Spanning(en) rond Iran

[Lex]

Panetta Accelerates Stennis Carrier Strike Group Deployment

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2012 – The Navy will deploy the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and its strike group four months early and shift its destination to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, DOD officials said here today.

The deployment late this summer is in response to Central Command's requirement for an extended carrier presence, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said. The move affects 5,500 sailors aboard the Stennis and the Aegis cruiser USS Mobile Bay.

Last week, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta approved a request from Central Command commander Marine Corps General James N. Mattis to accelerate Stennis' deployment. "The decision will help support existing naval force requirements in the Middle East and reduce the gap caused by the upcoming departure of the USS Enterprise Strike Group," Little said. "It is in keeping with our long-standing commitments to the region."

Aircraft carrier strike groups provide commanders with ample and flexible air assets to enhance interoperability with partner nations and maintain strong military-to-military relations as well as respond to a wide variety of contingencies, Little said.

The Bremerton, Wash.-based Stennis strike group was due to deploy at the end of the year to U.S. Pacific Command. The group returned from duty in the Middle East in March.

The accelerated deployment to the Central Command area of responsibility is not aimed at any specific threat. "In keeping with Centcom's requirements, this is a very important region for our defense strategy," Little said. "We've had a presence in the region for decades and we have a range of interests that this extension of our capabilities will support."

Nor, he said, is the deployment a direct response to tensions with Iran. The U.S. military is "always mindful of the challenges posed by Iran, but ... this is not a decision based solely on the challenges posed by Iran," Little said.

Currently the USS Enterprise and USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike groups are deployed to U.S. Central Command. The USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is due to relieve the Lincoln group shortly. The Stennis group will relieve Enterprise.

The Navy continues to operate at a high operational tempo in order to meet U.S. security needs around the world,. "Our deployment strain is as great as or greater today than it has been at any time in the past 10 years," a Navy official said.

Sailors and their families have been informed of the change, Little said. Navy officials looked at a wide range of options to ensure Navy commitments and combatant commander mission requirements are met and to lessen the impact of schedule changes.

The carrier strike group will be ready to deploy even given the accelerated timeline, Little said. "The U.S. Navy is well-equipped to ensure our sailors are trained and ready for this deployment," he said.

Navy leaders understand the operational and personnel impacts this accelerated deployment will have. These include training cycle adjustments, crew and family uncertainty and reductions to quality of life port visits.

As more information becomes available, the Navy will release it, officials said, noting defense leaders are "committed to keeping sailors and their families informed about current and future deployments to the best of our ability."


By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Clinton voert de druk op Iran op tijdens haar bezoek aan Israël

16 juli 2012

Hillary Clinton, de Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, heeft tijdens haar bezoek aan Israël gezegd dat de Verenigde Staten "alle middelen binnen hun politieke macht" zullen inzetten om te voorkomen dat Iran een nucleair wapen ter beschikking krijgt.

Ook noemde Clinton de voorstellen die Iran heeft gedaan tijdens gesprekken met diverse wereldleiders "non-uitgangspunten", zo schrijft persbureau Reuters vanavond. De minister deed haar uitspraken vandaag aan het einde van haar overleg met Israëlische en Palestijnse leiders, waaronder de Israëlische premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ze benadrukte dat de VS sterk de voorkeur geven aan diplomatieke oplossingen om de impasse te beëindigen die veroorzaakt wordt door de westerse angst dat Iran nucleaire wapens aan het ontwikkelen is:


"Iran heeft nog de tijd en de gelegenheid de juiste beslissing te nemen, maar de voorstellen die we tot dusver van het land hebben gezien zijn eigenlijk non-voorstellen."

Militaire aanwezigheid versterkt in de Perzische Golf

De VS hebben de afgelopen tijd hun militaire aanwezigheid in de Perzische Golf al versterkt om een aanval op Iran te kunnen uitvoeren als het conflict met Iran over het nucleaire programma van het land escaleert, zo bleek eerder deze maand.

De Amerikanen hebben onder meer marineschepen naar de Perzische Golf gestuurd die een eventuele blokkade van de Straat van Hormuz, de belangrijke doorvoerroute voor olie uit Saoedi-Arabië en andere Golfstaten, door Iran onschadelijk kan maken. Ook zijn sinds het einde van het voorjaar het aantal F22- en F-15-gevechtsvliegtuigen op hun luchtmachtbases in de Golf vergroot.

De Amerikaanse militaire opbouw in de Perzische Golf zou ook een belangrijk signaal zijn richting Israël, dat nog sterker dan de VS zelf bevreesd is voor het nucleaire programma van Iran. De Israëlische regering heeft de afgelopen jaren regelmatig gedreigd Iran aan te vallen als de internationale gemeenschap het land niet met diplomatie of sancties kan dwingen te stoppen met het verrijken van uranium. Israël en de VS verdenken Iran van het bouwen van atoomwapens, hoewel Iran zelf altijd ontkend heeft te streven naar het bezit van kernwapens.

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/07/16/clinton-voert-de-druk-op-iran-op-tijdens-haar-bezoek-aan-israel/

[Harald]

Israel's First Strike on Iran's Nuclear Facilities – Part 2

The Strike: Part 2 of a scenario for the first Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear weapons program

In the first part of this series, we described the strike package of fighters and supporting aircraft making the first attack in Israel's air campaign against the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Where are they going? Isfahan. Why not Natanz? After all, that's the famous, underground, heavily defended uranium enrichment facility that's always in the news.

The Iranians are pursuing two paths to a nuclear weapon: The uranium route and the plutonium route. Natanz, Fordow, and possibly other enrichment facilities are on the uranium path, increasing the concentration of U235 to weapons grade levels. The Arak nuclear reactor (still not operational) will serve as a source for the plutonium option.

But there are several steps on either path. Yellowcake uranium must be converted to uranium hexaflouride gas (UF6) that the centrifuges can use, and the enriched gas must then be processed to uranium metal to be fabricated into bomb components. The Arak reactor uses fuel made from uranium dioxide (UO2). After it has been used in the reactor, the spent fuel must be chemically treated to extract the Pu238. All of these processes are performed at one place: Isfahan.

Google Map of the facilities at Isfahan and the surrounding area, illustrating the need for precision munitions.

The complex at Isfahan is made up of three facilities vital to nuclear weapons development: The Uranium Conversion Facility, where yellowcake is processed to UF6 and UO2, the Fuel Manufacturing Plant, where UO2 is converted to reactor fuel, and the Zirconium Processing Plant. This not only provides zirconium used by the Fuel Manufacturing Plant, it specializes in refining, smelting, and machining exotic metals. It would extract the uranium or plutonium and make it into bomb components.

These three industrial-level installations are located next to each other, are completely exposed (nothing buried, no concrete roofs), and have only half or a third of the defenses present at Natanz. Hitting Natanz first is a "sucker play."

The Isfahan defenses include an elderly S-200 (SA-5 Gammon) site nearby, two I-Hawk batteries about a dozen kilometers to the west and north, a Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) battery, and a mix of 35mm and 23mm guns.

There are thirty-one structures at the three facilities that are worth bombing. Most need to be serviced with two or three bombs to be completely destroyed, and the raid has one hundred and forty-four weapons. That sounds like overkill, but even PGMs don't work every time. Against targets of this size, they have an 80 percent chance of hitting, so four per target is not out of line.

During the transit, the F-16s are electronically silent. When they reach Delek Station, they refuel silently as well. It's not easy, but possible with proper training.

By the time the raiders finish refueling, the commander on the Shavit will have executed his Suter attack. If it goes well, he can shut down some or all of the SAM and radar sites along the raid's path. Or he can order the raid to abort, if the defenses have somehow been alerted.

After they leave the refueling point, the raiders cross the Saudi coast. The defense suppressors, hitting targets up to fifty miles away from the raid's path, break off from the main raid now. They'll execute their part of the mission, then return home on their own. The fighter escorts fan out as well, radars still off but in position so that they can get their shots before any interceptors are in range of the strikers.

The raiders now descend to stay below the horizon of the Iranian radars. Whether or not the Suter attack has been successful, if Iranian radar doesn't see them, the Iranians won't react.

There's a temptation to go to full military power, to minimize the time they spend in Iranian airspace, but full military triples their fuel consumption, for a speed increase of 130 knots, or just 25 percent. The Sufas can't go supersonic with their ordnance and drop tanks, and low altitude does enough damage to their fuel consumption. Besides, since the Shavit is listening in, the Israelis will know about any detections as soon as the Iranians do.

Flying at a few hundred feet above ground level, their radars are still off.  Their fighter escort is a little higher, flanking them on each side. The route is mostly scrubby desert, rising from sea level near the coast to about two thousand meters inland. A series of ridgelines lays perpendicular to their path, a low part of the Zagros mountain chain. It's sparsely settled, and there are few lights at night marking the landscape.

It's three hundred nautical miles from the Delek Station to Isfahan, or about thirty-five minutes' flight time. During this time, the Iranians will begin to suffer cyber attacks and diversionary raids. For instance, powered decoys are launched in the direction of Tehran. The goal is to confuse and distract.

At seventy miles and ten minutes from the target, and cued by the Shavit, the close-in defense suppressors climb until they're above the Iranian radar horizon. They may or may not be visible to Iranian radar, but it doesn't matter. They loft HARM antiradar missiles pretuned to the Iranian radars' frequencies. Any radiating surveillance or fire control radar will collect one or two missiles. Planes that have fired all their HARMs join the fighter escort. Those that still have HARMs orbit on electronic overwatch.

The HARMs hit two minutes later, and if the defenders weren't awake before, they are now. It takes a few minutes for the gun crews to fully man their weapons, but they put up a storm of fire. Few of the 35mm guns are (or were) radar-guided, and none of the 23mm are. All they can do is shoot into their assigned zone and hope somebody flies through it.

The strikers never get close to the guns. They're already climbing. This is the only time since takeoff they've used full military power, to gain speed and altitude as they zoom to medium altitude. Guided by their nav systems and cued by their HUDs, wave after wave of Israeli pilots release their weapons, lofting them toward the target, then pull back on the stick in a precise Immelman turn, rolling level onto an outbound course. The lob-toss delivery is the optimal method for delivering GPS-guided ordnance. Without coming closer than twelve miles to the target, the entire strike is outbound before their bombs even reach the target.

There are four Tor-M1 vehicles protecting Isfahan, each with its own search and fire control radars and eight Gauntlet missiles. When the guns start firing, the crews light off their radars, and they're on line in seconds. Electronically netted though a battery command vehicle, they can cooperate to make sure they don't engage the same targets.

The Israelis detect the signals, but by the time they launch their HARMs, all four SAM vehicles are firing.

The Tor missile only has a range of six nautical miles, but they aren't after the retreating Israeli aircraft, or even the defense suppression planes, orbiting safely out of range. The Tor's radar is good enough to spot and engage the incoming PGMs. Each vehicle can shoot at two targets at once, and they devote one guidance channel to the incoming HARMs and the other to the PGMs. Two manage to shoot down the HARMs coming at them, and one of the remaining two HARMs misses. One vehicle is lost, but the first thirty-second exchange of fire has allowed the Tor battery to destroy three of the PGMs.

Like they should have done in the first salvo, the Israelis now fire two HARMs at each remaining launcher, killing all three vehicles, but several more PGMs are also gone.

Outbound and clear of the defenses, the raid begins the hour and a half flight back to base. They're up at high altitude now, for best fuel efficiency. They're almost in the clear, but the Iranians have prepared a going-away party.

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/israels-first-strike-on-irans-nuclear-facilities-part-2/

[Harald]

Israel's First Strike on Iran's Nuclear Facilities – Part 1

Inbound: Part 1 of a scenario for the first Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear weapons program

The Eitans take off first. They're the slowest, only 220 knots flat out, and for best endurance, they'll cruise at 180 knots. It's 800 miles to their stations, just outside the range of Iranian air defense radar, south of the Saudi coast of the Persian Gulf.

Operated by the 210th Squadron of the Israeli Air Force at Tel Nof airbase, the Eitan (Hebrew for "steadfast") is a big UAV, with a twenty-six meter wingspan. It has a reduced radar signature, although it's probably not stealthy. It can carry different payloads: EO/IR imagers, synthetic aperture radar, ELINT or COMINT gear.

The two aircraft taking off now, at H-minus six hours, will relieve two already on station over Saudi airspace. Those birds carried ELINT and COMINT gear, monitoring Iranian radar and communications. At this point, there should be no surprises, but they'll keep watch all the same.

The four-and-a-half hour flight there barely dents the Eitan's twenty-four hour endurance. On-board satellite communications allow controllers to monitor the relief and make sure both new aircraft are good to go.

The tankers have to take off early as well. The refuel point, "Delek Station," is located just short of the IP, over Saudi territory, but close to the coast.

The Shavit Special Electronic Missions Aircraft (SEMA), based on a Gulfstream business jet, would likely be an integral part of any attack. 
The Saudis, like all the Persian Gulf nations, do not want the Iranians to have nuclear weapons, but they lack the ability to physically stop development. If the Iranians get close to actually assembling a bomb, the Saudis might agree to an Israeli campaign to destroy their nuclear program, especially if the Israelis offer a significant political concession as part of the deal.

That agreement allows the Israelis to operate freely over their "associate's" territory without the risk of being intercepted, or even reported. A reasonable, if inconvenient Saudi proviso is that Israeli aircraft cannot operate from Saudi bases.

The first Israeli raid is a big one, four squadrons, and will need eight of Israel's nine Boeing 707 tankers to refuel it. The ninth one was only purchased in 2010, a Boeing 707 airframe converted by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). They will be wheels-up from Nevatim airbase at H-minus four hours.

Next to take off, at H-minus three hours, is a single Shavit aircraft, also flying from Nevatim. The 120th Nachson ('Pioneer") squadron operates the Shavit ("Comet") Special Electronics Mission aircraft. That uninformative title describes a Gulfstream G550 business jet converted by IAI to carry SIGINT and ELINT gear, a communications suite, and space for a command staff. It can monitor and control the Eitan UAVs launched earlier, as well as all the aircraft involved in the raid.

At 480 knots, the Shavit will be on station in two hours, but the raid commander is already working – tracking the strikers' preparations and probably holding the hands of some nervous government officials.

It will also make the first offensive move in the Israeli attack on Iran. The "special mission" in its name comes from the ability to make Suter attacks. The term "Suter" comes from a United States program called Senior Suter, which is in turn part of another program called Big Safari, which is all about attacking an enemy's information systems.

By feeding Iranian radar and communications antennas false data, the electronic attackers create fake contacts, delete real ones, insert false instructions, and possibly even crash the entire air defense network. At a minimum, a successful Suter attack allows the Israelis to see the status of the Iranian air defenses.

It's a Jedi mind trick, cyber-style: "These aren't the planes you're looking for." If the Israelis do their jobs really well, the Iranians won't even know they're being hacked until it's too late.

Since the Shavit can monitor Iranian radar and communications directly, the two Eitan UAVs carry a different payload: electronics designed to support the intrusion effort by either locat­ing emitters or transmitting signals at close range, without risking the Shavit directly.

The strikers, four squadrons of F-16I Sufas, take off half an hour after the Shavit. Slowed by ordnance and drop tanks, they cruise at 520 knots. It takes them an hour and a half to reach Delek Station, then half an hour to refuel. Because the target is just over 1,100 nautical miles (nm) away, the Sufas cannot carry a full load of ordnance – just two SPICE 2000 PGMs, as well as three drop tanks, targeting and navigation pods on the inlet stations, and two AIM-120 AMRAAMs on the wingtips.

Unlike most countries, Israeli squadrons have 24 planes instead of 12, so this first raid in the Israeli campaign will be sending 96 aircraft into Iranian airspace.

They aren't all strikers. As insurance, in case the Suter attack is not completely effective, eight F-16s are armed with HARM missiles, decoys, and cluster munitions. They will suppress the enemy defenses in the general area, knocking out radars, command centers, and SAM batteries that could threaten the incoming raid. If the Suter attack is effective, they will either accompany the raid all the way to the target or perhaps prepare the way for the second attack tomorrow.

Another eight Sufas are dedicated fighter escorts. Instead of PGMs, they each carry four AMRAAMs and two Python 5 AAMs. With a range of 44 nautical miles, the AIM-120C-5 missiles they carry outrange everything in the Iranian inventory. They're not as good as the "D" model AMRAAM (60 nm) used by the U.S., but the best the Iranians can put up is the Russian-made R-27R [AA-10 Alamo] with a range of 29 nm. With luck, the escort fighters won't even have to use afterburner, which would be a good thing so far from home.

Finally, eight F-16s will be assigned to suppress the local defenses at the target. They also carry HARM missiles and a Sky Shield Jamming pod. Thanks to electronic reconnaissance, the Israelis know which SAMs are operating near the target and what their operating patterns are.

Of the 96 fighters, 72 will carry ordnance, while another twenty-four support and protect the rest. Altogether, the raid will be able to bring 144 precision-guided munitions to the target.

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/first-strike-on-irans-nuclear-facilities-part-1/

[Tanker]

Waarom graven ze geen kanaal dwars door die punt heen ? Zou een optie kunnen zijn....

[Elzenga]

Het zal voor Iran niet zo moeilijk zijn deze pijplijn te saboteren. Al zal dit natuurlijk een sterk escalerend effect hebben en een directe aanval zijn op UAE grondgebied.

[Lex]

UAE starts up pipeline to bypass Strait of Hormuz

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates on Sunday inaugurated a much-anticipated overland oil pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, giving the OPEC member insurance against Iranian threats to block the strategic waterway.
The 380-kilometer (236-mile) Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline snakes across western desert dunes and over the craggy Hajar mountains to the city of Fujairah on the UAE's Indian Ocean coast, south of the strait.



Until now, all Emirati exports were loaded in the Gulf and then sailed out through Hormuz. Once it is running at full capacity, the pipeline could allow the country, OPEC's third biggest exporter, to ship as much as two-thirds of its peak production through the eastern port city.
It is designed to carry at least 1.5 million barrels a day of crude, though capacity is expected to eventually rise to 1.8 million barrels daily.
Efforts to bring the long-awaited export route online have gained increased urgency in recent months because of repeated threats by Iranian officials to close Hormuz if the country's own exports are blocked.
The narrow strait is patrolled by Iranian warships as well as by the U.S. Navy and its allies. It is the export route for about 17 million barrels of oil a day, or a fifth of the world's oil supply.
The chairman of Iran's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday that Tehran has a contingency plan to close the key route, though any decision to shut it rests with the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi's comments come two weeks after the European Union enforced a total oil embargo against Iran. The move is part of a series of sanctions meant to force Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment program. The West suspects Iran is aiming to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.
Emirati officials quietly began filling the new pipeline with oil on June 30, according to the UAE embassy in Washington. A statement from the embassy said the project underscores the U.S. ally's "commitment to ensuring the reliable and safe delivery of crude oil ... to global markets."
Officials including the Emirates' energy minister gathered in Fujairah for the formal inauguration of the pipeline, said Mohammed Saif al-Afkham, the director general of Fujairah municipality.
The International Petroleum Investment Co., the state-run company behind the project, confirmed that the pipeline became operational with the first commercial shipment being loaded onto a tanker for export.
The U.S. ambassador to the UAE attended the inauguration, underscoring the project's strategic significance. Ambassador Michael H. Corbin called the launch "a historic step in establishing multiple routes for the vital flow of oil from the Arabian Peninsula."
Although several Gulf Arab oil and gas producers fear a shutdown of the strait could block exports, only the UAE and Oman have coastlines on the Indian Ocean side of the strait. Saudi Arabia also can avoid Hormuz by shipping its Gulf fields' oil output through ports on the Red Sea, but it would have to significantly improve its transport infrastructure to get its full production out.

AP,
Jul. 15 1:19 PM EDT

[Lex]

Iran top leader one to decide on Strait of Hormuz

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The chairman of Iran's Joint Chiefs of Staff says the decision over whether Tehran would block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, rests in the hands of the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi says Iran has a contingency plan to close the key route, but Khamenei, as commander in chief of the armed forces, would have to make the final decision.

Firouzabadi's comments come two weeks after the European Union enforced a total oil embargo against Iran for its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program. His comments were reported by the semi-official Fars news agency Sunday.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has previously warned that Tehran would order the closure if the country's oil exports were blocked.

AP,
Jul 15, 4:44 AM EDT

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Iran issues new oil blockade warning

8:23 a.m. CDT, July 14, 2012

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran could prevent even "a single drop of oil" passing through the Strait of Hormuz if its security is threatened, a naval chief said on Saturday, as tensions simmer over Tehran's nuclear program.

Tehran will increase its military presence in international waters, said Ali Fadavi, naval commander in Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

"The IRGC's naval forces have had the ability since the (Iran-Iraq) war to completely control the Strait of Hormuz and not allow even a single drop of oil to pass through."

Fadavi added: "IRGC special naval forces are present on all of the Islamic Republic of Iran's ships in the Indian Ocean and to its east and west, to prevent any movement.

"This IRGC naval force presence in international waters will increase."

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel, through which 40 percent of the world's sea-borne oil exports passes, in retaliation for sanctions placed on its crude exports by Western powers.

The sanctions were imposed over Iran's nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at creating an atomic weapon. Iran says the program is for peaceful energy purposes.

The United States has beefed up its presence in the Gulf, adding a navy ship last week to help mine-clearing operations if Iran were to act on threats to block the strait.

Tehran said last month it was building more warships, in part to guard Iranian cargo ships from pirates, and Iranian military leaders often assert Iran's strength in the region and dominance in the Strait of Hormuz.

Military analysts have cast doubt on Iran's willingness to block the slender waterway, given the massive U.S.-led retaliation it would likely incur.

(Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Pravin Char)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-iran-militarybre86d05q-20120714,0,7038769.story

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U.K. intel: Iran 2 years from nukes

By Alan Cowell / New York Times News Service
Published: July 14. 2012 4:00AM PST

In an unusually public forum, the head of Britain's foreign intelligence agency, MI6, has forecast that Iran would likely achieve a nuclear weapons capability within two years, a British newspaper reported Friday.

The newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, quoted Sir John Sawers, once the ranking British diplomat on the Iranian nuclear issue and now head of the Secret Intelligence Service, as making the disclosure last week to a gathering of around 100 high-ranking civil servants.

The reported remarks play into a highly contentious debate over Iran's intentions and capabilities, in which estimates have varied widely.

U.S. intelligence agencies have cited a 2007 assessment stating that Iran, in fact, suspended research on nuclear weapons technology in 2003 and had not decided to take the final steps needed to build a bomb.

But Britain and Israel, in particular, have interpreted the same data to mean that a decision has been made to move to a nuclear weapons capability. For its part, Iran has frequently said it has no intention to build such weapons.

Sawers was also said to have maintained that covert operations by British intelligence agents had prevented Iran from acquiring the technology as early as 2008. A British government official, speaking in return for anonymity under departmental rules, said Sawers had been "speaking off the record to civil servants at a leadership event, and what he said has been said by others before."

According to The Daily Telegraph, the remarks were Sawers' first publicly reported assessment of Iran's nuclear ambitions since his appointment as head of MI6 in 2009. Iran, he said, was now "two years away" from becoming a "a nuclear weapons state," The Daily Telegraph reported, and when it achieved that status, the United States and Israel would have to decide whether to strike.

"The Iranians are determinedly going down a path to master all aspects of nuclear weapons; all the technologies they need," he said. "It's equally clear that Israel and the United States would face huge dangers if Iran were to become a nuclear weapon state."

Iran says its nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes but, reflecting the assessment that Tehran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability, the United States and its allies have imposed a tightening vise of economic sanctions, the latest Thursday, accompanying thus far inconclusive diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to abandon nuclear enrichment.

"I think it will be very tough for any prime minister of Israel or president of the United States to accept a nuclear-armed Iran," Sawers said.

Without previous efforts by British intelligence, he was quoted as saying, "You'd have Iran as a nuclear weapons state in 2008 rather than still being two years away in 2012."

He did not elaborate.

In recent years, several Iranian scientists have been assassinated on the streets of Tehran and a computer virus called Stuxnet has disrupted computer systems at nuclear facilities in Iran. Tehran has accused the U.S., Israeli and British secret services of conducting covert operations against it.

Sawers said MI6 has "run a series of operations to ensure that the sanctions introduced internationally are implemented, and that we do everything we can within the Middle East to slow down these remaining problems."

Earlier this month, low-level talks between Iran and the group of big powers over the Iranian nuclear program ended early with both sides saying the deputies of their top negotiators would meet at a later date. Their announcement gave no hint of progress but nonetheless suggested that neither side was ready to declare the effort a failure.

The talks, in Istanbul, were part of a series of negotiations this year and were held against a backdrop of increasingly bellicose oratory by Iran and the United States because of the nuclear impasse, which has started to raise tensions again in the Middle East.

Iran has renewed a threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital Persian Gulf oil conduit, in response to intensified U.S. and European sanctions meant to paralyze the Iranian oil industry as a pressure tactic in the nuclear talks. Iran has also said the new sanctions will have no effect on its resolve to prevail in the nuclear dispute.

Since 2010, Iran has been enriching some of its processed uranium to raise its purity from around 5 to 20 percent, saying it needs the concentrated fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. The purity is less than the 90 percent level needed for nuclear weapons, but facilitates further purification to weapons grade.

In 2011, Tehran said it would triple the amount of uranium enriched to 20 percent and slowly move the operation to a once-secret enrichment plant known as Fordo deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qum and widely considered by experts to be invulnerable to bombing.

http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120714/NEWS0107/207140378/

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Hormuz alarm bells

Iran's supreme guide believes that making a nuclear bomb is a simulation of the North Korean model, and a safety measure for his regime in the coming quarter of a century

Ahmed Eleiba , Saturday 14 Jul 2012

Although talks in Istanbul last week failed between experts and technicians of the P5+1 -- the third such meeting in the past two months after talks in Baghdad and Moscow -- a significant development occurred on the eve of talks, a source close to the talks told the Russian newspaper Kommersant. Iran proposed a plan to build a nuclear-fuelled submarine, in an attempt to legitimise its uranium enrichment project, and argued that using nuclear material as vessel fuel is a peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The Iranian project to manufacture a nuclear submarine would not be a problem for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (RG) that owns production capabilities, whether or not they need it. But the reasons why the Islamic Republic is pursuing this project have puzzled Western states.

For Iranian expert Ali Nourzadah, director of the Arab-Iranian Studies Centre, the answer is obvious. Iran's Supreme Guide Sayed Ali Khamenei has a flawed vision about his country's ability to reproduce the North Korean nuclear model in Iran, he told Al-Ahram Online in a telephone interview from London. Tehran was able to acquire nine nuclear bombs that have deterred the US for attacking it.

"Khamenei told several advisers that if Iran had possessed one nuclear bomb, the revolution and rule of the clerics would be protected for at least another 25 years during confrontations with the US and Israel," Nourzadah said, even though Washington views this as a red line and Tel Aviv sees it as a much more serious infraction.

It is true that Tehran has the capability to manufacture such vessels and submarines, but within limits. The RG sometimes holds war games and sees US aircraft carriers cruising in the Gulf guarded by six to seven vessels and a nuclear submarine below the surface. This is a temptation for them, according to Brigadier Safwat El-Zayat who has spoken to several Iranians in close to military strategies. Iran's normal submarines that run on diesel fuel require refuelling from time to time, and every few years need to be changed. On the other hand, nuclear energy can operate for 15-20 years.

"I asked Iranians whether there are commercial ships that can reach the Indian Ocean and beyond without escort protection of this kind of submarine," stated El-Zayat. He viewed them as exaggerations in the media by Tehran, which has high aspirations about what he termed as the negotiations battle in several directions. These include assassinations of its nuclear scientists, stifling sanctions including the latest by the EU on Iranian oil imports. The difficulties are not in oil exports to Europe, but 90 per cent of insurance companies in the Eurozone that protect the passage of Iranian oil to North Korea are outside this zone.

Iran is also jockeying with other international players. While it attends talks in Moscow, Iran's Shura Council threatens it will pass a law to close the Straits of Hormuz as Great Prophet 7 war games were taking place. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his country will bear the unbearable, sending a message to the world that Iran will survive these sanctions.

"It seems that the Iranian regime is dismissive of social conditions in the country under sanctions," opined Nourzadah, "especially after the value of its currency was slashed by half when sanctions were imposed on the Central Bank, followed by a ban on oil exports to EU countries." He added: "The Iranian regime is parading in front of its people the Syrian model and is waiting to see what will happen there, although it is unlikely that the Iranian street will wait much longer."

The Straits of Hormuz are a lifeline for Gulf oil supplies to the outside world, and an international treaty on international corridors signed in 1958 under the Shah stipulates that the straits are an international corridor that is not subject to local sovereignty, according to what is known as law of the sea convention. However, the regime of the supreme guide did not sign the treaty on transit passage, which gives parliament the right to condone the closing of the straits if the issue is referred to the Guardian Council.

"If Tehran closes the Straits of Hormuz it will be equivalent to a declaration of war," argued Fathi El-Maraghi, an expert on Iranian affairs at Ain Shams University. "It will also give Arab countries reason for more aggressive responses to Iran that might go beyond sanctions, because Iran will be rattling its sabre," El-Maraghi said.

Suddenly, Iran reversed its combative tone and several statements were made that the Straits of Hormuz will not be closed, although El-Zayat believes it could shut down the waterway for 11-15 weeks but that would be political folly. Now the US is also flaunting its powers by unprecedented mobilisation in the Gulf, using F-22 jets for the first time -- which Washington may not have even used before the war in Libya. He added that the RG may not shut down the Straits of Hormuz but it could hamper navigation in the waterway through suicide missions or mines or firing Cruise missiles across the Zagros Mountains.

Experts anticipate a war scenario and Nourzadah stated that Washington obtained a pledge from Tel Aviv not to go to war against Tehran before the upcoming presidential elections. The question now is whether Israel will keep its word. Nourzadah believes Israel will probably continue its policy of attrition of Iran's nuclear programme. If there are reports, however, that Iran is close to manufacturing a nuclear bomb, it will breach its promise to the Obama administration and the US will be forced to go to war the next day without a choice.

"Israel is closely watching the dramatic changes taking place in Arab Spring countries and the Islamist rise there," Jackie Khoury, a political analyst and 1948 Arab who is an expert on Arab affairs, wrote in Haaretz newspaper. "The most it can do right now is a sweeping operation to cripple progress in the nuclear programme, like it did with the Iraqi reactor Osirak. It will keep in mind, however, Arab reactions because it knows this would destablise the region and open several fronts that it will not be able to repel at once.

El-Zayat agrees with this analysis, but noted that a strike similar to Israel's attack against Syria's Deir Al-Zur reactor three years ago is more likely, since the operation was backed by the US to avoid confrontation on several fronts at once. Thus, it will be very cautious about initiating an attack irrespective of how far the Iranian nuclear programme progresses, because Tel Aviv's plan would be fraught with danger. Meanwhile, Iran is unlikely to take another step beyond "advanced nuclear capabilities", meaning that it will stop just before the manufacturing phase because circumstances are not conducive for that either. This phase will end once Tehran leaves the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

For now, more talks are expected that will deepen the chasm between Iran and the world, according to Nourzadah. "Israel has infiltrated Iran and its nuclear programme, and knows well how far Tehran has gone in manufacturing the bomb. Therefore, if we are surprised by an attack on Iran, we will know that Tehran was very close to this capability -- perhaps only one month away from production. At such a time, the possible scenarios are endless."

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/47650/World/Region/Hormuz-alarm-bells.aspx

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Iran is niet gek !.

Zeker niet.. de Amerikanen (en de Israeli) ook niet, maar je hebt genoeg aan één happy trigger finger!

Persoonlijk zou ik (al ik er iets te zoeken zou hebben) de regio in de aankomende periode niet opzoeken.

[Ros]

Dangerous game: 'US almost daring Tehran to strike first'

Iran is niet gek !.

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Dangerous game: 'US almost daring Tehran to strike first'

Published: 14 July, 2012

With sanctions against Iran gradually showing their ineffectiveness, Washington is escalating the situation in the Persian Gulf, as if encouraging Tehran to attack first, a US politics professor told RT.

­Amid pressure mounting on Tehran, a major Indian company, United India Insurance Co., has agreed to provide insurance for tankers carrying oil from Iran. Insurances are vital for sea transportation. Without insurance, tankers are unable to deliver oil from one destination to another.

The decision of an Indian company means a serious blow to the effectiveness of the US sanctions against Iran in a bid to crank up the pressure over the country's nuclear activities. The sanctions target companies accused of breaching a European ban on buying oil from Tehran.

Simultaneously, to give their sanctions policies some military support, the US is sending fourth air carrier to the Persian Gulf region. It has also been announced that America deploys underwater drones to deal with sea mines Iran might plant in the Strait of Hormuz to block the vital route.

"The more warships the US moves [to the region], the more threatened Iran is going to feel and there is more chance of triggering some kind of mistake," explains Patricia DeGennaro, professor of politics at New York University.

She says the act of sending more warships to the region is a dangerous game of "dare".

"I don't know what they are going to achieve by putting more warships in the region. This is a very bad move. Maybe they are trying to make Israel feel safer, but in fact again that is a very dangerous game that is almost daring somebody to strike first," the professor believes.

­

'Mrs. Clinton should better promote peace instead of war'

A naval clash in the Persian Gulf region is very real, DeGennaro told RT, because military communications do not often go as they are expected to.

"The Iranian military is organized a bit differently than the American military. They can get orders not normally understood... within a context of a country being threatened."

"We should do more negotiations and more diplomacy," the professor concluded. "I'd like to see Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton lead the State Department as Secretary of State instead of really promoting more war in the region."

Western intelligence claims Iran might be just a year away from building a nuclear weapon, while Tehran denies allegations of developing nuclear power for military use. This confrontation need to be resolved given neither side wants to lose face, which means negotiations in the first place, believes Patricia DeGennaro.

"Let's sit down and talk before we start pointing weapons at each other, which should really facilitate a really large scale conflict in the region."

http://www.rt.com/news/us-provoke-iran-strike-180/

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Iran tripling its fleet of mini–submarines and producing more sea mines

Iran July 12, 2012

By: Robert Tilford

Iran is rumored to have significantly ramped up production of mini-submarines, sometimes called "midget subs".

If true this could pose a serious threat to U.S. warships in the area.

I asked one U.S. Navy seaman on facebook about the threat from mini-subs and he said some interesting things off the record.

"Looking for small subs, that carry one or two frogmen and a couple of torpedo's in shallow water is unimaginably difficult . This is because the acoustics are so much more difficult to detect", he said.

In other words the smaller it is the harder it is to detect.

In addition Iran may also be doubling it sea mine production as well (see video: IRAN MILITARY HAVE 15000+ NAVAL MINES READY FOR CLOSE THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bczIxQRdwQ8 ).

The Iranians are clearly strengthening their asymmetric naval warfare capabilities, as opposed to trying to take on the US Navy directly.

See also: Iran's Doctrine of Asymmetric Naval Warfare - Naval Swarming Tactics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6zzNGHc78A

Meanwhile U.S. forces are also quietly preparing for war as well.

The U.S. has three aircraft battle groups in the region now with more ships arriving daily. Including four Avenger-class minesweepers arrived in Bahrain on June 24 of this year.

The Navy has also sent additional minesweeping helicopters called "Sea Dragons" to help assist in naval operations.

Sea Dragons are those really huge helicopters you may have seen on TV used to deliver bulk food supplies to Haiti as part of the relief effort...

If you have never seen a Sea Dragon and are curious what they look like (see video: U.S Navy MH-53E SEA DRAGON FROM HM-15 BAHRAIN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv1Gxp4pVfA ).

http://www.examiner.com/article/iran-tripling-its-fleet-of-mini-submarines-and-producing-more-sea-mines-1