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Analysts believe recent US actions could signal Iran conflict, despite White House denials

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“But, also, look at what he said the United States is going to do. As previously reported, several weeks ago, the aircraft carrier, John Stennis, is being dispatched to the Persian Gulf. That gives the United States two aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Round the clock operations. He also, surprisingly, announced that the United States was going to be deploying Patriot anti-missile interceptors to the region. It’s difficult to imagine whose missiles those would be shooting down other than Iran. It’s looks to me like the United States is, at least, raising its capabilities in preparation for possible military confrontation with Iran.”

Video and Article via RawStory

Related:

Bush approved raid on Iranian consulate in Iraq, the arrest of operatives (NYTimes)

Patriot Missile Batteries, Aircraft Carriers, deployed to Mideast (Salon.com)

U.S. Embassy in Athens is Attacked

ATHENS, Jan. 12 — Shortly before sunrise today, a missile ripped through the United States embassy here, causing minor damage to the building but no injuries. The missile was fired from the street over a 10-foot high security wall, smashing the glass in front of the embassy and spraying debris inside.

Vyron Polydoras, the public order minister, said an anonymous caller, claiming to be a member of the Revolutionary Struggle terror group, had telephoned a local security company to claim responsibility for the attack, which occurred just before 6:00 a.m.

Revolutionary Struggle, a Marxist group with strong anti-American sentiments, emerged in 2003, bombing an Athens courthouse complex.  It remains the most active Greek terror organization since the downfall of the country’s most deadly urban guerrilla group, November 17, blamed for killing 23 people — including American, British and Turkish officials — and for dozens of bomb attacks.

via NYTimes

Bush adding 21,500 troops to Iraq force

no surprise here…

WASHINGTON – Unswayed by anti-war passions, President Bush will send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq and build the American presence there toward its highest level to quell worsening bloodshed. The move puts Bush on a collision course with the new Democratic Congress and runs counter to advice from some senior generals.

via AP/Yahoo! News

Related: US Moves to Confront Iran and Syria

US Deploying F-117A Stealth Fighters to South Korea – concerns over another North Korean nuke test?

SEOUL (Reuters) – The United States is deploying a squadron of stealth fighters to South Korea, a U.S. military spokesman said on Wednesday, amid speculation that North Korea may be ready to test a second nuclear device. 


The U.S. television network ABC cited U.S. officials last week as saying North Korea was preparing for another test. However, both U.S. and South Korean officials have publicly said that there was no evidence a test was imminent. 

via Reuters

EU plans ‘post-industrial revolution’ – binding energy targets

The European Commission has urged its members to sign up to an unprecedented common energy policy, unveiling a plan to diversify the bloc’s energy sources.

Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said it was time for a “post-industrial revolution” which would see Europe slash greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020.

EU vulnerability as an oil importer was thrown into sharp relief this week when Russia’s row with Belarus hit supplies.

There are three central pillars to the proposed integrated EU energy policy.

  • A true internal energy market
  • Accelerating the shift to low-carbon energy
  • Energy efficiency through the 20% target by 2020

In addition to the 20% of all EU energy that should come from renewable power by 2020, 10% of vehicle fuel should come from biofuels, said EU energy chief Andris Piebalgs.

The EU wants to make these targets to be binding for the first time, he said.

via BBC News

Bush ‘surge’ crafted by aide who wanted to nuke North Korea in 1995

The Democrats expressed alarm over an academic article he wrote in 1995 that called for dispatching more troops to South Korea, redeploying American tactical nuclear weapons to the country, and bombing North Korea if Pyongyang refused to abandon its nuclear program. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, described Mr. Crouch’s North Korea proposals as “reckless.”

via RawStory

U.S. Targets Iran’s Oil Industry


LONDON — As the United States wages a very public battle against Iran’s quest for nuclear power, Washington quietly is gaining ground on another energy front: the oilfields that are the Islamic republic’s lifeblood.

Iran’s oil industry has raked in record amounts of cash during three years of high oil prices. But a new U.S. campaign to dry up financing for oil and natural gas development poses a threat to the republic’s ability to continue exporting oil over the next two decades, many analysts say.

The campaign comes at a moment of unique vulnerability for Iran’s oil industry, which also faces challenges from rising domestic energy consumption, international isolation, a populist spending spree by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and trouble closing contracts with foreign oil companies – a recipe for potential disaster in a nation with one of the world’s largest reservoirs of oil.

“If the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran, … and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within 10 years there will not be any oil for export,” Muhammad Hadi Nejad-Hoseinian, Iran’s deputy oil minister for international affairs, said in a telephone interview.

via RawStory

Iran threatens to stop oil flow via Hormuz strait

A senior Iranian officer warned that if the West continues to threaten Iran’s economy over its nuclear program, Teheran will discontinue the flow of oil via the Strait of Hormuz, Israel Radio reported Monday.

According to the officer, 40% of the world’s oil is transferred through the strait, and the world is dependent on Iran for a source of energy and a stable economy.  

via The Jerusalem Post

The spoils of war: How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches

The Cover story from Sunday’s Independent (UK):

Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. “So where is the oil going to come from?… The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies,” he said

Read the rest of the article

Belarus Blocks Transit of Russian Oil

The latest in the energy dispute between Russia and its former Soviet republics:

“The suspension of oil deliveries comes just days after Belarus and Russia reached a last-ditch agreement on gas prices that avoided a New Year’s cutoff of natural gas for Belarusian consumers that threatened a repeat of last year’s energy dispute between Moscow and Kiev.

Belarus grudgingly accepted a doubling of the price it pays for imports of Russian natural gas, on which it depends for industry and home heating.

But the two countries are now locked in a dispute over oil duties, with Russia determined to stop Belarus from re-exporting petroleum products made from processing Russian oil bought cheaply.”

via AP News

See the earlier politricks.mnp posts (and this) for background info on the conflict.

UPDATE (1/9/07): RUSSIA SHUTS OFF OIL PIPELINE TO PARTS OF EASTERN EUROPE

UPDATE 2 (1/10/07): BELARUS DITCHES TRANSIT TAX PLACED ON RUSSIAN OIL 

Israel denies planning attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities

Israel vehemently denied Sunday a report by a British newspaper which claimed that it plans to attack Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities using nuclear weapons.  According to the report quoting Israeli military sources, two Israel Air Force squadrons are training to blow up an enrichment plant at Natanz, around 220 kilometres south-east of Tehran, using “bunker buster” nuclear bombs. Two other sites would also be hit with conventional weapons.

via RawStory/dpa German Press Agency

Bush replaces top general in Middle East who opposed troop surge

In what appears to be a military shakeup surrounding Iraq, President Bush has replaced both the top US general in the Middle East and the top general in Iraq, ABC NEWS is reporting on air.

Admiral William J. Fallon will replace Gen. John Abizaid, US commander in the Middle East, who announced his retirement in December and was expected to leave the post in March. Abizaid was a critic of Bush’s efforts to add more troops to Iraq, but the circumstances of his early departure are unclear.

via Raw Story