British Navy Ships Move to Counter Iran

Britain's Royal Navy is sending two minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, beefing up an allied effort to thwart Iran's growing power in the region, according to the Times of London.

The United States increased pressure on Iran recently, seizing its agents in two cities in Iraq. They were accused of supporting militant Iraqi groups, a charge that Iran denies. That sort of behavior is what prompted the United States to beef up its presence in the Gulf, adding two aircraft carrier groups and an air defense battalion.

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Two British mine hunters arrived in the Gulf to reinforce a British Royal Navy frigate on patrol in the area.

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Interesting developments. I wouldn't have expected the British to join a possible attack on Iran. Perhaps it will be naval support only as their forces are already thinly spread.

I wonder whether this will just be an attempt to scare the Iranians or an actual attack/air raid.

I can only imagine one reason for the US to deploy Patriot batteries in the region and that's to defend its troops in Iraq.

It's clear that air raids only would most likely not take out Iran's chemical stocks and wonder what the Iranian response will be like.




[edit on 16-1-2007 by Mdv2]

U.S. Navy nuclear submarines maintaining vigil off the coast of Iran indicate that the Pentagon’s military plans include not only control over navigation in the Persian Gulf but also strikes against Iranian targets, a former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Eduard Baltin has told the Interfax news agency.

“The presence of U.S. nuclear submarines in the Persian Gulf region means that the Pentagon has not abandoned plans for surprise strikes against nuclear targets in Iran. With this aim a group of multi-purpose submarines ready to accomplish the task is located in the area,” Admiral Baltin said.

He made the comments after reports that a U.S. submarine collided with a Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Apparently, the time has come for a huge war in the Middle East, or rather a world without a Middle East.

[edit on 16-1-2007 by Mdv2]

Originally posted by Mdv2

Apparently, the time has come for a huge war in the Middle East, or rather a world without a Middle East.

[edit on 16-1-2007 by Mdv2]

Oh, the middle east will still be there, but what they don't need is the troublesome muslin, Islamic believers . . .

What they need is just what it lies under the sands of the middle east, who cares how much blood the rightful owners of those lands will spill protecting their resources.

After all the are not like us. Right.?

The hypocrisy.

Somebody needs to stop the mad man in the white house before he goes into another genocide in the middle east.

I guess we the people means nothing to the powers ruled by greed and profits, no even the new congress can stop or are willing to stop the madness of king George and his own republican party can not stop him either.

would this by chance have anything to do with Iran dumping the Dollar and going to the Euro??? didnt they recently make that change?

I dunno I just cant see a major war breaking out.
The people wont follow,
and the government wont work without the people.

Hmm mayeb thats not the right way to term it,

I cant fathom, Bush and CO hitting Iran, with the collossal mess in Iraq getting worse by the day.
A lot of things are hidden from us about Iraq, alot of 'how bad it really is' type stuff.

So if the president knows the truth, surely... surely hes not insane enough to broaden this war and make it even worse.

He may be an idiot, he may be a war criminal, he may be that curropt money seems to fall out of his ears.... but irational to the point of bringing the demise of his country?

Is that we are building up to attack Iran, it won't be like prepared for us on TV, it will be another Shock and aw campaign like we saw in Iraq, then once it is done then they will justify it.

[edit on 16-1-2007 by PHARAOH1133]

This is just a show of force by the US and Uk and/or they are preparing to allow Israel to hit Iran.

Niether the US or Uk can afford to go to war with Iran; and mean that in financial terms and political terms.

Originally posted by SenHeathen
This is just a show of force by the US and Uk and/or they are preparing to allow Israel to hit Iran.

Niether the US or Uk can afford to go to war with Iran; and mean that in financial terms and political terms.

I agree I think Israel will be the ones to hit Iran and we will play a defensive role. If and when Iran attempts to attack us after the hit we will be in a position to take out their ability to make war and let a natural revolution take place in an already voltile country.

Whether that succeeds or not could be a different story.

I hate to think that after everything that is happening in Iraq as well as the recent US election that the current Administration would consider any further escalation in the region. However, Israel has a significant interest in seeing the Iranian nuclear initiative stopped. Israel also know that one the current Administration is out-of-office it will become much harder to get the cooperation they need to see that done. On the other hand Mr. Bush is nearing the end of his term and he is obviously intent on seeing his 'vision' through to completion. It seems to me that there is every sign that he is intent on doing something about Iran in the time he has left.

Jackjuice has the point. I’ve long said that’s it’s about time Israel did something useful (like stick up for itself without too much of our direct involvement). There are many, many advantages to this; but chief amongst them is it will be a lot easier to rally public opinion in support of war with Iran; if after Iran has been attacked by Israel they attack us.

However what would really be interesting (from a political point of view) is if Iran wasn’t that stupid; and just stuck to retaliating against Israel. There then could be quite an intense (but probably short war) with Israel having nuclear weapons on one side, and Iran having “just” biological on the other.
I doubt ether side would actually use heavy WMD’s; but it would be curious to see just how costly the war would turn out be, to both sides.
Of course Israel can come of least harmed because America and Britain can supply them with cheap loans; and plenty of subsided high tech munitions (and unlike the Lebanon war it will be right this time).

Problems…
“Coincidently” some terrorist will probably drive a few suicide truck bombs into Mid East countries oil production-collection points; and with worldwide oil production only being a few million barrels ahead of worldwide demand, it really will be 100 dollars plus a barrel. Therefore almost inevitably a full blown global economic recession will surely follow in just about all major countries.
But just how bad this will be is anyone’s guess. So it will be interesting to see how we survive that; what the political impacts of things like peoples stock-funds, pensions being trashed (ect).

So the lessons are this…
1.If Bush and Blair (plus maybe other leaders) want a war with Iran now; but with public support on their side, then they can have a war like this if they use Israel as the (official) capitalpolt.
2.Such a war will be intense (even if only brief)
3.The effects on oil prises will be severe; but just how severe will determine how big and world changing the economic recession will be (particularly from a political point of view).

4.So hopefully this recent militarily activity is just war games; in the same way Iran’s previous recent militarily activity; also turned out to be just war games.

jtma508 Exactly Bush does seem to have every intention to do something about Iran in the time he has left. Question is can he be stopped?