WarSclerotic

Drumbeats of War – New U.S. Sanctions Red Line for Iran | Snafu::Blog – Disaster Emergency Supplies.

On Tuesday, Iran official English language media was talking about Iran being ‘capable of blocking the Strait of Hormuz’, while Western media was running a remark by Iranian First Vice President Rahimi: “If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil, not even a drop of oil will be allowed through the Strait of Hormuz.” It seemed that the Iranian government was actually downplaying Rahimi’s remarks somewhat. Keeping things genteel and talking of capabilities.

Now, Wednesday morning Iran local time, official Iranian headlines are saying “Iran will choke Hormuz oil flow”, and the Rahimi remarks being reported by the Iranians are: ‘the enemies need a crushing response from the Islamic Republic to abandon their plots against the Iranian nation’. Interestingly, his actual remarks were a little milder: “Our enemies will give up on their plots against Iran only if we give them a firm and strong lesson.” The Iranian government’s tone is now utterly hardline and very, very angry… crushing and choking… rather than a firm and strong lesson. Is that splitting hairs? Don’t think so. Changing the wording indicates a conscious change of policy. And resolve.

Any more sanctions, and… if Iran’s promises are to be believed… they will take the fatal step of closing the Strait, devil take the hindmost.

Apparently the Obama administration believes them.Mainstream U.S. media is carrying the substance of ‘recent interviews’ with President Obama that say the U.S. has a plan to keep the Strait open ‘in the event of a crisis’. However, there is no current statement forthcoming from the White House. The reason given is to avoid panicking the world economic markets, and also to not give Iran the satisfaction of a U.S. response to Iran’s threat.

That looks like a semi-truth and two truths. The U.S. may have a plan to keep the Strait open, but every military planner from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Russian military say the Iranians can, in fact, close the Strait no matter what the U.S. does. Of course, there may be some secret something somewhere that no one knows about. But it would take either that, or something so drastic it is difficult to contemplate.

The U.S. sanctions everyone is talking about are part of legislation already passed by Congress (correction: but not yet signed by the president, although he says he will) for financing the U.S. military. BUT. The way the bill is written, the president is allowed to ‘waive sanctions’ if they ’cause the price of oil to rise or threaten national security’.

Think they just might do that?

So President Obama has a back door. Two of them, actually. He can play the economic card, or play the national security card. Either allow him to get out of jail free.

Given his track record, he may play both.

But…

That may not be enough.

The Arab League has promised to impose crippling sanctions on Iranian oil if President Assad of Syria does not, in effect, hand the country over to his opposition forthwith. That would be an intolerable blow to both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, not to mention Assad. Israeli sources with Mossad and military connections are saying there is a military force made from former Libyan ‘freedom fighters’ and Iraqi Islamists that have trained in Turkey that is now raising havoc in Syria. So even the Israelis are granting that Assad’s claim of foreign troops being responsible for violence in Syria is at least partially true. Not much chance of Assad backing down under those circumstances.

In addition, former Prime Minister of Lebanon Hariri, a still very powerful billionaire, an avowed enemy of Lebanese Hezbollah and Syria, has petitioned the Arab League to institute a no-fly zone in Syria. They have not said no.

Will the next move of the Arab League, even if ‘only’ sanctions, cross the new red line that Iran has drawn in the sands of the Middle East? Since Saudi Arabia spearheads the Arab League, and Saudi Arabia is very tied in with the United States government, will the Iranians see AL sanctions as equivalent to direct U.S. sanctions? Very probably. And if so, will that not trigger the closing of the Strait of Hormuz?

U.S. benchmark crude oil futures (NYMEX) have climbed back to over $101, coming up from $97 last Wednesday. The reason given by analysts were an improved economy (?) and the Iranian threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow in this realm.

Not directly associated with anything else in this post, but indirectly of tremendous importance… the Chinese and Japanese prime ministers have issued a statement saying that Japan and China have agreed to stop using the dollar as currency in trade between the two nations, amounting to a third of a trillion dollars per year. They will use the Chinese yuan. The dollar has essentially lost Asia. This is major news.

I wonder if this news had anything to do with Iran making such an aggressive policy change today? Do they feel that the economic might of the U.S. is crumbling, and that their threats will fall upon the ears of a more docile U.S. administration?

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, pre-answered that question last week. “My biggest worry is that it (Iran) may miscalculate our resolve. Any miscalculation could mean that we are drawn into conflict and that would be a tragedy for the region and the world.” Clearly, if it were up to him, any Iranian move to close the Strait of Hormuz would lead straight to war.

Meanwhile in Israel, while the Israeli Air Force made two airstrikes into the Gaza Strip, killing perhaps 3 and wounding perhaps 11, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz called the infamous Cast Lead operation of 2008 “an excellent operation that achieved deterrence for Israel vis-a-vis Hamas.” At least for a time. He said that now a ’second round of fighting in Gaza is not a matter of choice for Israel; it must be initiated by Israel and must be “swift and painful”‘.

When does he say he will initiate Cast Lead II? “We will act when the conditions are right.”

The gargantuan Velayat naval drill continues in its fifth of ten days, with Iran saying all their domestically produced weapons are functioning perfectly. No comment on that by the U.S. or associated nations who have substantial naval resources observing the Iranian drill. No word about the Iranian drones or cyber capabilities. No new reports of near misses or aircraft being warned off. But the area of the drill is still intrinsically highly dangerous.

Bottom line: it seems that it is still a horse race as to how and where the incipient Middle East war will start.

But that it will start, and start soon, would seem to be a safe bet.

Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized

This entry was posted on December 29, 2011 at 10:42 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.