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US To Deploy 200 Troops, Patriot Missile System To Saudi Arabia; Oil Jumps
US To Deploy 200 Troops, Patriot Missile System To Saudi Arabia; Oil Jumps
The Department of Defense has finally revealed some of the details of Trump’s grand deployment or appearance of doing something without doing much and response to the Sept. 14 Saudi Aramco attacks which the administration blamed on Iran. The Pentagon is set to send 200 personnel and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia, specifically a total of one Patriot missile and its support personnel, which further includes Sentinel radars meant to detect any incoming attack, according to a Thursday announcement.
The news was a sufficient catalyst to spike the price of brent crude, which rapidly moved into the green upon news of the Pentagon announcement, after trading in the red all day.
“This deployment will augment the kingdom’s air and missile defense of critical military and civilian infrastructure,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said.
He added that this will bolster “an already significant presence of U.S. forces in the region.”
More significant is a potential further deployment on the table of additional troops and two more Patriot batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), which would certainly signal escalation against Iran in the region should the plan be approved.
The US beefing up Saudi air defenses comes also as Riyadh’s current US-supplied systems have come under scrutiny for clearly failing to detect and defend against the Sept. 14 aerial attack.
As The National Interest pointed out:
One thing is clear: The attack revealed the limits of Saudi Arabia’s seemingly sophisticated air-defense system. Riyadh in recent years has spent billions of dollars building up six battalions of U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles and associated radars. The Patriots didn’t stop the recent attack.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper formally blamed Iran for the attack in statements last week, saying “all indications are that Iran was responsible for the attack” on the two Aramco refineries.
Pentagon to Present Trump, Aides With a ‘Range’ of Iran Military Options
Pentagon to Present Trump, Aides With a ‘Range’ of Iran Military Options
Gen. Dunford says US response is a ‘political judgment’
Though President Trump has downplayed the idea of war with Iran over the past couple of days, the actual decision is to be made at a high-profile meeting, either Thursday or Friday depending according to reports.
Trump will be joined by a number of national security officials and other aides, and will be presented with a wide array of options by the Pentagon. Options are said to range from full-scale war to a simple cyberattack.
Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was very clear about the Pentagon not pushing any specific agenda on this matter, saying the response would be purely a “political judgement.”
Among Trump’s officials, Pompeo is seen as the one pushing hardest for a military response. He’s been in Saudi Arabia meeting with officials there, and probably will come back all the more hawkish.
This response, whatever it will be, will be nominally over Iran attacking Saudi oil refineries with drones. The Iranians denied having done so, and Yemen’s Houthis said it was them, not the Iranians.
Either way, Saudi oil output is virtually back to pre-attack levels as it is, not even a week later, which gives the appearance this whole thing was being hugely overplayed earlier in the week.
Trump has already announced that there will be sanctions against Iran, and those sanctions are set to be announced Friday as well. The timing of the two together could further reduce the pressure to take more extreme measures militarily.
Trump Approves US Troop Deployment To Saudi Arabia In Response To “Iran Attacks”
Trump Approves US Troop Deployment To Saudi Arabia In Response To “Iran Attacks”
And now for the Friday evening tape bomb.
For the past five days, the world awaited to see what, if any, would be Trump’s response to last Saturday’s attack on Saudi oil facilities that has taken out millions of barrels of crude production out of the market for an indefinite period. Moments ago we got the first offical reaction, when US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this in lieu of an immediate military strike on Iran, the Pentagon will deploy additional troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to beef up security.
The Defense Secretary said that “the Iranian attack” – which we assume means it has been now settled that Iran was behind the attack despite the lack of actual evidence and just more verbal confirmations, a la the staged “Syrian chemical attacks” – on Saudi oil facilities was a dramatic escalation, and added that President Trump approved deployment of U.S. forces, clarifying that such a deployment will be defensive.
“The president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces which will be defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense,” Esper said at a news conference late on Friday.
Actually, scratch that: as other U.S. and Saudi officials have done, Esper stopped short of confirming that the strikes originated from Iran, but he said investigators have concluded that the weapons used in the attack were produced by Iran and were not launched from Yemen, so might as well infer that Tehran is behind it all.
While Esper and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said details of the “force package” deployment will be determined over the coming days, it will include air and missile defense and a “moderate” troop increase, although the number of troops “will not be in the thousands.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Can Trump Still Avoid War with Iran?
Can Trump Still Avoid War with Iran?
A more fundamental question arises: If the United States was not attacked, why is it our duty to respond militarily to an attack on Saudi Arabia?
President Donald Trump does not want war with Iran. America does not want war with Iran. Even the Senate Republicans are advising against military action in response to that attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities.
“All of us (should) get together and exchange ideas, respectfully, and come to a consensus — and that should be bipartisan,” says Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch of Idaho.
When Lindsey Graham said the White House had shown “weakness” and urged retaliatory strikes for what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls Iran’s “act of war,” the president backhanded his golfing buddy:
“It’s very easy to attack, but if you ask Lindsey … ask him how did going into the Middle East … work out. And how did Iraq work out?”
Still, if neither America nor Iran wants war, what has brought us to the brink?
Answer: The policy imposed by Trump, Pompeo and John Bolton after our unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Our course was fixed by the policy we chose to pursue.
Imposing on Iran the most severe sanctions ever by one modern nation on another, short of war, the U.S., through “maximum pressure,” sought to break the Iranian regime and bend it to America’s will.
Submit to U.S. demands, we told Tehran, or watch your economy crumble and collapse and your people rise up in revolt and overthrow your regime.
Among the 12 demands issued by Pompeo:
End all enrichment of uranium or processing of plutonium. Halt all testing of ballistic missiles. Cut off Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Disarm and demobilize Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq. Terminate support for the Houthi rebels resisting Saudi intervention in Yemen.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Who Really Benefits From The “Iran Attacked Saudi Arabia” Narrative?
Who Really Benefits From The “Iran Attacked Saudi Arabia” Narrative?
After 9/11 the concept of the “false flag attack” gained prominence in American culture, and ever since, more and more people are starting to question the official narrative whenever new crisis events occur. It is possible that this is why there has not been another attack in the US on the scale of 9/11 since 2001; not because the government is doing a better job with security (there was ample security in operation on 9/11 that for some reason was not utilized), but because it’s harder for government agencies to get away fabricated disasters or scapegoating the wrong people as the culprits.
That said, sometimes governments don’t need to create a false flag from scratch. Sometimes disasters not of the government’s making can be turned into false flags, as long as they can pin the blame on the target they most want to attack.
The elites only need to get away with one major false flag every couple of decades to push the populace into a war or a cultural crisis which can be exploited. This was essentially the strategy outlined by the “Project For A New American Century”, a foreign policy think tank in the 1990’s made up of Neo-Cons and ghouls from the Council On Foreign Relations which called for a “new Pearl Harbor” that would give the US a rationale to enter the Middle East militarily and change the entire political landscape. As Rahm Emanuel once said, “You never want a serious crisis go to waste…”
Of course, they got their Pearl Harbor, but contrary to popular opinion I think it’s wrong to assume that the PNAC was designed to open the door to American hegemony. Rather, I think the intention was to cause the opposite – the eventual fall of American geopolitical influence.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Questions, Not Answers Surround U.S. Push to War with Iran
Questions, Not Answers Surround U.S. Push to War with Iran
When President Trump fired National Security Adviser John Bolton last week rational people the world over cheered.
When there was news that Trump would meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly with Iran’s President Rouhani in a few weeks there were sighs of relief.
When Benjamin Netanyahu goes to Moscow to get Vladimir Putin’s blessing to continue airstrikes in Syria and was told no, the world said, “Finally! Enough is enough.”
The problem is that there were also very powerful people who were not happy about these things.
Moreover, there are a lot of nervous people out there worried that Tuesday’s election in Israel will not go the way they want it.
A lot of people have invested a lot of time and money in ensuring Netanyahu stays in power. And I don’t just mean Bibi himself, who will likely go to jail on corruption charges if he doesn’t win.
I mean a lot of people in the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the U.K. and in Europe, all of the places where anti-Russian, anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli sentiments abound.
And this brings up the main question I always have in the wake of one of these major escalations of tensions with the country currently catching the Twin Eyes of Sauron in D.C. and Tel Aviv.
Why do they always seem to occur right after moments of de-escalation and there’s the threat of peace breaking out somewhere?
Why is it that every time President Trump tries to push the U.S. and the world away from war within a few days there’s an incident which pushes us right back to the brink of it?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Houthis Say It’s Not Over – Saudi Oil “Still Within Range”; Iraq Denies Its Territory Used
Houthis Say It’s Not Over – Saudi Oil “Still Within Range”; Iraq Denies Its Territory Used
While US officials were quick out of the gate to allege an Iranian attack on Saudi Aramco facilities launched from Iraq early Saturday, a theory which the WSJ said was focus of an ongoing US-Saudi investigation, Iraq’s government issued a firm denial on Sunday, which followed Iran’s own denial that condemned Washington’s “maximum lies”.
Saying there was no link to Iraqi soil and the attack which caused oil prices to spike to record levels the moment markets opened, initially surging to as much as 18% before retreating after President Trump authorized use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to “keep the markets well-supplied,” the Iraqi government further vowed to “punish anyone who intended to use Iraq as a launchpad for attacks in the region.”
Despite Yemen’s Houthis themselves claiming responsibility for the precision strike using ten drones, unleashing explosions that rocked Abqaiq facility and the Khurais field, US officials have long eyed Iraq’s Shia paramilitary forces also as bad actors which Iran deploys as proxies from Iraqi soil.
Prior reports suggest Iran has indeed stationed ballistic missiles on Iraqi soil within the past year or so, within easy targeting range of key Saudi oil installations, as well as even Tel Aviv.
But crucially the Houthis have defiantly announced it’s not over: “The rebel group said its weapons could reach anywhere in Saudi Arabia. Saturday’s strikes were carried out by aircraft equipped with a new type of engine, the Houthi rebel group said,” Bloomberg reports.
Seems to undermine a primary argument from US gov/media that Houthis dont have the capacity to pull this off, therefore it must have been Iran. https://twitter.com/osamabinjavaid/status/1173243511132393472 …✔Replying to @osamabinjavaid
Iran War Imminent? Trump Says US “Locked And Loaded” To Respond To Saudi Attack
Iran War Imminent? Trump Says US “Locked And Loaded” To Respond To Saudi Attack
Just as the price of oil was settling down from its record surge, it spiked once again, following a tweet by president Trump which has made war with Iran virtually inevitable.
Just before 7pm, Trump tweeted that “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”
Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!
Setting aside the implicit admission that US foreign policy in the middle-east is now inexplicably run by Saudi Arabia, what is far more troubling is Trump’s statement that the US military is “locked and loaded”, and set to attack the country which instigated the attack on Saudi facilities, which according to Mike Pompeo was not Yemen, and its Houthi rebels, but rather Iran.
Now, as Bloomberg’s Javier Blas correctly notes, Trump’s tweet has left Saudi crown prince MbS boxed: “if he doesn’t point to #Iran, he’s likely to dissapointing Trump, but he does, he could start an all-war with Tehran of unknown end.” Needless to say, it is clear which option Saudi Arabia – which has been needling for war with Iran for years – will pick.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
It’s a New World Order, Alright
It’s a New World Order, Alright
Those winds just keep on shifting, no matter that the western press either doesn’t see them shift, doesn’t recognize them for what they are, or chooses to ignore them. But these winds bring tidings of a tectonic plate-shaking shift in the global political climate.
The fires in Saudi oil installations, whether they were caused by drones or missiles, and whoever fired those, are a major story, and rightly so, because they could shake up economies in drastic ways. But they may still, not be the biggest story after all.
Last Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to annex the Jordan Valley (already occupied territory, 65,000 Palestinians and 11,000 Israeli settlers live there). He did that to steal votes from the far right in next Tuesday’s (Sep. 17) Knesset election. “Bibi” also called Donald Trump his “friend” every second word for that same purpose. Trump responded in kind. He may come to regret that. Choose your friends wisely. Bit of background from RT:
US, Israel Talk About Mutual Defense Treaty – Trump
The US and Israel are discussing a mutual defense treaty that would further cement the already “tremendous” alliance between the two countries, President Donald Trump has revealed. “I had a call today with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of moving forward with a Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Israel, that would further anchor the tremendous alliance between our two countries,” Trump tweeted.
Trump voiced not-that-veiled support for Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Israel. “I look forward to continuing those discussions after the Israeli Elections when we meet at the United Nations later this month!” Trump wrote. The support surely comes in handy, as Netanyahu’s backing appears to be quite shaky.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
We’re Ready For “Full-Fledged” War: Iran Responds To US Accusation It Launched Saudi Oil Attack
We’re Ready For “Full-Fledged” War: Iran Responds To US Accusation It Launched Saudi Oil Attack
After the United States was quick to point the finger at Iran for the early Saturday explosions that rocked Abqaiq facility and the Khurais field — forcing production to be shut and with it 5.7 million barrels a day of oil production lost — Iran has warned it stands ready for a “full-fledged” war.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi slammed Washington for a “maximum pressure” strategy that has turned to “maximum lies,” saying that because of the former’s “failure [the US] is leaning toward maximum lies”. FM Javad Zarif also said these were a continuation of efforts to pressure and shame into compliance under US hegemony.
Iran denied the accusations, which followed photos circulating online which appeared to show cruise missile debris scattered in the Saudi desert outside the incapacitated oil facilities. Yemen’s Houthi forces had claimed responsibility, saying it deployed ten drones in the successful targeting of the facilities.
And separately an IRGC commander is reported to have reaffirmed that American military bases and aircraft carriers are crucially up to 2,000km around Iran and thus “within range” of Iranian missiles.
The senior commander, Amirali Hajizadeh, said his country stands ready for a “full-fledged” war but he stopped short of directly mentioning the attacks. As quoted in regional and state media:
On Sunday, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying: “Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers around Iran are within the range of our missiles,” according to Reuters.
“Iran has always been ready for a ‘full-fledged’ war,” Hajizadeh added, without directly mentioning the attacks in Saudi Arabia.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Iran Will Be a Full Nuclear Power By the End of 2020: No Return to the 2015 Agreement
IRAN WILL BE A FULL NUCLEAR POWER BY THE END OF 2020: NO RETURN TO THE 2015 AGREEMENT
French President Emmanuel Macron failed to promote successfully his Iranian initiative with the US administration despite the initial blessing of his US counterpart. This failure led Iran to make a third gradual withdrawal from its JCPOA nuclear deal commitment, raising two main issues. Iran has become a regional power to be reckoned with, so we can now scrap from reactions to its policies the words “submit,” or “bow to the international community”. Moreover, since Europe is apparently no longer in a position to fulfil its commitments, Iran will now be headed towards a total pull-out following further gradual withdrawal steps. Just before the US elections due in November 2020, Iran is expected to become a nuclear country with the full capability of producing uranium enriched to more than 20% uranium-235, weapons-usable and therefore in a position to manufacture dozens of nuclear bombs (for which uranium must be enriched to about 90%). However, this does not necessarily mean that this is Iran’s ultimate objective.
Industry data shows that half of the effort goes into enriching from 0.7% to 4%. If Iran reaches the level of 20%, the journey towards 90% is almost done. A few thousand centrifuges are needed to reach 20% enrichment while a few hundred are enough to cross from 20% to the 90% needed for a nuclear bomb. When Iran announces it is reaching a level which is considered critical by the west, there is the possibility that Israel might act militarily against Iran’s capability as it did in Iraq in 1981, in Syria in 2009, and in assassinating nuclear scientists. If this happens, the Middle East will be exposed to a mega earthquake whose outcome is unpredictable.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Iranian Tanker Still Bound For Syria; US Working To “Disrupt” Oil Transfer: Report
Iranian Tanker Still Bound For Syria; US Working To “Disrupt” Oil Transfer: Report
As the Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1 still appears to be circling in Mediterranean waters off western Cyprus after it turned away from approaching Turkey’s coast this week, a new Wall Street Journal report says it will ultimately attempt to offload its 2.1 million barrels of oil to Syria after all, in contravention of EU sanctions.
The WSJ report issued late Friday cites US officials who describe a plan already in place to disrupt any ship-to-ship transfer that would get the oil into Syrian hands — precisely what UK/Gibraltar authorities detained the ship for in the first place, at the request of the United States:
The U.S. State Department is working to disrupt what it sees as the vessel’s Syrian plan, according to a U.S. official. The State Department has been monitoring two other Iranian tankers in the Mediterranean that could pick up the cargo…
As we observed before, all the erratic maneuvering and circling by the Adrian Darya 1 in the past two days between Turkey and Cyprus has actually put the vessel in the vicinity of its original suspected destination for which it was accused of busting EU sanctions in the first place — the Syrian port of Baniyas.
As Reuters described based on tracking data, the vessel “made a U-turn on Friday and headed for Turkey’s Iskenderun port – 200 km (124 miles) north of Syria’s Baniyas refinery, the tanker’s suspected original destination.”
Just killing time. They might as well just stop moving and save some fuel.
“The vessel’s plan, the people said, is to deliver its crude to smaller tankers near Syria. The new itinerary, with the stated destination of Iskenderun, comes after a failed attempt to offload the cargo near Greece, the people said,” according to the WSJ.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Iran Deploys 2 Warships To Escort Commercial Vessels As Zarif Flies To Beijing After G-7
Iran Deploys 2 Warships To Escort Commercial Vessels As Zarif Flies To Beijing After G-7
The threshold to an armed conflict around the Persian Gulf just got even smaller.
On Monday, Iran said it had deployed two warships – a destroyer and a helicopter carrier – to protect the country’s commercial vessels around the Gulf of Aden, located between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, and Persian Gulf region amid a growing US-driven military build-up in the volatile region, which recently culminated with several tanker seizures on both sides, the navy times reports.
Iran’s brand new destroyer Sahand and the supply ship/replenishment carrier Kharg whiuch has a helicopter pad and services as lositics support, were deployed to the Gulf of Aden and Sea of Oman and tasked with escorting ships in international waters.
The “Sahand” commissioned in December 2018, is Iran’s most advanced home-made warship. It has a stealth hull and can travel a further than the previous class destroyers without refueling. It is equipped with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles as well as anti-aircraft batteries and radar and radar evading capabilities.
Tehran’s decision to escort its cargo vessels comes at a time of escalating tensions in the Gulf, with US and UK warships operating in and around the Persian Gulf under the “defensive” premise that Iran is the aggressor behind June’s attacks on two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Accusing Tehran of ‘sponsoring terrorism’ and running a secret nuclear program, Washington has beefed up its military in the region with more troops and hardware, including an aircraft carrier and bombers.
In early July, the Iranian tanker Adrian Darya, previously known as Grace 1, was seized off the coast of Gibraltar for allegedly carrying oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Lebanon’s President Announces Israeli Attacks Are “Declaration Of War”
Lebanon’s President Announces Israeli Attacks Are “Declaration Of War”
After pro-Iran allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq were all hit in suspected Israeli strikes in the space of less than 24 hours, signalling a new aggression out of Tel Aviv and willingness to risk yet another major Middle East war, Arab capitals are now alerting their armed forces to be on a war footing.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Monday condemned the “Israeli assault on the southern suburbs of Beirut” and told the country’s United Nations Special Coordinator, that the recent spate of drone strikes on Lebanon amount to a “declaration of war”.
Especially in Lebanon, where the most powerful military force is not the Army but Shiite paramilitary group Hezbollah, tensions are soaring after Hezbollah media offices in Beirut were targeted by Israeli drones overnight Sunday.
New Video of alleged Israel strikes in east Lebanon ~ an hour ago, targeting Palestinian Group PFLP.
If true, this may be 4th military incident in Lebanon-Syria-Iraq involving Israel in 24 hours. Via @tobiaschneider
A separate Israeli operation the day following reached deep into Lebanon, killing a PFLP-GC leader in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley (a Palestinian paramilitary group).
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah described the weekend aggression as was the first Israeli attacks inside Lebanon since the devastating month-long 2006 war; however, Israel has yet to claim the Beirut attack.
Iranian Tanker Showdown Heads To Turkey
Iranian Tanker Showdown Heads To Turkey
The Iranian tanker which had been detained for the past five weeks in Gilbraltar has suddenly switched its ship data to show it is headed to a Turkish port, instead of arriving at waters off southern Greece, as previously planned.
Reuters has cited real-time ship tracking website MarineTraffic to show the change in the Adrian Darya’s (formerly called Grace 1) destination. This after the US State Department threatened that should Greece provide any aid or facilities to the vessel carrying 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil, it would be tantamount to “material support to terrorism”.
The Unites States says the tanker is controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and thus deems any state’s interaction with it support of a formally designated terrorist group. There’s still an active US seizure warrant for the vessel.
While the vessel never planned to actually enter a Greek port, listed as the port of Kalamata — especially given the overladen supertanker sits too low in the water — it’s been widely reported that a ship-to-ship transfer of the oil was to occur off its southern coast.
A US Statement Department statement issued Monday had warned Greece’s help could be considered “providing material support to a US-designated foreign terrorist organization” — this according to a State Department official who spoke to Reuters.
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