On Syria, Iran Plots Revenge, U.S. Says – WSJ.com
On Syria, Iran Plots Revenge, U.S. Says – WSJ.com.
( US setting the stage for taking out Iran? – JW )
Officials Say Intercepted Message to Militants Orders Reprisals in Iraq if Syria Hit
WASHINGTON—The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria, officials said, amid an expanding array of reprisal threats across the region.
Military officials have been trying to predict the range of possible responses from Syria, Iran and their allies. U.S. officials said they are on alert for Iran’s fleet of small, fast boats in the Persian Gulf, where American warships are positioned. U.S. officials also fear Hezbollah could attack the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
While the U.S. has moved military resources in the region for a possible strike, it has other assets in the area that would be ready to respond to any reprisals by Syria, Iran or its allies.
Those deployments include a strike group of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and three destroyers in the Red Sea, and an amphibious ship, the USS San Antonio, in the Eastern Mediterranean, which would help with any evacuations.
The U.S. military has also readied Marines and other assets to aid evacuation of diplomatic compounds if needed, and the State Department began making preparations last week for potential retaliation against U.S. embassies and other interests in the Middle East and North Africa.
U.S. officials began planning for a possible strike on Syrian regime assets after the Aug. 21 attack outside Damascus in which the U.S. says Syrian government forces killed over 1,400 people using chemical weapons. The U.S. military has prepared options for an attack and beefed up its military resources in the region, including positioning four destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean.
That process slowed last weekend when Mr. Obama said he would first seek an authorization for using military force from Congress.
A delay in a U.S. strike would increase opportunities for coordinated retaliation by groups allied with the Assad government, including Shiite militias in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.
The destroyers positioned in the Eastern Mediterranean are equipped with—in addition to Tomahawk missiles that could be used against Syria—the Standard Missile-3, which could be used to intercept ballistic missiles should Iran launch a retaliatory strike, officials said.
Israel has so far been the focus of concerns about retaliation from Iran and its Lebanese militant ally Hezbollah. The commander-in-chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps said last week that an attack on Syria would lead to the “destruction of Israel.”
The State Department issued a new alert on Thursday warning against nonessential travel to Iraq and citing terrorist activity “at levels unseen since 2008.” Earlier this year, an alert said that violence against Americans had decreased. That reassurance was dropped from the most recent alert.
The Iranian message, intercepted in recent days, came from Qasem Soleimani, the head of Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force, and went to Iranian-supported Shiite militia groups in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.
In it, Mr. Soleimani said Shiite groups must be prepared to respond with force after a U.S. strike on Syria. Iranian officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Iraqi Shiites have been sympathetic to the Alawite-dominated government of Syria and oppose U.S. strikes against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
U.S. officials said the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was one likely target. The officials didn’t describe the range of potential targets indicated by the intelligence.
Attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad have fallen since American forces left Iraq. In the past, Iranian-trained Shiite groups have fired rockets and mortars at the embassy, at the urging of the Qods Force, a paramilitary arm of the IRGC.
Militants also have used suicide bombers and IEDs to attack Americans leaving the embassy compound, one of the largest American diplomatic facilities in the world, located in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.
Syrians could also respond with “a vicious offensive” against the opposition inside Syria, said Aaron David Miller, a former top Middle East negotiator in the State Department who now is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Such a move, he said, would be a way “to demonstrate defiance” without running the risk of hitting American targets.
Some officials believe a direct response from the Syrian or Iranian governments is less likely than reprisals from allied militant groups, such as Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, whose members have been fighting alongside government forces against the Syrian rebellion, could be used to launch rocket attacks against U.S. military assets or American allies, including Israel.
When the U.S. went to war with Iraq in 1991, Saddam Hussein fired rockets at Israel. Officials in Mr. Assad’s government have threatened to strike Israel, as well as Syria’s neighbors Jordan and Turkey if they aid the U.S.
For days, American officials have said they were particularly concerned about potential attacks on Turkey and Jordan. U.S. officials haven’t reinforced defenses in those countries, but both already have Patriot batteries capable of shooting down incoming missiles or fighter planes.
Jordanian officials have said they also fear they could be hit by rockets or that Syrian forces would force new waves of refugees across the shared border, overwhelming the kingdom.
Other U.S. allies also are worried about an increased threat of retaliation.
French officials said they are concerned Hezbollah could target the hundreds of French troops taking part in a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.
Israeli officials have made clear they would respond forcefully if, in response to U.S. strike, Hezbollah fires rockets into the country.
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WarSclerotic 
September 6, 2013 at 4:49 PM
Reblogged this on BPI reblog and commented:
On Syria, Iran Plots Revenge, U.S. Says – WSJ.com
September 6, 2013 at 5:00 PM
No. The USA is setting the stage for its retreat from the Middle East. Israel is on its own. Always has been and always will be with the Obama administration.
September 6, 2013 at 5:21 PM
No, Israel is not alone, not since some criminals decided that using gas and killing 400 children will give them an edge in the Syrian War. Obama couldn’t ignore that anymore and now he is out for action. Not Putin, not Europe and not even the British Parliament will succeed in avoiding the coming storm over Syria.
As Obama himself put it so correctly before an hour ago, at the G20 press conference, when saying that helping Britain after the London bombing in the WWII, was also unpopular from the American people point of view.
September 6, 2013 at 5:16 PM
I’m sickened and disgusted at the thought of our military fighting on behalf of Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is totally unacceptable and cannot be justified under any circumstances. As for fighting Iran, that’s a horse of a different color. If war we must or as Sharpton would say, if war we much, then let it be with Iran. No more proxy wars. Forget Syria. Hold Iran accountable now and when the job is done, Syria will fall on its own.
Then again, maybe this whole Syria thing is just a way to smoke out Iran. I really don’t think Obomber gives a damn about Syria. Iran jeopardizes Obomber’s influence in the Mideast and that’s a big no-no with the globalists in the Obomber administration. Syria is probably just a reason to get engaged militarily in Iran’s backyard. On the bright side, this could be a death blow to Al Qaeda, the Brotherhood, and the rest of the murderers.
There’s a good chance all we can do is sit back and watch. Congress could withhold approval from Obomber, but he’s already stated he doesn’t need their approval. Heck, there’s even talk of escalation before engaging. Anyway, the people have no say in this matter and our sons and daughters will once again be put in harm’s way.
Confusing to say the least. Damned dangerous too.
September 6, 2013 at 5:22 PM
Putin’s comment that, if attacked, Russia will assist Syria surprises me only because it comes directly from the top man. Now Putin has set a red line and there will be no compromise. Putin is a street fighter. He has Obomber by the balls and his has no intention of letting go. Putin wants the entire Middle East within Russia’s sphere of influence, and he just may get it.
September 6, 2013 at 5:40 PM
Therein lies the danger in this whole fiasco.
September 6, 2013 at 6:25 PM
Putin is a barbarian who just happened to get the job of being the president of Russia. He is with no manners, the diplomatic language is a foreign language for him – as are for him all the other languages in the world – and, in the presence of Obama, he always felt uneasy, to say the least. An intelligent American President, very sophisticated( and he is even black, oh my!) and still keeping things simple in his rhetoric is not Putin’s cup of tea. Obama did a couple of mistakes and was depicted as weak by Putin entourage, but the match is not over yet, there are more rounds to go and Obama simply did a spectacular come back which is yet to be comprehended by Putin. Putin is a thug with a problematic approach – to say the least – when he is calling John Kerry a ”liar”. Putin Russians ”diplomatic” functionaries called Britain : ” a little island, irrelevant” after that vote in parliament. You see, the truly democracy is depicted as weakness by Putin and he is despising it.
Putin didn’t see the wall being there and he has hit it now, when behind this wall is a totally different American president with a totally different attitude and a strong case to make in front of the entire world. Of course Putin is angry and he will break more porcelain in that store he just has entered, but nothing will help him from looking for what he really is, an idiot and barbaric Russian, who emerged from the steppes of the history for trying to do justice, one more time, for his beloved Mother Russia, as Stalin and Lenin tried before him.
Putin is involved and has been invested in Syria beyond his head, so he strongly stands by Assad side, no matter what; or at least, that was what he was thinking until a month ago, before the ”gas incident”. Even when Obama was heard starting to make his case in this regard, Putin didn’t believe that this ”monkey with a grenade in his hand”- as he was depicted by one of his Russian ”geniuses”- will go all the way to the end and was more that encouraged in his conception when Obama, surprisingly, has announced in that fateful Friday, that he is postponing the strike and will take it to the Congress. But that was a grave miscalculation from Putin’s part, because Obama emerged more strong from that decision and even the military strike will be more extended than in the first approach. Not Obama, is Putin who put himself in the corner, being with the bad guys. The American president is making his case in front of the world, teaching them why is so wrong to having 400 children being gassed, and it doesn’t matter how many more war ships Putin will send in the Mediterranean Sea, because the poisoned gas cannot be reverse in its canister and those men, women and children being returned to life. If we are sad about something in connection with all this tragedy is the fact that it takes an American President for explaining the World why is wrong gassing children with poisoned war gas.
All these atrocities and many more are happening because the World is hypocrite and doesn’t learn from the lessons of its own past.
September 6, 2013 at 7:41 PM
Putin could be a war criminal too….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/04/chuck-hagel-russia-chemical-weapons_n_3868027.html?
September 6, 2013 at 8:05 PM
Russia provided nuclear technology to Iran; Russia has build all the WMD arsenal which is today in Syrian’s possession. Some parents haven’t educated their children in a proper way, the teens are making troubles at school, the things are getting out of control, the police is being involved too, and the parents? Who are they now ready to blame? They will blame the school, the police and everyone else but themselves, for not taking care of the education of their own children. Putin is exactly like those parents.
September 6, 2013 at 11:23 PM
China sending a warship now too
September 6, 2013 at 5:46 PM
While Obomber plans to throw Congress under the bus, he already did so to the UN….
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/06/libs-recoil-in-horror-as-obama-disses-the-un-im-bypassing-the-hocus-pocus-of-the-united-nations/
September 6, 2013 at 5:50 PM
Now Iran is making it personal…
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/05/iran-threatens-brutal-attacks-on-americans-obama-family-if-us-hits-syria/
September 6, 2013 at 9:19 PM
Thank you Steve, for this article, which if is reporting genuine facts it might be very important. The bottom line of this report is the unbearable pressure the Iranians are under it. Their tone, their infantile threats, all are exposing the Iranians difficult situation and may be the fact that Iran might be the next in line, if not by the US then surely by Israel.
September 6, 2013 at 5:54 PM
No Congressional approval necessary….Luis, you could be right about this whole campaign…
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/06/obama-refuses-to-rule-out-attacking-syria-without-congressional-approval/
September 6, 2013 at 6:35 PM
Thank you, Steve for pointing that out, because we were steady from the start of this crisis when we have said that the American President will go all the way to the end on this one. Hearing Obama lately in his last press conferences making his case in front of the entire world, only has strengthened this feeling.