Cyprus-Forum.com

[kurupetos]

I am sure we will all be happy when Iran has nuclear weapons.

Yes we are.

[yialousa1971]

Iran lawmakers prepare to close Hormuz Strait

published: 02 July, 2012, 18:26
Edited: 03 July, 2012, 02:31



Iranian lawmakers have drafted a bill that would close the Strait of Hormuz for oil tankers heading to countries supporting current economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

­"There is a bill prepared in the National Security and Foreign Policy committee of Parliament that stresses the blocking of oil tanker traffic carrying oil to countries that have sanctioned Iran," Iranian MP Ibrahim Agha-Mohammadi told reporters.

"This bill has been developed as an answer to the European Union's oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Agha-Mohammadi said that 100 of Tehran's 290 members of parliament had signed the bill as of Sunday.

Iran's threats to block the waterway through which about 17 million barrels a day sailed in 2011 have grown in the past year as US and European sanctions aimed at starving Tehran of funds for its nuclear programme have tightened.

The Strait of Hormuz is a vital shipping route through which most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq and nearly all the gas exported from Qatar sails.

An EU ban on Iranian oil imports came into effect on Sunday.

Investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter believes the bill’s introduction is a step in a series of actions that Iran can take to hamper oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, causing oil prices to skyrocket.

“What we can look forward to in the coming weeks and months is that the Iranians will make a series of moves, beginning with this bill in the Majlis, threating to pass the bill; if that doesn’t have an effect, certainly going ahead with the passage,” Porter told RT. “Then first in a series of limited moves towards threatening to actually put mines in the strait to prevent the shipping of oil from going through. And then, I think, Iranians have the option of a very limited use of mines, with very few mines being dropped in this strait to try to get the price of oil to shoot up, for one thing, and to get the United States to react.”


World's 'most important oil transit chokepoint'

The US Energy Information Administration, a statistical and analytical agency within the Department of Energy, said the Strait of Hormuz was the world’s “most important oil transit chokepoint,” with a daily flow of 17 million barrels per day in 2011. This constitutes roughly 35 per cent of all seaborne traded oil, or 20 per cent of all oil traded worldwide, according to the agency.


The agency also estimates that an average 14 oil tankers passed through the strait every day last year, with a corresponding number of empty tankers entering the Persian Gulf to pick up new shipments. Over 85 per cent of the oil tankers passing through the strait were heading to destinations in East Asia, the majority of these going to China, India, South Korea and Japan.


Concerns over the Strait of Hormuz’s shutdown have prompted a number of Arab nations to seek alternative for its oil exports.


The United Arab Emirates recently unveiled the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline with a terminal in Fujairah, which is situated on the Gulf of Oman coastline past the Strait of Hormuz. The pipeline has a capacity of about 1.5 million barrels per day, still short of the UAE’s total oil production of 2.5 million barrels a day.


Iraqi officials recently announced plans to construct a pipeline to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, allowing it to bypass the gulf altogether.


The Saudi Arabian East-West pipeline linking the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea is also being mulled as part of a possible bypass. However, that pipeline has a capacity of up to 5 million barrels a day, less than half the daily oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia also recently reactivated the Iraqi Pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which also transports oil to the Red Sea, but has a comparatively meager capacity of 1.65 million barrels a day.


Transporting oil to the Mediterranean and Red Seas still raises the question of how it would reach its Asian clients.


The shortest route appears to be through the congested Suez Canal, via the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden, an area prone to attacks by Somali pirates.


However, the question of how to bypass the strait appears to concern not only US allies, but Iran itself. The country recently announced plans to build a new terminal in Bandar Jask, 100 miles east of the strait. A pipeline is also set to connect Bandar Jask with the Caspian port of Neka.

http://www.rt.com/news/iran-bill-hormuz-strait-218/

[yialousa1971]

"Great Prophet 7" Wargames, IRAN

[yialousa1971]

Iran to launch production of high-precision missiles, armed seaplanes



Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the country will soon launch the production line of two new domestically-manufactured military systems.


“The production line of high-precision missiles and armed flying boats (seaplanes) will be launched soon,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Over the recent years, Iran has made important breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important military equipment and systems.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly made clear that its military might is merely based on the nation's defense doctrine of deterrence and poses no threat to other countries.

Regarding the developments in Syria, Vahidi rejected certain media reports that Iran has troops in the Arab country and said such media propaganda aims to cover up the presence of foreign terrorists in the country.


“Such remarks are aimed at covering up the presence of terrorists from different parts of the world in Syria and they are false,” he said.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011.

While the West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of the killings, Damascus blames ''outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups'' for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

AR/AZ

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/25 ... y-systems/

[yialousa1971]

Top US military commander: 'I don't want to be complicit' if Israel attacks Iran
Published: 31 August, 2012, 20:07

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey (AFP Photo / Karen Bleier)

The highest ranking officer in the United States military has announced that he is against American participation in any Israeli-led attack on Iran, even as pressure to destroy the Islamic Republic’s rumored nuclear program remain unrelieved.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in London on Thursday that an Israeli attack would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” adding that he was against US cooperation in a unilateral assault.

“I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it,” Dempsey told reporters.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been adamant that the nation’s nuclear facilities exist solely for peaceful purposes and that the country is not in the market for procuring nuclear warheads, a sentiment echoed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who earlier this week told heads of state, "Our motto is nuclear energy for all and nuclear weapons for none."

So far, no foreign nations have been able to independently confirm or deny that claim. On Thursday, however, the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency wrote that Iran has been uncooperative with attempts to investigate their facilities and suggested that they could be procuring nukes.

Israel, a close ally of the United States, has also claimed that Iran’s intentions are motivated by manufacturing of warheads. In May of this year, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated, “Our position has not changed. The world must stop Iran from becoming nuclear. All options remain on the table."

From an executive standpoint, President Obama has also remained willing to strike if necessary, but has not pushed for pressure on Iran aside from the sanctions currently imposed by the United States.

"I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But (both) governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say,” President Obama said earlier this year to The Atlantic.

On Thursday, Gen. Dempsey commented that a strike against Iran over fears of their nuclear program, if conducted, could be without merit and might even erode the pro-Israeli alliance currently in place.

"International coalition" applying pressure on Iran "could be undone if [Iran] was attacked prematurely,” Dempsey said, adding that “Intelligence did not reveal intentions” to procure nukes.

Gen. Dempsey was in the UK to attend the Paralympic Games, where he is serving as the head of the U.S. delegation.

http://rt.com/usa/news/israel-iran-nuclear-dempsey-066/

[Get Real!]

I am sure we will all be happy when Iran has nuclear weapons.

The greatest fear is if they don’t as such imbalances are extremely dangerous. Unfortunately we live in a time when a few trigger-happy hot heads think that they own the planet and will think nothing of completely annihilating another nation (see Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc) just because they can!

[yialousa1971]

Israeli officials, first victims of attacking Iran: IRGC commander



Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Asoudi

Sun Sep 2, 2012 7:19AM GMT

A senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) says in case of an Israeli attack against Tehran, the Tel Aviv regime’s officials will be the first victims of the assault.


“In case of Israel’s military attack against Iran, the officials of the Zionist regime [of Israel] will be among first victims of such an attack,” Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Asoudi said on Saturday.

Asoudi said Israel’s warmongering policies have induced hatred among the residents of the occupied lands towards Israeli officials.

Referring to the return of a large number of Jewish people to their homelands in Europe, the Iranian military official said that “These people returned to their countries because of economic, social and political crises” in Israel.

“This is while some of the residents of the occupied lands have set themselves ablaze due to economic problems,” Asoudi said.

Four Israelis have self-immolated in protest at poverty and economic problems since mid-July when a 57-year old man set himself on fire during a “social protest" in Tel Aviv.

Moshe Silman, who died from his wounds a week after, criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a note, saying "the state of Israel robbed me out of everything and left me with nothing."

Hours before Silmon’s funeral, Akiva Mafa’I, a 45-year old disabled army veteran, died after setting himself on fire in a bus stop in the city of Yehud about 15 kilometers east of Tel Aviv.

Asoudi added that, however, some members of Israel’s cabinet are aware of the reality and oppose military attack against Iran.

Iranian authorities have dismissed the repeated Israeli threats of military action against the Islamic Republic, warning that if Israel makes the mistake of launching such an attack, it will spell the end of the Israeli regime.

A number of senior Iranian military commanders have also emphasized that in case of any attack on Iran, the conflict will certainly expand well beyond the region.

MYA/MA

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/02 ... an-attack/

[repulsewarrior]

I am sure we will all be happy when Iran has nuclear weapons.

The greatest fear is if they don’t as such imbalances are extremely dangerous. Unfortunately we live in a time when a few trigger-happy hot heads think that they own the planet and will think nothing of completely annihilating another nation (see Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc) just because they can!

...you forgot Turkey (and in my opinion, first on the list (aside from the usual interlocutors)), talking about dangerous imbalances .

...not the nations, not even the States, as you say, relatively few control the agenda; is now a good time to brush up on the book, Das Kapital?

[wyoming cowboy]

just because they can is not a good answer to whats happening to these countries.....Whats happening is nipping something in the bud before it grows to destroy or seriously threaten ....its called self preservation

[repulsewarrior]

...again, i am not so sure who is calling the shot. you know what they say about rot and corruption, it comes from stagnation. where is the dynamic constantly changing, where is the betterment that comes from Democracy, why is this (our state at present) justifiable after 9/11. the enemy is Hunger, the enemy is Ignorance, the enemy is Disease. if the War to end All Wars is something to Forget, then why the denial?

the enemy is within, the fear which dismisses the kindness we can choose. herein, would be the fascinating (and brave) attempt at Human Acts in this advent of the Information Age. we are Individuals; this is the Freedom of Universal Principals. as Persons we are identified as Nations, easily manipulated it seems, where this exclusivity competes, through Language, Imperialistically to dominate in acts as States.

...and in it, the festering wound, still, people point fingers at each other lovelessly; here lies our lust, the pornography of our news which blames others as though we are not one against our Harms.

if i could go on vacation or travel gathering news, Iran, i imagine, would be truly nice to see.

...only one War is constant, where there are shorts bursts of Peace (think about that), it is a shame that 'we' are not in Afghanistan as Peacekeeping Forces, so that Judicially, this Charity is given with Grace to women and children, with no music, books, or toys. why is America in the Iraqi War, why is 'Bush' not fighting those who butcher deep, in the heart of Africa. so much war not one more mouth fed. odd eh? half the world, is that a lot? they starve, but not on tv.
...is this Humanity?

nibble, nipping, or step by step, of course the story is far more simple. yet, there is no clue.