WarSclerotic

Iran: The Great Game.

July 28, 2012: While Iran has added a lot of new weapons (especially Chinese missiles) to its arsenal in the last decade, its military leaders are well aware that their opponents (the Gulf Arabs and their Western allies, especially the U.S.) have also upgraded, and generally beefed up their military power more than Iran has.

Much of the Iranian buildup was largely propaganda. Most Iranians don’t know this, but Iran’s enemies, and Iranian military leaders (most of them) do. Thus Iran recently backed off on its threats to try and block the Straits of Hormuz (the entrance to the Persian Gulf, through which most of world oil exports move) as long as Iran was still allowed to use it.

Iran continues to refuse to negotiate restrictions on its nuclear power program and denies that it is working on nuclear weapons. Iran is equally opposed to any limitations on its ballistic missile program and is apparently trying to develop an ICBM that could hit North America. Iran appears to understand that possessing nuclear weapons (no matter how primitive) will compensate for their growing inferiority in non-nuclear weapons. Israel and Gulf Arabs are terrified at the prospect of Iranian nukes,

Iran is accusing Israel of carrying out the July 18 suicide bombing in Bulgaria that killed seven (including five Israelis). This is in response to the growing pile of evidence that Iran was behind the attack, in an effort to strike back at Israel for the many successful Israeli assaults against Iran’s nuclear weapons program in the last two years. Iran has openly vowed to strike back, and Israel claims that Iran has agents in 24 countries trying to organize attacks. In the last year, Iranians have been arrested in eight countries and charged with planning terrorism against Israel. Documents, weapons and explosives have often been seized as well. Iran denies everything, but the pattern is embarrassing. Bulgarian and Israeli investigators have tracked the July 18^th attacks to a team that had spent a month in Bulgaria setting things up. It is believed that Iran used Hezbollah personnel to help organize this operation. It is believed that the bomber was a European (he had fair skin and blue eyes) who had been hired to smuggle drugs and that the bomb was set off remotely by the terrorist team that hired him. The bomb was apparently set off prematurely because the bomber (who had the bomb in his backpack) had gotten into an argument over wanting to carry his bag onto the bus instead of keeping in the cargo area under the passenger compartment. The bomber was carrying fake American documents and remains unidentified. Hezbollah is heavily involved in the drug trade and has many operatives and supporters in Europe.

Another form of terrorism, Internet monitoring and censorship, is conducted indoors. Following China’s lead (and apparently with some Chinese help) Iran has made using the Internet difficult and sometimes dangerous for Iranians. Not only are thousands of “anti-Iranian” web sites blocked, but most Iranians have their messages (via email or posting to web sites) monitored for suspicious content. There is a major effort by Iranians overseas to help their compatriots back home evade the censorship and monitoring, but Iranians caught participating in this can go to jail or be prosecuted for espionage (a hanging offence).

Iran is applying its smugglings skills (acquired over decades of beating American and UN weapons sanctions) to help sell its oil. The new round of sanctions makes it much more difficult for Iran to export oil. So Iranian agents are offering deep discounts to buyers willing to create false documents and move the Iranian crude. This is risky, for those who get caught can be prosecuted, jailed and fined. But Iranian smugglers know who is willing to take chances, if the payoff is large enough. Selling oil at discounts of 30 percent or more still costs Iran. So also does the expense of secretly buying tankers that will pretend to belong to another country while moving the black market oil. The U.S. and the UN are alert to these schemes and the great game of cat and mouse. While Iran has been successful in the past, that was because it was often moving items (like weapons components) that could be hidden in a cargo container. Oil is another matter. Iran has experimented with using shipping containers to smuggle oil, but this is very inefficient, and you can still get caught. Iran fears that, between the CIA (photo satellites and spies) and the maritime insurance industry (that monitors world shipping) it will be very difficult to move the illegal oil. How difficult will probably be known by the end of the year.  

This entry was posted on July 28, 2012 at 12:07 PM 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.