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Are matters coming to a head in the Middle East? According to a report by Sean Rayment of the UK Telegraph, the leaders of the United States are going to meet tomorrow, something that had previously not been announced, as annual naval exercises - the largest ever, are to bring a large flotilla of western vessels to the Strait of Hormuz:

An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme. Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war. Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of...

An oil tanker collided with a U.S. Navy destroyer near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday but no one was hurt and shipping traffic in the waterway, through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil exports pass, was not affected, officials said. "Both vessels are okay and the Strait of Hormuz is not closed, and business is as usual there," an Oman coast guard official told Reuters, declining to be named under briefing rules. The collision nevertheless left a gaping hole in the starboard side of USS Porter, a guided-missile destroyer suffered, but no one was injured on either...

Iran renewed threats on Sunday to close the Strait of Hormuz unless sanctions against it were revoked, though it remains unclear how Tehran could shut down the vital oil shipping channel given the significant American military presence there. The Iranian parliament is considering a bill calling for the strait to be closed. The assembly has little control over national defense and foreign policy decisions and, while the bill would be largely symbolic, it would indicate the legislature's support behind any leadership decision to close the strait. … Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel, through...

MANAMA, Bahrain, June 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy is doubling the size of its Persian Gulf naval base at Manama, which officials say will greatly enhance the capabilities of the U.S. 5th Fleet, which has headquarters in the island state. Officials are reluctant to link the $580 million expansion to the confrontation with Iran across the gulf.They say the project has been in the works since 2003 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But it coincides with a sharp increase in Iranian naval activity in the gulf in recent weeks.Work on the upgrade began late in...

NICOSIA -- In the first such claim, Iran said it was imposing a blockade on unauthorized ships in the Strait of Hormuz. A senior commander for Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said all ships, including those from the U.S. Navy, must undergo inspection before proceeding through the strait. "The alien vessels which enter the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz always provide the needed answers and information to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps units," IRGC deputy navy commander Rear Adm. Alireza Tangsiri said.

How would the US military respond if Iran attacked US interests – in retaliation for, say, an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities? What would a US counterattack look like? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington Monday to meet with President Obama – which comes in the midst of increasingly vocal warnings from Pentagon officials urging caution on any military action in the region – has brought these questions into sharp focus this week. These questions, too, were at the heart of one of the largest US military war-game exercises in a decade, meant to mirror the conditions...

Afonso de Albuquerque arrived at the Indian Ocean in 1506 commanding a squadron of five war vessels integrated in Tristão da Cunha's Armada. In the summer of 1507, after the conquest of Socotra, the Armada's main objective, Afonso de Albuquerque departed on his own commanding a fleet of six vessels and 500 marines to take the easternmost island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, called by local folk Hormuz. Defeating a garrison of 15,000 men with his artillery, Albuquerque took Hormuz and commissioned the construction of a fortress. This island would eventually lend its name to one of the...

Even as it continued to talk with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Iran continued to prepare for war over its nuclear weapons program, training for kamikaze attacks in the Persian Gulf with both planes and speedboats, sources within the Iranian armed forces report. Ads by GooglePeople Search-Search Free 1) Enter Any Name & Search Free! 2) Get Phone, Address, Age & More. www.intelius.comA 9mm is False Protection Discover What Survivalist Masters & The Army Don't Want You To Know www.CloseCombatTraining.comTuesday the International Atomic Energy Agency called its recent talks with Iran a failure. And just days before, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah...

The US has begun beefing up its sea- and land-based defences in the Persian Gulf to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. The American forces are also modifying weapons systems on warships so they could be used against Iranian fast-attack boats, as well as short-launched cruise missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting US defence officials said. The paper said Pentagon had notified Congress of plans to pre-position new mine-detection and clearing equipment and expand surveillance capabilities in and around the strait, through which 20 percent of world's oil supply passes.

The Pentagon is beefing up U.S. sea- and land-based defenses in the Persian Gulf to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military has notified Congress of plans to preposition new mine-detection and clearing equipment and expand surveillance capabilities in and around the strait, according to defense officials briefed on the requests, including one submitted earlier this month. The military also wants to quickly modify weapons systems on ships so they could be used against Iranian fast-attack boats, as well as shore-launched cruise missiles, the defense officials said. The readiness push is spearheaded by...

Iran has begun mass production of an anti-ship cruise missile, state television's website said on Saturday. The Zafar missile, as it is dubbed in the report, "is a short-range, anti-ship cruise missile capable of destroying small- and medium-sized targets with high precision." It can be mounted on speed boats and other light vessels, can withstand electronic warfare, and is able to fly in low altitudes to avoid detection, the report said. Iran has a fleet of speed boats that often challenge US and allied warships in the Gulf. The vessels are usually controlled by the elite Revolutionary Guards and can...

Obama administration officials would not confirm whether President Obama called for direct talks with Iran, after an Iranian lawmaker claimed Wednesday that the president floated the proposal in a secret letter to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader. The White House acknowledged the letter and reiterated that the door remains open for Iran to return to international talks over its nuclear program. "It remains available to Iran to this day," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, adding that the U.S. position has not changed. But he did not confirm whether the president called for direct talks. The letter also warned...

Face-Off With Iran Complicates Obama’s Re-election Campaign By MARK LANDLER WASHINGTON — The escalating confrontation with Iran poses a major new political threat to President Obama as he heads into his campaign for re-election, confronting him with choices that could harm either the economic recovery or his image as a firm leader. Sanctions against Iran’s oil exports that the president signed into law on New Year’s Eve started a fateful clock ticking. In late June, when the campaign is in full swing, Mr. Obama will have to decide whether to take action against countries, including some staunch allies, if they...

Iran said on Sunday it had received a letter from the U.S. government about the Strait of Hormuz, Foreign Ministry spokesman ...was quoted ... as saying Tehran had not yet decided if it would reply to the letter, the contents of which he did not detail. "America's message over the Strait of Hormuz reached us through three channels. It was given to our U.N. representative, the Swiss ambassador conveyed it to the Foreign Ministry and also Iraqi President Jalal Talabani gave the message to Iran,"

Israeli defense officials tell Channel 2 that Washington wants to avoid causing further tensions in region after various foreign reports of U.S. and Israeli preparations for strike on Iran.Israel and the United States have postponed a massive joint defense exercise, which was expected to be carried out in the coming weeks, in order to avoid an escalation with Iran, Channel 2 reported on Sunday. According to an Israeli defense official, Washington wants to avoid causing further tensions in the region, especially in light of the sensitive situation that has been generated after various reports in the international media that the...

If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy has a backup plan to save one-fifth of the world's daily oil trade: send in the dolphins. The threat of Iran closing the strait has reached a fever pitch, reports today's New York Times, with U.S. officials warning Iran's supreme leader that such moves would cross a "red line" provoking a U.S. response. Iran could block the strait with any assortment of mines, armed speed boats or anti-ship cruise missiles but according to Michael Connell at the Center for Naval Analysis, “The immediate issue [for the U.S. military] is to...

Velayat-e 90, the 11-day Iranian naval exercise that began on December 24, 2011 in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, has brought Iran and the United States close to a military conflict. While Tehran originally maintained that the war games were merely for defensive purposes, a number of Iranian politicians and senior military officers described the exercises explicitly as a warning to the West that the Iranian navy is capable of closing the Strait and obstructing the transportation of oil in response to U.S. sanctions on the country’s central bank and oil exports (Press TV, December 28, 2011; IRNA, December...

The carrier, along with the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group, reaches the region as tensions are rising with Iran. Deployed San Diego-based ships in the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and Makin Island groups are now in the Middle East, the U.S. Fifth Fleet and Central Command has announced. The sailors, Marines and airmen aboard the ships arrive after Iranian officials recent threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for the world's oil supply, and warned a departing U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, not to return to the Persian Gulf.

INSIGHT, a top international provider of supply chain planning solutions for the world's foremost companies, believes that substantial supply chain problems will result if conflict breaks out in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent - 30 percent of the world's oil supply passes on a daily basis. Of more immediate concern to supply chain managers is the impact on global oil markets. While the consequences of military action in the Strait would be severe, even the threat of conflict has resulted in significant crude oil price increases in the past few weeks. Iran threatened last week to stop...