Iran says U.S. warships in Persian Gulf spawn 'mayhem'

[Zarvan]

(CNN) -- Another top Iranian official weighed in Wednesday about the tensions brewing between his country and the United States, the latest salvo in the war of words over the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

"We have always stated that there is no need for the forces belonging to the countries beyond this region to have a presence in the Persian Gulf," Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Wednesday, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. "Their presence does nothing but create mayhem, and we never wanted them to be present in the Persian Gulf."

His statement is the latest rhetoric stemming from Iran's threat last week to close the strategically important Strait of Hormuz. The strait, the only outlet from the Persian Gulf, is a critical shipping lane, with 17 million barrels of oil per day passing through in 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

Iran threatened to block the strait if sanctions were imposed on its oil exports. France, Britain and Germany have proposed sanctions to punish Iran's lack of cooperation on its nuclear program.



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Report: Iran tests nuclear fuel rod Cmdr. Amy Derrick Frost, spokeswoman for the U.S. 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, responded at the time, "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated."

Answering a reporter's question Wednesday about the closing of the strait, Vahidi said, "The security of the Strait of Hormuz is one of the issues that Iran is concerned with, and the Islamic Republic has been maintaining this security."

He emphasized that Iran is a regional power and will always protect the strait.

"Of course the enemies try to exaggerate this issue in order to secure weapons sales to the counties of this region," he said.

Vahidi said a number of observers from other countries had been present during Iran's recent military exercises in and around the strait, and suggested that Iran could hold joint maneuvers with neighboring countries, Fars said.

Iran warned the United States on Tuesday not to return a U.S. aircraft carrier group "to the Persian Gulf region."

Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, commander of Iran's army, said his country "will not adopt any irrational move, but it is ready to severely react against any threat," the Islamic Republic News Agency said.

U.S. officials rejected the warning.

The commander spoke at the Port of Chabahar in southern Iran, as forces held a military parade the day after Iran ended naval drills in the region, IRNA reported.

The USS John C. Stennis, part of the U.S. Navy's fleet in the region, moved last week from the Persian Gulf into the North Arabian Sea as part of what the 5th Fleet called a preplanned transit.

Iran said the ship's movement in relation to Iran's naval exercises showed that the United States "understood" that Iran's maneuvers were not "suicidal or aggressive," but rather about Iran protecting its own "interests and power."

But Western diplomats last week described the naval drills -- which, according to Iranian officials, included test-firing missiles -- as further evidence of Iran's volatile behavior.

Iran's naval exercises began in the strait and also included waters in the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean up to the Gulf of Aden, according to IRNA.

After Tuesday's warning from Iran, a Pentagon spokesman issued a statement saying "deployment of U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region will continue as it has for decades."

The United States has had forces in the Persian Gulf since World War II. Its ships sail through the Persian Gulf frequently, many on their way to and from the 5th Fleet's headquarters in Bahrain. The 5th Fleet's area of responsibility covers about 2.5 million square miles, including the Persian Gulf, which the Navy also refers to as the Arabian Gulf; the Red Sea; the Gulf of Oman; and parts of the Indian Ocean.

 

[nomi007]

can iran stop usa naval carrier?

 

[Desertfalcon]

can iran stop usa naval carrier?

They can try, but I don't think so.

 

[Al Bhatti]

can iran stop usa naval carrier?

This pretty much gives a general picture of what Iranian Navy has and what they can face.

--------------

Jan 3, 2012

Iran does not have the arsenal to back up its many threats

The recent statements coming out of Iran, including by Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi, have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the West imposes sanctions on Iranian oil exports. But the reality of the regime's limited military capacity makes this seem like more of a bluff than an actual plausible course of action.

One only has to refer back to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, or even the recent capture of a US surveillance drone, to realise that the Iranians should not be underestimated. But it is also important to not allow their strategic bravado and inflammatory rhetoric to influence oil prices and the world economy. The Iranians should not be discounted, but equally they must not be overestimated.

Iran's recent Velayat 90, or "Supremacy 90", manoeuvres were intended to be a show of force to display its capabilities. It deployed anti-shipping missiles, anti-air missiles and small boats that would no doubt be important players if it did try to close the strait.

The exercise involved some actual real-world training, but the dominant component was to send a message to its neighbours. Some of the weapons systems, especially the 1960s-era F-4 fighters and helicopters, would be totally irrelevant and were probably included for reasons of prestige and propaganda. If Iran was more serious about closing the strait, then its manoeuvres would have been much more realistic.

But how real is Iran's capability if it did wish to start hostilities?

Firstly, the consequences of such an attempt must be taken into account. A naval conflict in a strait, where approximately 15 million barrels a day pass through, would send oil prices skyrocketing, greatly damaging the struggling world economy.

There is no doubt that the US and Nato, and possibly other major powers, would retaliate against such a move. An operation to try to restrict shipping in the strait would be an act of desperation and completely counterproductive.

Iran's conventional surface fleet would be sitting targets, and face annihilation from aerial attacks akin to what happened to Libya's mechanised ground forces in the recent Nato-led offensive. Its manoeuvres would be limited to simply trying to survive, which is one reason why Iran has not heavily invested in a surface fleet.

And there would not be much relief under the surface either. Iran's diesel-electric kilo class submarines are certainly much quieter than nuclear submarines, and they are also difficult to detect in the shallow waters of the Arabian Gulf. In 2006, a similar Chinese Song-class submarine approached the US aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, coming undetected within striking distance before surfacing. But diesel-electric submarines need to surface every few days, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

Anti-shipping missiles (ASMs) are another weapon the Iranians could try to use. The location of strategic islands in the Gulf, along with large stockpiles of ASMs, makes them an important part of Iran's asymmetrical warfare doctrine. An ASM base on Qeshm Island at the mouth of the strait would be at the forefront of any attempt to halt traffic.

Iran's ASM models are designed for quick deployment and firing, and it's likely that the ASM crews have been trained to fire quickly and scatter to avoid retaliation. In 2003, Iran fired ASM missiles that had been modified to become guided cruise missiles. US forces had a very hard time locating and destroying the ASM launchers, and captured most of them intact and abandoned, sometimes days after they had been fired.

But nowadays there is much better drone and satellite reconnaissance to pinpoint and destroy ASM launcher and missile locations. Most surface ships in the Gulf are equipped with effective missile-intercept capabilities. If Iran chose to engage in ASM warfare, it could find itself fighting a losing battle of attrition.

Iran does have a fleet of small boats that numbers in the hundreds, some with the ability to fire lethal ASMs, but most are poorly equipped, modified speedboats with Katyusha rocket launchers and heavy machine guns. As the Somali pirate operations have shown, modified small boats can help achieve tactical surprise, but if intercepted by heavier vessels, the battle becomes one-sided due to the poor defensive capabilities and the lack of sophisticated armaments.

Possibly the most effective tool that the Iranians have is their mine warfare capability. The Iranians have an extensive (and underrated) naval mining capability, which can be launched from boats, planes, mini-submarines and even from the shore. Mines are the poor man's most lethal naval weapon. Since the end of the Second World War, mines have seriously damaged or sunk four times more US navy ships than all other means of attack combined.

Iran's naval mining capability looks like the wild card in such a conflict. There is no command and control structure in mine warfare that the US type of "shock and awe" strategy could effectively attack and destroy.

Overall, however, the naval warfare capabilities of the US, Nato and GCC have improved in recent years. There is much better mine countermeasures training, and a much wider choice of aerial and naval systems to deal with mines.

The combination of these weapons does mean that, if it chose, Iran could reduce Gulf maritime traffic through the strait in the short-term. Its limitations, however, mean that the affair would most likely be resolved in a matter of weeks.


Ahmed Al Attar is a security affairs commentator. Follow him on Twitter: @AhmedwAlAttar

Iran does not have the arsenal to back up its many threats - The National

 

[regular]

can iran stop usa naval carrier?

Yes! Iran can stop a US carrier if they realli want to do that....Iran shold have enough fire power to over come the carrier firepower to hit it.....and I guess Iran do have enough firepower .......

 

[PERSIAN GOD KING]

al Bhati that article was written probably by some wahabi, please stop posting it everywhere.

 

[Al Bhatti]

al Bhati that article was written probably by some wahabi, please stop posting it everywhere.

You are also changing the topic again like your other friends?

I don't see any "wahabi" here and neither i am suffering from myopia or hypermetropia. As far as i know there is no "wahabi" neither in this forum or in the real world, but there are Muslims who try to follow the Qur'an and the sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) and try to keep the religion and religious practices clean and safe from Un-Islamic additions.

And for your information the writer (Ahmed Al Attar) can be an Arab Sunni or an Arab Shia'a or even an Arab Christian.

 

[PERSIAN GOD KING]

how am i changing the subjects? you post some BS article and i asked you not to post BS..what do they know about Iran's arsenals? all this stuff is in clandestine.

 

[Al Bhatti]

how am i changing the subjects?

This is the answer to you:

al Bhati that article was written probably by some wahabi, please stop posting it everywhere.

You do not have to bring in that word in anything you read about Muslims in GCC in specific or Muslims outside GCC in general. and as informed to you in my previous post there isn't anything called "wahabi".

Just by reading an Arabic name and assuming that he is writing from a GCC country you cannot tell he is Sunni or Shia'a or from a religion other than Islam.

you post some bullshit article and i asked you not to post BS..what do they know about Iran's arsenals? all this stuff is in clandestine.

Yes you are right no country can completely judge what a country has in their arsenals. Completely agree with you. Same case is with the US military hardware and capabilities (I am not a USA supporter but still never underestimate your enemy) and GCC countries' military hardware and capabilities as well should not be underestimated.

That is why I said in the beginning of the article for you to read (but since you could not read it clearly I repeat it in bold for you to read it clearly):

This pretty much gives a general picture of what Iranian Navy has and what they can face.

 

[PERSIAN GOD KING]

The thing is Iran never said they have a conventional navy that can take on the usa, people are just assuming thats what Iran means, Iran has unconventional ways to deal with the threats in the gulf.

 

[anon45]

The thing is Iran never said they have a conventional navy that can take on the usa, people are just assuming thats what Iran means, Iran has unconventional ways to deal with the threats in the gulf.

Ultimately, the question is do you believe that attempting to blockade the strait is a desperation move or that Iran can actually hold the strait for an extended period of time? By extended period of time I mean a month or longer.

I do not mean deny the straits, I mean hold it, as in being able to pick and choose who has access.

 

[Crive]

Ultimately, the question is do you believe that attempting to blockade the strait is a desperation move or that Iran can actually hold the strait for an extended period of time? By extended period of time I mean a month or longer.

I do not mean deny the straits, I mean hold it, as in being able to pick and choose who has access.

yes we can hold it as long as we want and we have right to close it base on international laws.
you can just pass from oman part .

 

[regular]

yes we can hold it as long as we want and we have right to close it base on international laws.
you can just pass from oman part .

Yes! pretty good explanation I guess. The US can't use the Iranian side.....

 

[Harry_Thomason]

They can try, but I don't think so.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/military-forum/139008-analysis-war-against-iran.html

 

[Al Bhatti]

January 6, 2012

War with Iran not serious option for US or Israel

Though a bit tricky, containment and deterrence are clearly better policies at present than war-mongering

The greatest threat that Israel faces, and frankly the greatest threat the world faces, is a nuclear Iran.” The author of this inanity is none other than Mitt Romney, the man the Republicans are likely to choose to challenge Barack Obama in this year’s presidential elections.

Can Romney really believe what he says? Is he reckless enough to push the US into war with Iran? Or is he merely vying for Jewish votes — and Jewish campaign funds — by parroting the over-heated arguments of Israel’s lobbyists at American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the Washington Institute, and in much of the rightwing US media?

What is Iran’s crime in the eyes of these hard-liners? It is that it has refused to submit to American military hegemony in the Gulf and, together with its allies — Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas — has made a small dent in Israel’s military supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. Does this make it a world-wide menace?

Are the US and Israel really prepared to go to war over these issues? It does not appear so. All the indications are that war is not being seriously contemplated by the US or by Israel — or for that matter by Iran either. In all three countries, the warmongers may already have lost the argument.

Washington sources report that Obama has long since ruled out a resort to force against Iran, which he considers far too risky. Having brought America’s calamitous war in Iraq to a close, he is now hoping to wind up the Afghan conflict by means of a negotiated settlement. The opening of a Taliban office in Qatar — as is now being proposed —would facilitate such contacts. It is self-evident that Obama will spare no effort to save the US from being drawn into yet another costly, open-ended military adventure in the greater Middle East.

Instead, he appears to have quietly chosen to opt for a policy of containment and deterrence. But, since he has no wish to be accused of being weak on Israel, this sensible policy has not been made public. The official US line is that ‘all options are on the table,’ but, for all practical purposes, the military option has been firmly dropped.
A hint that the hawks in the administration have been defeated may be seen in the recent resignation of Dennis Ross from his job at the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President for the greater Middle East and South Asia. Ross has now returned to his old home at the Washington Institute — AIPAC’s sister organisation — which he founded with Martin Indyk in 1980, with the task of shaping America’s Middle East policy in a pro-Israeli direction, as well as placing its men in key government jobs — both of which it has done with great success. Back at the institute, he is continuing to push his hard-line views, declaring in a recent speech that the aim of US policy should not be containment but prevention of Iran’s nuclear programme — if necessary by force.

Israel is not contemplating war against Iran, any more than the US Its noisy threats are, paradoxically, a signal that it is not planning to attack. When it bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, and Syria’s alleged nuclear facility in 2007, it did so in total secrecy and with no advance warning. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fevered references to the ‘existential’ menace of an Iranian bomb should, I believe, be read, not as a prelude to war, but as an alternative to war. His intention is to frighten Iran and pressure the western powers into imposing ever-tougher sanctions on it. The blackmail is working. This week Obama passed into law new unilateral sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, the financial pivot of its oil transactions.

A lively debate has been taking place in Israel between generals and politicians. Warning of a new Holocaust, Netanyahu has likened Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler. His generals do not agree. An attack, they say, would at best set back the Iranian programme by a year or two, and might well, in fact, drive Iran to go all out for nuclear weapons. The generals understand that it would be the height of folly for Israel to make an ‘eternal’ enemy of a country vastly bigger and richer than itself, with ten times its population.

Meir Dagan, Mossad’s former chief, has said that war with Iran would be a ‘catastrophe’. His alternative way of dealing with the problem has been to assassinate Iranian scientists; infect Iran’s computers with Stuxnet and other worms; sabotage its installations and destabilise it in every way possible. He recommends a ‘stealth war’, not a shooting war.

In an address last week to a gathering of Israeli ambassadors, the current Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, was reported as saying that ‘The term existential threat is used too freely.’ One of the envoys present was quoted in the Israeli press as saying that Pardo’s remarks clearly implied ‘that he doesn’t think a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel.’

Even if none of the parties — Israel, the US and Iran — actually want war or seriously anticipate it, there is always the possibility that war might break out by accident. Targeting Iran’s Central Bank and threatening to boycott its oil exports, as some western nations are proposing to do, create a climate of hysterical nationalism that could trigger a clash. Iran has tried to call the West’s bluff by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, but a serious attempt to do so could set the whole region on fire — which is almost certainly the last thing Iran or the US would want. In my view, not too much should be read into Iran’s recent naval manoeuvres in the Gulf, or its testing of new missiles. It has carried out such exercises in the past.

Containment and deterrence are clearly better policies than war-mongering. But they are not without difficulty. Establishing the rules of a system of mutual deterrence can be tricky. The first months, or even years, can prove dangerous until the system is perfected and the rules fully understood by both sides. For the scheme to be safe, a ‘hot line’ between the parties would need urgently to be established.

If Obama could summon up the political courage for a long-overdue dialogue with Iran — interrupted 32 years ago — the danger of war would be dispelled, to everyone’s relief.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.

gulfnews : War with Iran not serious option for US or Israel