OMNI
IRAN NEWSLETTER
# 27, June 3, 2018
COMPILED
BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE AND JUSTICE
Contents of Iran Newsletter #26 at end.
Contents: Iran Newsletter #27, June 3, 2018
These publications prepare us to resist US
malignant hostility toward Iran. If you
are short of time, I have put up front two brief essays and an easily read
book: Art’s column, Gray’s essay, and
Benjamin’s book.
History of US Aggression Against Iran and Nuclear Diplomacy
Art Hobson, Trump’s Disastrous
Choice and Danger to World Peace (2018)
Heather Gray 2018, Background: CIA Overthrow of Elected Leader
Mosaddeq in 1953
Mosaddeq in 1953
Media Benjamin, Inside Iran (2018)
Ghamari, The Iranian Revolution
Porter, the Iranian Nuclear Program
Parsi, Obama and Iran Nuclear Deal
Tabatabai, Trump v. the Deal
The
Nation, May 21, Save the Deal
US ANTI-IRAN PROPAGANDA and MILITARY THREATENING CONTINUE in the NADG
Gore Vidal
Entekhabifard, Iranian POV
Satires by Dick Bennett
#26
HISTORY of US AGGRESSION
Trump makes
a disastrous choice
Will we invade
Iran as we did Iraq?
Art Hobson,
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times, 29
May 2018
It would be hard to top the recklessness
of George W. Bush's 2003 attack on Iraq, but President Trump has managed it by
withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear agreement.
The consequences will be worse than Iraq. At best, this entails declining U.S.
influence and increasing U.S. isolation.
At worst, it entails wider war between the Sunni (U.S., Israeli,
Arabian) and Shiite (Russian, Iranian, Syrian) alliances.
What motivated Trump to make this
utterly irrational move? Michael Hayden,
former Director of both the CIA and Central Intelligence, analyzed the evidence
and concluded the only plausible explanation is Trump's hostility to everything
Barack Obama did.
Regarding the "best"
scenario: The decision brushes off our
allies and unites them in opposition to Trump, which delights Russia. The other signatories, Britain, France,
Germany, Russia, China, and Iran, will try to preserve the agreement. The French Finance Minister says people
should not accept the U.S. as the "world's economic policeman. Do we want to be vassals who obey decisions
taken by the United States while clinging to the hem of their trousers? Or do we want to say we have our economic
interests, we consider we will continue to do trade with Iran?"
Such statements suggest there may be a
ray of hope in Trump's decision, namely that Europe will perceive the dangers
of our imperialistic foreign policy and assert themselves more forcefully and
independently.
Regarding the "worst"
scenario: If Iran cannot obtain
sufficient sanctions relief, internal pressures will force President Rouhani to
return to uranium enrichment. The U.S.
and Israel will try to stop this by all possible means including war.
Americans are insufficiently aware
that enduring religious strife lies behind Mideast chaos. Differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims,
stemming from a dispute over the successor to the prophet Muhammad upon his
death in 632 AD, loom over centuries of bloody battles and ruined lives. Today, Iran is the Shiite champion and Saudi
Arabia the Sunni champion.
Syria's war ignited in 2011 when
President Assad's Shiite-leaning government used deadly force to repress Sunni
rebels. Shiite Iran was naturally
partisan toward Assad, and the U.S. and Arabs (Saudi Arabia and its Mideast allies)
partisan toward the rebels. The U.S. has
regarded Iran as the devil incarnate ever since Khomeini took over from our
preferred dictator, Shah Pahlavi, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was
proclaimed in 1979. Russia supported its
allies Iran and Syria by backing Syria in 2011 and actually joining the battle
in 2015. Israel's concern in all this is
to ward off Iran and Syria, both of which have been extremely (and unwisely)
hostile toward Israel, while siding with the U.S. and the less hostile Arab powers. The two alliances are involved on opposite
sides not only in Syria but also in the Yemen war.
Rudolph Giuliani, Trump's
newly-appointed lawyer, spoke recently to a gathering of activists opposed to
Iran's government. He emphasized the
importance of "confronting Iran" and supported regime change in
Tehran. Trump's national security
advisor John Bolton also supports regime change.
A week ago, in the wake of U.S. treaty
withdrawal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued twelve demands that Iran must
obey on pain of "the strongest sanctions in history." He vowed to use U.S. economic and military
power to destroy Iran's economy and "crush" its influence around the
world. Our demands reach far beyond
Iranian nuclear weapons, embracing all of Iran's international relations.
Iranian uranium enrichment will set
off alarm bells in Saudi Arabia and its allies such as United Arab Emirates,
Turkey, and Egypt, all of whom have considerable nuclear expertise. A few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia announced it
will build nuclear weapons if Iran does.
War-ravaged Syria hosts an Iran-Israel proxy war, with Iran launching
rockets into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights adjoining Syria, and Israel
responding with blows to Iranian forces within Syria. This conflict ramped up sharply when Trump
withdrew from the nuclear agreement.
Before the agreement was signed in
2013, Iran was less than a year away from its first bomb. The agreement halted that advance, rolled it
back ten years, and imposed a highly intrusive inspection regime to prevent cheating. Now our president, acting almost on a whim,
has thrown all this away.
President Trump has brought us to the
brink of another regime-change war, this one with much larger international
implications including a real threat of nuclear weapons proliferation and
use. It's time, it's far past time, for
Congress and the American people to speak up.
65 Years Ago US/UK Coup Overthrew Elected Leader of Iran
Heather Gray, May 24, 2018
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8:46 AM (59 minutes ago)
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MEDEA BENJAMIN’S NEW BOOK ON IRAN
MEDEA
BENJAMIN. Inside Iran: THE REAL HISTORY
AND POLITICS OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN.
OR Books, 2018.
In 1979, the Iranian Revolution
brought a Shia theocracy to the 80 million inhabitants of the Middle East’s
second largest country. In the decades since, bitter relations have persisted
between the U.S. and Iran. Yet how is it that Iran has become the primary
target of American antagonism, when Saudi Arabia, a regime that is even more
repressive, remains one of America’s closest allies?
In the first general-audience book
on the subject, Medea Benjamin elucidates the mystery behind this complex
relationship, recounting Iran’s history from the pre-colonial period, through
the CIA-engineered coup that
overthrew the country’s democratic leadership in 1953, to its emergence as the
one nation Democrats and Republicans alike regularly unite in denouncing.
Benjamin draws upon her firsthand experiences with Iranian politicians,
activists, and everyday citizens to provide a deeper understanding of the
complexities of Iranian society and the nation’s role in the region.
Tackling the contradictions in
Iran’s system of government, its religiosity, and its citizens’ way of life, Inside Iran makes short work of the
inflammatory rhetoric surrounding U.S.-Iranian relations, and presents a
realistic and hopeful case for the two nations’ future.
Illustrated
with maps and photographs • Index
MORE US/IRAN HISTORY
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Tehran, 38 years ago: Black Friday
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NOVEMBER 29, 2017: 
HEART OF EMPIRE, SIX QUESTIONS — May 6, 2014, 2:37 pm
Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the
Iran Nuclear Scare. Gareth Porter on the true history of Iran’s nuclear program By Andrew Cockburn. https://harpers.org/blog/2014/05/manufactured-crisis-the-untold-story-of-the-iran-nuclear-scare/
Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare
by Gareth Porter. Just World Books, 2014.
by Gareth Porter. Just World Books, 2014.
I feel grateful to Gareth Porter for his
intrusive and critical examination of intelligence material passed to the IAEA. Hans Blix, Former Director General of the IAEA
Manufactured Crisis
For several years now,
Israel and U.S. officials and much of the mainstream media have maintained a
steady drumbeat of allegations and accusations that the government of Iran has
been pursuing a secret, “military” adjunct to its (quite legal, and regularly
inspected) civilian nuclear program. Numerous western officials and
commentators have warned that there will be a time coming very soon, beyond
which this alleged military nuclear program will be unstoppable. Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have warned that military action
must be taken, if necessary, to prevent this from happening. Meantime,
Washington has been leading a worldwide effort to impose punishing economic
sanctions on Iran, in an effort to make it give up this alleged nuclear-weapons
program.
Exposes the many lies and half-truths that
have been promulgated over more than two decades to try and convince the
American public and the world that Iran is the chief danger to international
peace through its nuclear program…Prof. William Beeman,
University of Minnesota
But where is the
evidence that this program even exists? Veteran investigative journalist Gareth
Porter has been following this issue closely for over six years. In his
book, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare,
he will show how Israel and the George W. Bush administration successfully
portrayed the various actions taken by Western nations and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as responses to a long history of Iranian covert
work on militarization of its nuclear program. In reality, however, the United
States had intervened aggressively as early as 1983 to prevent Iran from its
open effort to pursue its legitimate right to peaceful nuclear power– and it
was that aggressive U.S. intervention that pushed Iran to resort to black
market transactions in order to acquire the technology needed for its civilian
nuclear power program.
Gareth Porter is among the last of that rare
breed—the independent investigative journalist who brings to bear long
experience in foreign policy reporting with a keen and critical eye for K
Street propaganda. He is essential.Prof. Juan Cole,
University of Michigan
At the center of the
book is the story of how documents alleged to have been stolen from an Iranian
nuclear weapons research program became the primary driving force in building a
consensus that Iran did have such a covert program. It also details the
multiple indications that the documents were fraudulent, based on a series of
contradictions between material in the documents themselves and
well-established facts. Manufactured Crisis reveals, on the
basis of interviews with Iranian and former IAEA officials, how the IAEA has
been manipulated to put out reports suggesting that Iran had such a covert
weapons program– based overwhelmingly on documents that originated in Israel.
It also documents the fact that U.S. intelligence on the Iranian nuclear
program has been systematically distorted by political hostility toward Iran as
well as by the structure of CIA assessments on the subject.
Trita Parsi. Losing
an Enemy: Obama,
Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Yale UP, 2017. DescriptionReviews
The definitive book on Obama’s historic nuclear deal with Iran
from the author of the Foreign Affairs Best Book on the Middle
East in 2012
This timely book focuses on President Obama’s deeply considered strategy toward Iran’s nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts.
The deal accomplished two major feats in one stroke: it averted the threat of war with Iran and prevented the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert who advised the Obama White House throughout the talks and had access to decision-makers and diplomats on the U.S. and Iranian sides alike, examines every facet of a triumph that could become as important and consequential as Nixon’s rapprochement with China. Drawing from more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with key decision-makers, including Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, this is the first authoritative account of President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement.
This timely book focuses on President Obama’s deeply considered strategy toward Iran’s nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts.
The deal accomplished two major feats in one stroke: it averted the threat of war with Iran and prevented the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert who advised the Obama White House throughout the talks and had access to decision-makers and diplomats on the U.S. and Iranian sides alike, examines every facet of a triumph that could become as important and consequential as Nixon’s rapprochement with China. Drawing from more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with key decision-makers, including Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, this is the first authoritative account of President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement.
Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council. He
teaches at Johns Hopkins University and at the Edmund A. Walsh School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown University and is the author of Treacherous
Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States,
winner of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, and A
Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran, which was named Best
Book on the Middle East in 2012 by Foreign Affairs.
David DePriest.
“Trita Parsi Debunks Iran Nuclear Myths in New Book.” Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs (August/September 2017).
THE DEAL IS DESTROYED?
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Earlier today, President Donald Trump tweeted that he will be announcing his decision on whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran tomorrow,Tuesday, May 8, at 2 PM Eastern. Despite evidence that Tehran is complying with the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it is widely expected that Trump will announce a re-imposition of sanctions, effectively ending US participation in the agreement. Examine the critical elements of the Iran deal by reading through the work of our columnist, Ariane Tababai. It’s all here at the Bulletin. What you need to know: What are Iranian hardliners saying on social media? Ariane Tabatabai The Bolton threat to the Iran nuclear deal Ariane Tabatabai Trump plays into hands of Iranian hardliners Ariane Tabatabai Shoddy translation in the Western media is increasing nuclear tensions—again Ariane Tabatabai An Iran memo to Trump Ariane Tabatabai Trump said he'd tear up the Iran nuclear deal. Now what? Ariane Tababai Hands across the lab: Will the US and Iran cooperate on science? Ariane Tababai How the United States benefits if Iran's economy booms Ariane Tababai, Minsu Crowder-Han Should South Korea be Iran's next nuclear energy partner? Ariane Tababai, Duyeon Kim Bonus: Iran Deal: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Tababai was a consultant on this segment of Last Week Tonight. As she describes the segment: “It jam-packs the segment with a lot of info on US-Iran relations, Iranian culture, and the deal (and most of it is fairly on point) and it's hilarious.” |
Editorial. “Save The Iran Nuke Deal!” The
Nation (May 21, 2018). “…the Iran accord is one of the world’s most
successful efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.”
The writer
appeals to Europeans and Congress to “do everything they can to preserve the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (ICPOA)”
US MILITARY THREATENING IRAN CONTINUES
US mainstream media hostility toward Iran is a megaphone for
national policy. So it is vital to have
this US magazine that presents the views of Middle Eastern countries. Camelia Entekhabifard. “Trouble in the Gulf: the View from
Tehran.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
(August/September 2017).
In 26
newsletters about Iran I have tried to disentangle the historical details of
this old enmity. So in #27 I try
satirical reversal to see how that helps.
WHY
ARE THEY THREATENING US? or, Who Writes These Headlines and These Reports?
By
Dick Bennett
Staff from Wire
Reports. “Iran Boats Draw Warning Fire from U.S. Warship.” NADG (January
10, 2017).
Who’s In Our Gulf?
The Persian Gulf is
the body of water averaging about 125 miles in width between Iran, which
stretches all along its northern side, and Saudi Arabia and United Arab
Emirates on the south, with just a bit of Iraq at the north. That’s hot
property. It has more than half the world’s proved reserves of petroleum
and natural gas.
To reach the Gulf a ship must travel through the narrow Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world's petroleum (about
35% of the petroleum traded by sea) passes through the strait, making it a
highly important strategic location for international trade. At
its narrowest, the strait has a width of 29 nautical miles (54 km, a km
equals .621 miles). Traveling in the middle of the strait Iran is
only 27 km plus or minus away.
Now consider sailing there the US Destroyer, USS Mahan, January 9, 2017.
It has Tomahawk and ASROC missiles, a Mark 45 5./54 in gun, 2 25 mm chain guns,
4 .50 caliber guns, 2 20 mm Phalanx CIWS, 2 Mk 32 triple torpedo tubes, and 2
Sikorsky helicopters can be embarked. This heavily armed Destroyer
was supported by 2 ships, the amphibious USS Makin Island and the oiler USN
Walter S. Diehl. Amphibious? “…for
a military operation involving the landing of assault troops on a shore.” Oiler?
“…a tanker used to refuel other ships” for long-distance missions. What might the Iranian Revolutionary Coast
Guard think, and have orders to do?
Imagine similar Iranian warships passing between Miami and Havana on
their way to New Orleans. Can you hear the howl, and the middle distance
is about 90 miles instead of 27?
Pentagon-Media Complex
Here
is where the imperial corporate media USA play their important role: we
are told only the US point of view (maybe, like the Gulf of Tonkin). One
fine day three US combat ships were tooling along bothering no one (the paper
makes it sound) when four Iranian patrol boats headed toward them. No
effort is made to pinpoint the distance: Was it 20 km, was it 40, just how
near? No attempt by the paper is made
to determine the motives. We are only told the US ships tried several
times to “warn them away” peacefully with whistles etc. but finally resorted to
3 bursts from the .50 caliber machine gun. The Iranian boats skeedaddled out of
there, where they shouldn’t have been anyway. Doesn't the Iranian Navy,
or the Revolutionary Guard Navy, know about US Navy destroyers and the US Gulf
of Hormuz? Regarding Iranian behavior, a
Pentagon official said: “This was an unsafe and unprofessional
interaction.” White House press secretary Josh Earnest added:
“These types of actions are certainly concerning and certainly risk escalating
tensions.” But who escalated the tensions? Why was the large
US armed naval force so close to Iran? And why did the patrol boats,
easily destroyed by the Destroyer in seconds, approach the US warships?
There’s a lot about tension in the report along the same biased line; e.g., the
detention of 10 US soldiers 15 hours “after they wandered into Iranian
territorial waters,” the detention not the “wandering” being the cause of the
tension.
If we have tensions, if we have wars (i.e., if the US bullies and invades
other nations), they are encouraged by the nationalistic reporting against
“enemies” by the mainstream media. To really understand how
unprofessional this report is, you must know the history of US and Iranian
“tensions,” that is, you must read beyond US newspapers.
Iran Warning
Fire Halts U.S Boat (AP?)
Teheran,
Iran. A US Navy patrol boat fired shots Tuesday
near an Iranian vessel during a tense encounter in the Gulf of Mexico.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later
blamed the American ship for provoking the incident.
The Iranian
Divine Spirit, a Hurricane-class patrol ship based in Iran, was taking part in
an exercise with Iranian and coalition vessels in international waters in the
Gulf of Mexico when the US patrol boat approached it, a spokesman for the
Iranian Navy said. The US ship did not
respond to radio calls, flares, and horn blasts as it moved within 150 yards of
the Divine Spirit in international waters, forcing the Divine Spirit to fire
warning shots. [Where were the ships exactly?
What are the international waters boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico? Were the ships truly in international
waters? Whatever the geographic facts
and the legality of their location, the world would surely ask, what in the
name of the Supreme
REPORTING US
ENEMIES IN THE NADG: IRAN
Report from
the US in NADG (7-26-17).
1. A. U.S. Warning Fire Halts U.S Boat (AP?)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A US Navy patrol boat fired warning shots
Tuesday near an Iranian vessel that American sailors said moved dangerously
close to them during a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later
blamed the American ship for provoking
the incident.
The USS
Thunderbolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship based in Bahrain as part of the U. S.
Navy’s 5th Fleet was taking part in an exercise with American and
other coalition vessels in international waters when the Iranian patrol boat
approached it, 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Ian McConnaughey said.
NADG REPORT
ANNOTATED (in bold)
U.S. Warning Fire Halts U.S Boat
Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A US Navy patrol boat fired warning shots Tuesday near an Iranian vessel that American sailors said moved dangerously close to them during a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf. [Open your best map of the Gulf area. What’s the situation here. Sounds like the Iranians are patrolling the US coast and would warn off a foreign ship? The east coast of the Gulf is Iran. West of Iran, across the Gulf, extremely narrow in one area, are the UAE countries and Kuwait, all US allies. One of those countries hosts the US 5th Fleet. (Look up what constitutes a US Fleet for firepower and invasion capacity.) Backing them up is Saudi Arabia, next to Israel our most powerful ally in the Middle East. And north of the Emirates and SA is Iraq, that fought a horrendously bloody, protracted war against Iran. By the way, since the country east of Iran is Pakistan, a US ally mainly, we’ve got ‘em surrounded. So who is moving dangerously close to whom?]
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later blamed the American ship for provoking the incident. [And who provoked whom? The professional journalism training that has produced much good, of giving both sides in a conflict, is not helpful if there really is only one side. SO? Instead of reporting instantly tit or tat, join in a call for a UN juridical committee to ascertain blame in the entire hierarchy from the highest policy-making—who ordered the 5th Fleet to be based there? To the captains of the two patrol boats—did they follow their rules of engagement?]
U.S. Warning Fire Halts U.S Boat
Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A US Navy patrol boat fired warning shots Tuesday near an Iranian vessel that American sailors said moved dangerously close to them during a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf. [Open your best map of the Gulf area. What’s the situation here. Sounds like the Iranians are patrolling the US coast and would warn off a foreign ship? The east coast of the Gulf is Iran. West of Iran, across the Gulf, extremely narrow in one area, are the UAE countries and Kuwait, all US allies. One of those countries hosts the US 5th Fleet. (Look up what constitutes a US Fleet for firepower and invasion capacity.) Backing them up is Saudi Arabia, next to Israel our most powerful ally in the Middle East. And north of the Emirates and SA is Iraq, that fought a horrendously bloody, protracted war against Iran. By the way, since the country east of Iran is Pakistan, a US ally mainly, we’ve got ‘em surrounded. So who is moving dangerously close to whom?]
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later blamed the American ship for provoking the incident. [And who provoked whom? The professional journalism training that has produced much good, of giving both sides in a conflict, is not helpful if there really is only one side. SO? Instead of reporting instantly tit or tat, join in a call for a UN juridical committee to ascertain blame in the entire hierarchy from the highest policy-making—who ordered the 5th Fleet to be based there? To the captains of the two patrol boats—did they follow their rules of engagement?]
The USS
Thunderbolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship based in Bahrain as part of the U. S.
Navy’s 5th Fleet was taking part in an exercise with American and
other coalition vessels in international waters when the Iranian patrol boat
approached it, 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Ian McConnaughey said. [From Wikipedia: “The Cyclone-class patrol ships are a class
of United States Navy coastal patrol
boats. Most of these
ships were launched between 1992 and 1994. The primary mission of these ships
is coastal patrol and interdiction surveillance, an important aspect of littoral operations outlined in the Navy's
strategy, ‘Forward...From the Sea.’"
From “Forward…from the Sea google:
“vision for the Navy
in four guiding stars: operational primacy, leadership, teamwork, and pride.
This paper promulgates guidance on operational primacy – the ability to
carry out swiftly and effectively any naval, joint or coalition mission
and to prevail decisively over any foe that may oppose us. (MORE: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/policy/fromsea/ffseanoc.html) Wikipedia continued: “These ships also provide full mission
support for U.S. Navy SEALs and other special operations forces.” Coastal operations for prohibition
surveillance and full mission special operations forces/U. S. Navy Seals
(who assassinated bin Laden). We can
be certain the Iranians know all about the mission of these ships not far from
their coasts.
Wikipedia on “International Waters”: The Convention on the
High Seas was replaced by United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,
signed in 1982, which recognized Exclusive Economic Zones extending 200
nautical miles from the baseline, where coastal States have sovereign rights to
thewater column and sea
floor as well as the natural resources found ...
International
waters - Wikipedia. The width
of the Gulf varies dramatically, very narrow at its mouth the Straight of
Hormuz, wider in its middle, but islands and penisulas exist belonging to
different countries. So the newspaper’s
claim that the US and coalition vessels were in international waters sounds
doubtful. See what you find and let me
know.
Territorial
controversy: The Persian Gulf is not "international waters"
: iranian - Reddit
A US Fleet, the 5th
Fleet
Summary: during
an exercise of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet “and other coalition vessels”
in debatably international waters (how far from Iran’s coast?) a US and an
Iranian vessel approached each other.
Each side said the other provoked the US vessel to “fire warning
shots.” The US newspaper did report what
the Iranians claimed about the incident, but the rest of the report blames
Iran, partly based on what “American sailors said.”
Further
inquiries:
What is a US Navy
Fleet doing in the Persian Gulf, narrow even at its widest point? What is a Fleet? I googled US
Navy fleet of ships and learned that the total number of ships is called “the
fleet.” But elsewhere google gives: “A fleet is usually a large group of ships, but it can be any group of
vessels like planes or cars that operate as a unit. A naval fleet is the largest formation of
warships. A naval fleet at
sea is like an army on land.” “Today, a squadron might number three to ten vessels, which might be major
warships, transport ships, submarines, or small craft in a larger task force or
a fleet.” “A carrier strike group (CSG) is an
operational formation of the United
States Navy. It is composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one
cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers or frigates, and
a carrier air wing of
65 to 70 aircraft.” Read this article to see that the US had 19
aircraft carriers in 2014, not just 10 as the Navy claims: http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/does-the-us-navy-have-10-or-19-aircraft-carriers/
According to Google in 2013 the US had
19 aircraft carriers while the rest of the world combined had 12. On this subject Google is not up to date or
efficiently organized.
So: the US has a large group
of ships with at least one aircraft carrier with its complement of war and
support ships. So to return to the
question: what is that immense fire power
doing in a Gulf whose international waters are controversial and whose coastal
neighbors are enemies? To prevent a war
between the Emirates/Saudi Arabia and Iran?
But I haven’t found that argued anywhere. Or is it simply the obvious: securing Middle
Eastern oil for the US?
2. Now let’s imagine
the same event as told by a patriotic Iranian newspaper again accompanied by
comment in bold.
Iran Warning
Fire Halts U.S Boat (same title works?)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates. An Iranian patrol boat fired warning shots
Tuesday near an American vessel that Iranian sailors said moved dangerously
close to them during a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf. The US Navy later blamed the Iranian ship
for provoking the incident.
According to the U. S. Navy, the USS
Thunderbolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship based in Bahrain was part of the U. S.
Navy’s 5th Fleet and was taking part in an exercise with American
and other coalition vessels in Iranian waters when the American boat approached
the Iranian ship.
[Questions I might have asked above: Since the US patrol boat was part of the
international “exercise,” how many ships were moving about at that location? Where exactly was the Fifth Fleet and its
coalition vessels at that moment? How
many vessels? Could the event have
arisen out of confusion? Why did the US
ship fire? Above all, what is the Fleet
doing in such a provocative place?]
3. Now let’s relocate the incident to the Gulf
of Mexico and see what the original report as written by a US news agency looks
like.
U.S. Warning
Fire Halts U.S Boat (AP?)
New Orleans, USA. A US Navy patrol boat fired warning shots
Tuesday near an Iranian vessel that American sailors said moved dangerously
close to them during a tense encounter in the Gulf of Mexico.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later
blamed the American ship for provoking the incident.
The USS
Thunderbolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship based in New Orleans as part of the U.
S. Navy’s 5th Fleet was taking part in an exercise with American and
other coalition vessels in international waters when the Iranian patrol boat
approached it, 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Ian McConnaughey said. [Was
the captain of the Iranian ship lost?
Insane? He is truly lucky he was
not blown to bits, which the world might not have rebuked, so foolish, or provocative he was.]
4. Now let’s again relocate the incident to the Gulf of Mexico, but as reported by an Iranian news agency
Iran Warning
Fire Halts U.S Boat (AP?)
Teheran,
Iran. A US Navy patrol boat fired shots Tuesday
near an Iranian vessel during a tense encounter in the Gulf of Mexico.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later
blamed the American ship for provoking the incident.
The Iranian
Divine Spirit, a Hurricane-class patrol ship based in Iran, was taking part in
an exercise with Iranian and coalition vessels in international waters in the
Gulf of Mexico when the US patrol boat approached it, a spokesman for the
Iranian Navy said. The US ship did not
respond to radio calls, flares, and horn blasts as it moved within 150 yards of
the Divine Spirit in international waters, forcing the Divine Spirit to fire
warning shots. [Where were the ships exactly?
What are the international waters boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico? Were the ships truly in international
waters? Whatever the geographic facts
and the legality of their location, the world would surely ask, what in the
name of the Supreme Devil were Iranian ships doing have maneuvers in the Gulf
of Mexico?]
“US Drone Flying Too Close, Revolutionary Guard Says.” Tampa, Fla, Gazeteer (8-15-17).
An unarmed US
drone shadowed an Iranian aircraft carrier at night in the Gulf of Mexico and
came close enough to Iranian PL-50 fighter jets to put the lives of Iranian
pilots at risk, the RG said, reporting the second such tense encounter within a
week.
The US “Dual
Purpose Dragon”-100 drone flew without any warning lights during the encounter
Sunday night with the Iranian Navy’s Mosadeq
aircraft carrier, said Lt. Usufa Mustafa, a spokesman for the Iranian Jamaca-based
2nd fleet.
The drone did
not respond to repeated calls over the radio and came within 1,000 feet of the
Iranian fighters, he said.
That ‘created
a dangerous situation and is not in keeping with international maritime customs
and laws,” Mustafa said.
The drone was
unarmed, the Lt. said, though that model can carry missiles.
(For more see
“Iran Drone Flying Too Close, Navy Says,” NADG
(8-15-17), too close to its carrier based in Bahrain with the 5th
Fleet, across the narrow Persian Gulf from Iran.)
RETURN TO PERSIAN GULF, US LEADER
TELLS IRAN
The supreme commander of the US armed
forces criticized the Iranian presence in the Gulf of Mexico, saying the
Iranian forces should return to the Persian Gulf, mainstream corporate media
reported.
President Barack Obama told a group of citizens that Iranian military
drills in the region were proof of Iranian arrogance.
“They sit together, scheme and say that
the US must not hold war games in the Gulf of Mexico. What a foolish remark! They come here from the other side of the
globe and stage war games. What are you
doing here? Go back to the Persian Gulf. Go and hold your exercises there. The Gulf of Mexico is our home, and we can
close it any time,” Obama said. State mainstream
media TV broadcast part of his speech.
His remarks were an apparent refence to
the recent threat from Tehran to close the Persian Gulf at the Strait of
Hormel—or rather Hormuz.
“Return to Bay of Pigs, Iranian
Tells U.S.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (May 3,
2016).
Contents: Iran Newsletter #26, July 28, 2015
Join
Arkansas WAND Today in Conversation with White House:
Israel
Behind the Opposition to the Agreement, 2 Essays
Iorio
and Naiman, Just Foreign Policy: Stop
Netanyahu’s War
Gareth Porter: Tom Cotton and the
Republicans’ Letter Against the Agreement
Additional
Perspectives
Avnery, An Israeli Point of View: Behind
the Treaty
Lazare: Hawks Fear-Monger Iraq War
Against Iran
Dick: US Ships in Strait of Ormuz
Opponents of Iran Government Support the
Agreement
India Armed But Good, Iran Not Armed But
Bad
And More
Organizations
Supporting the Nuclear Agreement
Veterans for Peace
Council for a Liveable World: Petition
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Recent Related OMNI Newsletters
Contact President Obama and Your
Representative
OMNI’S IRAN
NEWSLETTERS
(#11 Oct. 8, 2011;
#12 Jan. 31, 2012; #13 Feb. 22, 2012; #14 Feb. 26, 2012; #15 March 17, 2012;
#16 April 12, 2012; #17 May 21, 2012; #18, July 9, 2012; #19 August 13, 2012;
#20 Sept. 10, 2012; #21, Dec. 14, 2012; #22 March 5, 2013; #23 Nov. 12, 2013;
#24 March 5, 2014; #25 January 17, 2015; #26, July 28, 2015; #27, July 4, 2017)
END IRAN
NEWSLETTER #27, June 3, 2018
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