US-Iranian naval collision building up in Gulf of Aden

US and Iran headed for a naval face-off over Yemen following the announcement Monday night that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, known as “The Big Stick,” was on its way to the Gulf of Aden to join the American naval force of nine warships building up to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying arms for Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Roosevelt Strike Group 12 was dispatched from the Persian Gulf to head off an Iranian naval armada of 8-9 vessels on its way to the Gulf of Aden with fresh military supplies for the rebels.

The Roosevelt carrier is accompanied by US Navy destroyers and other vessels, including the guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy. The US warships are carrying teams able to board and search vessels bound to deliver Iranian arms in accordance with UN resolutions.

The aircraft carrier’s arrival will notch up America’s active partnership in the blockade Saudi Arabia and Egypt have thrown up around Yemeni shores. It will underscore Washington’s resolve to pre-empt any attempt by Iranian warships to break this  blockade, as well as the deepening US involvement against the Iranian-backed rebel forces in Yemen.
High-placed sources in Washington fear that the US, Saudi and Egyptian fleets piling up in the Gulf of Aden may fall to blows with Iranian warships over any attempt to drop military supplies on shore for the rebels.

On April 10, debkafile raised the possibility of a Saudi-Iranian collision at sea, after the Saudi army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Al-Assiri, warned: “Iranian ships have the right to be present in international waters, but won’t be allowed to enter Yemeni territorial waters.”
On the same day, Washington announced that the US Air Force had begun aerial refueling missions for the Saudi-led coalition forces conducting air strikes to stem the Houthi rebels’ advances.
Monday, April 20, the Saudi charge d’affaires in Tehran was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry for a protest against Saudi air bombardment of the neighborhood in the capital Sanaa close to the Iranian embassy. There were no casualties but the building was damaged. Saudi Arabia said its target had been the largest Houthi arms arsenal in the city, which was located near the Iranian embassy.

This protest was indirectly addressed to Washington too, since the United States has made no secret of providing the Saudi Air Force with intelligence feeds for its strikes and therefore approval.

Exclusive: Moscow has no S-300 air defense missiles available for Iran. Replacements under discussion

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 15, 2015, 11:38 AM (GMT+02:00)

Although Tehran celebrated President Vladimir Putin’s decision to release the S-300 missiles withheld from Iran for five years by an arms embargo,debkafile reports exclusively that Iran can’t hope to take delivery of the advanced air defense systems in the foreseeable future. The Russian military industry is already way behind meeting demands for more S-300 missiles and their radar systems for the Russian army, which has none to spare for Iran. Its own needs have soared since Russia fell out with US and Europe over the Ukraine conflict.

The Russian army lately moved S-300 batteries, which are capable of downing fighter jets and missiles, to the country’s southern border with Ukraine, as air cover for the pro-Russian separatists against Ukrainian air bombardment, which has since petered out.

Additional batteries are deployed at Russian sea and air bases on the Black Sea and Crimean Peninsula.
A further batch of S-300 missiles, as well as the S-400 from the same family, has been positioned in the Russian strategic enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, Moscow’s forward military position against Europe.
In response to US plans to install a missile shield network in East and West European countries belonging to  NATO, the Russians advanced into Kaliningrad a number of short-range ballistic K720 Iskander (NATO-named SS-26 Stone9) missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The S-300 missile batteries are in place to defend them.

debkafile’s military sources also disclose that, after five years of training one Iranian team after another in the operation of the S-300 systems, the Russians have given up on their acquiring the necessary skills.
Tehran and Moscow have still to decide, after eight years of debating, which particular missile system best suits Iran’s needs out of the S-300 family of weapons, each of whose basic six categories is designed for a particular task. Those categories employ seven types of missile, which too break down into 16-sub-types, including the S-400.
In an attempt to reach a decision, our intelligence sources in Moscow report that Iran’s National Security chief Ali Shankhani, who is currently visiting Moscow, has settled on an Iranian military delegation making an early trip to Russia, viewing the various S-300 models and returning home with recommendations. Tehran will then make its choice.
This process too could stretch out over many months. Moscow may not see eye to eye with Tehran on the type of missile to be supplied, a difficulty that would entail a fresh round of negotiations.

Given all these circumstances, it is hard to see Iran taking delivery of the first S-300 missiles any time this year, as it had hoped.
All the same, although the entire transaction is in the air, the US and Israel made big play of protesting the Kremlin’s decision to end its embargo on the S-300s for Iran. When Secretary of State John Kerry talked about it to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Monday, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu  phoned President Putin Tuesday, both were perfectly aware that the batteries wold not be making their way to Tehran any time in the near future.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/asteroid-size-statue-liberty-on-5515171

Who the heck is Iran that they are in any position to demand anything?

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/iran-demands-nuclear-disarmament-from-u-s-russia-china-britain-and-france-1.2318184

The US is filling our cities with Muslim terrorists and we are not allowed to ask questions?

http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/u-s-cities-secretly-selected-for-muslim-immigration/

Iran's president says agreement will only occur if all sanctions are lifted at once, days after White House declares it wants gradual phase-out...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4645564,00.html

Assad looses ISIS against Palestinians trapped in Yarmouk camp - a sinister new partnership

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 8, 2015, 1:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

Obama’s rapprochement with Iran and its Middle East allies has produced an incredibly sinister new twist in the Syrian war as it enters its fifth year. The atrocity-ridden conflict finds 16,000 Palestinians trapped in horrible conditions in the Yarmouk refugee camp of Damascus and beset by two enemies: the Islamic State and the President Bashar Assad’s army.
The world has been shown three players in the vicious Yarmouk contest: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, whose jihadis are slashing through the refugee camp and massacring its Palestinian inmaes, the second player, and the Syrian army, the third, which appears to be fighting to keep the Islamists from reaching central Damascus. The camp lies 8.5 km from Assad’s presidential palace.
The Islamists are usually presented as fighting to settle a score with the camp’s inmates, because the Hamas majority is aligned with Iran and Hizballah, ISIS’s deadliest foes.
But even this evil scenario is not crazy enough to cover the new patchwork of alliances revealed here by debkafile’s military and intelligence sources.

Syrian troops were actually directed by Assad to open the roads to Damascus and give the Islamists a free path to their Palestinian victims. This saved ISIS the need to detach substantial strength from other fronts for its Yarmouk operation.

ISIS is winning its cheapest victory yet as a result of a secret understanding reached by the Syrian president with the Islamists’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which evolved from their covert partnership in the oil and gas fields of eastern Syria.

When Al Baghdadi captured 90 percent of those fields last year, Assad was short of military strength to dislodge the invaders without diluting the forces fighting on more important strategic fronts, such as Damascus, the capital, Deraa in the South and Aleppo in the north. So the Syrian ruler cold-bloodedly negotiated an understanding with the ISIS caliph on four points:

1. The Syrian army and air force would abstain from attacking ISIS positions and also refrain from any effort to recapture the fields.
2. ISIS would pump out the oil and gas and transfer these products to Damascus, which would then use its distribution facilities to sell the fuel on the black market after retaining a portion for domestic consumption.

3.  Damascus and the Islamists would share out the revenue between them. Last year, ISIS was earning $2-4 million a day, an income which went far toward bankrolling the terrorist group’s war operations.

4.  Syrian power stations would keep Islamist bases supplied with electricity.

The Syrian ruler then decided, our sources report, to build on this alliance as an opportunity for another move: The outsourcing of some of his war challenges. The plan was for Assad to control from afar the action conducted by the jihadis without having to put Syrian boots on the ground.
The Yarmouk operation was the first tryout of Assad’s battlefield ties with the Islamists.
The Syrian ruler had three goals in mind when he targeted the Palestinians:

 (a) To show his closest allies Iran and Hizballah that he was not totally reliant on them for war support, but retained a free hand to fight on without them. (b) To punish the Palestinian Hamas, which rules the Yarmouk camp, for withholding its support from his regime during the entire civil war.

Hamas needed to understand that the group’s reconciliation with Tehran and Hizballah did not count as absolution in Damascus. Assad had a separate accounting of his own with the Palestinian extremists.

(c)  Assad gained a new lease of life from Washington’s turnabout toward recognizing the legitimacy of his presidency (signaled by US Secretary of State John Kerry’s acceptance of Bashar Assad as part of any peace moves for Syria). He also exploited US acceptance of Iran’s expansionist designs in the region as a point in his favor.

 The Syrian ruler decided he felt confident enough to make the Palestinians his high card in his games with Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Assad wanted them all to understand that he was riding high enough to control the fate of the Palestinians: It was up to him to decide whether to save them or throw them to the wolves - which he did by letting ISIS loose against them.

Obama to Israel: Nuclear deal with Iran is “our best bet” – but “we’ve got your backs”

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis April 6, 2015, 11:28 AM (GMT+02:00)

“If anyone messes with Israel, America will be there.” This was the main message US President Barack Obama had for Israel in his New York Times interview with Thomas Friedman Monday, April 6. He was trying to fend off the constant stream of criticism coming from Israel, as well as Washington and the Gulf, of the nuclear framework deal the US-led group of world powers shaped with Iran in Lausanne last week.

On his clash with the Israeli prime minister over diplomacy with Iran, Obama offered a conciliatory note: This deal is “our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“I respect Mr. Netanyahu’s security argument and agree that Israelis have every right to be concerned about Iran,” a country that has threatened “to destroy Israel, that has denied the Holocaust, that has expressed venomous anti-Semitic ideas.”
He went on to say, “I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch, or as a consequence of work that I had done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable,” he said.

“But what I would say to them is that not only am I absolutely committed to making sure they maintain their qualitative military edge, and that they can deter any potential future attacks, but what I’m willing to do is to make the kinds of commitments that would give everybody in the neighborhood, including Iran, a clarity that if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them.”

Those words from the US president were certainly welcomed in Jerusalem, but they failed to address the deep concerns besetting Israel and the region over Iran’s rising belligerence, which has drawn encouragement from Obama’s policies:
1. The US president is focusing too narrowly on the nuclear dimension of the Iranian threat, when Tehran is already in the throes of an aggressive drive for regional expansion by conventional military means. It is actively stirring up civil strife and using subversion and terror to disrupt its neighbors.
Obama talks about Israel’s security concerns in the future tense in potential terms, when already an Iranian noose is tightening around its borders. He must have been apprised by his own intelligence advisers about the tasks Tehran has awarded its proxies, the Lebanese Hizballah, and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, for turning the heat on the Jewish state – else why has Tehran raised Hizballah’s rocket-firing capacity against Israel to 1,000-1,500 rockets per day? And why send Hamas tens of millions of dollars for rebuilding the terror tunnels Israel destroyed in the Gaza Strip last summer and replenish its rocket arsenal?

Israel does not have the luxury of standing by until a foreign power, however friendly, “has its back.”  Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces have made their own preparations for the worst-case scenario.  But they also ask: Is it right for Israel to be put in this position so that President Obama can claim what he calls “a historic agreement?”
2.  The list of governments skeptical of the value of the nuclear “framework” or “solutions” – depending on which of the Washington or Tehran versions they accept – does not end with Netanyahu. The day before it ran the Obama interview, The New York Times headed a front page story with the caption” Arab allies cry betrayal.”

Saudi King Salman has clearly decided to brush off White House attempts to sell its nuclear deal with Iran or wait for Obama to catch up with events in the region. He is forging ahead in the defense of what he considers the oil kingdom’s interests. His first step was to go ahead, without consulting with Washington, with military intervention in Yemen to stall the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

It is worth noting here that even Netanyahu, in his most heated diatribes against the US president’s policies, never used the term “betrayal.”
3.  Obama and his advisers are fond of declaring that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would not delay its program more than a couple of years. For one thing, that theory has never been proved: Iran could be held back from the nuclear threshold by four or, for that matter, six years. Who’s to say?  By then, Obama would have long been gone and also, by then, the ayatollahs – if they still ruled Iran - might have had a change of heart and decide to drop the current regime’s nuclear bomb aspirations.

All these propositions are equally speculative.
Still more short-sighted is the US president’s determination that the talks with Iran are a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see whether or not we can at least take the nuclear issue off the table.”

Even if the issue is resolved to the US president’s satisfaction by June 30,  which most informed opinion doubts, it will still loom large on the tables of King Salman, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh el-Sisi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
4.  There is also a question of credibility. Whereas Obama now questions the value of tougher sanctions for deterring Iran from violating any nuclear deals, such as are envisaged Congress, just a year ago he was all in favor of these penalties for bringing Tehran to the negotiating table.
5. In his long interview to The New York Times, the president made no mention of the contrasting versions of the Lausanne process produced by Washington and Tehran- as debkafile was the first to disclose in detail on Saturday, April 4.

So which of the two is the correct one? Or were the two different narratives deliberately cooked up between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif as a selling device for their respective home audiences.

6. Getting to the bottom of the real deal concluded in Lausanne will be further complicated by the secret annexes which were appended and never intended to see the light of day. Middle East rulers can’t be expected to take on faith a deal contracted by outside powers with their neighbor, that includes secret clauses to which they are not privy.

7. Nothing is said in either the US or Iranian version about Tehran’s long-range ballistic missiles or the “research and development” work performed to outfit them for carrying nuclear warheads. Iran doesn’t need these missiles to attack Israel, but they would pose a threat to America.

The Obama interview and reiterated pledge to Israel’s security followed Netanyahu’s latest broadside.

 Saying he sees better options than “this bad deal or war,” the prime minister said  to CNN Sunday:

 "I think there's a third alternative, and that is standing firm, ratcheting up the pressure until you get a better deal.” As it stands now, said the prime minister, "It does not roll back Iran's nuclear program. It keeps a vast nuclear infrastructure in place. Not a single centrifuge is destroyed. Not a single nuclear facility is shut down, including the underground facilities that they built illicitly. Thousands of centrifuges will keep spinning, enriching uranium. That's a very bad deal.”

Netanyahu said Iran is a country of "congenital cheating" and that it can't be trusted to abide by the terms of the deal.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/06/obama-says-us-has-once-in-lifetime-chance-to-complete-iran-nuclear-deal/

http://www.trunews.com/iran-triumphant-nuclear-deal-capitulates-to-nearly-all-iranian-demands/