Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

[skhara]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

Quick Update:
The NAVY basically admitted to being in the wrong over this, and the funny thing is all those hillbillies yesterday who were screaming "bomb eye ran".



On another note:
Bush actually declared that Palestinians are under Israeli occupation. I believe Iranian pressure has a lot to do with that.

[crusader1492]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

Quick Update:
The NAVY basically admitted to being in the wrong over this, and the funny thing is all those hillbillies yesterday who were screaming "bomb eye ran".

I haven't heard this yet in the media...perhaps by design. They have reinforced Iran's "evil" image in the mind of the average joe.

It's kind of like slandering someone on the front page of the Sunday paper and then printing a correction in Monday's paper on page B-3

[crusader1492]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

Quick Update:
On another note:
Bush actually declared that Palestinians are under Israeli occupation. I believe Iranian pressure has a lot to do with that.

There has to be something more to this. Bush would never go against his masters.

[Armenian]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

Besides being very vulnerable to land and air deployed anti-ship missiles, it seems that the US Navy is also very vulnerable to Iranian fast boats employing swarming tactics. I clearly remember back in 2002 alarming reports concerning the following military exercise that surprised many in the US military at the time. The war-game in question was conducted before the Iraq invasion, in preparation of the invasion. According to the outcome of the military exercise, the US Navy in the region proved to be grossly vulnerable to swarming tactics deployed by the enemy, in particular against anti-ship missiles and numerous fast boats loaded with explosives within the narrow confines of the Strait of Hormuz. After the mysterious incident earlier this week in the Strait of Hormuz, the war-game held in 2002 is making headlines again.

Note: Some military analysts have suggested that the US could move its naval forces out of the Persian Gulf and into the India Ocean before commencing attacks against Iran. However, this defensive tactic leaves US and "coalition" ground forces in the region more vulnerable to Iranian attacks. And, more importantly, it leaves oil tanker transport in the region, which accounts for approximately 20% of the global oil trade, virtually defenseless.

Armenian

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Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes ’02 War Game

There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships.

In the days since the encounter with five Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, American officers have acknowledged that they have been studying anew the lessons from a startling simulation conducted in August 2002. In that war game, the Blue Team navy, representing the United States, lost 16 major warships — an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels — when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats. “The sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack,” said Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps officer who served in the war game as commander of a Red Team force representing an unnamed Persian Gulf military. “The whole thing was over in 5, maybe 10 minutes.”

If the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, proved to the public how terrorists could transform hijacked airliners into hostage-filled cruise missiles, then the “Millennium Challenge 2002” war game with General Van Riper was a warning to the armed services as to how an adversary could apply similar, asymmetrical thinking to conflict at sea. General Van Riper said he complained at the time that important lessons of his simulated victory were not adequately acknowledged across the military. But other senior officers say the war game and subsequent analysis and exercises helped to focus attention on the threat posed by Iran’s small, fast boats, and helped to prepare commanders for last weekend’s encounter. “It’s clear, strategically, where the Iranian military has gone,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Friday. “For the years that this strategic shift toward their small, fast boats has taken place, we’ve been very focused on that.”

In the simulation, General Van Riper sent wave after wave of relatively inexpensive speedboats to charge at the costlier, more advanced fleet approaching the Persian Gulf. His force of small boats attacked with machine guns and rockets, reinforced with missiles launched from land and air. Some of the small boats were loaded with explosives to detonate alongside American warships in suicide attacks. That core tactic of swarming played out in real life last weekend, though on a much more limited scale and without any shots fired. According to Pentagon and Navy officials, five small patrol boats belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps charged a three-ship Navy convoy, maneuvering around and between an American destroyer, cruiser and frigate during a tense half-hour encounter. The location was where the narrow Strait of Hormuz meets the open waters of the Persian Gulf — the same choke point chosen by General Van Riper for his attack.

In the encounter last Sunday, the commander of one American warship trained an M240 machine gun — which fires upward of 10 armor-piercing slugs per second — on an Iranian boat that pulled within 200 yards of the American vessel. But the Iranians turned away before the commander gave the order to fire. That was not the case in the simulation, sponsored by the military’s Joint Forces Command. The victory of the force modeled after a Persian Gulf state — a composite of Iran and Iraq — astounded sponsors of what was then the largest joint war-fighting exercise ever held, involving 13,500 military members and civilians battling in nine live exercise ranges in the United States, and double that many computer simulations to replicate a number of different battles. General Van Riper’s attack was much more complex and sophisticated than anything that could have involved the Iranian boats last weekend. The broad outline of the 2002 war game was reported at the time, but in interviews since last weekend’s episode, General Van Riper and other officers have provided new details about the simulation.

In the war game, scores of adversary speedboats and larger naval vessels had been shadowing and hectoring the Blue Team fleet for days. The Blue Team defenses also faced cruise missiles fired simultaneously from land and from warplanes, as well as the swarm of speedboats firing heavy machine guns and rockets — and pulling alongside to detonate explosives on board. When the Red Team sank much of the Blue navy despite the Blue navy’s firing of guns and missiles, it illustrated a cheap way to beat a very expensive fleet. After the Blue force was sunk, the game was ordered to begin again, with the Blue Team eventually declared the victor. In a telephone interview, General Van Riper recalled that his idea of a swarming attack grew from Marine Corps studies of the natural world, where insects and animals — from tiny ant colonies to wolf packs — move in groups to overwhelm larger prey. “It is not a matter of size or of individual capability, but whether you have the numbers and come from multiple directions in a short period of time,” he said.

Although Washington and Tehran continue to duel over details of the encounter, American officials say the Iranians may have been seeking to provoke a violent confrontation as President Bush was about to visit the region. Or, the officials say, they might have been hoping to test the American reaction. Yet there is no certainty that the encounter was ordered by the government in Tehran. Pentagon officials on Friday said there were two encounters with small Iranian boats in the region last month. In one, a Navy warship fired warning shots and in the other a warning whistle was sounded. Both encounters ended without injury after the Iranian vessels turned away. Regardless, American sailors have not forgotten how a small boat that hid among refueling and garbage vessels off a port in Yemen detonated alongside the American destroyer Cole in October 2000, killing 17 Americans and crippling the warship.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/wa...12navy.html?hp

[skhara]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

This is the video release by Iranians:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SuR65PxxVA&eurl=http://www.irandefence.net/showthread.php?t=27053

I imagine the Iranians would deploy low tech mini submarines as well.

[Armenian]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

An excellent commentary, I urge you all to read this.

Bringing Death and Destruction to Muslims

by Paul Craig Roberts

After pandering to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert's right-wing government last week, US president George W. Bush carried the Israeli/neoconservative campaign against Iran to Arab countries. Sounding as authentic as the "Filipino Monkey," Bush told the Arab countries that "Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror," and that "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere." To no effect. Every country in the world, except America, knows by now that the US is the world's leading state sponsor of terror and that the neoconservative drive for US hegemony over the world threatens the security of nations everywhere. But before we get into this, let's first see what Bush means by "terrorist" and Iran's sponsorship of terrorism.

Bush considers Iran to be the leading state sponsor of terror, because Iran is believed to fund Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian ghetto. Hezbollah and Hamas are two organizations that exist because of Israeli aggression against Palestine and Lebanon. The two organizations are branded "terrorist" because they resist Israel's theft of Palestine and Israel's designs on southern Lebanon. Both organizations are resistance organizations. They resist Israel's territorial expansion and this makes them "terrorist." They are terrorists because they don't receive billions in US military aid and cannot put armies in the field with tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships, backed up by US spy satellites and Israel's nuclear weapons – although Hezbollah, a small militia, has twice defeated the Israeli army. However, Palestine is so thoroughly under the Israeli heel that Hamas can resist only with suicide bombers and obsolete rockets. It is dishonest to damn the terrorist response but not the policies that provoke the response.

The US is at war in Iraq, because the neoconservatives want to rid Israel of the Muslim governments – Iraq, Iran and Syria – that are not American surrogates and, therefore, are willing to fund Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Israeli aggression. Israel, protected by the US, has disobeyed UN resolutions for four decades and has been methodically squeezing Palestinians out of Palestine. Americans do not think of themselves or of Israel as terrorist states, but the evidence is complete and overwhelming. Thanks to the power of the Israel Lobby, Americans only know the Israeli side of the story, which is that evil anti-semite Palestinians will not let blameless Israelis live in peace and persist in their unjustified terror attacks on an innocent Israeli state.

The facts differ remarkably from Israel Lobby propaganda. Israel illegally occupies Palestine. Israel sends bulldozers into Palestinian villages and knocks down Palestinian houses, occasionally killing an American protester in the process, and uproots Palestinian olive groves. Israel cuts Palestinian villages off from water, hospitals, farmlands, employment and schools. Israel builds special roads through Palestine on which only Israelis can travel. Israel establishes checkpoints everywhere to hinder Palestinian movement to hospitals, schools and from one enclave or ghetto to another. Many Palestinians die from the inability to get through checkpoints to medical care. Israel builds illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. Israeli Zionist "settlers" take it upon themselves to evict Palestinians from their villages and towns in order to convert them into Israeli settlements. A huge wall has been built to wall off the stolen Palestinian lands from the remaining isolated ghettoes. Israeli soldiers shoot down Palestinian children in the streets. So do Israeli Zionist "settlers."

All of this has been documented so many times by so many organizations that it is pathetic that Americans are so ignorant. For example, Israeli peace groups such as Gush Shalom or Jeff Halper's Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions provide abundant documentation of Israel's theft of Palestine and persecution of Palestinians. Every time the UN passes a resolution condemning Israel for its crimes, the US vetoes it. The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees' film, The Iron Wall, reveals the enormity of Israel's crimes against Palestine. President Jimmy Carter, Israel's friend, tried to bring peace to the Middle East but was frustrated by Israel. Carter was demonized by the Israel Lobby for calling, truthfully, the situation that Israel has created "apartheid." Historians, including Israel's finest, such as Ilan Pappe, have documented The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, the title of Pappe's book published in 2006.

Israelis, such as Uri Avnery, a former member of Israel's Knesset, are stronger critics of Israel's policies toward Palestine than can be found in America. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is more outspoken in its criticism of Israeli policies than any newspaper would dare to be in North America or Europe. But it is all to no avail in brainwashed America where Israelis wear white hats and Arabs wear black hats. The ignorance of Americans commits US foreign policy to the service of Israel. As Uri Avnery wrote recently, a visitor from another planet, attending the recent press conference in Jerusalem, would conclude that Olmert is the leader of the superpower and that Bush is his vassal. Americans don't know what terror is. To know terror, you have to be a Palestinian, an Iraqi, or an Afghan.

Layla Anwar, an Iraqi Internet blogger, describes what terror is like. Terror is families attending a wedding being blown to pieces by an American missile or bomb and the survivors being blown to pieces at the funeral of the newlyweds. Terror is troops breaking down your door in the middle of the night, putting guns to your heads, and carrying off brothers, sons, and husbands with bags over their heads and returning to rape the unprotected women. Terror is being waterboarded in one of America's torture dungeons. Terror is "when you run from hospital ward to hospital ward, from prison to prison, from militia to militia looking for your loved one only to recognize them from their teeth fillings in some morgue." For people targeted by American hegemony, terror is realizing that Americans have no moral conscience. Terror is the lack of medicines from American embargoes that led to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. When asked by Lesley Stahl if the American policy was worth the children's deaths, Madeleine Albright, President Bill Clinton's secretary of state, said "we think the price is worth it."

In the feeble minds of the White House Moron and his immoral supporters, the massive deaths for which America is responsible, including those inflicted by Israel, have nothing to do with Muslim enmity toward America. Instead, Muslims hate us for our "freedom and democracy," the real threat to which comes from Bush's police state measures and stolen elections. There is dispute over the number of Iraqis killed or murdered by Bush's illegal invasion, a war crime under the Nuremberg standard, but everyone agrees the number is very large. Many deaths result from American bombing of civilian populations as the Israelis did in Lebanon and do in Gaza. There is nothing new about these bombings. President Clinton bombed civilians in Serbia in order to dictate policy to Serbia. But when Americans and Israelis bomb other peoples, it is not terror. It is only terror when the US or Israel is attacked in retaliation.

The Israeli assault from the air on Beirut apartment houses is not terror. But when a Palestinian puts on a suicide belt and blows himself up in an Israeli cafe, that's terror. When Clinton bombs a Serbian passenger train, that's not terror, but when a buried explosive takes out an American tank somewhere in Iraq, that's terror. Aggressors always have excuses for their aggression. Hitler was an expert at this. So are the US and Israel. Unfortunately for the world, there's little chance for change in America or Israel. The presidential candidates (Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich) who would bring change in Washington, without which there will be no change in Israel, are not in the running for their party's nomination. As John J. Mearsheimer noted on January 12, the candidates in the running are as much under the thumb of the Israel Lobby as Bush. The candidates are Bush clones as strongly committed as Bush to hegemony, war, Israel and executive power.

The possible exception is Obama. If he is an exception, that makes him a threat to the powers that be, and, as we might have witnessed in the NH primary, the Republican-supplied, Republican-programmed Diebold electronic voting machines can easily be rigged to deny him the Democratic nomination. Hillary will not resist Israel's wishes, and her husband's presidency bombed at will his demonized victims. There is no essential difference between the candidates or between the candidates and George W. Bush. Alabama Governor George Wallace, a surprisingly successful third party candidate for the presidency, said as long ago as 1968, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties." Today, four decades later, there's not a penny's worth of difference, not an ounce of difference. Both parties have revealed themselves to be warmonger police state parties. The US Constitution has few friends in the capital city.

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=12224

[skhara]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

I agree. He basically summarized my exact opinion on all these matters.

[Armenian]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

The Hormuz Hoax Who almost started World War III?

by Justin Raimondo

Following up on the alleged incident in the Strait of Hormuz with those five Iranian speedboats, remember that radioed threat supposedly coming from the Iranian side? Now they're blaming it on – are you ready for this? – "the Filipino Monkey," some crazy guy (or guys) whose obscene remarks have come crackling over ship radios in the area for years. Notice how quickly the official story is changing. First the transmission was a threat coming from the Iranians: now they're "unsure." This is contrary to the President's characterization of what occurred, and the Pentagon's video presentation of a threat emanating from the speedboats: the allegedly "aggressive" actions of the Iranians are underscored by an audio overlay in which a voice interpolates "I am coming to you, you will explode in a few minutes."

The Iranians are calling the US video a fabrication, and it sure does look like that. Yet the Navy Times has another explanation: "In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of "Filipino Monkey," likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets. "Navy women – a helicopter pilot hailing a tanker, for example – who are overheard on the radio are said to suffer particularly degrading treatment. Several Navy ship drivers interviewed by Navy Times are raising the possibility that the Monkey, or an imitator, was indeed featured in that video."

The Monkey, in this account, takes on the aura of a legend, alongside Scylla and Charybdis: "Rick Hoffman, a retired captain who commanded the cruiser Hue City and spent many of his 17 years at sea in the Gulf was subject to the renegade radio talker repeatedly, often without pause during the so-called 'Tanker Wars' of the late 1980s. 'For 25 years there's been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats,' he said. 'He could be tied up pierside somewhere or he could be on the bridge of a merchant ship.' And the Monkey has stamina. 'He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy,' he said. 'But who knows how many Filipino Monkeys there are? Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.'" Spurious is right. According to this guy, there is no Filipino Monkey: "First of all any seaman, military or commercial, can tell you their is no heckler know as the "Filipino Monkey". Rather it's a phrase that's been uttered by thousands of mariners for decades. This harassing radio call with racial origins is made over the radio when a sailor hears the distinct accent of a Filipino mariner on the VHF radio. Why is it said? Mostly out of boredom but also for the simple reason that it is sure to get a heated response.

"…Initially I was shocked that a Navy ship, or any ship, could not have known the taunt was a joke. This is seamanship 101. I clearly remember having the taunt whispered in my ear by an upperclassmen during my plebe year that the Naval Academy and by the time I received my officers license I had heard it hundreds of time. How could the officers of the cruiser Port Royal not know this was a common joke? I'm admitting still confused but after hearing the audio file I must say it doesn't sound like the typical 'Filipino Monkey' taunt." Oh, and look over here, at this Los Angeles Times story from November 12, 1987: "A cargo ship was sailing through the Strait of Hormuz recently when it was challenged by an Iranian warship demanding to know what it carried. Iranian gunboats in these waters frequently attack vessels they suspect of carrying war materials to Iraq, and for the crew of the cargo ship, it was a tense moment. "'What is your cargo? What is your cargo?' the voice of an Iranian officer crackled over the radio. "Before the ship's captain could respond, a third voice came on the air: 'I am carrying machine guns and hand grenades to Iraq . . . and the atom bomb.'

"The Filipino Monkey had struck again."

And again – and again. The Monkey, the Times tells us, hated Iranians, and told them what he thought of them "in graphic terms." The return of the Monkey is so very convenient – anything can be attributed to that mischievous imp of the perverse and the profane, including doing the voiceover for a staged Gulf of Tonkin-style "incident." Now, I'm not saying that this is so, only that several factors raise the possibility. The Navy Times interviewed "a former skipper" who "noted how quiet and clean the radio 'threat' was, especially when radio calls from small boats in the chop are noisy and cluttered. 'It's a tough environment, you're bouncing around, moving fast, lots of wind, noise. It's not a serene environment,' he said. 'That sounded like somebody on the beach or a large ship going by.'"

A large ship – there are several such in the crowded waterways of the Strait, and surely the American warships are the largest. As for beach – there's plenty to choose from. There are also plenty of US military bases for a country not quite as big as Kansas: Thumrait Naval Air Base, the Masirah Air Base, and the US Air Force stationed at Seeb International Airport, the sultanate's main air transport hub. There is also a naval base at Al Khasab, on the Musandam peninsula – the Omani side of the "beach" where captain Hoffman thinks the transmission might have come from. I don't buy the Monkey narrative: it sounds too much like a cover story to be quite real. Time magazine, too, has its suspicions: "There may be a serious problem here. Has the Bush administration's demonization of Iran so pervaded the U.S. government that the judgement of vital decision-makers is becoming dangerously clouded? So when a possible practical joker issues a threat to a warship, you have a Strangelovian military chain of command from Bahrain to Washington racing to insist that the crazy, murderous mullahs in Tehran are at it again."

The problem may be more serious than Time blogger Scott Macleod, reporting from Cairo, may think, but, in any case, he has lots of questions. He wants to know "If there was any monkey business involved in how the Pentagon originally spun the sensational kamikaze angle to the press and the global public. How seriously did the officers on the three ships take the suicide-attack threat? Were they certain that it had been issued by the Iranians? Did they consider or believe that it could have come from a prankster? How carefully did the Pentagon analyze the verbal threat once it was relayed back to Washington? Were officials there completely convinced that the threat came from Iran? Or did they have doubts yet went ahead anyway and indicated to reporters that Iran did it? Were officers on the scene and Pentagon officials in Washington aware that pranksters are prevalent on the Gulf radio networks? Did they factor that into their risk assessment and into their decision to point a quick finger at Iran?"

This narrative depends on the authenticity of the Monkey – who may or may not be more than one person – but we have no proof of that , and every reason to disbelieve it. Whoever told the Americans that they were going to explode "in a few minutes" was certainly monitoring the scene at sea, perhaps in sight of the encounter: in any case, the voice did not sound Iranian, according to Farsi speakers interviewed by the Washington Post. "Some have even said the voice sounds more like Borat than a real Iranian," quips Editor and Publisher. Gee, I wonder if they hired an actor to do the voiceover. No one is saying that the US government, or some subterranean branch of it – perhaps a "rogue" faction, as in Iran-Contra – is responsible for what happened in the Strait of Hormuz, where a "misunderstanding" almost sparked World War III. However, it's just possible – given our government's dismal record in this regard – that we'll be talking about the Hormuz Hoax, years from now, when the history of this decade of deception is written.

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12230

[Armenian]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

Israel may have to take military action against Iran: Bolton

Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Monday that Israel may have to take military action to prevent its archfoe Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb. Bolton also said that further UN sanctions against the Islamic republic will be ineffective in stopping Iran's controversial nuclear programme which Israel and the US believe is aimed at developing a bomb -- a claim denied by Tehran. One can say with some assurance that in the next year the use of force by the United States is highly unlikely," Bolton told AFP on the sidelines of the Herzliya conference on the balance of Israel's national security. "That increases the pressure on Israel in that period of time... if it feels Iran is on the verge of acquiring that capability, it brings the decision point home to use force," he said.

The hawkish former diplomat said that after a US intelligence report published late last year that claimed Iran had suspended a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, the US was unlikely to take military action against it. "The pressure is on Israel now after the National Intelligence Estimate because, I think, the likelihood of American use of force has been dramatically reduced," he said. Widely considered the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel considers Iran its number one enemy following repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the xxxish state to be wiped off the map.

Bolton said that military action against Iran should be taken before Tehran acquires a bomb. "The calculus in the region changes dramatically once Iran has nuclear capability, meaning the preemptive use of force or the overthrow of the Iranian regime has to come before they get the weapon," Bolton said. "If you are worried about an Iran with nuclear weapons and an extreme theological regime in power, the time to take the plan of action is before Iran acquires the weapons.

"Once it acquires the weapons there is a risk of retaliation with nuclear capability and that's why Israel is in danger -- it is a very small country and two or three nuclear weapons (and) there is no more country. The pressure to act is intensive and the window of time available is narrow." Bolton also said that despite Iranian threats to hit hard if it is attacked, "their response will be a lot more measured than people think." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week said that all options were on the table to prevent an Iranian bomb. The Israeli military last week also successfully test-fired a ballistic missile said to be able to carry a non-conventional warhead.

Bolton said that a new round of United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran was "unlikely" and that Tehran would not be deterred by further diplomatic sanctions. "Maybe there will be another resolution but it will be even more toothless than the previous two sanction resolutions... International pressure through diplomacy of sanction has no chance of shifting Iran's policies over the next year." A senior Israeli security official said in reaction that "one should listen very closely to what Bolton has to say."

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...0MaLy1mhuH3N1g

ANALYSIS: New Israeli spy satellite sends Iran a message

The pre-dawn launch Monday of a new reconnaissance satellite further establishes Israel as one of the world's superpowers in space, and grants it an important further intelligence advantage over its rivals. The primary intelligence contribution of the TECSAR satellite, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, lies in improving capabilities of intelligence gathering and coverage over Iran. Although planned several years ago and delayed a number of times of late, the launch sends anew a message to Iran that Israel continues to maintain its superiority in the field of intelligence in space. The message coincidentally accompanies last week's high-profile launch of an Israeli Jericho ballistic missile, also intended as a signal to the leaders of Iran.

The launch of an Israeli satellite atop an Indian missile from a launch site in India bears a number of additional advantages. First, it enables Israel to establish a new point of view in space, allowing it photographic angles which were unavailable in prior satellite launches. The direction of the launch, from the east and opposite to the earth's rotation, allows Israel increased coverage of sites in Iran. TECSAR's optical capability is based on SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) technology and on its cameras, which are more advanced than those employed by the Ofek intelligence satellites developed and used by Israel. Image resolution will be better, sharper, and of higher overall quality. The radar technology aboard TECSAR renders its photo abilities usable under all earth weather conditions, including dense clouds, rain, and storms, and at night as well as during the daylight hours.

One of the world's space superpowers

Even before the Monday launch, Israel could take pride in being one of the world's superpowers in space, along with the United States, Russia, France, Britain, China and India. At the moment, Israel has three reconnaissance satellites in space, Ofek 5, launched in May, 2002, Ofek 7, sent into orbit last July, and TECSAR. It also has three communications satellites of the Amos and EROS series. This satellite system furnishes visual intelligence from radar. The launch is also an expression of the growing cooperation between Israel and India in the security sphere as a whole, and in particular in the fields of missiles, radar, and satellites. India is currently the most important export market for Israeli weapons systems, hardware, know-how, and technology. Although command, control, and supervision of the TECSAR will be in Israel's hands, The Times of India has reported that Israel will allow India access to some of the data sent back to ground stations. This is a sensitive issue for Israel, because it may spark anger in Pakistan. On the other hand, Iran, which has close ties with India, which in the past supplied Tehran with materials and equipment for developing chemical weaponry, would be expected to be angry with India over the launch of an Israeli satellite.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946765.html

Iran defiant after Israeli missile test

Israel tested a missile on Thursday, prompting Iran to vow retaliation if the xxxish state carried out recent veiled threats to launch strikes, possibly atomic, against Tehran's nuclear facilities. Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear warheads and missiles able to hit Iran. It gave no details of the trial. A defence official said it was "not just flexing its muscles", three days after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to consider "all options" to prevent Iran building nuclear weapons. As oil prices rose almost 1 percent on the new Middle East tension, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who says his country wants only atomic energy, said Israel would hold off: "The Zionist regime ... would not dare attack Iran," he said. "The Iranian response would make them regret it. They know this," he told Al Jazeera in remarks translated into Arabic.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged the West to work harder to prevent "the appearance of a nuclear Iran", a message Olmert and his team rammed home to George W. Bush when the U.S. president visited Jerusalem a week ago on a regional tour aimed partly at rallying Arab states against Tehran. Israel, Washington's closest Middle East ally, says Iran could have a bomb by 2010 that would threaten its existence. Iran has also carried out tests of long-range missiles. Israel was dismayed by a recent U.S. intelligence report that said Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. The report fuelled speculation Israel might attack Iran on its own if U.S. public opinion prevented Bush from doing so.

Israel bombed a site in Syria in September, an attack that recalled its 1981 strike on Saddam Hussein's Iraqi nuclear reactor. But many analysts say Olmert's political weakness makes a pre-emptive, unilateral attack on Iran unlikely. Israel's Defence Ministry said: "A successful missile launch was carried out within the framework of examining rocket propulsion." It gave no other details and one former official in Israeli missile defence said the timing might be coincidence. Israel Radio said the missile tested was able to carry an "unconventional payload" -- an apparent reference to the nuclear warheads Israel is assumed to possess.

Israel Radio, which operates under military censorship, quoted unidentified foreign reports as saying Israel was developing a long-range surface-to-surface missile, Jericho III. Amateur photographs posted on Israeli news Web sites showed a white plume in the sky above central Israel -- suggesting a test of a large missile rather than of smaller, anti-missile defensive rockets that Israel is also believed to be developing. Analysts say that Israel's Jericho II missile, based on a rocket it uses to launch satellites into space, can take nuclear warheads and has long had a range of at least 1,300 km (800 miles) -- enough to reach Tehran. Defence experts said Israel is probably trying to improve its missiles' range and accuracy.

The United Nations Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment -- a process that can be used for both electricity and bombs. But the five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- and Germany are split over how to proceed after the U.S. estimate that said Tehran halted nuclear weapons efforts four years ago. Foreign ministers from the six countries will meet in Berlin on Tuesday to debate Iran strategy.

"There are open questions Iran urgently needs to resolve to re-establish lost trust," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Vienna before meeting head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei. Israel's Livni said in Moscow that Russia's first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran's first power plant in Bushehr "may serve military goals". Livni said sanctions had put "certain pressure" on Tehran, but their effect "has not been critical". "Those taking decisions on Iran are being watched by everyone in our region," she said. "We expect the world will not allow the appearance of a nuclear Iran."

But Russia and China appear reluctant to support a third round of sanctions on Iran after the U.S. report. China hinted at continued distaste for steps to isolate Iran, a major source of oil for Beijing. "We hope Iran will be able to abide by the relevant Security Council resolutions (demanding an enrichment halt) and continue to show flexibility and fully cooperate with the international community," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is in Beijing for talks and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is also visiting China for discussions that will feature Iran.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldN...23222920080117

[Armenian]

Re: Consequences Of Attacking Iran And Why Tehran Is Not Worried

Iran Says It Could Attack US Bases

Iran's top military commander said Saturday that his forces would retaliate against American military bases in the Persian Gulf if they are involved in any possible future attack on Iran. General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guards, told Al-Jazeera television that it is Iran's "natural right to respond" if attacked by land or air. But he assured Arab Gulf countries — some of whom are home to U.S. military bases — that only American forces would come under counterattack. "We realize that there is worry among neighboring countries — Muslim countries whose lands host U.S. military stations," Jaafari said. He spoke in Farsi, which the network dubbed over in Arabic. "However, if the U.S. launches a war against us, and if it uses these stations to attack Iran with missiles, then through the strength and precision of our own missiles, we are capable of targeting only the U.S. military forces who attack us," he told the station. On a recent visit to the Gulf countries, President Bush branded Iran the leading state sponsor of terror, and said "all options" against Tehran remain on the table. Many of the Gulf's Sunni Arab states want Washington to keep Shiite Iran's ambitions in check, but are nervous about the impact of any military confrontation. The U.S. military has several bases in Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Yemen. Many Gulf Arabs have expressed concern that those bases make them vulnerable to attack.

Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i...bb95gD8UDRED80