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The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby dissident » Thu 16 Feb 2012, 10:39:10

Various western states are closing their embassies in Syria in what looks like a run up to a "coalition of the billing" attack. The planners with global ambitions in the west better think twice about doing as they please. All their plans for Iran may go down the toilet. Military intervention in Syria without a UN fig leaf means that nuclear weapons can be deployed on Iranian soil from certain friendly governments. These sanctimonious western governments will hardly be in any position to complain about international law. As evident from the North Korea case, there is no stomach amongst the wannabe global managers for military intervention in the presence of at most a few nuclear devices.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby rangerone314 » Thu 16 Feb 2012, 20:35:59

dissident wrote:Various western states are closing their embassies in Syria in what looks like a run up to a "coalition of the billing" attack. The planners with global ambitions in the west better think twice about doing as they please. All their plans for Iran may go down the toilet. Military intervention in Syria without a UN fig leaf means that nuclear weapons can be deployed on Iranian soil from certain friendly governments. These sanctimonious western governments will hardly be in any position to complain about international law. As evident from the North Korea case, there is no stomach amongst the wannabe global managers for military intervention in the presence of at most a few nuclear devices.

A false flag nuclear strike against a country Iran is unfriendly towards, while Iran is in possession of nuclear weapons, could result in a massive nuclear counter-strike reducing Iran to a burning cinder.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Revi » Thu 16 Feb 2012, 21:48:19

I don't think Iran has a way to export oil to China and India without going through the straights of Hormuz. Therefore they have very little to gain and a lot to lose if they shut the straights down. On the other hand we have a lot to lose if they start to trade oil for rupees and gold. Right now the Indians have to turn their money into dollars in Turkey in order to buy oil, but if they work something else out it cuts the dollar out. That's what all the sabre rattling is about actually.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby dissident » Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:30:39

rangerone314 wrote:A false flag nuclear strike against a country Iran is unfriendly towards, while Iran is in possession of nuclear weapons, could result in a massive nuclear counter-strike reducing Iran to a burning cinder.


Yes, but Israel will face the potential of getting nuked by Iran and the US would not want that. So staging a nuke attack on Saudi Arabia (e.g.) as a pretext to nuke Iran carries too much risk that the nightmare of all nightmares happens to one of the west's most important allies in the region. Staging foreign nukes on Iranian soil shuts down all the saber rattling and war planning that is predicated on the fact that any attack on Iran will not lead to serious consequences for the attackers. It's all about incentives.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby eXpat » Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:47:23

Very good points
US wants SWIFT war on Iran
What was the parade of European poodles thinking - that Tehran would just roll over and absorb the European Union's oil embargo, scheduled to start on July 1?

No wonder Brussels was caught as a Gucci deer in the headlights when the news started to flow that Tehran would pre-empt the move and immediately slap its own embargo of crude oil exports to six European Union countries - deeply in crisis Club Med members Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain plus recession-hit France and the Netherlands.

It took virtually no time for Iran's Oil Ministry and then the Foreign Ministry to deny it; such a decision, technically, would have to be officially announced by the Supreme National Security Council, which also deals with the nuclear negotiations.

But only the deaf, dumb and blind wouldn't understand the message; blowback for the ridiculously counter-productive European sanctions/oil embargo package will only plunge vast swathes of Europe further into deep economic pain.

Iran supplies 500,000 barrels of oil a day to the EU. The mere threat of an Iranian embargo has already provoked an oil price spike.

Assuming Club Med countries would be able to get oil from other sources - and that's not a given; Saudi Arabia wants high oil prices with a vengeance - they would have to reconfigure their refineries to process it. Inevitably there would be shortages of gasoline; the average Italian, for instance, is already furious with the skyrocketing price of gas at the pump.

Perhaps those tens of thousands of useless Brussels bureaucrats carrying their multicolored files up and down should do something meaningful and send a letter to Washington officially congratulating the Americans for further impoverishing tens of millions of EU citizens.

When in doubt, slap more sanctions
Yet the vultures, jackals and hyenas of regime change/war can never be appeased in their sanction lust. The US is now forcing the EU to cut off Iran from Brussels-based SWIFT - the independent telecom mechanism/clearinghouse used by every bank in the world to exchange financial data (its official name is Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications). Iran's Central Bank itself may become a victim.

In a nutshell, SWIFT is the wheel that moves global financial transactions and trade. So if this is not an extended, remixed declaration of hardcore economic war against one country - nothing else is.

Will it work? Hardly. It will certainly represent more devastation unleashed over "the Iranian people" - the vague entity of choice against which the US has "no quarrel". More than 40 Iranian banks use SWIFT to process financial transactions, and Iranians use it like everybody else in a globalized economy.

It will drag SWIFT's carefully maintained reputation for trust and neutrality through the mud; imagine other member countries' reaction to the fact they can also be totally marginalized according to the US's whims.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB17Ak04.html
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Mesuge » Fri 17 Feb 2012, 07:38:35

dissident> Good point. However, deployment of nuclear capability by 3rd parties like Russia-China on the Iranian soil or coast (naval force) would come only in case of even higher escalation of the situation, think about something worse than cuban missile crisis.

I'm not sure we are there yet. The Russians are desperate to melt those incomming petrodollars into bold reconstruction effort of their both conventional and space-nuclear armies as fast as possible, this will take mucho years to accomplish at least till 2020 in some basic form. So, any escalation hampering their plans is not welcomed, but they might be forced into it, for this very reason, by rapidly deteoriating int. relations.

The same holds for China, they don't have the blue water fleet or massive airlift capability to match the US power yet. And I doubt russians would allow massive chinese redeployment over the siberian railways to get to Persia from the north.

So, what remains is issuing a "soft warning" by just reshuffling the positions of couple of nuclear subs, i.e. certainly no open conflict yet. And even in the case of "surprise" zion attack on Iranian infrustructure, the Russians or Chinese simply won't back them up fully. In the final equation, loosing Iran (and image) won't be evaluated as the treshold for exchanging nukes for them.

It's all dancing around this very issue, is Iran (and power image) worth it? And even given the recent stupid delays about delivering AA system to them, it's clear the Russians were (probably still are not) serious enough about defending Iran. Should Syrian regime fall rapidly for some reason before summer, that might change a bit the calculation, but currently the crazies of the west still hold the upper hand, the Russia and China are on the defensive. You see, from the early 2000s the west waged couple of large campaigns (successfull or not), that has shifted the mood and internal debates, recall pres. candidates talking about dealing with Iran. Simply said, the west has become gradually very trigger happy, it's like ongoing fever.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Roy » Fri 17 Feb 2012, 09:14:25

Just who is threatening whom here? What, can't the war hawks here look at a map? This is why Iran is developing nukes. So they won't be invaded.

If they didn't have large oil reserves we wouldn't even care. What did we do when Pakistan developed nukes? How much oil do they have?

Here's a map showing US military bases in Iran's neighborhood. How would we feel if this were a map of the US surrounded by Russian/Iranian/Chinese bases?

I'd say we'd be pretty damned paranoid. And with good reason.

Image

An objective observer can look at this and instead of feeling afraid, can feel confident that Iran can't do a damn thing without suffering massive and deadly consequences for their regime and their people.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Mesuge » Fri 17 Feb 2012, 10:46:46

Nice map there, kind of funny many of these outposts were taken over from Soviets (Socotra island, and all those bases in -stans), now are turning either "neutral" or "in-directly" back under russian sphere of influence again. Plus Pakistan and Turkey is kind of a question. But that still doesn't change the whole picture, yes Iran is surrounded.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby AgentR11 » Fri 17 Feb 2012, 14:17:05

Roy wrote:Just who is threatening whom here? What, can't the war hawks here look at a map? This is why Iran is developing nukes. So they won't be invaded.


And yet, its probably the one and only action that could cause them to be invaded/attacked. Fear and paranoia make for poor decision motivators.

An objective observer can look at this and instead of feeling afraid, can feel confident that Iran can't do a damn thing without suffering massive and deadly consequences for their regime and their people.


The real wildcard is that the regime may not act in what we would consider to be the rational best interests of their people or nation. I don't think any sane person in the West would consider landing troops on Iranian soil, and I suspect the regime understands that as well; so they may feel able to personally survive a nuclear response to a nuclear attack on Israel. Their strategy may be more geared towards, "after we have eradicated Israel, and withstood the response, can we remain in power?" If they believe the answer to that question is "yes"; then... big problem, Israel acting preemptively with military force is the only rational strategy.

This is so different than India, Pakistan and North Korea's situation, and is why those are not so problematic, whereas Iran is absolutely worthy of serious concern.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby rangerone314 » Fri 17 Feb 2012, 14:18:38

I wonder how many more anti-air and anti-ship missiles the Russians would ship to Iran to help them should the West initiate war. A missile costs a lot less than a ship.

One could look at a similar map of Russia and China being surrounded. Don't think the Russians or the Chinese are unaware of this. Eventually they are going to have enough, and will help the Iranians take down a carrier or two.

We helped the Afghans give the Russians a bloody nose by sending them Stingers, only a matter of time before the Russians return the favor.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby AdTheNad » Sat 18 Feb 2012, 06:30:49

AgentR11 wrote:
Roy wrote:Just who is threatening whom here? What, can't the war hawks here look at a map? This is why Iran is developing nukes. So they won't be invaded.


And yet, its probably the one and only action that could cause them to be invaded/attacked. Fear and paranoia make for poor decision motivators.

No way. Without nukes, over time the west would work to destabilise Iran, so when riots begin we have people to arm and start a revolution. Nukes is the only thing that can stop that. If Gaddafi had nukes he might still be alive and Iran knows this.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Mesuge » Sat 18 Feb 2012, 08:47:00

Iranians now perfected the <20% enrichment technology not to be dependent on Russia or west for nuclear fuel rods anymore, which is kind of a big milestone for any country in the world, it's like entering the top club. Most likely they don't have the weapon or actual project in the making, the plan is simply to be good enough in terms of overall domestic technological capability, and if they decide to have it, they can easily manage in say 2-3yrs, somewhere down in their network of 100m subsurface bunker cities.

It's quite the same thinking as in Japan or Saudi with their civilian nuclear programme. They don't have the vast navy, nuclear weapons and what have you, but should they choose to finally depeg from the west (kick out americans out of Okinawa in the process), they can have the bomb easily after 2-3yrs crash programme as well.

And that's the major difference between Pakistan/North Korea which will still remain quite impoverished even after reaching the status of finally having the bomb.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Cog » Sat 18 Feb 2012, 09:14:41

From the Iranian point of view completing the nuclear fuel cycle makes a lot of sense. They are allowed to do so by the NPT. They surely know that oil is a finite resource and they still want to have electricity on the downside of their oil production.

Iran should be left alone even if their interests involve developing nuclear weapons. They will find out that they are easier to build than to use. Just like everyone else who has ever built one(Hiroshima and Nagasaki excluded)
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Sat 18 Feb 2012, 17:57:51

AdTheNad wrote:
AgentR11 wrote:Without nukes, over time the west would work to destabilise Iran, so when riots begin we have people to arm and start a revolution. Nukes is the only thing that can stop that. If Gaddafi had nukes he might still be alive and Iran knows this.
The late Saddam was also suckered into shutting down his WMD program.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby radon » Sat 18 Feb 2012, 21:44:28

Roy wrote:
Image


Heck, we used to be taught in the geography lessons at school that Kushka was the southernmost point of the Soviet Union, and now see - this is an American military base. Never seen this before. The world has changed over the course of the century.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby rangerone314 » Sun 19 Feb 2012, 14:51:23

radon wrote:Heck, we used to be taught in the geography lessons at school that Kushka was the southernmost point of the Soviet Union, and now see - this is an American military base. Never seen this before. The world has changed over the course of the century.

Imperial over-reach. Eventually, every Athens will have its Syracuse.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 20 Feb 2012, 01:10:55

Juan Cole
has an updated map:
Image
Wackypedia's list doesn't show any bases in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and only the Manas "Transit Center" in Kyrgyzstan and a small (300 including civilian) "Village" in Saudi. The bases in Afghanistan are supplied via Pakistan (not currently) or Russia. Failing those, they would have to be supplied by air via a narrow corridor of friendly airspace via Georgia.
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby careinke » Mon 20 Feb 2012, 03:23:22

radon wrote:
Roy wrote:
Image


Heck, we used to be taught in the geography lessons at school that Kushka was the southernmost point of the Soviet Union, and now see - this is an American military base. Never seen this before. The world has changed over the course of the century.


I believe Prince Sultan Airbase has been completely turned over to the RSAF (I used to work there). Not shown is the US Military Training Mission USMTM Base, just South of Riyadh SA (My wife used to work there and still has friends working there). I wonder how much money we wast..I mean invest in those bases every year?
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby rangerone314 » Tue 21 Feb 2012, 14:50:47

Iran has no chance, Israel has better weapons.

Example: Jews in Space http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAZhtT-dUyo&feature=related
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Re: The Strait of Hormuz Thread (merged)

Unread postby Tuike » Sat 17 Mar 2012, 12:05:49

Payments system SWIFT to expel Iranian banks Saturday
Iran has been cut off from Swift bank transfer system. No money is coming in or out from Iran as of today, saturday. This is a serious blow to Iran. Wars have been started from smaller reasons.
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