iran – Page 17 – Olduvai.ca

Syria will adopt a new rule of engagement with Israel now that Russia has taken a tougher and clearer stance on the conflict between Israel and the “Axis of the Resistance”. Henceforth, Damascus will be responding to any Israeli strike. If it damages a specific military target it will reply with a strike against a similar objective in Israel. Decision makers in Damascus said “Syria will not hesitate to hit an Israeli airport if Damascus airport is targeted and hit by Israel. This will be with the consent of the Russian military based in the Levant”.

This Syrian political decision is based on a clear position taken by Russia in Syria following the downing of its aircraft on September 18 this year. In 2015 when the Russian military landed in Syria, it informed the parties concerned (i.e. Syria, Iran and Israel) that it had no intention to interfere in the conflict between them and Hezbollah and that it would not stand in the way of Tel Aviv’s planes bombing Hezbollah military convoys on their way to Lebanon or Iranian military warehouses not allocated to the war in Syria. This was a commitment to remain an onlooker if Israel hit Iranian military objectives or Hezbollah convoys transporting arms to Hezbollah from Syria to Lebanon, within Syrian territory. It also informed Israel that it would not accept any attacks on its allies (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies) engaged in fighting ISIS, al-Qaeda and its allies.

Israel respected the will of Moscow until the beginning of 2018, when it started to attack Iranian bases and Syrian military warehouses, though it never attacked a Hezbollah military position. Israel justified its attack against the Iranian base, a military facility called T4, by claiming it had sent drones over Israel. Tel Aviv considered violation of its neighbours’ sovereignty as its exclusive prerogative.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Commits To “Indefinite” Occupation Of Syria; Controls Region The Size Of Croatia

December 15, 2018

US Commits To “Indefinite” Occupation Of Syria; Controls Region The Size Of Croatia

“We don’t want the Americans. It’s occupation” — a Syrian resident in US-controlled Raqqa told Stars and Stripes military newspaper. This as the Washington Post noted this week that “U.S. troops will now stay in Syria indefinitely, controlling a third of the country and facing peril on many fronts.”

Like the “forever war” in Afghanistan, will we be having the same discussion over the indefinite occupation of Syria stretching two decades from now? A new unusually frank assessment in Stars and Stripes bluntly lays out the basic facts concerning the White House decision to “stay the course” until the war’s close:

That decision puts U.S. troops in overall control, perhaps indefinitely, of an area comprising nearly a third of Syria, a vast expanse of mostly desert terrain roughly the size of Louisiana.

The Pentagon does not say how many troops are there. Officially, they number 503, but earlier this year an official let slip that the true number may be closer to 4,000.

A prior New Yorker piece described the US-occupied area east of the Euphrates as “an area about the size of Croatia.” With no Congressional vote, no public debate, and not even so much as an official presidential address to the nation, the United States is settling in for another endless occupation of sovereign foreign soil while relying on the now very familiar post-911 AUMF fig leaf of “legality”.

Like the American public and even some Pentagon officials of late have been pointing out for years regarding Afghanistan, do US forces on the ground even know what the mission is? The mission may be undefined and remain ambiguously to “counter Iran”, yet the dangers and potential for major loss in blood and treasure loom larger than ever.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

When you want to sanction States, you call them « terrorists »

December 10, 2018

When you want to sanction States, you call them « terrorists »

The new unilateral sanctions by the United States against Iran, Russia and Syria add to the previous actions concerning the same three targets. They now form the most unforgiving embargo in History. The way in which they have been organised is illegal according to the definition of the Charter of the United Nations – these are weapons of war, designed for killing.


Secretary of Defense James Mattis applauded by United States Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin.

For his visit to Moscow on 8 November, ambassador James Jeffrey was tasked with explaining the current US obsession with the expansion of Persian influence in the Arab world (Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen). Washington now wishes to formulate this question in geo-strategic rather than religious terms (Chiites/Sunni), while Teheran is organising its national defence around forward posts composed of Chiite Arabs.

Moscow then considered the possibility of negotiating on Teheran’s behalf for the easing of unilateral US sanctions, in exchange for its military withdrawal from Syria. President Vladimir Putin confirmed his proposition, not only for his US opposite number, but also for the Israëli Prime Minister, during their meeting in Paris on 11 November for the celebrations marking the centenary of the end of the First World War .

He attempted to convince the Westerners that Russia alone in Syria was preferable to the Irano-Russian tandem. However, he could not guarantee that Iran would have sufficient authority over Hezbollah – as both Washington and Tel-Aviv pretend – to be able to order it to withdraw also.

Washington’s only answer, nine days later, was to announce the eleventh series of unilateral sanctions against Russia since the beginning of August.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

OPEC Cuts Deep to Save Cartel

December 9, 2018

OPEC Cuts Deep to Save Cartel

With oil prices in free fall and the dawning realization that Great Reflation trade of 2017 is over, OPEC needed to do something drastic to remind everyone how important they are.

Moreover, with Qatar quitting the cartel last week it was then doubly necessary for OPEC to make the markets stand up and remember them.

So, after a few days of wrangling, a 1.2 million barrel per day cut was announced by OPEC, far larger than the market was expecting.

The Trump administration is fuming today over this result.

Predictably, oil prices jumped on the news. All is right with their world, yes?

Well, yes and no. The Saudis need $80 per barrel oil. Russia doesn’t get its hair mussed below around $50 and even then it simply scales back government spending in line with oil prices — auto-budgeting based on oil tariffs.

The free-floating ruble insulates Russia domestically from a sharp drop in oil prices far better than Saudi Arabia since the Riyal is pegged to the U.S. dollar.

But for Saudi Arabia, the stakes are far higher. And its chief rival, Iran, understands this very well. The reason the OPEC meeting was so touch and go was Iran exerting its leverage over the Saudis in response to U.S. sanctions.

Because while Russia agreed to a 200,000 barrel cut, which is nothing to them in the grand scheme of things, Iran was exempted from making any cuts.

Iran, Libya and Venezuela will be effectively exempt from the cuts, though the text of the deal will say they received “special considerations,” Iraqi oil minister Thamir Ghadhban said.

Saudi Loss Leader

Saudi leadership is weakening. Qatar left to pursue its own ambitions without OPEC getting in the way. That’s a nice way of saying they want to do business with Iran developing the shared North Pars gas field.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Volatile As Iran Denies Reports It Agreed To Deal

December 7, 2018

Oil Volatile As Iran Denies Reports It Agreed To Deal

Update (8:00 am ET): Oil prices spiked Friday morning before quickly fading after Reuters reported that Iran has agreed to the OPEC deal for 800,000 b/d of cuts – only for an Iranian delegate to swiftly deny that report, sending crude prices back from whence they came.

The Iranian delegate said there’s still ‘lots of haggling’ about a possible deal.

* * *

Update (7:10 am ET): As furious negotiations continue on day two of the OPEC+ talks in Vienna, one OPEC delegate has informed BBG that the group has yet to finalize the final number for the cuts.

* * *

Update (6:30 am ET): Boom…

OPEC TALKS IN VIENNA ARE DEADLOCKED: DELEGATE
Reports of the deadline followed headlines claiming that Iran had demanded that an exemption must be included in any agreement about production cuts. A counteroffer for Iran to agree to a “symbolic” cut has reportedly been categorically rejected by the Gulf Producer. WTI has moved back to unch on the day.

* * *

Update (6:20 am ET): Expressing dissatisfaction with the terms of whatever deal has been discussed, Iran is reportedly holding out for language about an exemption for the struggling producer to be included in the agreement following three hours of talks on Friday.

It would be ironic if Iran – which has been blamed, along with Saudi Arabia and Russia, for triggering the collapse in oil prices due to the sanctions ‘exemptions’ on its oil exports extended by the US – ends up killing the deal, because the only less-desirable outcome for oil markets than a ‘baseline’ cut scenario would be ‘no deal’.

Oil prices are all over the place as the perceived prospects for a deal change with each new headline.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blain: “Are We Backing The Wrong Country In The Saudi-Iran Race”

December 5, 2018

Blain: “Are We Backing The Wrong Country In The Saudi-Iran Race”

As excerpted from Blain’s Morning Porridge, submitted by Bill Blain

Where do we go from here?

I’ve said it a few times already – 2019 is likely to see the start of the New Market Reality. Although some pundits claim yesterday’s sell-off was due to automated algo’s triggering a crash because they misread the US yield curve inversion – bad programming they claim – the reality is markets are extremely nervous: of the recessionary signals the inversion shows, slowing economic numbers, the prospects for trade war accelerating recession, etc. The US economy may be a full employment and growing, but where does it go from here as the rest of the globe falters, housing collapses, Auto sales plummet and everyone worries just how they are going to pay off student loans, mortgages and credit cards?

Markets have reversed polarity on Trump.

Peak Trump Bullshit means we just switched from positive to negative. Don’t think about what can go right as Trump forces through trade deals, tax cuts, a compliant Fed, etc. Think about Trump negatives – forget the FED put. Forget overly-optimistic valuations based on rosy global growth projections, and the belief very smart people will make bright shinny things brighter and shinier. Next year is going to be about real stuff, like how you going to sell this commodity (be it an electric car, swanky mobile phone with a fruit logo, or avacados. Why avocados…? because.. just because.) Consumption vs recession. Ouch.

Markets are being roiled by politics, soiling themselves on trade war panics, scared witless by mounting populism and its pay-off:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran: Oil To Fall To $40 If OPEC Fails To Reach Deal

December 5, 2018

Iran: Oil To Fall To $40 If OPEC Fails To Reach Deal

A fractured OPEC is meeting later this week to discuss a deal to cut oil production—yet again—to rebalance the market and lift oil prices that have recently slipped to below most of the cartel members’ budget-balance points.

OPEC needs a unanimous vote to pass decisions such as curtailing production. Yet, Iran—one of OPEC’s biggest producers but also one of the most sidelined members in recent months—warns that the group is unlikely to reach an agreement on a sizeable cut of around 1.4 million bpd as some are suggesting. Such a failure to act decisively would send oil prices plunging to $40 a barrel, Iran’s OPEC Governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili told Bloomberg in an interview.

The cartel and its Russia-led non-OPEC allies may not extend their cooperation pact either, according to Iran’s representative at OPEC—a position typically held by the second most powerful oilman in a cartel member after the oil minister.

Iran has repeatedly expressed frustration with the Saudi/Russia-led increase in oil production since June to offset what was expected to be a steep decline in Iranian oil supply with the U.S. sanctions on Tehran’s petroleum and shipping industries.

Iran’s oil exports indeed dropped by some 1 million bpd, but they are likely still holding onto above 1 million bpd, while U.S. waivers to eight Iranian customers allow buyers to continue purchasing oil at reduced volumes until the end of April next year.

Oil prices have plunged by around 30 percent from early October as the market started to fear an oversupply is building up again, due to record high production in Saudi Arabia and Russia, and an all-time high oil output in the United States, coupled with fears of slowing economic and oil demand growth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Again Threatens To Block Key Oil Transit Choke Point As U.S. Aircraft Carrier En Route

December 4, 2018

Iran Again Threatens To Block Key Oil Transit Choke Point As U.S. Aircraft Carrier En Route

Here we go again: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has once more threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is vital to up to one-third of all global oil shipping as it’s a key transit choke point in the Persian Gulf.

On Tuesday Iranian state broadcasts carried his words, saying “if someday, the United States decides to block Iran’s oil (exports), no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf.” He further vowed that the United States will not be able to prevent Iran from exporting its crude — something the White House has repeatedly pledged to take down to zero exports through international allies and economic blockade through sanctions.

*A prior Iranian Navy drill off the Strait of Hormuz, RFE/RL*

The carrier deployment, though previously scheduled, was announced after the US condemned Iran’s **test firing a medium-range nuclear capable ballistic missile on Sunday**.

“The United States should know that we are selling oil and we will sell our oil and it **cannot block Iran’s oil export**,” he said on Tuesday addressing the people of Shahroud in Semnan province broadcast live on state TV.

The United States and the Israeli regime cannot stand the idea of a powerful and dignified Iran, and the Iranian nation will not bow to them, Rouhani highlighted, adding, “**the United States failed in launching a coup in our country**. They were after separating Khuzestan province, imposing sanctions against the country, and undermining Iran’s power, but they failed. It should be studied why the US is angry with Iran and Iranians.” *—MEHR News Agency*

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Heads To Persian Gulf In “Show Of Force” After Iran Ballistic Missile Test

December 3, 2018

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Heads To Persian Gulf In “Show Of Force” After Iran Ballistic Missile Test

Days after Iran unveiled its first stealth destroyer in a televised ceremony on Saturday which saw the warship launched into operation in the Persian Gulf, and after the US condemned Iran’s test firing a medium-range nuclear capable ballistic missile on Sunday, Pentagon officials have announced the U.S. is sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf in a show of force against Iran.

US officials told the Wall Street Journal the USS John C. Stennis and support ships will arrive in the Middle East “within days” — which will bring a close what’s been described as the longest period in two decades that a carrier group was absent from the region. Specifically the unnamed officials identified the purpose as to “exhibit a show of force against Iran” at a moment tensions are soaring after Nov. 4 renewed sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector. The White House has vowed that it will work with international allies to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero in continuing economic warfare that could easily spark direct military confrontation.

*USS John C. Stennis nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, via Defence Blog*

The WSJ reports:

The Stennis is scheduled to remain in the region for about two months, the officials said, spending most of that time in the Persian Gulf. Its presence “certainly provides a deterrence” against any potentially hostile Iranian activity in the region’s waters, one of the officials said.

Responding to the unprecedented sanctions regimen after President Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 JCPOA, Iran’s military leadership has over the past months issued a counter threat of blockading the vital Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, which would strangle global oil shipping. The US carrier presence inches the world closer to witnessing a major flare up in the gulf which could send the price of oil soaring.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran: Rumors of War

December 3, 2018

Iran: Rumors of War

Photo Source Blondinrikard Fröberg | CC BY 2.0

Consider a conversation between long-time Middle East reporter Reese Erlich and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman, Jr. on the people currently directing the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran. Commenting on National Security Advisor John Bolton’s defense of the invasion of Iraq, Freeman says “The neoconservative group think their good ideas were poorly implemented in Iraq,” and that the lesson of the 2003 invasion that killed upwards of 500,000 people and destabilized an entire region is, “If at first you don’t succeed, do the same thing again somewhere else.”

That “somewhere else” is Iran, and Bolton is one of the leading voices calling for confronting the Teheran regime and squeezing Iran through draconian sanctions “until the pips squeak.” Since sanctions are unlikely to have much effect—they didn’t work on North Korea, have had little effect on Russia and failed to produce regime change in Cuba—the next logical step, Erlich suggests in his new book The Iran Agenda Today: The Real Story Inside Iran And What’s Wrong with U.S. Policy, is a military attack on Iran.

Such an attack would be a leap into darkness, since most Americans—and their government in particular—are virtually clueless about the country we seem bound to go to war with. Throwing a little light on that darkness is a major reason Erlich wrote the book. For over 18 years he has reported on Iran, talking with important government figures and everyday people and writing articles on the country that increasingly looks to be our next little war. Except it will be anything but “little.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pompeo: US/Saudi Partnership ‘Vital’ – American Taxpayers May Disagree!

November 30, 2018

Pompeo: US/Saudi Partnership ‘Vital’ – American Taxpayers May Disagree!

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has published a bizarre op-ed in the Wall Street Journal claiming that Saudi Arabia has been a guarantor of stability in the Middle East and a bulwark against “expansionist” Iran. Perhaps he forgot about Saudi support for jihadists in Syria and the Saudi destruction of Yemen? Is carrying water for the murderous Saudi kingdom in the Middle East really the best way to demonstrate “American values,” as Pompeo claims? We break down Pompeo’s neocon screed in today’s Liberty Report:

When you want to sanction States, you call them « terrorists »

November 30, 2018

When you want to sanction States, you call them « terrorists »

The new unilateral sanctions by the United States against Iran, Russia and Syria add to the previous actions concerning the same three targets. They now form the most unforgiving embargo in History. The way in which they have been organised is illegal according to the definition of the Charter of the United Nations – these are weapons of war, designed for killing.


Secretary of Defense James Mattis applauded by United States Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin.

For his visit to Moscow on 8 November, ambassador James Jeffrey was tasked with explaining the current US obsession with the expansion of Persian influence in the Arab world (Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen). Washington now wishes to formulate this question in geo-strategic rather than religious terms (Chiites/Sunni), while Teheran is organising its national defence around forward posts composed of Chiite Arabs.

Moscow then considered the possibility of negotiating on Teheran’s behalf for the easing of unilateral US sanctions, in exchange for its military withdrawal from Syria. President Vladimir Putin confirmed his proposition, not only for his US opposite number, but also for the Israëli Prime Minister, during their meeting in Paris on 11 November for the celebrations marking the centenary of the end of the First World War .

He attempted to convince the Westerners that Russia alone in Syria was preferable to the Irano-Russian tandem. However, he could not guarantee that Iran would have sufficient authority over Hezbollah – as both Washington and Tel-Aviv pretend – to be able to order it to withdraw also.

Washington’s only answer, nine days later, was to announce the eleventh series of unilateral sanctions against Russia since the beginning of August. This was accompanied by a ridiculous speech according to which Russia and Iran had together organised a vast plot aimed at maintaining President Assad in power and expanding Persian control in the Arab world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does The U.S. Really Need Saudi Oil?

November 23, 2018

Does The U.S. Really Need Saudi Oil?

“Saudi Arabia — if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. I’ve kept them down,” President Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “They’ve helped me keep them down. Right now we have low oil prices, or relatively. I’d like to see it go down even lower — lower.”

Oil prices have indeed fallen significantly in recent weeks, and to be sure, Saudi Arabia has played a large role in that. Saudi production reportedly hit a record high 11 million barrels per day (mb/d) at times this month, and global inventories are rising once again.

But Riyadh is also clearly upset at being “duped” by Trump. Having been convinced by the Trump administration that Iran’s oil exports were heading to zero, or at least close to zero, Saudi Arabia ramped up supply to offset the losses.

The U.S. then surprised the market by issuing a bunch of waivers, allowing Iran to continue to export oil. Japan and South Korea may even resume buying oil from Iran in January, after cutting imports to zero in anticipation of sanctions.

Almost immediately after the waivers were issued, oil prices crashed. Saudi Arabia then promptly announced that it would cut production by 500,000 bpd in December, and the rumors of an OPEC+ cut really began to pick up.

Trump is happy about the slide in oil prices, but Saudi Arabia clearly isn’t. Saudi Arabia and its OPEC+ partners could soon take action to push prices back up. So, it isn’t clear that Washington and Riyadh have the same objectives, or that their tight relationship is resulting in lower oil prices.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Here We Go Again: US Accuses Iran Of Hiding Chemical Weapons

November 23, 2018

Here We Go Again: US Accuses Iran Of Hiding Chemical Weapons

In a trite refrain straight out of the standard Washington regime change playbook, the United States has lodged a formal complaint alleging Iran is developing nerve agents “for offensive purposes”.

Like Syria before (and Russia), first comes the “outraged!” human rights violations rhetoric, then come crippling sanctions and international “pariah status”, and for the final push comes unfounded chemical attack claims, a charge now being formally prepped and set in motion against Tehran by the West.

After the AP first revealed a week ago that the U.S. is set to accuse Iran of violating international bans on chemical weapons, an American diplomat has told the global chemical weapons agency in The Hague that Tehran has not declared all of its chemical weapons capabilities.

On Thursday Ambassador Kenneth Ward told a meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that Iran was in violation of an international non-proliferation convention.

“The United States has had longstanding concerns that Iran maintains a chemical weapons program that it has failed to declare to the OPCW,” Ward said at an OPCW conference.

“The United States is also concerned that Iran is also pursuing central nervous system-acting chemicals for offensive purposes,” he added. He connected this with the general White House charge and theme that Iran and Russia had “enabled” Syria in attacking civilians with nerve agents, according to claims of officials in the West.

Specifically Amb. Ward claimed Iran has been hiding a production facility for filling aerial bombs while simultaneously maintaining a secret program to procure banned toxic munitions, include nerve agents.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump Claims Victory As Oil Prices Plummet

November 18, 2018

Trump Claims Victory As Oil Prices Plummet

Oil prices are now down over 20 percent from recent highs, and President Trump knows exactly where the credit for that belongs. “If you look at oil prices they’ve come down very substantially over the last couple of months,” President Trump said in a news conference last week. “That’s because of me.”

The President is partially correct about that, but not for the reasons he thinks. He attributes it to his hard line on OPEC. But what has actually happened is that crude oil inventories in the U.S. have risen for seven straight weeks.

As pointed out in the previous article, one reason for that is that China, in response to the ongoing trade spat, has stopped importing U.S. oil. Earlier this year China imported more than half a million barrels of day of crude oil from the U.S. Loss of this export market has contributed to the inventory growth in the U.S. — and hence to the drop in crude oil prices. (Presumably, crude oil inventories are dropping elsewhere, but possibly in countries with less transparency about their inventories).

Some feel that there is also an element of fear that global demand may be slowing. But this week Reuters reported that China’s crude oil imports reached an all-time high in October. So, despite the trade war, demand in China doesn’t appear to be slowing. But China isn’t getting its oil from the U.S. now.

Where is China getting its oil? Iran, for one. Another way that President Trump has helped oil prices go down is that he blinked as the deadline for sanctions on Iran’s oil exports neared. Oil prices had risen about 50 percent over the past year because of the impending sanctions that were expected to take Iran’s oil off the market. (I don’t recall him taking credit for oil prices that rose in response to sanctions).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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