John Bolton is threatening Iran with "unrelenting force."



Onward and upward,
airforce

In DC I have always found the more things change, the more some things stay the same.

Beauracrats never change. They imbed like a tick and suck the host dry of its life blood.

Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln Passes Through Suez Canal On Route To Iran As Tensions Soar

Last night, Trump issued a statement affirming that the relationship with Iran is "broken beyond repair" and placed new sanctions on Iran's industrial metals sector


By Zero Hedge Thursday, May 09, 2019

Tehran tried to call Washington’s bluff on Wednesday when it threatened to start stockpiling enriched uranium and heavy water again – which would constitute a violation of the JCPOA’s terms – unless the treaty’s signatories abide by their commitments to buy oil and offer other financial relief, something that American sanctions have rendered impossible.

But in what appears to be an attempt to show Tehran that it’s not bluffing, Washington has committed to another threatening display of force. Reuters reports that the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been dispatched to the Mediterranean last week amid worsening tensions with Iran, has passed through the Suez Canal, the first stop in what appears to be a journey into Iranian waters.

U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SENT AS WARNING TO IRAN, PASSES THROUGH EGYPT’S SUEZ CANAL – CANAL AUTHORITY

The report cited the Canal Authority as its main source.

Last night, Trump issued a statement affirming that the relationship with Iran is “broken beyond repair” and placed new sanctions on Iran’s industrial metals sector.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have dismissed Washington’s dispatching of the aircraft carrier and several B-52 bombers to the region.

The Iranians have warned that they would retaliate if US forces get too close – possibly by blocking off the critical Strait of Hormuz (vital to the global oil trade) or responding with violence. If the aircraft carrier is indeed heading for the Persian Gulf, the situation could swiftly spiral out of control.

Bolton is not going to be happy until he can get us in a war SOMEWHERE!

Iran, Korea, or Venezuela. Any of them would suit him.

The U.S. is warning merchant ships of possible Iranian attacks. U.S. - flagged ships are urged to contact the Fifth Fleet at least two days before passing through the Strait of Hormuz.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Somebody tell that Iranian cleric if that 'one missile' is a nuke, Iran will be glass from border to border.

Iran commander calls U.S. military in Gulf a target not a threat -ISNA

by Reuters
Sunday, 12 May 2019

GENEVA, May 12 (Reuters) - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Sunday the U.S. military presence in the Gulf used to be a serious threat but now represents a target, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.

The U.S. military has sent forces, including an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers, to the Middle East in a move that U.S. officials said was made to counter "clear indications" of threats from Iran to American forces in the region.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is replacing another carrier rotated out of the Gulf last month.

"An aircraft carrier that has at least 40 to 50 planes on it and 6,000 forces gathered within it was a serious threat for us in the past but now it is a target and the threats have switched to opportunities," said Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards' aerospace division.

"If (the Americans) make a move, we will hit them in the head," he added, according to ISNA.

U.S. President Donald Trump also has increased economic pressure on Iran, moving to cut off all its oil exports, to try to get Tehran to curb its nuclear and missile programs as well as end support for proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

Speaking to CNBC in an interview to be broadcast on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. deployments came in response to intelligence about potential Iranian attacks and aimed both to deter them and to be able to respond if necessary.

"We've seen this reporting," Pompeo said. "It's real. It appears to be something that is current, that is things we're worried about today."

"In the event that Iran decided to come after an American interest - whether that be in Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen or any place in the Middle East - we are prepared to respond in an appropriate way," he said, adding that "our aim is not war."

Iranian navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said on Sunday that American forces must exit, according to ISNA. "The presence of the Americans in the Persian Gulf region has reached its end and they must leave the region," Khanzadi said.

Major General Hossein Salami, appointed head of the Guards last month, told parliament on Sunday the United States had started a psychological war in the region, the parliamentary spokesman said.

"Commander Salami, with attention to the situation in the region, presented an analysis that the Americans have started a psychological war because the comings and goings of their military is a normal matter," spokesman Behrouz Nemati said, according to parliament's ICANA news site. (Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh; Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle, Edmund Blair and Will Dunham)

Saudi Arabia says its oil tankers among those hit off UAE coast

Rania El Gamal, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin



DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Monday that two of its oil tankers were among those attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid tensions between the United States and Iran.

The UAE said on Sunday that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate, one of the world’s largest bunkering hubs lying just outside the Strait of Hormuz. It did not describe the nature of the attack or say who was behind it.

The UAE on Monday identified the vessels as very large crude carrier (VLCC) tanker Amjad and crude tanker Al Marzoqah, both owned by Saudi shipping firm Bahri. The other two were UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge A. Michel and Norwegian-registered oil products tanker MT Andrew Victory.

Thome Ship Management said its MT Andrew Victory was “struck by an unknown object”. Footage seen by Reuters showed a hole in the hull at the waterline with the metal torn open inwards.

A Reuters witness said divers were inspecting damaged ships. The UAE’s state news agency said Fujairah port was operating normally.

Iran, which is embroiled in an escalating war of words with the United States over sanctions and the U.S. military’s presence in the region, moved to distance itself on Monday.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the incidents “worrisome and dreadful” and asked for an investigation into the matter.

A senior Iranian lawmaker said “saboteurs from a third country” could be behind it, after saying on Sunday the incident showed the security of Gulf states was fragile.

This could get nasty, really quick.

Onward and upward,
airforce

World War 3? A Top Iranian Official Taunts Trump: “They Are Not Ready For A War, Specially When Israel Is Within Our Range”

In the end, it will be Trump that makes the final call on any war with Iran, and that decision will have enormous implications for all of us

By Michael Snyder | End Of The American Dream Monday, May 13, 2019

The Iranians are openly threatening to start firing missiles at Israel if Trump decides to attack Iran.

And this threat should not be taken lightly, because Iran has a highly sophisticated ballistic missile arsenal, and Hezbollah has approximately 150,000 missiles pointed directly at Israel right now. If the order is given, the Iranians and their proxy Hezbollah could rain an enormous amount of death and destruction down upon Israel, and of course Israel would hit them back even harder. We are talking about a scenario that could potentially trigger World War 3, and the Iranians apparently believe that the possibility of such an outcome will keep Trump from taking military action against them. The following comes from the Times of Israel…

A senior Iranian official on Sunday dismissed the US military buildup in the region as psychological warfare, saying that the US will not attack for fear of provoking an Iranian assault on Israel.

“The US military forces’ deployment in the Persian Gulf is more of the nature of psychological warfare. They are not ready for a war, specially when Israel is within our range,” Iranian Parliament’s Vice-Speaker Ali Motahhari said on Sunday, according to the FARS news agency.

In addition to its own missiles, Iranian proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip have hundreds of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel.

Perhaps the Iranians are correct and the U.S. has no intention of starting a war. But we have already seen that the Trump administration has not been afraid to engage in a campaign of “maximum pressure” that has pushed us to the brink of military conflict. In recent days the Trump administration has decided that they will not allow Iran to sell oil to anybody at all, and the crushing sanctions that were imposed on Iran last year have been absolutely devastating for the Iranian economy…

The sweeping unilateral sanctions that Washington re-imposed when it quit the agreement a year ago have dealt a severe blow to the Iranian economy, pushing the value of its currency to record lows, driving away foreign investors and triggering protests.

And for good reason: the plunging value of the rial has affected the prices of imported staples as well as locally produced goods. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, the cost of red meat and poultry has increased by 57% over the past 12 months; milk, cheese and eggs by 37%; and vegetables by 47%.

The Iranians are growing deeply frustrated, and they appear to be convinced that an alliance headed up by the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia would love to see regime change in Iran.
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For example, just consider these recent remarks from Iran’s foreign minister…

And as Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said, Tehran is convinced that what he calls “the B Team”—Bolton, Bibi, bin Salman, and bin Zayed, the last three being Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and effective ruler of the United Arab Emirates—are determined to force regime change in Iran. “President Trump says that the pressure will bring Iran to its knees,” said Zarif.

“The other day, Secretary Pompeo was asked if he was planning a coup d’état in Iran. And you know what he said? Any diplomat, even if they’re planning a coup, would deny it! But he said, if I were planning a coup, I wouldn’t tell you. Sometimes people say what’s in the back of their mind,” Zarif added. (The exact quote, according to Axios, came in a speech by Pompeo to an Iranian-American group, in which he said, “Even if we [were], would I be telling you guys about it?”)

And Zarif is probably correct on this point. If the U.S, Israel and Saudi Arabia could snap their fingers and establish a completely new government in Iran, they would almost certainly do it.

But all attempts to encourage an internal revolution have fizzled, and a full-blown war would seem to be unthinkable.

The Iranians have made their military a core priority in recent years, and they have developed weapons systems of immense destructive power. At one time they would have been intimidated by a U.S. carrier group being moved into the Persian Gulf, but those days are long gone. The following comes from Reuters…

“An aircraft carrier that has at least 40 to 50 planes on it and 6,000 forces gathered within it was a serious threat for us in the past but now it is a target and the threats have switched to opportunities,” said Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards’ aerospace division.

“If (the Americans) make a move, we will hit them in the head,” he added, according to ISNA.

And on Friday, Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai Nejad boldly declared that our ““billion-dollar fleet can be destroyed with one missile”…

The ISNA news agency quoted hardliner Ayatollah Tabatabai-Nejad in the city of Isfahan as saying: “Their billion-dollar fleet can be destroyed with one missile.

“If they attempt any move, they will face dozens of missiles because at that time government officials won’t be in charge to act cautiously, but instead things will be in the hands of our beloved leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”

Of course Nejad is exaggerating, but the truth is that our fleet will definitely be sitting ducks in the Persian Gulf. If the Iranians wanted to do so, they could definitely take the entire fleet out.

We are so close to war, and let’s hope that nobody starts getting itchy trigger fingers.

Iran is run by a bunch of nutjobs that believe that war with the U.S. and Israel is inevitable. Meanwhile, war hawks John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are the top foreign policy officials in the Trump administration and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has already shown us what he is capable of doing.

We need someone to step forward and be a voice of reason before we plunge into a nightmarish apocalyptic conflict that we will not be able to escape, and that voice of reason may have to be President Trump himself.

In the end, it will be Trump that makes the final call on any war with Iran, and that decision will have enormous implications for all of us.

Fox News is reporting that the Saudis think Iran was behind the sabotage of Saudi and Norwegian-flagged oil tankers.

This could well be a false flag attack. Frankly, I'm a little skeptical about anything Saudi Arabia says.

Onward and upward,
airforce

And So It Begins: Iran Blamed For Attack On Saudi Oil Tankers – Pentagon Plan Would Send “120,000 Troops To The Middle East”

If President Trump can be convinced that Iran was behind the attack, he will probably want to “send them a message”

By Michael Snyder | Economic Collapse Tuesday, May 14, 2019

As if on cue, a mysterious attack on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz has brought us to the brink of an apocalyptic war in the Middle East.

On Sunday, four commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf, including two Saudi oil tankers, were seriously damaged in deeply disturbing “sabotage attacks” that immediately sent shockwaves across the entire Middle East. Nobody took responsibility for the attacks, and at first nobody was being blamed, but now an “initial U.S. assessment” is pointing a finger at Iran. The following comes from the Wall Street Journal…

An initial U.S. assessment indicated Iran likely was behind the attack on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers and two other vessels damaged over the weekend near the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official said, a finding that, if confirmed, would further inflame military tensions in the Persian Gulf.

The assessment, while not conclusive, was the first suggestion by any nation that Iran was responsible for the attack and comes after a series of U.S. warnings against aggression by Iran or its allies and proxies against military or commercial vessels in the region.

And an article in the Daily Mail had some more specific details about the U.S. assessment…

An American military team’s initial assessment is that Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies used explosives Sunday to blow large holes in four ships anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. official said Monday.

The official said each ship has a 5- to 10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line, and the team’s early belief is that the holes were caused by explosive charges.

So here we go.

If President Trump can be convinced that Iran was behind the attack, he will probably want to “send them a message”.

And if Iran strikes back militarily, events may begin to spiral out of control very rapidly.

On Monday, before we knew the outcome of the U.S. assessment, Trump directly threatened the Iranians…

President Donald Trump threatened Iran with a “bad problem” Monday following news that Saudi Arabian oil tankers were sabotaged near the Persian Gulf.

“It’s going to be a bad problem for Iran if something happens, I can tell you that,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “They’re not going to be happy.”

Asked to clarify what he meant by a “bad problem,” Trump responded: “You can figure it out yourself. They know what I mean by it.”

It seems so crazy to think that we could soon be at war with Iran, but events seem to be rapidly pushing us in that direction.

Even before the attacks on the oil tankers, U.S. officials had already come up with a plan to possibly send “up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East”. The following comes from Axios…

At the direction of national security adviser John Bolton, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan last week presented top White House national security officials with a plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East in the event that Iran “attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons,” the New York Times reports.

Details: The plan was reportedly presented during a meeting about the Trump administration’s broader Iran policy, attended — among others — by Bolton, CIA director Gina Haspel, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

The New York Times pointed out that a similar number of troops were used when the U.S. invaded Iraq.

But Iran is not Iraq. The Iranians have a military force that is vastly superior to what the Iraqis had at that time, and Iran has also developed weapons that possess immense destructive power.

From a strategic standpoint, the worst thing that the U.S. could do would be to stage 120,000 troops in just a handful of locations directly across the Persian Gulf from Iran. Rather than just sit there and wait to be invaded, the Iranians would likely strike the bases where our troops are being staged. With the weapons that the Iranians now possess, the losses would be absolutely catastrophic.

Let us hope that nothing like that ever happens.

If the U.S. just sends air and naval assets into the region, the Iranians will probably not act rashly. But if the U.S. actually decided to deploy 120,000 troops, the Iranians would definitely consider it an existential threat, and they would use everything at their disposal to survive.

Iran has been planning for this conflict for many years, and the U.S. should not rush into such a war without seriously considering the consequences.

Surprisingly, even the British are urging caution…

‘We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side,’ Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned.

‘Most of all, we need to make sure we don’t end up putting Iran back on the path to renuclearization. Because if Iran becomes a nuclear power, its neighbors are likely to want to become nuclear powers. This is already the most unstable region in the world, and this would be a massive step in the wrong direction.’

We are truly living in apocalyptic times, and it isn’t going to take much to take peace from the Earth.

One more thing – if the U.S. goes to war with Iran, the Iranians have already promised to hit Israel extremely hard in response.

And if Iranian missiles start flying at Israel, the Israelis will hit back even harder.

Both sides possess weapons of absolutely immense power, and so we could be talking about death and destruction on an apocalyptic scale.

Nobody should want to see such a war, because that would be the kind of war that nobody wins.



Leaked Pentagon Plan Calls For 120,000 Troops To Counter Iran

It's unclear whether Trump himself has seen, or been briefed on, the plan. Asked about it, Trump said "we'll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake."

By Zero Hedge Tuesday, May 14, 2019

As Michael Pompeo travels to Brussels to discuss the Iranian threat amid a flare-up in tensions that has brought the US to the brink of an armed conflict, the New York Times has published details from a confidential military plan presented to top national security officials that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or start ramping up work on nuclear weapons (something it has promised to do if its European partners don’t meet their commitments under the Iran deal).

Though the revised plan – it had been modified to incorporate suggestions from John Bolton – doesn’t include plans for a land invasion, it does reflect “the influence of Mr. Bolton, one of the administration’s most virulent Iran hawks, whose push for confrontation with Tehran was ignored more than a decade ago by President George W Bush.”

It’s unclear whether Trump himself has seen, or been briefed on, the plan. Asked about it, Trump said “we’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake.”

Here are a few key details from the plan according to more than a half-dozen senior administration officials who spoke with the NYT:

The 120,000 troops called for in the plan would be close to the size of the force that invaded Iraq in 2003. The reversal of the US troop presence in the region under Obama and Trump has reportedly emboldened leaders in Tehran and the IRGC that there’s no appetite in the US for a war with Iran. Deploying this many troops would take weeks or months.
The most likely trigger for a US military response is still an attack by the IRGC The guard’s fleet of small boats has a history of approaching American Navy ships at high speed. Though the plan includes provisions for a US response if Iran once again starts stockpiling nuclear fuel. If Iran does start stockpiling enriched uranium again, the US would have more than a year to formulate a more coherent response, since it would take at least that long for Iran to stockpile anything close to enough to fashion a weapon.
Cyberweapons would be used to paralyze the Iranian economy during the opening salvo of the conflict, in the hopes that this would be enough to cripple Iran before any bombs were dropped. Such an operation would call for “implants” or “beacons” inside US networks. Though, given Iran’s increasingly sophisticated cyberweapons, such an attack would still pose “significant risks.”
This is not the first time since joining the administration that Bolton has sought updated plans for an invasion of Iran. Though it’s widely believed that the president remains opposed to such an incursion. Bolton requested an update after Iranian-backed militants fired three mortar shells into an empty lot on the grounds of the US embassy in Baghdad.
One of the options offered up as a proportional response was a strike on a Iranian military facility that would have been “mostly symbolic.”

While a war with Iran still seems unlikely, if Iran starts stockpiling enriched uranium again as it has threatened to do, it could give Bolton and his fellow neocons exactly the opening they need to successfully push for a military intervention.

Are we stumbling towards an accidental war with Iran?



Onward and upward,
airforce

Yemeni Armed Drones Attack Saudi Oil Pipeline

The strike was believed to be backed by Iran, which warned Tuesday of U.S.-created ‘false flag attacks’ as the likelihood of conflict escalates.

By Paul D. Shinkman, Senior National Security Writer May 14, 2019,

A major oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia was struck by armed drones and temporarily shut down, the kingdom's energy minister said Tuesday, calling the move an "act of terrorism and sabotage" that marks the second attack on the Saudi oil infrastructure in as many days.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih did not directly identify the perpetrator of the attack but said the incidents prove the importance of the kingdom's continued conflict against terrorist groups, including the Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen, according to the country's state news service. Oil prices spiked as a result of the attacks, Reuters reports.

Saudi Arabia continues to wage war in Yemen against those militias in what is considered a proxy conflict between the oil-rich gulf state and its arch-rival Iran, which backs the Houthis. U.S. and allied intelligence assessments indicate Iran was also behind sabotaging two Saudi oil tankers on Monday.

The Yemeni military was not known to have developed armed drones, according to a global analysis by the think tank New America, making it likely the weapons were provided or operated by the rebels' patron, Iran.

These latest incidents contribute to a broad risk of escalation in the region. And they come as the Trump administration takes a new hard-line approach against Iran, dispatching new U.S. military assets to the region to counter what it considers a new threat from Tehran against American forces and their allies.

Iranian state media said Tuesday the pipeline attack in Saudi Arabia was carried out by "seven drones of Yemen's armed forces," citing an unnamed Yemeni source who said the operation was "retaliation for Saudi Arabia's aggression and siege of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state."

The heavy-handedness of Saudi Arabia's operations in Yemen has indeed wrought international condemnation. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called the conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis on the precipice of "imminent catastophe." The U.S., which had originally been providing intelligence, logistics and aerial refueling support since the conflict began in 2015, has since withdrawn some of its support to Riyadh based in part on human rights concerns.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday warned against so-called "false flag operations" that the U.S. and its Gulf allies wish to attribute to Iran, including the recent tanker attack.

Speaking with reporters in New Delhi after meeting with his Indian counterpart, Zarif said, "We discussed the regional issues and dangers that the policies of extremist individuals in the U.S. administration are trying to impose on the region, as well as concerns about the suspicious and sabotage acts that happen in our region," according to Iran's state news service, Fars.

"We had earlier predicted that they will adopt such measure to provoke tensions," Zarif said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Russia on Tuesday for talks that are reported to focus on Iran – an ally of Russia's in many Middle East conflicts – as well as arms control.

The potential for conflict between the U.S., Iran or their allies appears high, particularly following the Trump administration's unprecedented decision to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group last month. Tehran responded with a similar designation for all U.S. forces operating in the region.

Both countries continue to slide away from the terms set in the 2015 nuclear agreement brokered by the Obama administration, which Trump declared last year the U.S. would walk away from. Tehran warned earlier this month that other signatories had 60 days to offer new terms. The deal, in addition to monitoring and limiting Iran's nuclear regime, also provided a forum for talks between the signatories.

The Trump administration continues to impose harsh new sanctions against Iran.

Analysts believe Iran's strategy in the region is based around support for local militant groups fighting in domestic causes that Tehran can ultimately steer toward supporting its own goals: defeating Saudi Arabia and undermining U.S. influence in the Middle East.

"As tensions continue to escalate, further actions need to be weighed against Iran's sophisticated, intricate, and nimble regional strategy," private intelligence firm The Soufan Group wrote in a Tuesday analysis note. "Rolling back Tehran's regional influence is difficult because doing so would require the extensive application of military force, and even that option is not guaranteed to succeed, as the Saudi-led coalition is realizing in Yemen."

As public support for Middle East wars dwindles, the Trump administration has few options for military intervention that would ultimately blunt the effect of Iran's influence in the region, Soufan says.

Non-emergency staff are being pulled out of the U.S. Baghdad, due to worries over Iran. This whole thing has advanced so far now, it's going to be difficult for either side to back down.

Onward and upward,
airforce

This could be huge.



Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce

WashPo: ‘Trump, Frustrated by Advisers, Is Not Convinced The Time Is Right to Attack Iran’

Trump is not inclined to respond forcefully unless there is a "big move" from the Iranians

By Chris Menahan | Information Liberation Thursday, May 16, 2019

Is President Trump trying to deescalate the situation or does this mean the time will be right only after our “allies” stage a false flag?

I don’t think Trump wants a war with Iran, but it doesn’t seem like he’s even running the show anymore.

From The Washington Post, “Trump, frustrated by advisers, is not convinced the time is right to attack Iran”:

President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S. officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran’s leaders.

Disagreements over assessing and responding to the recent intelligence — which includes a directive from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that some American officials interpret as a threat to U.S. personnel in the Middle East — are also fraying alliances with foreign allies, according to multiple officials in the United States and Europe.

“[S]ome officials interpret as a threat.”


That translates to: “This is made up bulls**t which no one believes.”

This Onion satire was dead on:

John Bolton: ‘An Attack On Two Saudi Oil Tankers Is An Attack On All Americans’ https://t.co/Dgny7ss6pJ pic.twitter.com/nvxyCtNCVh

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 15, 2019

Every time the US threatens to attack Iran and Iran responds by saying they’ll defend themselves, their statement is reported as a threat to attack America.

We see this same BS from our lying media over and over again.

Trump grew angry last week and over the weekend about what he sees as warlike planning that is getting ahead of his own thinking, said a senior administration official with knowledge of conversations Trump had regarding national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“They are getting way out ahead of themselves, and Trump is annoyed,” the official said. “There was a scramble for Bolton and Pompeo and others to get on the same page.”

Bolton, who advocated regime change in Iran before joining the White House last year, is “just in a different place” from Trump, although the president has been a fierce critic of Iran since long before he hired Bolton. Trump “wants to talk to the Iranians; he wants a deal” and is open to negotiation with the Iranian government, the official said.

“He is not comfortable with all this ‘regime change’ talk,” which to his ears echoes the discussion of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the 2003 U.S. invasion, said the official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

It’s nearly an exact repeat of Iraq, with most of the same players. All they need is a spectacular false flag to justify the attack.

National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said, “This reporting doesn’t accurately reflect reality.”

Trump is not inclined to respond forcefully unless there is a “big move” from the Iranians, a senior White House official said. Still, the president is willing to respond forcefully if there are American deaths or a dramatic escalation, the official said.

That’s a nice way to signal to our “allies” that the time is right to stage a false flag. Similar happened with the attack on Syria, which an alleged newly leaked OPCW report suggested was staged.

MoA:
Syria – OPCW Engineering Assessment: The Douma ‘Chemical Weapon Attack’ Was Stagedhttps://t.co/MP6KT7hIpe pic.twitter.com/vOPxcaYrUT

— Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) May 14, 2019



British General Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that “there’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces,” Common Dreams reports.

“We monitor them along with a whole range of others because that’s the environment we’re in,” said Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, speaking via video from Baghdad. “If the threat level seems to go up then we’ll raise our force protection measures accordingly.”

Video:

“No. There’s been no increased threats from … etc”
British general Combined Joint Task Force #OIR May 14#Iraq #Iran #Syria Christopher Ghika pic.twitter.com/5sg4AFfsMO

— M27 (@M27Unchained) May 14, 2019

Our government and media — while the government surrounds Iran with aircraft carriers and threatens an invasion — are hilariously acting like it will just be a matter of happenstance if we “stumble” or “slide” into a war.

This is all following the neocon plan Gen. Wesley Clark laid out back in 2007 (then refused to ever mention again):

Iran’s Leadership “At Highest Level” Ordered Attacks On Pipeline, Tankers: Pentagon
To put up the pretense and appearance of "doing something" without actually substantively escalating at all


By Zero Hedge Saturday, May 25, 2019

The Pentagon says “the leadership of Iran at the highest level” ordered a spate of disruptive attacks over the past two weeks including attacks on an Aramco Saudi oil pipeline and pumping facilities, the recent sabotage of four tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a May 19 lone rocket attack on the US embassy in Baghdad’s protected Green Zone.

However, the Pentagon statements issued by Adm. Michael Gilday, director of the Joint Staff, on Friday offered absolutely nothing in terms of hard proof. That still didn’t stop the war rhetoric from continuing: “Even more troubling: We have had multiple credible reports that Iranian proxy groups intend to attack U.S. personnel in the Middle East,” Gilday said.



The military analysis site, Task & Purpose in a follow-up pressed the Pentagon to cite some level of evidence that Iran did indeed order attacks “at the highest levels.” The response was issued as follows:

“The Iranians said they were going to close the Strait of Hormuz,” Gilday said. “The Iranians struck those tankers. The Iranians struck the pipeline facility in Saudi Arabia through their proxies in Yemen. We know they’re tied directly to those proxies. We know they’re tied directly to the proxies in Iraq that launched the rocket.”

The Pentagon statements came on the heels of a Washington Post report saying the White House has agreed to send “roughly 2,000” additional troops to the Middle East to help protect American forces in the region and “monitor Iran” — as prior reports suggested in the days leading to Trump’s Thursday meeting with Defense Department leaders. Follow-up statements have put the number at 1,500.

Trump met with Pentagon leaders Thursday evening where they decided to move ahead with the troop deployment to CENTCOM, which oversees all American troops in the Middle East.

“The deployment will include approximately 1,500 U.S. military personnel and consist of a Patriot battalion to defend against missile threats, additional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, an engineer element to provide force protection improvements throughout the region and a fighter aircraft squadron to provide additional deterrence and depth to our aviation response options,” acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said in a written statement Friday.

Importantly, Adm. Gilday said Iran’s series of attacks last week went straight to the top: “We believe with a high degree of confidence that this [recent attacks] stems back to the leadership in Iran at the highest levels,” he said.

However, given the original Pentagon plan reportedly pitched a total troop deployment of up to 10,000 additional forces to counter Iran in the Middle East, Trump’s agreeing to a much humbler 1,500 appears a meager attempt to merely pacify the hawks without actually changing the playing field significantly.

Or rather, to put up the pretense and appearance of “doing something” without actually substantively escalating at all.

The president himself seemed to all but admit this in passing remarks to reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Japan: “We want to have protection in the Middle East. We’re going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective,” Trump said. “Some very talented people are going to the Middle East right now. And we’ll see what happens,” he added.

However, troop build-up in the region to any degree could prove explosive and extremely dangerous for the prospect of a broader conflagration, considering both the IRGC’s recent terror designation, as well as Iran ally Syria coming under new chemical weapons scrutiny over fresh claims it used poison gas in a battle near Idlib on Sunday.

The air defense part of the son's Brigade is the one just deployed. Being the typical little shit that he is he volunteered to go when they asked for some. Luckily they did not need his MOS and being the Brigade commanders body guard he was told he would go if and when the commander did, not before!

The brigade commander needs a bodyguard? Back in my day, he had aide, an orderly, and a commo sergeant.

Onward and upward,
airforce

With today's emphasis on special teams going after the heads of units, everything from Battalion up has bodyguards now. Even back when I had my Battalion I had one. They usually fill a dual role. Mine was my 6'4" Apache Indian Sgt. Major. Nasty SOB was over here at the house Saturday with his wife. I hand picked him.

Son got picked by his Brigade commander because he is the best shot in the Brigade and on the State Rifle and Pistol team. This plus his proven combat record as a sniper in Iraq with both the .308 and the 50 BMG rounds.

I have been training him for this role in life for a LONG time. I even had him with me when ConSigCor and I met.

Interesting, I always figured the brigade commander's bodyguard was, well, the brigade. But I suppose if people are targeting the commanders (I think they always did), then it's pretty necessary.

Onward and upward,
airforce