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Why would five Iranian speedboats bluff an attack on a U.S. Navy squadron? Start with a big fact: Under the mullah-led thieves' regime, Iran has become an explosive political mix of ethnic, economic and ideological fragments, a mosaic powder keg. The Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic Revolution failed, then fossilized, leaving a corrupt junta of robed kleptocrats who use the dictator's classic tools of murder, terror and economic favoritism to control an impoverished, splintered and increasingly restless populace. Moreover, factions within the mullahs' hierarchy spar with one another. Throwing a risky punch at the United States or Great Britain serves two...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2008 – Three U.S. Navy vessels took evasive actions after five Iranian boats buzzed the ships transiting the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today. Speaking to Pentagon reporters, Whitman called the Iranian provocation “a serious incident.” The fast Iranian boats approached at “distances and speed that showed reckless, dangerous and potentially hostile intent,” he said. The incident lasted about 15 to 20 minutes, he said. The Navy ships were going into the Persian Gulf when the Iranian boats confronted them. “Small, Iranian fast boats made some aggressive maneuvers against our vessels and indicated...

Breaking News U.S. officials: 5 Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed, provoked 3 U.S. Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.

The more Ron Paul talks, the more he demonstrates his unfitness for the office he seeks — and maybe for the office he holds. Yesterday on Meet the Press, Paul came up with a number of stunners, but his take on Iran may have been the most clueless of all: MR. RUSSERT: So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do? REP. PAUL: Well, they’re not going to. That is like saying “Iran is about to invade Mars.” I mean, they have nothing. They don’t have an army or navy or air force. And Israelis have 300 nuclear weapons. Nobody...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has taken command of Iranian naval operations in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. military has revealed. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the disclosure Wednesday at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was answering questions from military students. Afterward, in a written statement, the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said, "Based on activities observed in the Arabian Gulf over the past several months, it appears the Iranian navy has shifted its patrol areas to the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman --...

Roger L. Simon, last seen cavorting with Pajama clad babes on the floor of the BlogWorld convention like a latter day Hugh Hefner, sat down with Fred Thompson to discuss the Global War on Terror. Bob Owens, proprietor of the excellent Confederate Yankee blog, joined Roger in conducting the interview. I linked to this yesterday in my Republican race Q&A, but the interview itself merits a little post of its own. In no particular order, a few observations: 1) The long form interview allowed Fred to express his knowledge and thoughts on the war on terror. He was impressive. Believe...

TEHRAN (AFP) - A former commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said mounting US rhetoric against the Islamic republic over its nuclear programme should be taken seriously in comments published on Sunday. "The enemy recently has increased its threats against Iran and no one should take them as jokes," former Guards commander Mohsen Rezaie was quoted as saying by the reformist Aftab Yazd newspaper. "But the Iranian nation has the capacity to resist these threats," Rezaie added

A senior general in Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps declared this week that Iranian forces were prepared to carry out martyrdom operations in the Persian Gulf “if necessary.” PJM analyst Meir Javedanfar warns that the threat should be taken very seriously. Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers By Meir Javedanfar Brigadier General Ali Fahdavi, a senior general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), issued a warning this week that “if necessary” the IRGC’s Baseej forces were ready to carry out suicide operations in the Gulf, amid rising tensions with the United States. Citing the spirit of Hossein Fahimi, a brainwashed...

..." The sources pointed out that students and professors resisted the closure. Iranian forces shot them, and detained a number of students."

TEHERAN - A top general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Monday warned that the Basij militia were ready ‘if necessary’ to carry out suicide operations in the Gulf, amid rising tensions with the United States, the Fars news agency reported. ‘If necessary we will take advantage of the element of martyrdom-seeking,’ said Brigadier General Ali Fahdavi, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval forces. ‘This spirit is prevailing now throughout the Revolutionary Guards,’ he added. The Basij militia is part of the Guards’ military apparatus. ‘They have taken an example from Shahid (martyr) Fahmideh,’ Fahdavi said, referring to 13-year-old Iranian...

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was set up shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution to defend the country's Islamic system, and to provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces. It has since become a major military, political and economic force in Iran, with close ties to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member.

The Bush administration plans to roll out an unprecedented package of unilateral sanctions against Iran today, including the long-awaited designations of its Revolutionary Guard Corps as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and of the elite Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism, according to senior administration officials. The package, scheduled to be announced jointly by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., marks the first time that the United States has tried to isolate or punish another country's military. It is the broadest set of punitive measures imposed on Tehran since the 1979...

The Long War Journal: General Petraeus: Iran's ambassador to Iraq "is a Qods force member" Written by Bill Roggio on October 7, 2007 6:58 PM to The Long War Journal Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/10/general_petraeus_ira.php An Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps poster. Photo from Trends Magazine. The war of words between the US military and Iran over Iran's involvement in terrorist activity in Iraq heated up on Sunday after General David Petraeus, the commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, said the Iranian ambassador was an Iranian intelligence agent. "The ambassador is a Qods force member," Petraeus told a group of reporters near...

Randall Rolph said he came to New Hampton, Iowa, on Sunday to see Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) with an open mind about whether to support her candidacy. After a tough exchange over Iran, he left saying he had ruled her out. Rolph was one of several hundred people who turned out in this small town in northern Iowa for Clinton's appearance. When she called on him for a question, he pulled out a piece of paper and read a question about Iran. Rolph asked Clinton to explain her Senate vote Wednesday for a resolution urging the Bush administration to...

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said its defense troops have launched a new system which brings all movements in the Persian Gulf and the Straight of Hormoz under Iran's online control. The system called 'Hod Hod' (Hoopoe) has been designed by IRGC experts and provides the Iranian troops with the possibility to monitor even the subtlest moves on the surface or in the air.

U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are being monitored by Iran using satellites and other technology and are well within range of Iranian missiles, a top Iranian military official said. "The Americans should realize that the 200,000 troops they have deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are in Iran’s firing range,” Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, an advisor to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in remarks published by Iranian newspapers Monday. Speaking on the 27th anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, Safavi, the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, said Iran was now in a strong...

U.S. Military Goes After Iran-Backed Militants BAGHDAD — U.S. troops killed one suspected militant and detained four others said to be involved in kidnapping operations run by Iranian-backed Shiite militias during a raid Monday in eastern Baghdad, the military said. The operation in the Iraqi capital's Shiite slum of Sadr City came on the heels of accusations that Iran is smuggling surface-to-air missiles and other advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American troops and increasing protests by Iraqi officials over the latest U.S. detention of an Iranian in northern Iraq. That detention has taxed relations between Iraq and the...

<p>Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has blasted the United States for the arrest Thursday of an Iranian and called for his immediate release.</p> <p>The U.S. military said the detainee is a member of an elite Iranian unit that has been accused of training and equipping insurgents in Iraq, but Talabani said he is a civil servant who was on an official trade mission in Iraq's Kurdistan region.</p>

As Americans wonder how to cope with Iran, Iran keeps killing Americans. The primary battleground is Iraq, where agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fund and arm the Shiite extremists whose IEDs pierce the armor of U.S. soldiers and whose bombs massacre Iraqi civilians. Within the next few days, four senators will introduce legislation that faces these facts unflinchingly and calls on America to win. The resolution — an amendment to a defense appropriations bill — is sponsored by Jon Kyl, Joseph Lieberman, Norm Coleman, and Lindsey Graham. It expresses the sense of the Senate that the U.S. should “combat, contain,...

Iran threatens missile attacks on US targetsBy David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent Last Updated: 11:33pm BST 17/09/2007 Iran threatened to fire long-range missiles at American targets in the Middle East yesterday as the war of words between Teheran and the West continued to escalate. A senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard, the largest component of the Islamic republic's armed forces, chose this moment to outline the capability of his country's ballistic missiles. The Shahab-3 rocket has a range of 1,250 miles, allowing it to strike an array of Western targets across the Middle East. "Today the Americans are around our country...