An Iranian "Stealth" Fighter?

Iran is claiming to have an indigenous stealth fighter, that looks a lot like an F5 with spray-painted cardboard glued to it.

Iran on Saturday unveiled its newest combat jet, a domestically manufactured fighter-bomber that military officials claim can evade radar.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony broadcast on state TV that building the Qaher F-313, or Dominant F-313, shows Iran's will to "conquer scientific peaks."
The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs the Iranian military has rolled out since 2007. Tehran has repeatedly claimed to have developed advanced military technologies in recent years, but its claims cannot be independently verified because the country does not release technical details of its arsenals.
The Islamic republic launched a self-sufficient military program in the 1980s to compensate for a Western weapons embargo that banned export of military technology and equipment to Iran. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles, torpedoes, drones and fighter planes.
"Qaher is a fully indigenous aircraft designed and built by our aerospace experts. This is a radar-evading plane that can fly at low altitude, carry weapons, engage enemy aircrafts and land at short airstrips," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said.
Vahidi said advanced materials were used to manufacture the body of the aircraft, making it Iran's best stealth plane.
However, some reports suggest that Iran's program relies on equipment supplied by major international defense contractors and that it incorporates parts made abroad or uses outside engineered technologies in its domestic designs.
Still photos of the Qaher released by the official IRNA news agency and pictures on state TV showed a single-seat jet. They described it as a fighter-bomber that can combat other aircraft and ground targets.
Iran's English-language state Press TV said Qaher was similar to the American-made F/A-18, an advanced fighter capable of dogfighting as well as penetrating enemy air defenses to strike ground targets.

By: Brant

Explosion in Iran; What's the "Real" Story

Beyond reading the headline, I didn't pay too much attention to reports of an explosion in Iran at a nuke site. As expected, much of the article is the usual "blah blah blah; random fact; Iranian denial; blame Israel" blather.

Unconfirmed reports then surfaced within days that Iran's Fordow nuclear facility was severely damaged and up to 240 workers trapped inside. The explosion was reportedly confined to the plant, suggesting that if it was an airstrike, it doesn't get more "surgical" than that.
The Jerusalem Post cites a report by Reza Kahlili who said: “The blast shook facilities within a radius of three miles. Security forces have enforced a no-traffic radius of 15 miles, and the Tehran- Qom highway was shut down for several hours after the blast.”
Iran's official news agency IRNA promptly denied the explosion, claiming the news was simply the result of the Western media fueled "propoganda machine".

At least, that's what I was expecting, except that I was still a bit floored by the opening 'graph (emphasis mine)

Talk of bombing Iran surfaced in the news late last week when Israel's departing defense minister, Ehud Barak, said his country had written off plans to attack Tehran on its own in the face of a "surgical" plan put forth by the Pentagon.

!?!?!?!?

By: Brant

Israel and Iran, Again

Yep, it's been awhile since we ran an article about Israel's concern with Iran's nuke program. Are we getting closer to open warfare? Or is Israel waiting for Assad to implode in Syria before doing anything so as not to give the world a distraction from what's happening there?

It is often hard for Americans to grasp the idea of an existential threat to a nation. While one existed for Americans during the Cold War, since then the notion that any single actor with any single act could effectively obliterate Americans or their lifestyle is very hard for many people to get their brains around. But that is exactly the threat that Israelis face from even a "limited" Iranian nuclear attack. And though it is reasonable to debate whether the Iranians would actually use such a weapon against Israel given the likely consequences for them, from the Israeli perspective, given Iranian threats and actions, the risks of guessing wrong about the intent of the leaders in Tehran are so high that inaction could easily be seen to be the imprudent path.

This summarizes the carefully worded case made last week in the Wall Street Journal by Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. His article was nothing less than a case for war, and, over lunch on Friday, Aug. 10, he underscored to me how much thought and care was put into its drafting. (Oren is, for the record, my longtime very good friend.) The response to the article included the unlikely endorsement of its core points by Khalid Al Khalifa, the foreign minister of Bahrain, who tweeted it with the words "Time Is Short For Iran Diplomacy." It also was seen as one of the most important of last week's signals that Israel's discomfort with the Iran situation is growing greater, signals that included on-the-record statements by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and off-the-record statements to journalist Ari Shavit (widely assumed to have been from Defense Minister Ehud Barak) that both underscored and amplified Oren's case for ramped-up pressure on Iran.

By: Brant

Another Iranian Test-Fire

This one appear to be legit, and actually has real missiles being fired, rather than photoshopped into place.

Iran said on Tuesday it had successfully tested medium-range missiles capable of hitting Israel in response to threats of military action against the country, Iranian media reported.
Israel says it could attack Iran if diplomacy fails to force it to halt its disputed nuclear energy program. The United States also has military force on the table as a last resort, but U.S. officials have repeatedly encouraged the Israelis to be patient while new sanctions against Iran take effect.
The Islamic Republic announced the "Great Prophet 7" missile exercise on Sunday after a European Union embargo against Iranian crude oil purchases took full effect after another fruitless round of big powers talks with Tehran.
Iran's official English-language Press TV said the Shahab 3 missile with a range of 1,300 km - able to reach Israel - were tested along with the shorter-range Shahab 1 and 2.
"The main aim of this drill is to demonstrate the Iranian nation's political resolve to defend vital values and national interests," Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander Hossein Salami was quoted by Press TV as saying.
He said the tests were in response to Iran's enemies who talk of a "military option being on the table". "The maneuvers are an answer to the rude words spoken against Iran," Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

By: Brant

Iran Shipping Arms to Syria... SHOCKER! (not...)

Hey, Iran is shipping arms to a repressive Syrian regime! In other late-breaking news, gravity continues to hold people to the planet.

The new report, submitted by a panel of sanctions-monitoring experts to the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, said the panel investigated three large illegal shipments of Iranian weapons over the past year.
"Iran has continued to defy the international community through illegal arms shipments," it stated. "Two of these cases involved (Syria), as were the majority of cases inspected by the Panel during its previous mandate, underscoring that Syria continues to be the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers."
The third shipment involved rockets that Britain said last year were headed for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

By: Brant

US Plans to Strike Iran?

So the US ambassador to Israel openly admits what everyone's known for a while - that the US has 'plans' to attack Iran.

U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms.
Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes.
"It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force," Ambassador Dan Shapiro said in remarks about Iran aired by Israel's Army Radio on Thursday.
"But that doesn't mean that option is not fully available - not just available, but it's ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it's ready," said Shapiro, who the radio station said had spoken on Tuesday.

Look, the US has plans to attack damn near everyone. Somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon is a plan to attack Sweden, in case we ever need it. Just because there's a plan doesn't mean we want to / will use it.

By: Brant

Iran Admits Incompetence, Resorts to Plagiarism

Hmmmm... we're too stupid to put a high-res camera on a long-range remote control airplane, so we'll just copy the US drone that fell into our lap in a stroke of pure luck.

Iran's military has started to build a copy of a U.S. surveillance drone captured last year after breaking the software encryption, Iranian media reported on Sunday.
General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, said engineers were in the final stages of decoding data from the Sentinel aircraft, which came down in December near the Afghan border, Mehr news agency reported.
Iran said the unmanned aircraft was shot down, but Washington disputes that and says the security systems mean Iran is unlikely to get valuable information from the Lockheed Martin Corp drone.
"The Americans should be aware to what extent we have infiltrated the plane," Fars news agency quoted Hajizadeh as saying. "Our experts have full understanding of its components and programmes."
Iran's military regular announces defense and engineering developments, but some analysts are skeptical as to how reliable those reports are.

Want to know what's going on with the Reaper? Follow his Twitter feed!

By: Brant

US Wargaming Possible Fight With Iran?

In an exploratory game, rather than a rehearsal, the US played out a possible shootout with Iran...

A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict.

and some details

The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.

The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon, Tampa, Fla., where the headquarters of the Central Command is located, and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation.

In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.

By: Brant

This Story Doesn't Add Up

There's some really, really fishy about the "American" who has been "released" in Iraq.

A militia loyal to Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr freed an American former soldier on Saturday after holding him captive in Baghdad for nine months.
The American, identified as Randy Michaels, was shown on television in a U.S. military uniform with no insignia, flanked by two members of parliament from Sadr's movement, including the parliament's first deputy speaker.
He was handed over to the United Nations mission in Baghdad, which transferred him to the U.S. embassy. Washington confirmed he was a U.S. citizen but released no further details.
In brief remarks to Iraqi journalists hastily convened to witness his release, Michaels said he had deployed to Iraq in 2003 and initially served there as a soldier for 15 months.
He remained in Iraq "in a civilian capacity from then until June of 2011, when I was taken hostage by elements of Yom al-Maoud," he said, referring to the Promised Day Brigade, an offshoot of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.
"I was taken inside Baghdad and have been kept in and around different locations within the city by al-Maoud. It was explained to me that my release has been for humanitarian purposes and there was no exchange involved."
Sadrist lawmakers repeatedly described him as an American soldier. However, the Pentagon says none of its serving troops have been listed as hostages in Iraq since the remains of the last missing soldier were recovered last month.

As we find out more, we'll post the updates here.

By: Brant

An Inaccurate "Debate" About Iran?

Stephen M. Walt has an excellent article about the top ten media failures in the debate about a 'war' with Iran. I've excerpted the list here, but there supporting paragraphs are outstanding and well worth the read. In short, Walt's point is that the information we are being fed through virtually every news source is filtered through a group of assumptions that inherently skew the coverage.

The interview got me thinking about the issue of media coverage of this whole business, and I'm sorry to say that most mainstream news organizations have let us down again. Although failures haven't been as egregious as the New York Times and Washington Post's wholesale swallowing of the Bush administration's sales pitch for war in 2002, on the whole the high-end media coverage has been disappointing. Here are my Top Ten Media Failures in the 2012 Iran War Scare.

#1: Mainstreaming the war.

#2: Loose talk about Iran's "nuclear [weapons] program."

#3: Obsessing about Ahmadinejad.

#4: Ignoring Iranian weakness.

#5: Failing to ask why Iran might want a bomb.

#6: Failing to consider why Iran might NOT want a bomb.

#7: Exaggerating Israel's capabilities.

#8: Letting spinmeisters play fast and loose with facts.

9. What about the human beings?

10. Could diplomacy work?

h/t SO over at Defence & Freedom for the link to the article.

By: Brant

Israel Attacks Iran, and... ?

Foreign Affairs has an entire issue devoted to the Iranian nuclear standoff, sans Persian Incursion review. But one of the better articles is about "What Happens After Israel Attacks Iran". An excerpt:

Indeed, the analysis in Israel about the possible effects of a bombing campaign against Iran is limited to a small, professional elite, mostly in government and behind closed doors. This intimate circle that does consider scenarios of the “day after” concentrates almost exclusively on what an Iranian response, direct or through proxies, might look like. This is not surprising, given that Israel must worry first and foremost about the immediate military implications of an Iranian counterattack. But in doing so, Israeli policymakers are ignoring several of the potential longer-term aspects of a strike: the preparedness of Israel’s home front; the contours of an Israeli exit strategy; the impact on U.S.-Israel relations; the global diplomatic fallout; the stability of world energy markets; and the outcome within Iran itself. Should Israel fail to openly debate and account for these factors in advance of an attack, it may end up with a strategic debacle, even if it achieves its narrow military goals.

Israeli officials have thought extensively about how the first moves of a military conflict between Jerusalem and Tehran might play out. Ephraim Kam, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and deputy head of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), reflected the general consensus in the security establishment when he wrote in the Institute’s 2010 strategic assessment that Iran may respond in two possible ways to an Israeli operation: missile strikes on Israel, either directly or through allied organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas; or terror attacks, likely on Israeli targets abroad by Iranians or those proxy groups.

A direct Iranian response would involve a missile barrage from Iran onto Israeli territory, similar to the volley of rockets launched at Israel by Iraq during the first Gulf War. Only one Israeli citizen died then, and it seems that Israeli officials estimate that the damage of a similar Iranian strike would be greater, but still limited. This past November, Ehud Barak, referring to possible direct and proxy-based Iranian retaliation, said that “There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed -- and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead.” Barak’s calm also reflects Israel’s previous experience in preempting nuclear threats. Iraq did not respond when Israel destroyed its nuclear facility in 1981, disproving the doomsday predictions made by several Israeli experts prior to the strike, and Syria remained silent when Israel bombed its nascent reactor in 2007.

Israeli policymakers also do not seem particularly concerned about the prospect of a proxy response. They recognize that Hezbollah, as it did in 2006, can target Israel with a large number of rockets. Yet in an interview with Ronen Bergman in The New York Times late last month, several Israeli experts argued that, regardless of a potential battle with Iran, the probability of an extended conflict with Hezbollah is already high. According to this logic, an attack on Iran would merely hasten the inevitable and might actually be easier to sustain before, not after, Iran acquires nuclear weapons. In addition, the new constraints now operating against Hezbollah -- the ongoing revolt in Syria chief among them -- might even limit the ability of the organization to harm Israel in a future conflict. Indeed, over the past several months, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has emphasized the group’s independence, saying on February 7 that “the Iranian leadership will not ask Hezbollah to do anything. On [the day of an Israeli attack on Iran], we will sit, think, and decide what we will do.”

It's long, but a very, very good read.

By: Brant

Redux of Persian Incursion... With the US?

Time's BattleLand blog asks a necessary - but provocative - question: if Israel can't bomb the Iranians out of the nuke business, could the US?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that attacking Iran’s nuclear sites would, “at best, it might postpone it [Iran joining the nuclear-weapons club] maybe one, possibly two years.” If he’s right – and most U.S. experts concur with his view – the U.S. probably can wound, but not kill, Iran’s nuclear dreams with military force.

But U.S. military experts say Washington could do far more to damage Iran’s nuclear program than Tel Aviv. Israel “has a much smaller air force and further to fly,” says Michael O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institution. “I worry most about its ability to robustly deal with Iranian air defenses.”

Jeffrey White, a former analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, says it’s not the initial punch that would set a U.S. attack apart from an Israeli one, but the ability to keep it going. “We have a lot more capability than Israel does, in terms of the number of aircraft, the kinds of attacks we could carry out, and the kinds of ordnance we could put on the targets,” says White, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.

“But more important that anything is that we could sustain attacks. We’ve got B-1s, B-2s, carrier aviation, we might be able to launch out of the gulf states, we’ve got cruise missiles to knock down the air-defense system before we launch,” White says. “We have all kinds of capabilities that Israel doesn’t have.”

But an Israeli attack would not be puny — it could involve, as the Times noted, as many as 100 aircraft. “They could get enough aircraft up there to hit a number of targets,” White says, “but it would probably be a one-shot deal.”

That’s because its smaller military would have to dedicate itself to the blowback sure to come: “The Israelis are pretty creative, but my tendency is to think of it as a one-time event, and then the forces used in that operation would be reconfigured to prepare for anything coming out of Hezbollah or Hamas,” White says. “The real difference is our ability to sustain these attacks,” White says. “I’m thinking it would be an air campaign of attacks lasting days, versus a single operation.”

And it might – if the U.S. were serious about stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – have to be repeated again and again.

Two things jump out at me here:
1. That repetitive strike paradigm sounds a lot like what we did to Iraq in the '90s.
2. Discussions about striking the nuclear infrastructure focus on how far back we can set them. Has anyone considered that a strike might stiffen the resolve of the Iranian people to complete the project and actually accelerate their progress?

By: Brant

Iran Flexing Muscles, World Flexing Back?

The US is reporting that Iranian meddling visible in Yemen.

Iran is becoming more active in Yemen and could pose a deeper threat to its stability and security, the U.S. envoy to Yemen said on Monday, highlighting what would be yet another layer of uncertainty in a near-failed state.
U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein's warning is likely to reinforce long-held fears among Sunni Gulf monarchies that Shi'ite Muslim power Iran is trying exploit regional unrest.
"We do see Iran trying to increase its presence here, in ways that we believe are unhelpful to Yemen's stability and security," Feierstein said in an interview one day before Yemenis head to the polls to elect a new president to replace Ali Abdullah Saleh, ending his three decades in power.

Their ships have docked in Syria.

Meanwhile two Iranian naval ships docked at the Syrian port of Tartous on Saturday, Iran's state-run Press TV reported. The ships were said to be providing training for Syrian naval forces under an agreement signed a year ago.
Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi, quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency, said: "Our ships passed through the Suez canal and it is Iran's right to have a presence in international waters."

And now Israel is looking to solve the Iranian nuclear problem theirownselvesthankyouverymuch.

In their warnings, both the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and British Foreign Minister William Hague said an Israeli attack on Iran would have grave consequences for the entire region and urged Israel to give international sanctions against Iran more time to work. Dempsey said an Israeli attack is "not prudent," and Hague said it would not be "a wise thing."
Both Israel and the West believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb — a charge Tehran denies. But differences have emerged in how to respond to the perceived threat.
The U.S. and the European Union have both imposed harsh new sanctions targeting Iran's oil sector, the lifeline of the Iranian economy. With the sanctions just beginning to bite, they have expressed optimism that Iran can be persuaded to curb its nuclear ambitions.
On Sunday, Iran's Oil Ministry said it has halted oil shipments to Britain and France in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union. The semiofficial Mehr news agency said the National Iranian Oil Company has sent letters to some European refineries with an ultimatum to either sign long-term contracts of two to five years or be cut off. The 27-nation EU accounts for about 18 percent of Iran's oil exports.

By: Brant

Iranian Navy in the Med

I'm pretty sure this variant wasn't in Persian Incursion.

Iranian warships entered the Mediterranean Sea after crossing the Suez Canal on Saturday to show Tehran's "might" to regional countries, the navy commander said, amid simmering tensions with Israel.
"The strategic navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has passed through the Suez Canal for the second time since the (1979) Islamic Revolution," Admiral Habibollah Sayari said in remarks quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
He did not say how many vessels had crossed the canal, or what missions they were planning to carry out in the Mediterranean, but said the flotilla had previously docked in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.
Two Iranian ships, the destroyer Shahid Qandi and supply vessel Kharg, had docked in the Red Sea port on February 4, according to Iranian media.
Sayari said the naval deployment to the Mediterranean would show "the might" of the Islamic republic to regional countries, and also convey Tehran's "message of peace and friendship."

So what exactly is the message? "We're mighty peaceful and friendly"?

By: Brant

Are Sanctions Working Against Iran?

You never hear about the on-the-ground effects of sanctions against a country. But here's a look at the effect they're having on the average Iranian. Yes, they take a long time to work. But maybe they are actually working?

Malaysia has halted palm oil exports to Iran because of payments problems and Asian oil buyers have cut crude purchases as Western sanctions tighten a financial noose around Iran.
Traders in China said they would cut iron ore purchases from Iran, which are worth over $2 billion a year, because of sanctions that have forced payment defaults on Indian rice imports and prompted Ukrainian and European sellers to stop booking shipments of Ukrainian grain to the Middle East country.
The problems are the most visible evidence to date that Western sanctions are squeezing Iran's trade.
Iran's crude oil buyers, including China and Japan, are cutting purchases, reducing the OPEC producer's earnings from its major source of the foreign exchange it needs to pay for critical imports, such as food staples.
The problems have come to light after U.S. sanctions this year targeted Iran's central bank and the European Union decided to ban Iran crude imports in an effort to force Tehran to abandon a suspected nuclear weapons program.
Iran's rial has plunged as the West increased sanctions, raising the price of imports for the economy and making it difficult to find Dubai-based middlemen who can process payments to keep the country's trade flowing.
Bread and rice dominate the diet of most Iranians, many of whom can no longer afford to buy meat, now selling for about $30 a kilogram in Tehran.

By: Brant

Iranian Exercises On The Ground

Iran's military has started exercises on the ground.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard began military exercises Saturday in the country's south, the latest show of force after threats to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for tougher Western sanctions.
Plans for new Iranian naval games in the Persian Gulf have been in the works for weeks. State media said that ground forces began maneuvers in southern Iran, but it was not immediately clear whether it was part of the planned naval training missions scheduled for this month or a separate operation.
The latest military maneuvers got under way following stern warnings by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about any possible U.S. or Israeli attacks against Tehran's nuclear facilities. It also comes after Western forces boosted their naval presence in the Gulf led by the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

I think we're all assuming that "powerful" in this context is a relative term. As in "powerful compared to the rest of the Iranian military, but shit-sucking lousy compared to a competent Western force."

By: Brant

US To Iran: Suck It

Iran's big talk about US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf turned out to be just that: big talk. We sailed the USS Abraham Lincoln right up their ass.

Amid heightened tensions with Iran, an American aircraft carrier has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. The Navy says it's a routine maneuver.
Cmdr. Amy Derrick-Frost said the USS Abraham Lincoln entered the Gulf on Sunday without incident to conduct scheduled maritime security operations. Derrick-Frost is a spokeswoman for the Navy's 5th Fleet, based in the Gulf state of Bahrain.
U.S. warships frequently operate in the Gulf. But when the carrier USS John Stennis departed the Gulf in late December, Iranian officials warned the U.S. not to return.

By: Brant

Are Israelis Making Iranian Nukies Go "Boom"?

According to The Daily Beast, the Israelis have "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" (not) admitted to killing Iranian nuclear scientists.

Six weeks ago in Washington, on the sidelines of a major U.S.-Israeli meeting known as the “strategic dialogue,” Israeli Mossad officers were quietly and obliquely bragging about the string of explosions in Iran. “They would say things like, ‘It’s not the best time to be working on Iranian missile design,’” one U.S. intelligence official at the December parley told The Daily Beast.

Those comments were a reference to a string of explosions at a missile-testing site outside Tehran on November 12. The explosions killed Maj. Gen. Hassan Moqqadam, the head of the country’s missile program. But the manner in which the message was delivered—informally and on the sidelines of an official discussion—also speaks to how Israel appears to seek to create the impression of responsibility for acts of violence and sabotage inside Iran without quite taking formal responsibility.

What do you think?

poll by twiigs.com

By: Brant

When Sanctions Aren't Enough

Would the US really assassinate an Iranian scientist?

Iran said on Saturday it had evidence Washington was behind the latest killing of one of its nuclear scientists, state television reported, at a time when tensions over the country's nuclear program have escalated to their highest level ever.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton denied responsibility and Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.
"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported. The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in a country where Washington has no diplomatic ties.
The spokesman for Iran's Joint Armed Forces Staff, Massoud Jazayeri, said: "Our enemies, especially America , Britain and the Zionist regime (Israel), have to be held responsible for their actions."

By: Brant

New Iranian Maneuvers... More Saber-Rattling?

February will bring a new round of maneuvers in the Hormuz Strait.

Iran announced plans on Friday to hold new naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz next month, the latest in a series of forceful gestures in the world's most important oil shipping lane at a time when new sanctions threaten Tehran's exports.
Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, naval commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, said the exercises in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz in February would be different from previous exercises, but gave no further details, according to remarks reported by the semi-official Fars news agency.
"Today the Islamic Republic of Iran has full domination over the region and controls all movements within it," he said.
Iran held a 10-day drill which ended on Monday in the strait, which leads out of the Gulf and provides the main export route for the Middle East's oil.

By: Brant