in a corner we should not be surprised if Iran conducts or prepares or pretends to conduct under ground nuclear test. I don't believe these people are bluffing......
The regime won't be able to bully America like they bully the Iranian people.
The Majlis is a rubber stamp of Khamenei.
All this is hot air and makes Iran look extremely stupid.
The Sources of Iranian Conduct:
George Kennan’s Fifteen Lessons for Understanding and Dealing With Tehran
In an attempt to understand the Islamic Republic of Iran—a regime that has bedeviled the United States since the 1979 revolution—U.S. analysts often invoke three historical analogies, comparing Iran to Red China, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. While the Iranian government—an increasingly militarized theocracy—is sui generis, former U.S. diplomat George Kennan’s 1947 essay, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” reveals instructive behavioral parallels between the Iranian and Soviet regimes. A close reading of Kennan’s analysis suggests some key lessons current U.S. policy makers should consider in dealing with Iran, including:
■Iran’s revolutionaries are defined by what they are against, not what they are for, and rely on foreign threats to maintain their legitimacy. The Islamic Republic may make tactical offers of compromise, but its hostility toward the United States is strategic.
■Given that Iran’s regional strength derives from its political influence more than its military prowess, U.S. strategy should focus less on containing Tehran militarily and more on political measures to diminish the regional appeal of Iran and its client militias including Hamas and Hizbollah.
■While the ability of the United States to expedite positive political reform in Iran is limited, Washington can help constrain the Islamic Republic’s ability to repress and censor its population.
Kennan’s wisdom does not call on the United States to shun dialogue with Tehran, but merely to temper its expectations. Talking to Iran will not resolve the real, serious differences the United States has with the Islamic Republic, but given Iran’s influence on major U.S. foreign policy challenges—namely Iraq, Afghanistan, Arab-Israeli peace, terrorism, energy security, and nuclear proliferation—it can help mitigate the risk of escalation and misunderstanding.
In the process, Kennan would caution, the United States should remain “at all times cool and collected” until the Iranian regime is forced to change under the weight of its contradictions and economic malaise. “For no mystical, Messianic movement,” Kennan wrote in 1947, “can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.”
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/soviet_iran_conduct.pdf
My advice to the Iranian people, if you are smart, Consider what Tehran can do to 'western' Intellectual Properties in retaliation to ill-concieved sanctions:
(1)Iran can act as a conduit for pirating Microsoft's software (or any other software company), replicate facebook, google & music portals with knockoff freeware sites;
(2) target French auto industry, or Italian designers, with counterfeit of their most popular models for worldwide redistribution;
(3) do as the North Koreans, threaten currency forg€ry on a ma$$iv€ scale;
(4) mass-produce the generic equivalent of patented pharmaceutical drugs and sell it to poor third world countries - on the cheap. The PR value alone will win you friends and respect from your enemies for outwitting them.
The economic damage to the West will make them think twice. When your enemy narrows your thought options, only a fool will blindedly react without forethought (Strait of Hormuz). CBI & Oil is the thought limitations of the West; but their valunerability to Intellectual Properties should have told them not to start this economic warfare!
2Cold.
Iran nuclear defector's family spared deportation
January 05, 2012 04:27 PM EST
TORONTO - The family of a top defector who worked for Iran’s nuclear energy program have been temporarily spared deportation from Canada after claiming they’ll be tortured by secret police who are searching for the missing scientist.
The defector, his daughter and mother, were not identified in a last-ditch motion filed before the Federal Court of Canada to stop their deportations.
The names of their lawyers were not made public either.
The whereabouts of the scientist, or his family, have not been released for security reasons. It is believed the women live in the Toronto area.
Federal Court Judge Michel Shore in a ruling on Jan. 4 said the defector’s mother and daughter managed to escape Iran and “would be endangered” if they returned.
Court was told the defector was employed by the state-owned Iranian Nuclear Energy Organization, where it is believed he worked as a project scientist with top-secret clearance.
The court noted that one family member of the defector was abducted by authorities of the Iranian regime in a bid to obtain information to locate and return the scientist to Tehran to face possible charges.
Officials of the Iranian regime are concerned the defector may divulge information to the U.S. on Iran’s nuclear program and its nuclear stockpile.
“...the whereabouts of the daughter would potentially be exposed if she (the mother) would be returned to Iran,” Shore wrote in a brief ruling.
She can “allegedly be tortured by authorities of the Iranian regime who would do all they could to ensure that she would provide the whereabouts information in regard to her daughter,” he said.
Shore said the lives of both women are at risk in addition “to the lives of other members of X’s (defectors’) family, inside and outside of Iran.”
He said Canadian authorities need to ensure confidentiality arrangements are in place to protect the identities of the family.
It is believed the women arrived in Canada as refugee claimants and made unsuccessful claims. No date has been set for another hearing.
Iran has launched a bold plan to build more medium-sized nuclear power plants and uranium mines in the future.
The regime was rebuked by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last November following an report that it had undertaken research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability.
Iran accused the IAEA of pro-Western bias.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/05/iran-nuclear-defectors-family-spared-deportation
This isn't about oil. When you have a regime that puts its religion and its fanatic beliefs above everything including its own people. When this demonic regime believes they are the chosen ones to usher in their ridiculous imam by destroying Israel and creating chaos in the world, then you are dealing with something much more sinister than Hitler and the Nazis. Fortunately, the God of Abraham is in total control.
To Anonymous
January 6, 2012 2:42 AM
The creation of israhell by modern day crusaders on order of their zionist masters and the treatment of native palestenians by this zionist state is a disaster for world peace.
Despite tensions, US rescues 13 Iranian seamen from pirates
Casting aside current tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. Navy on Friday rescued 13 Iranian seamen who were being held captive by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Oman.
A Navy helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, responding to a distress call from a merchant ship under attack by pirates, chased the pirates to their "mother ship," an Iranian-flagged dhow that had earlier been hijacked.
A heavily-armed counter-piracy team from the Navy destroyer USS Kidd met little resistance when they boarded the dhow where they found 15 armed pirates and the 13 Iranians who were being held hostage. The pirates were taken into custody. The Iranians were set free in their dhow.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/06/10005159-despite-tensions-us-rescues-13-iranian-seamen-from-pirates?chromedomain=worldblog
///////////////////////////////////
USA continues to do the right thing!
If Iran had rescued US seaman they would have been taken to Tehran and held as spies/hostages!
@ Anon
January 6, 2012 11:18 AM
Simple, American News media lies!
What the U.S.'s {an unofficial slave to its master, the Zionist Regime of Israel (ZRI)} 33 long boring and wasting years of talking, planning, dreaming and fantasizing of striking, attacking and even invading the mighty Islamic Republic of Iran (mIRI) since the 1979's Islamic Revolution. What else could the world's warmongers afford to do instead of spying, imposing sanctions and the non-stop barking (sorry for mentioning that) against the mIRI!
The U.S., along with its lackey Allies ( the U.N., the West, the Zionist and with the full supports of those cowardly and puppets of some Middle Eastern nations), could simply and easily attack and invade those weak, helpless and defenceless nations such as Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, within short period of times and with lots of fun. Wow and well done!
But, when it comes to striking or attacking or even invading the mIRI, it will definitely comes to a halt. Why? mIRI is a superpower and the most powerful nation in the whole region of the Middle East as confirmly stated by the former Commander of the U.S. Central Command of the Middle East, Army Gen. John Philip Abizaid, and by the famous former U.S. CIA's Middle East Specialist Agent, Robert Baer, and also by the former U.S. Navy and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, some times ago. The U.S.'s Pentagon does really concerned on the matter.
The Zionist Regime of Israel (ZRI-the U.S.'s master), too, could simply and easily strike those Iraqi's suspected nuclear reactors in 1981 and later, Syria's, twenty-six years after the first strike, in 2007, without any military response or retaliation from both nations against those ZRI's fighter-jets. What a simple mission! Bravo and congratulation!
The ZRI, when it comes to striking any of Iran's peaceful nuclear energy installations, the ZRI, too, will absolutely comes to an immediate halt. Also, why? The biggest of all the reasons is, the ZRI is just a very tiny little state compared to a far much stronger, greater, powerful and larger mIRI. So, what else could the ZRI afford to do instead of merely launching the non-stop empty drumbeat of war threats against the mIRI, years after years.
Could one imagine the ZRI without the hughly U.S.'s strong supports and back ups and along without its possession of quite a great number of suspected nuclear arsenals which is estimatedly said to be around 250-300 units? Of course, the ZRI is ultimately and completely nothing and no match even the least to the mIRI. The ZRI is actually very lack of potential or has no potential or with the possibilities of having no guts of launching a strike against the mIRI's. The ZRI's humiliated defeat to a small unit of Hezbollah Army in the 33-day's ZRI-imposed war on Lebanon in 2006 is one of those indications.
Up to date, the mIRI has 3 U.S. and 4 ZRI's (that make 7 of them) advanced, fool playing tools of spy drones in its possession which will be displayed and made public soon. It is extremely wrong for those people out there especially who without the knowledges of military hardwares to overestimate or underestimate the true strength of both the U.S. or the mIRI's military capabilities.
If the mIRI is not that strong enough, the U.S., along with its lackey Allies and with under full command of its master, the ZRI, would have already attack and at once invade the whole nation of the mIRI long ago, absolutely. And no one really knows what the mIRI does actually have and so does the Pentagon. One could comment whatever he or she likes but the truth is out there.
Note : Iran now is totally and fully different, militarily, to Iran of 33 years back.
(Sorry if my English writings are not good enough or do not fit you well)
Anyone here @Uskowi on Iran
think that Iran's leaders next move will be to kill a large group of its own people and then blame it on the west (US/Israel/UK) to help them get a war started/keep oil prices high?
Will they shoot down one of their own passenger airliners or sink one of their own ships? Will they carry out a major terrorist act against shiites (kill many) in Bahrain or Iraq?
Killings ones own people and blaming it on others seems to be what Syria/Assad is doing!
Iran will have to perpetrate the act outside Irans borders or in a very remote area of Iran to make it more believable.....they cannot have witnesses!
Exclusive: West readies oil plan in case of Iran crisis
By Peg Mackey and Richard Mably
LONDON | Fri Jan 6, 2012 1:44pm EST
(Reuters) - Western powers this week readied a contingency plan to tap a record volume from emergency stockpiles to replace nearly all the Gulf oil that would be lost if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters.
They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises 28 oil consuming countries, discussed Thursday an existing plan to release up to 14 million barrels per day (bpd) of government-owned oil stored in the United States, Europe, Japan and other importers.
Action on this scale would be more than five times the size of the biggest release in the agency's history -- made in response to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The maximum release, some 10 million bpd of crude and about 4 million bpd of refined products, could be sustained during the first month of any coordinated action, the plan says.
"This would form a necessary and sensible response to a closure of the strait," a European diplomat told Reuters. "It wouldn't take long to put in place if it was required ... and would be unlikely to prove controversial amongst the (IEA) membership."
A spokesman for the IEA confirmed that the agency has an existing contingency plan that outlines a maximum stock release capability of 14 million bpd for a month. "We're watching the situation carefully," he said of Iran.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-iea-contingency-idUSTRE8051FV20120106
Hello Anon 12:49 PM
I agree the Americans even had hollywood make a small movie about it.
I thinks what really happened was that the magnificent Iranian patrol boat rescued the US aircraft carrier from the pirates!
They are all such grand liars!
Go Iran Go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEFKv5EY2Sw&feature=player_embedded
The EU just chicken out of the Iran sanctions bid..Seems not all Europeans are willing to commit collective suicide to to please Washington...Interesting times ahead..Here, we see Washington talking itself into a corner.They'll be left isolated..
Anon 3:08 AM
Yeah and pigs might fly.
Post a Comment