Coming Soon - War with Iran?

[Simulist]

Persian cats, too!

Very dangerous.

[Searcher08]

Persian cats, too!

Very dangerous.

Have you noticed the similarity between

'V' for Vendetta



Persian nanotech weaponised homicide cat of mass destruction

[Simulist]

That visage is no mere veneer of vanity, it is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant and vanished.

(Yep. That cat's a fuckin' Iranian terrorist.)

[Ben D]

T'will be an interesting meeting....

Israel exposed and isolated over Iran threat

FT By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem

The fear of an Iranian nuclear bomb has been at the centre of Israeli government thinking for more than a decade. Until recently, however, Israel itself was never at the centre of the international effort to halt Iran’s nuclear programme.

For all their concerns, Israeli leaders knew that the campaign to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions through diplomacy and sanctions was best left to others. Its involvement in sabotage and covert operations aside, a supporting role made sense to Israel: Framing the issue of an Iranian nuclear bomb as a standoff between Israel and Iran would have damaged the international consensus. No less important, it would also have drawn unwanted attention to Israel’s own nuclear capabilities.

What a difference four months make.

On Monday, when Benjamin Netanyahu sits down with Barack Obama in Washington for a potentially fateful discussion on Iran, the Israeli leader faces a new strategic landscape. Since November, an incessant stream of speculation and leaks about an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has pushed Israel out on to the diplomatic playing field – and into a position that is far more advanced than that of its western allies. Never before has an Israeli government been so exposed, and rarely so isolated, on the issue of Iran.

“Israel has put itself at the forefront, and the international community has allowed that to happen,” says Emily Landau, a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. “All of a sudden, this is being framed as a problem between Israel and Iran. But it shouldn’t be. It is an issue for the international community.”

Israel is now so far ahead of the pack that it has itself become the target of stern diplomatic pressure. Israel recently has heard warnings not to attack Iran from the US, Germany, France and Britain – countries it normally regards as its closest allies. “Now, it is all about the US having to restrain Israel, rather than having to restrain Iran,” observes Ms Landau.

Mr Netanyahu and his cabinet have largely themselves to blame for their predicament. It has been Israeli leaders, not their counterparts in Washington, who have incessantly raised the prospect of an Israeli strike on Iran. Since November last year, hardly a week has gone by without a new alarmist leak or threatening comment. True, the spike in speculation has helped concentrate minds both in Iran and in the west, and probably contributed to the sharpening of sanctions.

But those achievements came at a price.

Israel’s fears and frustrations towards Iran are compounded by the uncomfortable realisation that the front against Iran is fragmenting: When Israel looks over its shoulder, it sees large open terrain, and then a formation of allies that does too little too late, and that is beset by doubts and hesitancy. When the US and Europe look ahead to Israel, they see a government bent on escalation, ready to plunge the region into war while a diplomatic solution is still possible.

The very existence of this gulf creates a problem. The apparent disarray, Israeli officials argue, is hurting the credibility of the military option, and convincing Iran that it faces no immediate threat of attack. Iran, they argue, must be put in a position where it either fears an attack by the US military itself, or an Israeli strike that enjoys the tacit support of Washington. Both scenarios are undermined by the current tensions between Israel and its western allies.

There is no obvious solution to the Israeli dilemma. That is because it reflects genuine differences in the way that Israel and its allies view the Iranian threat. A situation that may still be tolerable to the US (for example an Iranian programme that stops just short of assembling a nuclear weapon) may well be deemed unacceptable in Israel.

This divide will be at the heart of the talks in Washington. Bridging it, however, may require a leap of faith that neither Israel nor its western partners are yet ready to make.

[AlicetheKurious]

Don't ever forget it: if Iran was weak like all the targets of Israel and the US' military aggression, they would have done it, a long time ago.

The only reason it hasn't happened is that Iran is strong - socially, politically, economically and most of all, militarily.

The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
Imminent Iran nuclear threat? A timeline of warnings since 1979.

Breathless predictions that the Islamic Republic will soon be at the brink of nuclear capability, or – worse – acquire an actual nuclear bomb, are not new.

For more than quarter of a century Western officials have claimed repeatedly that Iran is close to joining the nuclear club. Such a result is always declared "unacceptable" and a possible reason for military action, with "all options on the table" to prevent upsetting the Mideast strategic balance dominated by the US and Israel.

And yet, those predictions have time and again come and gone. This chronicle of past predictions lends historical perspective to today’s rhetoric about Iran.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer
posted November 8, 2011 at 7:13 pm EST


1.Earliest warnings: 1979-84

Fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, when the pro-West Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deep in negotiations with the US, France and West Germany, on a nuclear-energy spending spree that was to yield 20 reactors.

Late 1970s: US receives intelligence that the Shah had "set up a clandestine nuclear weapons development program."

1979: Shah ousted in the Iranian revolution, ushering in the Islamic Republic. After the overthrow of the Shah, the US stopped supplying highly enriched uranium (HEU) to Iran. The revolutionary government guided by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned nuclear weapons and energy, and for a time stopped all projects.

1984: Soon after West German engineers visit the unfinished Bushehr nuclear reactor, Jane's Defence Weekly quotes West German intelligence sources saying that Iran's production of a bomb "is entering its final stages." US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon.

2.Israel paints Iran as Enemy No. 1: 1992

Though Israel had secretly done business with the Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution, seeking to cultivate a Persian wedge against its local Arab enemies, the early 1990s saw a concerted effort by Tel Aviv to portray Iran as a new and existential threat.

1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells his colleagues that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be "uprooted by an international front headed by the US."

1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999. "Iran is the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East," Peres warned, "because it seeks the nuclear option while holding a highly dangerous stance of extreme religious militancy."

1992: Joseph Alpher, a former official of Israel's Mossad spy agency, says "Iran has to be identified as Enemy No. 1." Iran's nascent nuclear program, he told The New York Times, "really gives Israel the jitters."

3.US joins the warnings: 1992-97

The same alarm bells were already ringing in Washington, where in early 1992 a task force of the House Republican Research Committee claimed that there was a "98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two or three operational nuclear weapons."

Similar predictions received airtime, including one from then-CIA chief Robert Gates that Iran's nuclear program could be a "serious problem" in five years or less. Still, the bureaucracy took some time to catch up with the Iran threat rhetoric.

1992: Leaked copy of the Pentagon's "Defense Strategy for the 1990s" makes little reference to Iran, despite laying out seven scenarios for potential future conflict that stretch from Iraq to North Korea.

1995: The New York Times conveys the fears of senior US and Israeli officials that "Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought" – about five years away – and that Iran’s nuclear bomb is “at the top of the list” of dangers in the coming decade. The report speaks of an "acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program," claims that Iran "began an intensive campaign to develop and acquire nuclear weapons" in 1987, and says Iran was "believed" to have recruited scientists from the former Soviet Union and Pakistan to advise them.

1997: The Christian Science Monitor reports that US pressure on Iran's nuclear suppliers had "forced Iran to adjust its suspected timetable for a bomb. Experts now say Iran is unlikely to acquire nuclear weapons for eight or 10 years."

4.Rhetoric escalates against 'axis of evil': 1998-2002

But Iran was putting the pieces of its strategic puzzle together. A US spy satellite detected the launch of an Iranian medium-range missile, sparking speculation about the danger posed to Israel.

1998: The New York Times said that Israel was less safe as a result of the launch even though Israel alone in the Middle East possessed both nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to drop them anywhere. "The major reaction to this is going to be from Israel, and we have to worry what action the Israelis will take," the Times quoted a former intelligence official as saying. An unidentified expert said: "This test shows Iran is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, because no one builds an 800-mile missile to deliver conventional warheads."

1998: The same week, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reports to Congress that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile – one that could hit the US – within five years. The CIA gave a timeframe of 12 years.

2002: CIA warns that the danger from nuclear-tipped missiles, especially from Iran and North Korea, is higher than during the cold war. Robert Walpole, then a top CIA officer for strategic and nuclear programs, tells a Senate panel that Iran's missile capability had grown more quickly than expected in the previous two years – putting it on par with North Korea. The threat "will continue to grow as the capabilities of potential adversaries mature," he says.

2002: President George W. Bush labels Iran as part of the "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea.

5.Revelations from inside Iran: 2002-05

In August 2002, the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK, a.k.a. MKO) announces that Iran is building an underground uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and a heavy water reactor at Arak. It is widely believed that the evidence had been passed to the MEK by Israeli intelligence.

Enrichment and reactors are not forbidden to Iran as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but the failure to disclose the work prompts an IAEA investigation and much closer scrutiny. Iran insists its efforts are peaceful, but is found in breach of its IAEA safeguards agreement, and accused by the IAEA of a "pattern of concealment."

2004: Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell tells reporters that Iran had been working on technology to fit a nuclear warhead onto a missile. "We are talking about information that says they not only have [the] missiles but information that suggests they are working hard about how to put the two together," he said.

2005: US presents 1,000 pages of designs and other documentation allegedly retrieved from a computer laptop in Iran the previous year, which are said to detail high-explosives testing and a nuclear-capable missile warhead. The “alleged studies,” as they have since been called, are dismissed by Iran as forgeries by hostile intelligence services.

6.Dialing back the estimate: 2006-09

2006: The drums of war beat faster after the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh quotes US sources saying that a strike on Iran is all but inevitable, and that there are plans to use tactical nuclear weapons against buried Iranian facilities.

2007: President Bush warns that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to "World War III." Vice President Dick Cheney had previously warned of "serious consequences" if Iran did not give up its nuclear program.

2007: A month later, an unclassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran is released, which controversially judges with "high confidence" that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons effort in fall 2003.

The report, meant to codify the received wisdom of America's 16 spy agencies, turns decades of Washington assumptions upside down. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls the report a "victory for the Iranian nation." An Iranian newspaper editor in Tehran tells the Monitor, “The conservatives … feel the chance of war against them is gone."

June 2008: Then-US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton predicts that Israel will attack Iran before January 2009, taking advantage of a window before the next US president came to office.

May 2009: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee reports states: "There is no sign that Iran's leaders have ordered up a bomb."

7.Israel's one-year timeframe disproved: 2010-11

Despite reports and intelligence assessments to the contrary, Israeli and many US officials continue to assume that Iran is determined to have nuclear weapons as soon as possible.

August 2010: An article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic's September issue is published online, outlining a scenario in which Israel would chose to launch a unilateral strike against Iran with 100 aircraft, "because a nuclear Iran poses the gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people."

Drawing on interviews with "roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike" and American and Arab officials, Mr. Goldberg predicts that Israel will launch a strike by July 2011. The story notes previous Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria, and quotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying, "You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the world should start worrying, and that's what is happening in Iran."

2010: US officials note that Iran's nuclear program has been slowed by four sets of UN Security Council sanctions and a host of US and EU measures. The Stuxnet computer virus also played havoc through 2011 with Iran's thousands of spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium.

January 2011: When Meir Dagan steps down as director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, he says that Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015. "Israel should not hasten to attack Iran, doing so only when the sword is upon its neck," Mr. Dagan warned. Later he said that attacking Iran would be "a stupid idea.... The regional challenge that Israel would face would be impossible."

January 2011: A report by the Federation of American Scientists on Iran's uranium enrichment says there is "no question” that Tehran already has the technical capability to produce a "crude" nuclear device.

February 2011: National intelligence director James Clapper affirms in testimony before Congress that “Iran is keeping the option open to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities and better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so," Mr. Clapper said. "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

November 2011: The IAEA claims for the first time that Iran is has worked on weapons-related activities for years, publishing detailed information based on more than 1,000 pages of design information that is corroborated, it says, by data from 10 member states and its own investigation and interviews.

© The Christian Science Monitor. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy.

[gnosticheresy_2]

Last paragraph explains why I'm posting this in this thread

Repressionomics - can 'financial repression' solve debt crisis?

Even as the Greek default process moves towards completion, the wider problem in the developed world is the size of the debt overhang. How to solve it?

Well first, consider the dirt storm that has been stirred up by the writing off of one country's debts - a country whose entire GDP makes up 2% of eurozone GDP - near meltdown of the G20 summit; numerous riots, deaths, political chaos.

Now consider this: the combined public, household and corporate debts of selected countries:



The chart is out of date of course - Greek government debt alone is above 200% of GDP now, and in the United States the same figure should be 100%, not 84%.

The analysts who drew this up, at Boston Consulting Group, concluded that it would be impossible to write down these debts to a sustainable level (60/60/60, making a combined total of 180% of GDP).

They concluded that the austerity demanded would be too hard to bear politically, and that the likely outcome would be a turn to "financial repression" plus inflation.

It was economists Carmen Reinhart and Belen Sbranica who, in March 2011, issued a ground breaking study of what "financial repression" means.

If we hear today the National Association of Pension Funds complaining that quantitative easing has placed a £90bn hole in the pension system, we can judge how rapidly the concept of "repression" is moving from theory to practice.

So what is "financial repression"? Put simply it is a combination of inflation and capital controls designed to erode the value of debts - and therefore of savings. It is overtly designed to prevent market mechanisms responding to inflation, leaving the price of borrowing too low and the return on savings too low.

Reinhart and Sbranica pointed to the success of Western economies in "repressing" a mountain of debt after World War II - in a way that avoided fiscal austerity, and allowed a growth spurt, combined with inflation, to cancel out unsustainable debts. Here's the graph:



From left to right: the combined sovereign debts of the developed countries falls before 1914, rockets afterwards, but is then only bumpily reduced - by devaluations and defaults - contributing to the Great Depression. Then it rockets in WWII, but the post-war boom coincides with a reduction from 90% to 30% of GDP.

A second graph shows how it was achieved:



The orange line shows that real interest rates on deposits, in the advanced countries, were significantly negative throughout most of the post-war boom. That is, you were effectively paying the bank to hold your money in all those little branches of the Midland and the TSB.

It is no mean feat to achieve this. You needed capital controls, so people could not easily move their money from one country to another. You also needed further rules to force pension funds to hold a certain amount of home government debt. In this way you create and encourage a "national pool" of capital, from which savers can't escape.

Then you unleash inflation, preferably in one surprise spike at the start of the process. If then the real value of deposits is shrinking at 4% a year, then compounded over 10 years, you are soon well into double digit falls in the national debt (not to mention also corporate and consumer debt).

Now given we live in a globalised financial market, with free-floating exchange rates and no capital controls, how would you "do" financial repression?

Reinhart and Sbranica say: "Similar policies… may re-emerge in the guise of prudential regulation rather than under the politically incorrect label of financial repression."

You would need to cap interest rates - either explicitly or by market manipulation. You would have to penalise savers for failing to hold government debt. And you would have to make government debt hard to value.

Then, as the inflation kicked in, you would ideally make most government debt long term, with no need for countries to borrow anew for a period of 30-50 years. In that way the trapped saver cannot respond by raising the interest rate to compensate for the falling value of debt.

Now consider this: the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing III tactic explicitly targets the "risk free interest rate" - aiming to set it at a historic low, and thus influencing all related interest rates downwards. It is not (yet) a cap, but it is a way of repressing interest rates.

Then, with much of the European bond market effectively neutralised by the long-term purchase of government debt by the ECB (we are paid not to think about the market value, says one fund manager), you make a large part of the world's debts difficult to value.

Then you create a euro 1tn fund to buy the debts of Spain, Italy and Portugal and bury them for 20 years.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that "financial repression" - as mooted by Reinhart and Sbranica - is, if not under way, then being pieced together ad hoc out of the anti-crisis measures in Europe.

Indeed economists at Credit Suisse this week wrote: "We think it is appropriate to judge the ECB's LTROs as an accompaniment to, or part of, a re-emerging programme of 'financial repression' by which domestic financial institutions are strongly incentivised, or forced, to support the financing needs of their sovereigns." (Under Repression, 5 March, Alexopoulos et al)

What makes this time different, on a global scale, however, is the reality of floating exchange rates. Countries couldn't use competitive devaluation under the Bretton Woods system. Now they can.

What this means is, that to the extent that you can't do financial repression, or don't want to, you are forced to "repress" other countries: to do trade war, currency war, or - if you're powerful - force them to do austerity packages they don't want; or if you're belligerent, you just default on your foreign debts and raise an Argentine style two fingers to the rich and powerful.

What is important is that, despite the protestations of the pension funds, the scale of the UK national debt - and many others - is still large and growing, and exerts a drag on growth in most economic models.

However "repressed" interest rates and therefore savings returns feel, it would take much more of this to wipe out the debts in the graph at the top. And much more inflation. In fact what you would need was something close to double-digit inflation for a couple of years: an inflation "shock" that really gets you started.

There is only one sure-fire way to provoke an inflation shock and that is to close the Straits of Hormuz, or otherwise cause Middle Eastern oil to cease, temporarily. Diplomacy anyone?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17301032

[Nordic]

Well. That would certainly explain a lot of the current events, wouldn't it?

The real inflation of 8% we had last year isn't good enough I suppose. Even without the Straits closed, this year it's gonna be WAY higher.

That's a pay cut, y'all.

[StarmanSkye]

Yeah, that does rather 'splain the method to the madness. Sort of suspected a deep-state scheme to reconcile the vast disparity between US debt and world economy -- all tidily rationalized as 'protecting' American values and way of life.

When you own the diner, you can serve yourself Free Lunch anytime you want.

[Ben D]

Iranian ultimatum: Yield now or be attacked by year’s end

Published: 14 March, 2012, 11:06

The US wants Russia to deliver a message to Iran: Tehran has one last chance for talks. If it is wasted, an attack will happen in a matter of months, according to Russian diplomatic sources.

The threat was voiced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in New York on Monday, a diplomatic insider told Kommersant daily.

“The invasion will happen before year’s end. The Israelis are de facto blackmailing Obama. They’ve put him in this interesting position – either he supports the war or looses the support of the Jewish lobby,” the diplomat told the Russian newspaper.

The source said Washington has given Tehran one last chance to solve the conflict peacefully and wants Moscow to deliver the message. Iran has to make progress with the P5+1 group, which consists of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.

The group is to negotiate Iran’s controversial nuclear program with Iranian officials sometime in April. The exact timing and place of the talks are still under consideration. The negotiators want clarity from Iran over the potential militarization of its nuclear program. They also demand access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to a suspected nuclear site in Parchin.

Such an inspection took place in 2005 and nothing suspicious was found. But now the nuclear watchdog believes Iran is using the military complex to test technology needed to trigger a nuclear device. IAEA monitors were barred form visiting part of the facility during their latest visit, prompting accusations that Iran may be trying to cover-up evidence of wrong-doing. Tehran dismissed the allegations and promised to let inspectors in.

[vanlose kid]

"The Mother of All Bombs": a “great weapon” to use on Iran, says US air force chief

Global Research, March 10, 2012

A top US Air Force general has described the biggest conventional warhead – the 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb – as “great” for a military strike on Iran.

Such glib comment about a massive killing device comes in the same week that US President Barack Obama appeared to caution against “loose talk” about war in the Persian Gulf.

“The massive ordnance penetrator [MOP] is a great weapon,” said Lieutenant General Herbert Carlisle, the US Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, who added that the bomb would likely be used in any attack on Iran ordered by Washington.

The MOP also referred to as "The Mother of All Bombs" is designed to drill through 200 feet of reinforced concrete before detonating its massive warhead. It is believed to be the biggest conventional, non-nuclear, weapon in the American arsenal. In terms of destructive capability, it can be said to be the most fearsome explosive weapon among a range of massive-blast ordnance developed by the Pentagon over the past decade.

"A 30,000-pound (13,600-kg) bunker buster bomb designed to smash through some 200 feet of concrete before exploding is a "great weapon" that could be used by U.S. forces in a clash with Iran over its nuclear program, an Air Force general said on Thursday.

....

The Pentagon has begun working on military options if sanctions and diplomacy fail to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the National Journal in an interview on Thursday that planning had been going on "for a long time."

....

The tough rhetoric from the Pentagon came despite President Barack Obama's effort this week to tamp down "loose talk" and "bluster" about possible military action, saying there was still an opportunity for diplomacy.

Carlisle also told the Credit Suisse-McAleese defense conference that a conflict with Syria or Iran could see U.S. military operations influenced by new tactical thinking at the Pentagon known as Air-Sea Battle.

That approach aims to take advantage of highly networked and integrated U.S. forces.

Carlisle said the tactics focus on operating in multiple domains, from air and sea to space and cyberspace, while networking and integrating information from the different areas, like satellites and sensors on stealth fighters and unmanned aircraft.

"There's a space capability, there's a cyber capability, there's fifth-generation, low-signature force capability," he said.

"All those things are on the table and being thought about as we do this operational planning," Carlisle added, noting that Syria and Iran have developed significant defenses aimed at keeping potential attackers at a distance, a strategy Air-Sea Battle was designed to circumvent.

Carlisle said cyberspace could be a factor in a conflict with the two countries. "All of the leadership has said nothing is off the table with respect to what we would employ and use," he said. (Reuters, 9 March 2012)


The development and deployment against Iran of the MOP was documented in a 2009 Global Research article by Michel Chossudovsky:

Of military significance within the US conventional weapons arsenal is the 21,500-pound "monster weapon" nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" The GBU-43/B or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was categorized "as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed" with the the largest yield in the US conventional arsenal. The MOAB was tested in early March 2003 before being deployed to the Iraq war theater. According to US military sources, The Joint Chiefs of Staff had advised the government of Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 2003 that the "mother of all bombs" was to be used against Iraq. (There were unconfirmed reports that it had been used in Iraq).

The US Department of Defence has confirmed in October 2009 that it intends to use the "Mother of All Bombs" (MOAB) against Iran. The MOAB is said to be "ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran" (Jonathan Karl, Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran? ABC News, October 9, 2009). The truth of the matter is that the MOAB, given its explosive capacity, would result in extremely large civilian casualties. It is a conventional "killing machine" with a nuclear type mushroom cloud.

The procurement of four MOABs was commissioned in October 2009 at the hefty cost of $58.4 million, ($14.6 million for each bomb). This amount includes the costs of development and testing as well as integration of the MOAB bombs onto B-2 stealth bombers.(Ibid). This procurement is directly linked to war preparations in relation to Iran. The notification was contained in a 93-page "reprogramming memo" which included the following instructions:

"The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP [Mother of All Bombs] is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON [Urgent Operational Need]." It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran)." (ABC News, op cit, emphasis added). To consult the reprogramming request (pdf) click here

The Pentagon is planning on a process of extensive destruction of Iran's infrastructure and mass civilian casualties through the combined use of tactical nukes and monster conventional mushroom cloud bombs, including the MOAB and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which surpasses the MOAB in terms of explosive capacity.

The MOP is described as "a powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea. The gargantuan bomb—longer than 11 persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder [see image below] or more than 20 feet base to nose" (See Edwin Black, "Super Bunker-Buster Bombs Fast-Tracked for Possible Use Against Iran and North Korea Nuclear Programs", Cutting Edge, September 21 2009)

These are WMDs in the true sense of the word. The not so hidden objective of the MOAB and MOP, including the American nickname used to casually describe the MOAB ("mother of all bombs'), is "mass destruction" and mass civilian casualties with a view to instilling fear and despair. See Towards a World War III Scenario? The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran, Part II The Military Road Map, Global Research, August 13, 2010

"Mother of All Bombs" (MOAB)


GBU-57A/B Mass Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=29680

MOAB

Moab (Moabite: Mʾb; Hebrew: מוֹאָב, Modern Mo'av Tiberian Môʼāḇ ; "seed of father"; Greek Μωάβ Mōav; Assyrian Mu'aba, Ma'ba, Ma'ab ; Egyptian Mu'ab) is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over an unnamed son of King Omri of Israel.[1] The Moabite capital was Dibon. In Biblical times, the nation was often in conflict with its Israelite neighbours to the west...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab

*

[eyeno]

U.S.S. Enterprise Aircraft Carrier Just left port on its LAST seven month voyage before being moth balled for eternity. Wonder how long it will last at sea before it becomes a mothball?

[Nordic]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/brent-126 ... ttack-iran

Brent At $126 As Israel Security Cabinet Votes 8 To 6 To Attack Iran
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/16/2012 15:44 -0400

Looking at the tranquil sea that is the S&P one may be forgiven to ignore the rapid intraday surge in Brent which was up over $3 in a few hours, approaching $126 once again. But why? After all the FOMC minutes were oh so very slightly hawkish, and not to mention that the Fed's scribe Hilsenrath told everyone at best the Fed would proceed with sterilized QE which would leave risk prices untouched. Maybe it has something to do with this. According to Israel's NRG, in a just completed cabinet vote, for the first time Netanyahu has gotten a majority (8 over 6) supporting an Iran attack. NRG also notes that at this point Israel has decided to not wait until the US elections in November before proceeding with sending crude to the stratosphere. From NRG (google translated): "Israeli political sources believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a majority Cabinet support Israeli military action against Iran without American approval....He announced that he would not hesitate to perform the operation without the approval of President Obama mentioned the precedent of the decision to attack the Iraqi reactor, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and with the comments heard yesterday some cabinet ministers say privately that "It sounds like a speech preparation for attack." Political - Security Cabinet 14 ministers. According to estimates, at this stage tend to support Netanyahu and
Barak's approach eight ministers, and six against it (including the traditional opponents octet: Moshe Ya'alon, Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Eli Yishai)." So... $4.00 gas is just around the corner. As is, probably, $5.00 gas. And $6.00 gas.

[RobinDaHood]

Iran's oil bourse was scheduled to open when... March 20th! Guess they'll have to reschedule.
Iran's banks to be blocked from global banking system

Swift, the body that handles global banking transactions, says it will cut Iran's banks out of the system on Saturday to enforce sanctions.

The move will isolate Iran financially by making it almost impossible for money to flow in and out of the country via official banking channels.

It will hit its oil industry, but may also have a heavy impact on Iranians who live abroad and send money home.

The move follows EU sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

The US and its allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons - a charge it denies.
Iran last week agreed to hold talks with six major world powers over its nuclear programme, although no date or venue has been set.

Almost all banking transactions pass through Belgium-based Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is sometimes called the "glue" that holds the financial system together.

Swift will pull the plug at 1600 GMT on Saturday, in what is all but the final blow to Iranian business dealings.
Oil

Its announcement coincides with news that major money exchange houses in the nearby United Arab Emirates have stopped handling Iranian rials over the last few weeks, something that has further reduced Iran's ability to trade and acquire hard currency.

Iran's business activities had already been restricted by US anti-money laundering legislation which made it risky for banks around the world to do business with Iran, including trade financing.

It is heavily reliant on its oil industry.

China and India have said they will still take Iranian oil, but the only obvious way for Iran to be paid for it is now in gold.

One Iranian businessman said Swift's move would make it now impossible to conduct business with Iran.

Morteza Masoumzadeh, a member of the executive committee of the Iranian Business Council in Dubai and managing director of the Jumbo Line Shipping Agency, told the Reuters news agency: "If Iranian banks cannot exchange payments with banks around the world then this will cause the collapse of many banking relations and many businesses."

Lazaro Campos, chief executive of Swift, said: "Disconnecting banks is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for Swift. It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17390456

[DrVolin]

Well the CV situation just suddenly got interesting. Ike and Big E both left Norfolk this week, headed for the 5th fleet, and so did GHW, for qualifications in the west Atlantic, but could just as well keep going with the other two. Vinson and Lincoln are still with 5th fleet and have been deployed for only about 4 months. Nimitz came back online on March 5th after two years of maintenance and is now sitting in Everett. Stennis came back from the Gulf in early January, and has been hanging around Pearl and San Diego for a couple of months so could very well be ready for more. George Washington is in Japan.

This means there could conceivably be 5 carrier groups in the Persian Gulf area within a couple of weeks, and they could all stay there for at least 2 months, maybe 4, with 3 of them staying on for another 2 to 4 months after that. All that with 2 fresh carriers sitting in the Pacific, and another one probably ready for action with minimum notice. I haven't see those kinds of numbers for a while. This is almost like watching the legions muster on the Campus Martius, in mid-March, as tradition dictates. Lets see what comes of it.

[Simulist]

Iran's oil bourse was scheduled to open when... March 20th! Guess they'll have to reschedule.
Iran's banks to be blocked from global banking system

Swift, the body that handles global banking transactions, says it will cut Iran's banks out of the system on Saturday to enforce sanctions.

The move will isolate Iran financially by making it almost impossible for money to flow in and out of the country via official banking channels.

It will hit its oil industry, but may also have a heavy impact on Iranians who live abroad and send money home.

The move follows EU sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

The US and its allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons - a charge it denies.
Iran last week agreed to hold talks with six major world powers over its nuclear programme, although no date or venue has been set.

Almost all banking transactions pass through Belgium-based Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is sometimes called the "glue" that holds the financial system together.

Swift will pull the plug at 1600 GMT on Saturday, in what is all but the final blow to Iranian business dealings.
Oil

Its announcement coincides with news that major money exchange houses in the nearby United Arab Emirates have stopped handling Iranian rials over the last few weeks, something that has further reduced Iran's ability to trade and acquire hard currency.

Iran's business activities had already been restricted by US anti-money laundering legislation which made it risky for banks around the world to do business with Iran, including trade financing.

It is heavily reliant on its oil industry.

China and India have said they will still take Iranian oil, but the only obvious way for Iran to be paid for it is now in gold.

One Iranian businessman said Swift's move would make it now impossible to conduct business with Iran.

Morteza Masoumzadeh, a member of the executive committee of the Iranian Business Council in Dubai and managing director of the Jumbo Line Shipping Agency, told the Reuters news agency: "If Iranian banks cannot exchange payments with banks around the world then this will cause the collapse of many banking relations and many businesses."

Lazaro Campos, chief executive of Swift, said: "Disconnecting banks is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for Swift. It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17390456

I don't like quoting scripture, but in this case it seems strangely appropriate:

"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

— The Apocalypse of John, also known as The Revelation