Posted on 11/11/2006 11:02:22 AM PST by freedom44
Top News Story
Persian Journal
The editor of Kayhan Newspaper, Hussein Shariatmadari, hasrecently said: "if Iran is put under the UN sanctions, the 5+1 states [i.e. the USA, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany] would be the biggest losers from economic and political points of view." He has added: "closing the Strait of Hurmoz can be one of the retaliatory reactions [of Iran]... . if we are made subject to the sanctions, then naturally we can use some leverages, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz. Closing the Strait of Hormuz will seriously stop the flow of oil to the industrial states and they will face intolerable conditions. Of course, there are numerous other leverages that will be discussed later." (1)
The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow sea passage that connects the Persian Gulf to the Oman Sea. This is the only sea-passage for the export of oil from the Persian Gulf states. The Iranian forces have done several maneuvers aimed at closing the Strait of Hormuz at the time of crisis and the Western forces in the region (in cooperation with the some of the littoral countries or independently) have conducted several maneuvers aimed at deterring such plans.
The threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (2) has been mentioned time and again by many other figures in Iran (3). The officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have threatened that if the United Nations Organization adopts serious sanctions against the regime of Iran (due to the nuclear case of Iran which is currently in the Security Council of the UNO), they may resort to the "oil weapon".
It should be noted that any action by Iran to stop the oil flow from the Persian Gulf countries, by blocking the strait Hurmoz, attacking the shipping lines, trying to blow up the pipelines or the production and refinery facilities of the other countries in the region (such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea, or Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain in the Persian Gulf), will be considered as a serious violation of the international laws and regulations for the concerned states. It would be in practice like giving a declaration of war to them. At the same time, it would be a serious challenge to the interests of the major oil importing states, especially the USA, that according to the Carter Doctrine considers the Persian Gulf as an area of vital interests. The US government feels obliged to stop any serious challenge to its vital interest, by all means, including the military actions.
A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran:
Closing the strait is an act of war. Let's roll!
ping
It boggles the mind to accept as real this level of stupidity from a spokesman for a real State.
The Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman are international waters. Any attempt to close the Straights of Homuz would be a) very short lived; b) Likely to trigger the destruction of all cities and towns along that portion of Iran, permanently.
Hard to imagine that all the oil-producing countries that use the gulfs daily, and the countries transporting the oil would allow Iran even one week's worth of disruption...
What are these nutballs smoking?
Do it..don't just talk. Hehehe.
Secondly, like North Korea, threats and overblown reactionary comments are two a penny and have to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Iran is capable of doing a lot of damage in the Strait in the short term, but they know that any action like that would trigger a war, and if they wanted a war that badly they would have started it already.
Iran wants to continue to develop their nukes, and they will use threats and diplomacy to buy the time they need to develop them.
After which, the allied countries will descend back into savagry and scratchy toilet paper.
When our backs are to the wall, we will find a way to keep up our standard of living. It might take a little while but Americans perform best when under fire.
I am so losing interest in anything that comes from the mouths of crazy ME people.
I feel sorry for the country of Israel, but in reality, their citizens are a whole lot more united behind their government than people in this country are.
1-2 years in the military for every young adult in this country wouldn't hurt them a bit. I have always admired the Israelis for insisting that each person participate in the defense of their country, even if only in a support capacity and not in a fighting capacity.
# Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
This is the Supreme Leader He's not a Grand Ayatollah he's a mid-ranking cleric.
It's not quite that simple. Caliphates were always Sunni, Iran has always gone their own way as Shia Muslims. Shiites are only 10% of Islamic world and are at enternal loggerheads with the Sunni majority, particularly the Saudi Wahabbi strain of Sunnis who have the most money and influence. Study a little of the history of Islam, there's no way the Saudis would accept any Shia concept of a Caliphate.
Iran doesn't care - they will launch a war against the Saudis before the end of the decade.
Iran's current borders cross invisibly into Basra and right into northeast Saud by their infiltrated Shia population. They have been seeding those areas for a while and are probably trying to arm them as we speak. Rumors are they were involved in the Kuwait explosion. The Iranian Shiite Crescent is extending it's reach.
This is why the President recently increased our naval presence in the area. I have read Islamic history. This is the first time in their history, except for a brief Persian period, that they are in position to control the Muslim world that has been dominated by Sunnis for centuries.
Three years tops - Iran will make their move.
Nine world navies said NO in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. And that was during the Cold War.
The Straits will close when hell freezes over.
they will face intolerable conditions""
Iran is headed for self- imolation, IMO.
I still say that "head of state" is the leader of the group that took the Americans hostage that were held for 444 days until Reagan got them loose.
It could be classified as a tragedy in progress if it were theater. That is, it is classical comedy now, but if it plays out as it appears it will be classical tragedy. Venezuela appears to be comedy beginning to end.
I see your point, and you state it well. The House of Saud is weak, and Shia Iran is run by fanatics of the most dangerous sort.
I do not share most everyone's assessment that taking out Iran's regime will be a cake walk…it ignores Russia's significant military transfers allowed by one seriously criminal politician…here's HIS Inconvenient Truth
http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/102300Senate.pdf
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