Thread: United States sending aircraft carrier and bombers to Middle East to deter Iran

Originally Posted by Troy

so they are going to need to provide far more positive proof than they have so far.

if you are using the hidden hand correctly then it should be all deniable

Isn't it clear now?




US releases new photos it says incriminate Iran in tanker attacks

The United States military on Monday released new photos it says incriminate Iran in an attack last week on a tanker ship in strategic Gulf waters.

The US argument centers on an unexploded limpet mine on the Kokuka Courageous ship it says was removed by Iranians on a patrol boat.

"Iran is responsible for the attack based on video evidence and the resources and proficiency needed to quickly remove the unexploded limpet mine," the Pentagon said in a statement accompanying the imagery.

The US released a grainy black and white video last week it said showed the Iranians removing the mine, but has not provided an explanation for why they allegedly did so while the US military was observing them.

One of the photos released Monday shows what the Pentagon described as "the remnants of the magnetic attachment device of (an) unexploded limpet mine," while others picture the place where the mine was allegedly attached.

Additional images picture damage from what the US says was a limpet mine that did explode on the same ship, and others are said to show the Iranians removing the unexploded mine and the patrol boat they traveled on.

Tehran has vehemently denied any involvement in the attack on the Kokuka Courageous and another ship, and hinted that Washington itself could have done it to pile pressure on the Islamic republic on top of economic sanctions.

The crew of the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous reported that they saw a "flying object" before a second blast on board, the head of the shipping company said Friday.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/ne...tanker-attacks

Standoff with Iran exposes Trump’s credibility issue as some allies seek more proof of tanker attack

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“The German foreign minister has seen a great deal more than just that video,” Pompeo said on CBS. “He will continue to see more.”
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But Germany’s foreign minister said the video was insufficient to make a final assessment of blame. The Japanese government is similarly unconvinced, according to Japanese media reports that Tokyo has asked Washington for concrete evidence to back its conclusion Iran is responsible.

“The U.S. explanation has not helped us go beyond speculation,” a senior government official told Japan Today.

Similar demands for “credible” proof have been made by a senior European Union foreign policy adviser and by Jeremy Corbyn, who is a leading member of Britain’s Parliament.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/middleeast...ack/ar-AACZ0by

Iran says it dismantled a U.S. cyber espionage network

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it had exposed a large cyber espionage network it alleged was run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and that several U.S. spies had been arrested in different countries as the result of this action.

U.S.-Iran tensions are growing following accusations by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration that Tehran last Thursday attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, a vital oil shipping route. Iran denies having any role.

The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on Monday: “One of the most complicated CIA cyber espionage networks that had an important role in the CIA’s operations in different countries was exposed by the Iranian intelligence agencies a while ago and was dismantled.”

“We shared the information about the exposed network with our allies that led to the identification and arrest of CIA intelligence agents,” Shamkhani was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster IRIB.

He did not specify how many CIA agents were arrested and in what countries.

Shamkhani said without elaborating that some information about the case had been released by the United States, so Iran could now publish the information for the sake of public awareness.

Trump last year withdrew the United States from a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran, and is ratcheting up sanctions seeking to end Iran’s international sales of crude oil and strangle its economy.

The United States has deployed a carrier strike group and bombers to the and announced plans to deploy 1,500 troops to the Middle East, prompting fears of a conflict.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-us...-idUKKCN1TI1J0

(another equip?)

Russia thwarts U.S. cyber attacks on its infrastructure: news agencies

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has uncovered and thwarted attempts by the United States to carry out cyber attacks on the control systems of Russian infrastructure, Russian news agencies cited an unnamed security source as saying on Monday.

The disclosure was made on Russia’s RIA and TASS news agencies days after the New York Times cited unnamed government sources as saying that the United States had inserted potentially disruptive computer code into Russia’s power grid as part of a more aggressive deployment of its cyber tools.

The newspaper suggested President Donald Trump had not been informed of the intrusions. Trump, without providing evidence, said on Twitter that the article was not true.

The Kremlin had said earlier on Monday that the U.S. newspaper report was worrying and showed that a cyber war was, in theory, possible.

“We see and note such attempts,” the Russian security source was quoted as saying in response to the report. “However, we manage to neutralize these actions.”

Foreign intelligence services have stepped up cyber attacks against Russia in recent years and are targeting mainly transport, banking and energy infrastructure, the source told TASS and RIA.

Russia-U.S. relations are at post-Cold War lows, strained in particular by U.S. allegations that Moscow hacked and meddled in order to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor. Moscow denies those allegations.

When asked about the New York Times report earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “...Undoubtedly this information shows the hypothetical possibility... and all signs of cyber war and military cyber action against the Russian Federation.”

Peskov said unnamed strategic parts of the Russian economy had endured foreign cyber attacks many times in the past and that the authorities were constantly working to try to keep the economy and what he called sensitive parts of its safe.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1TI1U0

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

The persian people have got the right to live in freedom.

What happened to their elected leader in 1953?

Mohammad Mosaddegh was the 35th prime minister of Iran, holding office from 1951 until 1953, when his government was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état orchestrated by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom's MI6.

The Gulf is facing a small-scale War Scenario: no obvious solution

By Elijah J. Magnier: @ejmalrai

"The attacks taking place in the Gulf and its waters against harbours, energy supply pipelines and oil tankers have assumed the proportions of a small scale war; however a wider war will happen only if Iran or the USA make future mistakes or incite new frictions. A suspicious move or misinterpretation of events could lead to a broader Middle Eastern war, especially since both armies and their allies are on full alert. The military effectiveness of both sides and their allies – spread to all corners of the Middle Eastern – are substantial and should not be underestimated.

It is not the habit of the US to look for just, substantial and robust pretexts for war once the decision to go to war has been taken. Recent events – the sabotage acts at al-Fujairah (the Emirates), the attack on Aramco pipeline, the attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, and the US Central Command video purporting to show Iranian boat personnel removing an unexploded Limpet mine from Kokuka Courageous – have already given the US ample pretexts for war, if the US were looking for war. If this were the case, President Donald Trump would have already ordered his military to conduct precision missile strikes similar to the attack he ordered against Syria or at least a punitive airstrike together with his close European partners. Or perhaps even prepared his army to go to war as George W. Bush did with Iraq in 2003.

The reason Trump has refrained from launching any order for attack is that he is aware that a military operation against Iran will be anything but a walk in the park. The consequences of such an attack are unpredictable and its outcome will certainly not be to his obvious advantage.

This is enough to show that Trump doesn’t want to go to war and, at the same time, has failed to anticipate Iran’s reaction to his aggressive sanctions and threats. The US President most likely failed to understand or take seriously his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani when he announced last year that “if Iran can’t export oil from the Gulf, no other country can”. The habitual empty phrases and bluster of Western political discourse so characteristic of Trump perhaps make it difficult for Western leaders to engage with public figures who mean what they say.

Both sides, Iran and the US, have reached an impasse. Iran believes that agreeing to sit around a negotiation table with the US would be a signal of weakness. Moreover, Tehran has no trust in US commitments and promises. The Leader of the Revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei told Iranian officials: “If the US asks for a finger and we give it, the next demand will be for the entire hand. If we give that, the entire arm will be next and then the whole body. Never trust the US”.

Trump cornered himself when he ditched the nuclear deal and imposed severe sanctions on Iran. Indeed, he let the genie out of the bottle and unified the Iranian street population against the US administration, at a time when many in Iran were supporting negotiations and the resumption of ties with the US.

Trump underestimated the military capabilities of Iran, and in particular the strategic significance of the cruise missiles now held by Tehran’s allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. These and other similar military assets can cause great physical harm to US allies in the Middle East and to US forces deployed in the region. Such a confrontation will also destabilise the world economy and Trump will be the first to be blamed, even by his own partners, because it was he in the first place who revoked the nuclear deal triggering the current escalation of tensions- and whatever comes next.

Trump says he doesn’t want a military escalation. This intention is today clearly expressed by the US Central Command: “The United States has no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East”.

A wider war will be very destructive to Iran but equally devastating for many countries in the Middle East. Iran’s allies say they are ready for war.

In Lebanon, the Leader of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told his political officials and his military commanders last month (despite multiple denials) that war this summer is highly likely. This was also the assessment of the IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani who told his partners that Iran won’t agree to live under harsh sanctions. Sayyed Nasrallah warned this month that “entire region will burn if the US goes to war against Iran”, leading to “all US forces and interests in the region being annihilated”. In Iraq, several Iraqi groups vow to oust the several thousands of US troops from the country. These are well experienced fighters and equipped with cruise precision missiles that will more than likely be used to hit the different US bases spread over the country in case of war on Iran. In Yemen, Houthis have already used a precision cruise missile, hitting Abha Saudi airport and, last month, used an armed drone to hit an oil station in the Saudi province of Yanbu.

All this shows that Iran is ready to burn the Middle East if it is prevented from exporting its oil. Trump must now be aware of this eventuality and that the sanctions he has implemented will lead either to war or at best to the insecurity of energy shipping from the Gulf to the rest of the world.

Trump is in no position to venture into war at a time when he is about to start his electoral campaign for re-election. The bodies of US soldiers returning home in plastic bags would become the historical legacy of the Trump era.


But the US President is offering Iran nothing to negotiate for that might ease tensions. The European and the Japanese envoys flocking to Iran to “mediate” have conspicuously not offered to buy their share of the two million daily barrels of oil on which the Iranian economy depends, nor to lift the US sanctions and bring back the companies which deserted Iran under threat of US sanctions. The merely verbal support of these emissaries does nothing to ease life for the Iranian population living under these draconian economic penalties imposed by the US.

If in fact Iran is behind these attacks in the Gulf, the absence of any plausible escape from Trump’s aggression is leading Iran on a path of gradual escalation. Whoever attacked the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman did not intend to sink or destroy them; were that the case, at least 6-8 mines would have been used to destroy all compartments in the tanker. Even the position of one of two mines above the water lines suggests that whoever did this wanted to minimise pollution to the Gulf.

If this is the path Iran has chosen, the next hit will be harder. Will there be more attacks on airports, oil stations, or tankers? The next attack may sink a ship. The “war on tankers” has certainly not come to an end with this last attack in the Gulf of Oman.

Of course, Iran is the primary suspect behind these attacks, but no hard evidence has been offered to-date. Removing an unfamiliar limpet mine so quickly and easily would be quite unusual even for explosives experts. No expert – even one very familiar with the device – would touch unexploded ordnance without taking extra precautions, making a slow and acute examination of any possible booby-trap, or taking measures against a possible explosion via remote-control. Robust evidence rather than simplistic analysis is needed because of its grave implications.

So is there any way out of this cycle of escalation? Iran doesn’t trust the United Nations because the US administration has diminished its role and effectiveness. It doesn’t trust Europe, which has chosen to sit idle, divided and submissive to US sanctions and bullying. Iran doesn’t trust Trump who revoked the nuclear deal and is domestically accused of not “the rule of law or democratic institutions”.

Coordination with Russia is out because it would look bad in Trump’s election campaign. He also cannot afford to give the upper hand to China, the worst economic competitor and itself a US nightmare. The only possibility for a solution may be in the Gulf. Among Arab countries there are those that are not considered enemies and who enjoy good ties with both Iran and the US: Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, for example. If the US refuses to consider, and rely on, any of these countries to start serious negotiations, and after lifting sanctions on Iran, the current small-scale war scenario may well assume greater dimensions in coming weeks."

https://ejmagnier.com/2019/06/16/the...ious-solution/

“Unprovoked attacks on commercial shipping warrant a retaliatory military strike against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

US Senator Tom Cotton

Interestingly, such "retaliatory military strike" hasn't been exercised - and not required by the righteous Congress - when ship of their British friends Lusitania was sunk by German U-Boot in 1915, when over 1,000 people died, many of them Americans. No reason for war entry another 2 years on.

Similarly, when in 1967 USS ship Liberty was torpedoed, no reason for excitement...

Originally Posted by OhOh

The Gulf is facing a small-scale War Scenario: no obvious solution

What a load of shit.

L
ocalBlog‏ @localblogng
Iranian military claims to have shot down US spy drone Image copyright IRNA Image caption State news agency Irna published this image with its report Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) claim to have shot down a US spy drone over Iranian airspace. State media repo...

RQ-4 Global Hawk

Those Russian anti-missile hardware seems to be quite effective, there is hope to stop the American bully

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

Those Russian anti-missile hardware

Or possibly Iranian produced.

Originally Posted by SKkin

What happened to their elected leader in 1953?

Well, it looks like the U.S. and Iran have a lot in common.
They both had to fight off those money sucking, bloody, ruthless, british imperialists.
The Brits = The inventor of the first "Iranian Sanctions"

Sort of.
1953 was a joint effort - UK, USA (insert soundtrack of patriotards chanting ‘USA’ ad nauseum), and Big Oil.
Loony old King George had nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by docmartin

Sort of.
1953 was a joint effort - UK, USA (insert soundtrack of patriotards chanting ‘USA’ ad nauseum), and Big Oil.
Loony old King George had nothing to do with it.

Talking about a Déjà vu

The rats behind it in 1953 pushing the U.S. was Britain.
The rats behind it in 2019 pushing the U.S. is ...... ?

Ummmm ..... I dunno.
Donald Duck ?
The Phantom ?
Winnie the Pooh ?

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

The rats behind it in 2019 pushing the U.S. is

Do they wear small black hats or big black bearskins?

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

Those Russian anti-missile hardware

Iran Shoots Down US Drone, Says "Ready For War"



"A US-made Global Hawk spy drone was shot down by the IRGC on the Southern coasts of Iran in Hormozgan province today, using its powerful air defense system named Third of Khordad."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...says-ready-war

Allegedly one of these:



https://theiranproject.com/blog/2014...ng-capability/

Trump says Iran 'made very big mistake' after downing of US drone


Fortunately by this "big mistake" nobody died like at the "mistake" some 30 years ago when the Iranian commercial airbus with 300 people was downed.

Nevertheless...

Originally Posted by OhOh

Iran Shoots Down US Drone, Says "Ready For War"

All heating up as planned by whomever wants military confrontation.
At this point irrelevant who started it, will end in the desired out come.

^ Unless UAV was in Iranian airspace, which is very likely, giving US a whack across the knuckles. Trump needs to calm things down a bit.

Originally Posted by Troy

Trump needs to calm things down a bit.

He does but lately he looks like a deer caught in the head lights.

He is trying to stradle the fence. This may work for domestic issues but frankly I think he is completely at a loss on how to handle this situation.

Whenever his heel spurs tingle he knows the geopolitical weather is changing and he dribbles a bit.

Originally Posted by docmartin

Whenever his heel spurs tingle he knows the geopolitical weather is changing and he dribbles a bit.

......