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Posts Tagged Iran
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
Posted by Brian in Threat Watch on 8/Mar/2011 16:00
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
The world’s attention is focused on Libya, which is now in a state of civil war with the winner far from clear. While crucial for the Libyan people and of some significance to the world’s oil markets, in our view, Libya is not the most important event in the Arab world at the moment. The demonstrations in Bahrain are, in my view, far more significant in their implications for the region and potentially for the world. To understand this, we must place it in a strategic context.
As STRATFOR has been saying for quite a while, a decisive moment is approaching, with the United States currently slated to withdraw the last of its forces from Iraq by the end of the year. Indeed, we are already at a point where the composition of the 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq has shifted from combat troops to training and support personnel. As it stands now, even these will all be gone by Dec. 31, 2011, provided the United States does not negotiate an extended stay. Iraq still does not have a stable government. It also does not have a military and security apparatus able to enforce the will of the government (which is hardly of one mind on anything) on the country, much less defend the country from outside forces. Read the rest of this entry »
Iranian Warships in Suez Canal
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 23/Feb/2011 13:00
First Iranian warships to pass through the Suez canal since 1979.
One killed in Iran during clashes at banned opposition rally
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 14/Feb/2011 15:58
From: Harretz
An Iranian was shot dead during a banned opposition rally in Tehran, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, blaming opposition supporters for the shooting.
“One person was shot dead and several were wounded by seditionists (opposition supporters) who staged a rally in Tehran,” Fars said, without giving further details.
Obama’s State of the Union and U.S. Foreign Policy
Obama’s State of the Union and U.S. Foreign Policy is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
U.S. President Barack Obama will deliver the State of the Union address tonight. The administration has let the media know that the focus of the speech will be on jobs and the economy. Given the strong showing of the Republicans in the last election, and the fact that they have defined domestic issues as the main battleground, Obama’s decision makes political sense. He will likely mention foreign issues and is undoubtedly devoting significant time to them, but the decision not to focus on foreign affairs in his State of the Union address gives the impression that the global situation is under control. Indeed, the Republican focus on domestic matters projects the same sense. Both sides create the danger that the public will be unprepared for some of the international crises that are already quite heated. We have discussed these issues in detail, but it is useful to step back and look at the state of the world for a moment. Read the rest of this entry »
The Turkish Role in Negotiations with Iran
Posted by Brian in Opinion, Threat Watch on 12/Jan/2011 09:13
The Turkish Role in Negotiations with Iran is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
The P-5+1 talks with Iran will resume Jan. 21-22. For those not tuned into the obscure jargon of the diplomatic world, these are the talks between the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia), plus Germany — hence, P-5+1. These six countries will be negotiating with one country, Iran. The meetings will take place in Istanbul under the aegis of yet another country, Turkey. Turkey has said it would only host this meeting, not mediate it. It will be difficult for Turkey to stay in this role.
The Iranians have clearly learned from the North Koreans, who have turned their nuclear program into a framework for entangling five major powers (the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea) into treating North Korea as their diplomatic equal. For North Korea, whose goal since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the absorption of China with international trade has come down to regime survival, being treated as a serious power has been a major diplomatic coup. The mere threat of nuclear weapons development has succeeded in doing that. When you step back and consider that North Korea’s economy is among the most destitute of Third World countries and its nuclear capability is far from proven, getting to be the one being persuaded to talk with five major powers (and frequently refusing and then being coaxed) has been quite an achievement. Read the rest of this entry »
Attacks on Nuclear Scientists in Tehran
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 3/Dec/2010 14:15
Attacks on Nuclear Scientists in Tehran is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Ben West
On the morning of Nov. 29, two Iranian scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear development program were attacked. One was killed, and the other was injured. According to Iranian media, the deceased, Dr. Majid Shahriari, was heading the team responsible for developing the technology to design a nuclear reactor core, and Time magazine referred to him as the highest-ranking non-appointed individual working on the project.
Official reports indicate that Shahriari was killed when assailants on motorcycles attached a “sticky bomb†to his vehicle and detonated it seconds later. However, the Time magazine report says that an explosive device concealed inside the car detonated and killed him. Shahriari’s driver and wife, both of whom were in the car at the time, were injured.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of town, Dr. Fereidoon Abassi was injured in a sticky-bomb attack reportedly identical to the one officials said killed Shahriari. His wife was accompanying him and was also injured (some reports indicate that a driver was also in the car at the time of the attack). Abassi and his wife are said to be in stable condition. Abassi is perhaps even more closely linked to Iran’s nuclear program than Shahriari was, since he was a member of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and was named in a 2007 U.N. resolution that sanctioned high-ranking members of Iran’s defense and military agencies believed to be trying to obtain nuclear weapons. Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Midterm Elections, Obama and Iran
U.S. Midterm Elections, Obama and Iran is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
We are a week away from the 2010 U.S. midterm elections. The outcome is already locked in. Whether the Republicans take the House or the Senate is close to immaterial. It is almost certain that the dynamics of American domestic politics will change. The Democrats will lose their ability to impose cloture in the Senate and thereby shut off debate. Whether they lose the House or not, the Democrats will lose the ability to pass legislation at the will of the House Democratic leadership. The large majority held by the Democrats will be gone, and party discipline will not be strong enough (it never is) to prevent some defections.
Should the Republicans win an overwhelming victory in both houses next week, they will still not have the votes to override presidential vetoes. Therefore they will not be able to legislate unilaterally, and if any legislation is to be passed it will have to be the result of negotiations between the president and the Republican Congressional leadership. Thus, whether the Democrats do better than expected or the Republicans win a massive victory, the practical result will be the same.
When we consider the difficulties President Barack Obama had passing his health care legislation, even with powerful majorities in both houses, it is clear that he will not be able to push through any significant legislation without Republican agreement. The result will either be gridlock or a very different legislative agenda than we have seen in the first two years. Read the rest of this entry »
WikiLeaks surprise: for years after the start of the Iraq war, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 23/Oct/2010 16:39
“By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.
But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic†chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.
That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists†were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners†were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.†The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert†that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.†What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn’t say.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz13DicdIPr
Iran unveils their new bomb: the “Ritard”
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 5/Oct/2010 14:24
“Lots of dictatorships love to parade their military might once a year. But this year’s Iranian “Sacred Defense Week 2010 Military Parade†hosted some of the weirdest-looking weaponry outside of a bad 60’s spy movie. Honestly, when you wheel a bomb marked “Ritard†past the reviewing stand, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be the laughing stock of the rest of the civilized world.”
http://photofind.com/featured-photo/ritard-bomb-from-iran
I would not want to be the Iranian guy who recommended this name.
“Everybody salute, here comes the Ritard.”
US navy to battle swarms of Iranian ‘stealth’ WIG-ships with Laser energy cannons
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 5/Oct/2010 01:41
“The US military-industrial complex has unveiled its answer to the much-vaunted “swarm” tactics of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval forces, which might see squadrons of “stealth” flying boats and attack craft overwhelming the defences of US warships in the Persian Gulf.
The US Navy will deal with this, apparently, using rapid-firing laser raygun cannons to sweep their swarming enemies from the seas and skies around them.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/04/northrop_mld_and_bavar/
U.S. welcomes Russia’s ban on S-300 missile sales to Iran
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 22/Sep/2010 18:09
The U.S. welcomes the Russian president’s decree to prohibit the delivery of S-300 air defense missile systems and other weapons to Iran, a White House official said.
National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer welcomed the move as a “faithful and robust implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1929” of June 9, 2010, which imposes an additional set of sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its controversial nuclear program.
A Change of Course in Cuba and Venezuela?
A Change of Course in Cuba and Venezuela? is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman and Reva Bhalla
Strange statements are coming out of Cuba these days. Fidel Castro, in the course of a five-hour interview in late August, reportedly told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations that “the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.â€
Once that statement hit the headlines, Castro backtracked. Dressed in military uniform for the first time in four years (which we suspect was his way of signaling that he was not abandoning the revolution), he delivered a rare, 35-minute speech Sept. 3 to students at the University of Havana. In addition to spending several minutes on STRATFOR’s Iran analysis, Castro addressed his earlier statement on the Cuban model, saying he was “accurately quoted but misinterpreted†and suggesting that the economic model doesn’t work anymore but that the revolution lives on.
Castro, now 84, may be old, but he still seems to have his wits about him. We don’t know whether he was grossly misinterpreted by the reporter during the earlier interview, was acknowledging the futility of the Cuban model and/or was dropping hints of a policy shift. Regardless of what he did or did not say, Castro’s reported statement on the weakness of the revolution was by no means revolutionary. Read the rest of this entry »
Overview of Potential threat: Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Threat Watch on 4/Sep/2010 16:48
“If Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda — or the dictators of North Korea or Iran — had the ability to destroy America as a superpower, would they be tempted to try?
Wouldn’t that temptation be even greater if that result could be achieved with a single attack, involving just one nuclear weapon, perhaps even one of modest power and relatively unsophisticated design?
And, what if the attacker could be reasonably sure that the United States would not know who was responsible for such a devastating blow?
Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan
Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Scott Stewart
The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has served to shift attention toward Afghanistan, where the United States has been increasing its troop strength in hopes of forming conditions conducive to a political settlement. This is similar to the way it used the 2007 surge in Iraq to help reach a negotiated settlement with the Sunni insurgents that eventually set the stage for withdrawal there. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, the Taliban at this point do not feel the pressure required for them to capitulate or negotiate and therefore continue to follow their strategy of surviving and waiting for the coalition forces to depart so that they can again make a move to assume control over Afghanistan.
Indeed, with the United States having set a deadline of July 2011 to begin the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan — and with many of its NATO allies withdrawing sooner — the Taliban can sense that the end is near. As they wait expectantly for the departure of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, a look at the history of militancy in Afghanistan provides a bit of a preview of what could follow the U.S. withdrawal. Read the rest of this entry »
Rethinking American Options on Iran
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 2/Sep/2010 15:31
Rethinking American Options on Iran is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
Public discussion of potential attacks on Iran’s nuclear development sites is surging again. This has happened before. On several occasions, leaks about potential airstrikes have created an atmosphere of impending war. These leaks normally coincided with diplomatic initiatives and were designed to intimidate the Iranians and facilitate a settlement favorable to the United States and Israel. These initiatives have failed in the past. It is therefore reasonable to associate the current avalanche of reports with the imposition of sanctions and view it as an attempt to increase the pressure on Iran and either force a policy shift or take advantage of divisions within the regime.
My first instinct is to dismiss the war talk as simply another round of psychological warfare against Iran, this time originating with Israel. Most of the reports indicate that Israel is on the verge of attacking Iran. From a psychological-warfare standpoint, this sets up the good-cop/bad-cop routine. The Israelis play the mad dog barely restrained by the more sober Americans, who urge the Iranians through intermediaries to make concessions and head off a war. As I said, we have been here before several times, and this hasn’t worked.
The worst sin of intelligence is complacency, the belief that simply because something has happened (or has not happened) several times before it is not going to happen this time. But each episode must be considered carefully in its own light and preconceptions from previous episodes must be banished. Indeed, the previous episodes might well have been intended to lull the Iranians into complacency themselves. Paradoxically, the very existence of another round of war talk could be intended to convince the Iranians that war is distant while covert war preparations take place. An attack may be in the offing, but the public displays neither confirm nor deny that possibility. Read the rest of this entry »