As if uncontrollable economic contagion was not enough for the administration, Obama is now willing to add geopolitical risk to the current extremely precarious economic and financial situation. Over at Debkafile we read that the president has decided to "boost US military strength in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions in the short term with an extra air and naval strike forces and 6,000 Marine and sea combatants." With just one aircraft carrier in proximity to Iran, the Nobel peace prize winner has decided to send a clear message that peace will no longer be tolerated, and has decided to increase the US aircraft carrier presence in the region by a 400-500% CAGR.

From Debka:

Carrier Strike Group 10, headed by the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, sails out of the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia Friday, May 21. On arrival, it will raise the number of US carriers off Iranian shores to two. Up until now, President Barack Obama kept just one aircraft carrier stationed off the coast of Iran, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Arabian Sea, in pursuit of his policy of diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

For the first time, too, the US force opposite Iran will be joined by a German warship, the frigate FGS Hessen, operating under American command.

It is also the first time that Obama, since taking office 14 months ago, is sending military reinforcements to the Persian Gulf. Our military sources have learned that the USS Truman is just the first element of the new buildup of US resources around Iran. It will take place over the next three months, reaching peak level in late July and early August. By then, the Pentagon plans to have at least 4 or 5 US aircraft carriers visible from Iranian shores.

The USS Truman's accompanying Strike Group includes Carrier Air Wing Three (Battle Axe) - which has 7 squadrons - 4 of F/A-18 Super Hornet and F/A-18 Hornet bomber jets, as well as spy planes and early warning E-2 Hawkeyes that can operate in all weather conditions; the Electronic Attack Squadron 130 for disrupting enemy radar systems; and Squadron 7 of helicopters for anti-submarine combat (In its big naval exercise last week, Iran exhibited the Velayat 89 long-range missile for striking US aircraft carriers and Israel warships from Iranian submarines.)

Another four US warships will be making their way to the region to join the USS Truman and its Strike Group. They are the guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy and guided missile destroyers USS Winston S. Churchill, USS Oscar Austin and USS Ross.

We can't wait for Iran to feel completely unthreatened by this escalation and to decide to take no action whatsoever as the Nobelists push it even more into a corner from which the only escape, to a rational player, would be outright aggression... Which begs the question just how an irrational player would react.

Link: www.zerohedge.com/article/us-begins-massive-military-build-around-iran-sending-4-new-carrier-groups-region

In 410-4 Vote, House Approves Millions in Extra Funding for Israel's Missile Defense

The Iron Dome system is intended for "very short range" rocket fire, primarily the intermittent rockets from the Gaza Strip that hit open fields in southern Israel, and would be completely useless against any missile from as far away as Iran, nuclear or otherwise. In fact, this was one of the major reasons Israel was seeking the money, as many questioned the wisdom of spending $50,000 per missile to shoot down commodity rockets that cost only a few hundreds dollars apiece, and the Israeli military declined to include the project in its own budget. The four Representatives voting against the resolution were John Conyers (D – MI), Dennis Kucinich (D – OH), Ron Paul (R – TX), and Pete Stark (D – CA).


Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East
link: www.cisd.soas.ac.uk/Editor/assets/iran%20study%2007.07.pdf


Debka is a decent source if you want to know what Netan-the-Yahoo scrawled on his last spittle-flecked deranged fax to the White House.



As to Iran's best next move:

(1) withdraw from the NPT and declare a policy of 'nuclear ambiguity' - citing 'Israel' as its template (hence, also forbidding the IAEA from undertaking inspections, like 'Israel' does).

(2) fire one of their SS-NX-26 Yahkonts anti-shipping missiles (sans warhead) at any carrier in the Straits of Hormuz. Make sure it misses by about 50 meters - just so that the crew knows that Phalanx is USELESS against anything with volatile-path guidance. If the yanks whine, claim that the radar signature of the carrier made it look like a fighter aircraft on an attack vector.



If the US starts a show using floating targets (that's what an aircraft carrier is, since the invention of the Exocet - and the Yahkonts is five times as lethal), then all it means is that it will lose a carrier. That won't play well in Peoria.



Point (2), in case you didn't recognise it, is a variant of the 'dominant strategy' for CHina in the event that the US sent a floating target to 'protect' Taiwan... the Chinese would lob a small low-yield nuke into the sea 500km in front of the CBG and send an e-mail to WhiteHouse.gov saying "The next one won't just boil fish". (Although I suppose these days you would send a tweet).



Good to see that Obama is continuing the US's policy of pissing off as large a slice of the world as possible. That worked so well for the Romans, the Poms, the French, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Ottomans... but this time it's different.



Navy Times agrees that the Truman is deploying.

The Pilot online says:

They’re scheduled to spend at least six months at sea, mostly in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and northern Africa. They’ll likely support group troops operating in Afghanistan.

link: www.navytimes.com/news/2010/05/navy_truman_deploy_051810w/


where are the carriers?

link: www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/where.htm