THE NEXT ACT

[VandeWiel]

Dit is zeker geen goede:

"Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt.

If that doesn't produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off - or else."

Dreigen kun je alleen volhouden als je tot actie overgaat als er niets gebeurt. Geen fijn idee...



"Hostile" Iran Sparks U.S. Attack Plan
Pentagon Wary Of Tehran's Expanding Nuclear Program And Alleged Support Of Iraqi Insurgents


(CBS) A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran's still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran's uranium enrichment plant show the country's defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can't strike.

"I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," Mullen said.

Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq. Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt.

If that doesn't produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off - or else.



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/29/eveningnews/main4056941.shtml?source=mostpop_story

[VandeWiel]

De VS dreigen al een week met represailles om wat er in Basra is gebeurd, de druk naar iran en n.korea wordt opgevoerd met het uitbrengen van de gegevens rond de aanval op de kerncentrale in Syrië en wat zal de volgende stap zijn? Het spel wordt in ieder geval door alle partijen weer op allerhoogste niveau gespeeld met alle risico's. Voorlopig bluf, maar dat kan zo omslaan.



MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has temporarily added a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf as a "reminder" to Iran, but this was not an escalation of American forces in the region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters during a trip to Mexico, Gates flatly denied a suggestion that the presence of two U.S. carriers in the Gulf could be a precursor to military action against Tehran.

"This deployment has been planned for a long time," Gates said. "I don't think we'll have two carriers there for a protracted period of time. So I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."

He declined to elaborate on his remarks and provided no details about the deployment.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the second carrier arrived in the Gulf on Tuesday to replace one on duty that was expected to depart the region in two days.

U.S. Navy officials were not immediately available for comment.

News of the second carrier came amid simmering tension between the United States and Iran that has fed speculation about a possible U.S. military strike.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the Pentagon had military options it could consider against Tehran but stressed that the United States would continue to rely on diplomatic and economic methods to address its concerns.  Continued...

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN2937818820080430

[Offenbach]

Iran: Retaliation for any Israeli attack

Wed Sep 19, 7:07 PM ET

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has drawn up plans to bomb Israel if the Jewish state should attack, the deputy air force commander said Wednesday, adding to tensions already heated up by an Israeli airstrike on Syria and Western calls for more U.N. sanctions against Tehran.

Other Iranian officials also underlined their country's readiness to fight if the U.S. or Israel attacks, a reflection of concerns in Tehran that demands by the U.S. and its allies for Iran to curtail its nuclear program could escalate into military action.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Sunday that the international community should prepare for the possibility of war in the event Iran obtains atomic weapons, although he later stressed the focus is still on diplomatic pressures.

The comments come as the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Adm. William Fallon, is touring Persian Gulf countries seeking to form a united front of Arab allies against Iran's growing influence in the region.

Iran has periodically raised alarms over the possibility of war, particularly when the West brings up talk of sanctions over Tehran's rejection of a U.N. Security Council demand that it halt uranium enrichment.

"We have drawn up a plan to strike back at Israel with our bombers if this regime (Israel) makes a silly mistake," Iran's deputy air force commander, Gen. Mohammad Alavi, said in an interview with the semiofficial Fars news agency.

Alavi warned that Israel is within range of Iran's medium-range missiles and fighter-bombers.

The Iranian air force had no immediate comment on the Fars report. But Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammed Najjar told the official IRNA news agency that "we keep various options open to respond to threats. ... We will make use of them if required."

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards also weighed in, saying Iran "has prepared its people for a possible confrontation against any aggression."

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Alavi's comment "is not constructive and it almost seems provocative."

"Israel doesn't seek a war with its neighbors. And we all are seeking, under the U.N. Security Council resolutions, for Iran to comply with its obligations" under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, she said.

During a stop in Jerusalem, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington is committed to diplomacy, but added that the U.S. hasn't taken any military "options off the table." She said that "it can't be business as usual" with Iran, a country whose president has spoken of wiping Israel off the map.

For diplomacy to work, she said, "it has to have both a way for Iran to pursue a peaceful resolution of this issue and it has to have teeth, and the U.N. Security Council and other measures are providing teeth."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said his government took Iran's "threat very seriously and so does the international community."

"Unfortunately we are all too accustomed to this kind of bellicose, extremist and hateful language coming from Iran," he said.

Israeli warplanes in 1981 destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein's regime, and many in the region fear Israel or the U.S. could mount airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities if Tehran doesn't bow to Western demands to cease uranium enrichment.

Iran, which says it isn't trying to produce material for atomic bombs but rather fuel for reactors that would generate electricity, has said in the past that Israel would be the first retaliatory target for any attack. But Alavi's comments were the first to mention specific contingency plans.

David Ochmanek, an international policy analyst with the U.S.-based RAND Corporation, said Iran has the capability to attack Israel with a limited number of ballistic missiles, but Israel could potentially inflict greater damage on Iran.

"If Israelis attacked Iran it would be with high precision weapons that could destroy military targets," he said. "They could destroy Iran's nuclear reactor and do damage to the enrichment."

"The Iranian response would be quite different," Ochmanek said. "It would be small numbers of highly innaccurate missiles and the intention would be to do this for psychological purposes rather than to destroy discrete targets. It's an asymmetrical relationship."

A top Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander warned earlier this week that U.S. bases around Iran would also be legitimate targets.

"Today, the United States is within Iran's sight and all around our country, but it doesn't mean we have been encircled. They are encircled themselves and are within our range," Gen. Mohammed Hasan Kousehchi told IRNA.

U.S. forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Persian Gulf, Kuwait hosts a major U.S. base, the U.S. 5th Fleet patrols from its base in Bahrain, and the U.S. Central Command is housed in Qatar.

Tensions have been raised by a mysterious Israeli air incursion over Syria on Sept. 6. Israel has placed a tight news blackout on the reported incident, while Syria has said little. U.S. officials said it involved an airstrike on a target.

One U.S. official said the attack hit weapons heading for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Syria and Iran, but there also has been speculation the Israelis hit a nascent nuclear facility or were studying routes for a possible future strike on Iran.

Former Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he was involved "from the beginning" in the alleged airstrike, the first public mention by an Israeli leader about the incident. Netanyahu, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, did not give further details.

Edward Djerejian, founding director of Rice University's Baker Institute, said the accusation that Israel had violated Syrian airspace, and possibly launched an attack on Syrian territory, was putting new concerns on an already tense situation.

"The region is very nervous," said Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Syria.

With Iran adding to the talk of military options, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called Wednesday for U.N. Security Council members and U.S. allies to help push for a third round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

But Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said Moscow opposes new sanctions, adding they could hurt a recent agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency aimed at resolving questions about the Iranian program.

Two U.N. resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran have failed to persuade the country to suspend uranium enrichment.

Burns said he would host a Friday meeting of the Security Council's permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France. Talks on a new resolution are also expected next week in New York, when world leaders attend the annual ministerial session of the U.N. General Assembly.

___

Bron: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070919/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_israel

[KapiteinRob]

Het topic gaat over de volgende stap m.b.t. Iran.....

Rob
Forumbeheerder

[georges]

Ik vind het toch een levensgroot verschil hoor als wanneer een terrorist een huis binnen valt puur om de bewoners uit te moorden, of dat je een huis binnenvalt (al dan niet illegaal) met de bedoeling orde op zaken te stellen en de raddraaiers uit te schakelen, maar daardoor toch bewoners door rondvliiegende kogels  om komen.

[Nastov]

Ik sluit me bij Mourning aan.

[Mourning]

Beetje een tendentieus berichtje, Ronald. Ik spreek overigens liever over "omgekomen" ipv "vermoorde".

[georges]

In 3 dagen?!?!?!?! In de Golfoorlog hebben ze weken en weken dag en nacht lopen te bombarderen en nog slechts een heel klein percentage van het Iraakse leger was vernietigd..
Het zou wel revolutionair zijn, een leger die verslagen wordt zonder ingreep van de landmacht.. ::)

Valt trouwens wel op dat Noord Korea na jaren lang ineens ophoudt met zijn nuclaire ambities...

[Ton de Zwart]

Hoewel je het nooit zeker weet, geloof ik er in eerste instantie niks van. De USA heeft de handen vol in Irak en Afghanistan, de centen zijn op en de strijdkrachten zijn oorlogsmoe.  Daarbij ligt een nieuw avontuur helemaal niet gunstig in de publieke opinie.

Andere invalshoek is echter dat er broodnodig ingegrepen moet worden om te voorkomen dat Iran een atoomwapen krijgt. Hoe dan ook , is dat gevaarlijker dan wat dan ook.  Maar Israël zit zeker niet te slapen en daar een en ander van overlevingsbelang voor hen is zullen zij zeker oip tijd ingrijpen.....

[VandeWiel]

Wat er ook aan de hand is, de druk wordt op dit moment stevig opgevoerd. In een paar dagen tijd berichten die niet als toeval samen kunnen vallen. Een korte bloemlezing:

Bush gebruikt het woord "Holocaust"

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/08/28/afx4061422.html

Dit is een term die je in de politiek niet zo maar te monde mag nemen, enkel en alleen als je er iets aan gaat doen om dit te voorkomen.


ElBaradei praat over laatste kans:

"In any case, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Mohamed ElBaradei was quoted as telling Der Spiegel on Saturday that the agreement could be Iran's "last chance" to resolve the crisis."

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5guVOsgcGyE52TDNKb67nGNaxi8mwa

Weet ElBaradei wat er aan staat te komen?


Sarkozy noemt Iran grootste dreiging:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295237,00.html

Dit was goed nieuws voor Bush, na het vertrek van Blair staat hij toch niet helemaal alleen, alhoewel hij zich daar niet veel van zou aantrekken.


Het lekken van aanvalsplannen:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2369001.ece

Is dit nu wel toeval? Of worden er bewust dergelijke berichten rondgestuurd om de spanningen te versterken om iets te forceren of de wereld klaar te maken voor de volgende stappen?


Dat betekent of dat ingewijden weten wat er aan staat te komen, of dat men nu op zeer hoog niveau poker aan het spelen is om Iran het laatste zetje te geven om mee te werken. En bij poker moet je weten wat je volgende stap is als de bluf niet wordt gepakt. Na een paar maanden van relatieve rust en een zeer bewuste kalmte zijn dit geen goede berichten.

[Mourning]

Eerste artikel klinkt geloofwaardig.... tweede klinkt eerder als een ontevreden officier dan anything else. En aangezien de strijdkrachten van de VS een behoorlijke omvang hebben is het niet verbazingwekkend dat daar mensen ontevreden zijn met de huidige administration. Dat de ontevredenheid in het militaire apparaat groter is geworden de laatste paar jaar lijkt me duidelijk, maar dat maakt dit stuk nog niet ineens zeer geloofwaardig.

Regards,

Mourning 

[Lex]

misschien een beetje gezocht...

Who can tell?

maar het zijn vaak dit soort kleine signalen die duiden op dingen die komen gaan...

Ron, aan de andere zijde is het militaire (maritieme) potentieel van de USA in de Arabische Golf afgenomen. De "Stennis" CBG is terug in hun thuishaven aan de Westkust.

[Iris]

Zal nooit gebeuren.

Ze weten zelf van de nucleare reactors en kernwapens, en de OLIE, ze gaan dus écht niet Iran cleansweapen.

Hierzooo meer info

[unclero]

Ik durf een heel biertje te verwedden dat het lariekoek is. Heeft de VS nog wel geld voor nog een weinig-opleverend-avontuurtje dan?

[Lt.Bozz]

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus".

President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust". He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran "before it is too late".
Related Links


One Washington source said the "temperature was rising" inside the administration. Bush was "sending a message to a number of audiences", he said � to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations security council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week reported "significant" cooperation with Iran over its nuclear programme and said that uranium enrichment had slowed. Tehran has promised to answer most questions from the agency by November, but Washington fears it is stalling to prevent further sanctions. Iran continues to maintain it is merely developing civilian nuclear power.

Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well placed source, Washington believes it would be prudent to use rapid, overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.

Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to be ready to attack if the Americans back down.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which uncovered the existence of Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, said the IAEA was being strung along. "A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA," he said. "They're giving a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to have practised deception."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush administration last week by vowing to fill a "power vacuum" in Iraq. But Washington believes Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the Americans in Iraq.

The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by Kimberly Kagan that explicitly uses the term "proxy war" and claims that with the Sunni insurgency and Al-Qaeda in Iraq "increasingly under control", Iranian intervention is the "next major problem the coalition must tackle".

Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months � "despite pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq".

It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the Iranians. But Debat believes the Pentagon's plans for military action involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.


Zie ook deze interview :

I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.

I asked her why she is telling me this.

Her answer was really amazing.

    * Maccabee's diary :: ::
*

She started in the Marines and after 8 years her term was up. She had served on a smaller Marine carrier, and found out through a friend knew there was an opening for a junior grade LSO in a training position on a supercarrier. She used the reference and the information and applied for a transfer to the United States Navy. Since she had experience landing F-18Cs and Cobra Gunships, and an unblemished combat record, she was ratcheted into the job, successfully changing from the Marines to the Navy. Her role is still aligned with the Marines since she generally is assigned to liason with the Marine units deploying off her carrier group.

Like most Marines and former Marines, she is largely apolitical. The fact is, most Marines are trigger pullers and most trigger pullers could care less who the President is. They simply want to be the tip of the sword when it comes to defending the country. She voted once in her life and otherwise was always in some forward post on the water during election season.

Something is wrong with the Navy and the Marines in her view. Always ready to go in harms way, Marines rarely ever question unless it's a matter of tactics or honor. But something seems awry. Junior and senior officers are starting to grumble, roll their eyes in the hallways. The strain of deployments is beginning to hit every jot and tittle of the Marines and it's beginning to seep into the daily conversation of Marines and Naval officers in command decision.

"I know this will sound crazy coming from a Naval officer", she said. "But we're all just waiting for this administration to end. Things that happen at the senior officer level seem more and more to happen outside of the purview of XOs and other officers who typically have a say-so in daily combat and flight operations. Today, orders just come down from the mountaintop and there's no questioning. In fact, there is no discussing it.  I have seen more than one senior commander disappear and then three weeks later we find out that he has been replaced. That's really weird. It's also really weird because everyone who has disappeared has questioned whether or not we should be staging a massive attack on Iran."

"We're not stupid. Most of the members of the fleet read well enough to know what is going on world-wise. We also realize that anyone who has any doubts is in danger of having a long military career yanked out from under them. Keep in mind that most of the people I serve with are happy to be a part of the global war on terror. It's just that the touch points are what we see since we are the ones out here who are supposedly implementing this grand strategy. But when you liason with administration officials who don't know that Iranians don't speak Arabic and have no idea what Iranians live like, then you start having second thoughts about whether these Administration officials are even competent."

I asked her about the attack, how limited and so forth.

"I don't think it's limited at all. We are shipping in and assigning every damn Tomahawk we have in inventory. I think this is going to be massive and sudden, like thousands of targets. I believe that no American will know when it happens until after it happens. And whatever the consequences, whatever the consequences, they will have to be lived with. I am sure if my father knew I was telling someone in a news organization that we were about to launch a supposedly secret attack that it would be treason. But something inside me tells me to tell it anyway."

I asked her why she was suddenly so cynical.

"I have become cynical only recently. I also don't believe anyone will be able to stop this. Bush has become something of an Emperor.  He will give the command, and cruise missiles will fly and aircraft will fly and people will die, and yet few of us here are really able to cobble together a great explanation of why this is a good idea. Of course many of us can give you the 4H Club lecture on democracy in the Mid East. But if you asked any of the flight officers whether they have a clear idea of what the goal of this strike is, your answer would sound like something out of a think tank policy paper. But it's not like Kosovo or when we relieved the tsunami victims. There everyone could tell you in a sentence what we were here doing."

"That's what's missing. A real sense of purpose. What's missing is the answer to what the hell are we doing out here threatening this country with all this power? Last night in the galley, an ensign asked what right do we have to tell a sovereign nation that they can't build a nuke. I mean the table got EF Hutton quiet. Not so much because the man was asking a question that was off culture. But that he was asking a good question. In fact, the discussion actually followed afterwards topside where someone in our group had to smoke a cigarette. The discussion was intelligent but also in lowered voices. It's like we aren't allowed to ask the questions that we always ask before combat. It's almost as if the average seaman or soldier is doing all the policy work."

She had to hang up. She left by telling me that she believes the attack is a done deal. "It's only a matter of time before their orders come and they will be sent to station and told to go to Red Alert. She said they were already practicing traps, FARP and FAST." (Trapping is the act of catching the tension wires when landing on the carrier, FARP is Fleet Air Combat Maneuvering Readiness Program- practice dogfighting- and FAST is Fleet Air Superiority Training).

She seemed lost. The first time in my life I have ever heard her sound off rhythm, or unsure of why she is doing something. She knows that there is something rotten in the Naval Command and she, like many of her associates are just hoping that the election brings in someone new, some new situation, or something.

"Yes. We're gong to hit Iran, bigtime. Whatever political discussion that are going in is window dressing and perhaps even a red herring. I see what's going on below deck here in the hangars and weapons bays. And I have a sick feeling about how it's all going to turn out."

Wat moeten we hiervan geloven ?



Bron : geenstijl.nl / http://www.timesonline.co.uk