MidnightWatcher's Blogspot

“The United States should consider military strikes against not just Iran’s nuclear sites but the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard infrastructure, argued former CIA director James Woolsey in a radio interview today.

Comparing the Guards to Adolph Hitler’s blackshirts, Woolsey named several ‘fair game’ Guard-related targets, including Iran’s space program, ballistic missile program, training facilities and the Guard’s substantial commercial interests.

The ex-CIA director said the U.S. should consider these military options if Iran blocks the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway or takes other significant aggressive action.

Woolsey also recommended that President Obama immediately send four to five aircraft carriers to the Indian Ocean to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the face of Iranian threats to blockade the strait.

‘We went to war in 1812 over something just about like what Iran says it is going to do – close the straits,’ said Woolsey, referring to the British naval blockade of the Atlantic coast of the U.S.

Woolsey was speaking on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio on New York’s WABC Radio.

Listen to the interview at Klein Online.

While applauding the recent round of tougher sanctions against Tehran, Woolsey contended such economic initiatives combined with continued dialogue are not enough to deter Iran from seeking nuclear weapons or halt the country’s threats to blockade the strait.” Read more.

“BAGHDAD – Iraq’s Shiite-led government cracked down harshly on dissent during the past year of Arab Spring uprisings, turning the country into a ‘budding police state’ as autocratic regimes crumbled elsewhere in the region, an international rights groups said Sunday.

Security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists, torture detainees and intimidate activists, Human Rights Watch said in the Iraq chapter of its annual report.

‘Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism,’ said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for the New York-based group. ‘Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy (in Iraq), the reality is that it left behind a budding police state,’ she said.

Protests against Iraq’s U.S.-backed and democratically elected government erupted around the country in February 2011, alongside other demonstrations in the Arab world.

While protests in other countries demanded the downfall of autocratic regimes, most of the demonstrations in Iraq pushed for improved services like reliable electricity and water, and an end to corruption.

The government clamped down, sometimes sparking bloody clashes — as when 14 were killed in confrontations between security forces and civilians across the country during the Feb. 25 protests billed as the ‘Day of Rage.’

A year later, with U.S. troops withdrawn and Iraq’s government mired in a political crisis, the protest movement has all but died out. Demonstrators who gather in Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square are usually outnumbered by the security forces watching over them.

‘Iraqis are quickly losing ground on the most basic of rights, including the right to free speech and assembly,’ said Samer Muscati, an Iraq researcher for the group.” Read more.

Flashback: Barack Obama declares Iraq war ‘an extraordinary achievement’ – “Barack Obama marked an end to a war he once described as ‘dumb’ by declaring the conflict in Iraq a success and saying the last US troops will leave in the coming days with their ‘heads held high’. The president told an audience of soldiers at Fort Bragg that the final pullout from Iraq after nearly nine years of war is a ‘historic’ moment and that the country they leave behind is ‘an extraordinary achievement’.” Read more.

As I commented here, I’m not convinced that Russia is directly mentioned in the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38 and 39. The word that many often point to in an effort to suggest that Russia is mentioned specifically here is the word “rosh” (H7218) in 38:2, but this word simply means “chief” or “head”, as in Rosh Hashanah (Head of the Year). Nowhere in the whole of Scripture has “rosh” ever referred to Russia.

If we consider Gog-Magog and the “known world” from Ezekiel’s time and perspective, however, the far north would likely bring us all the way up to the Black Sea and the northern shores of modern day Turkey to areas northeast of Turkey, even to northern Iran and Afghanistan and beyond where we find other former Soviet Republics. It is my view that we are likely looking at northern nations/peoples/fighters from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Dagestan and possibly even Chechnya, and across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan. In these areas, Islam is the dominant religion. This does not mean that Russia will not be involved, however. After all, there are “many people” or “nations” with Gog according to 38:6, and Russia could be one of them in some way, shape or form. But Russia is not mentioned by name specifically at all in the text …

Psalm 83:1-4,17-18, “… Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, And do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; And those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, And consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from [being] a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more’ … Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; Yes, let them be put to shame and perish, That they may know that You, whose name alone [is] the LORD, [Are] the Most High over all the earth.”

Ezekiel 39:6-8, “And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. Then they shall know that I [am] the LORD… Then the nations shall know that [I am] the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. ‘Surely it is coming, and it shall be done,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘This [is] the day of which I have spoken.‘”

By Joshua Kucera – “Russia will be holding a series of military exercises in the North Caucasus, Armenia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia this fall, reportedly in preparation for a possible U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. The exercises, called Kavkaz-2012, will be held in September and won’t be tactical/operational but strategic (i.e. won’t involve large numbers of troops). The exercises will, however, include officers from the breakaway Georgian territories. The focus on surveillance, air defense and logistics suggests that Russia is tailoring the exercise to prepare for a U.S.-Israel-Iran war, says Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta [9]:

As suggested by the head of the Center for Military Forecasting, Colonel Anatoly Tsyganok, ‘Preparations for the Kavkaz-2012 exercises seems to have begun already largely due to the increasing military tensions in the Persian Gulf.’ ‘In a possible war against Iran may be drawn some former Soviet countries of South Caucasus. How, then, to ensure the viability of Russian troops stationed abroad, for example, in Armenia? Apparently, the General Staff will plan some proactive measures, including learning to organize in critical logistic supply of troops,’ said the expert…

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is ratcheting up the bellicose rhetoric (even by the high standards of the Caucasus) against Armenia, reports Bloomberg [12]:

Azerbaijan is buying up modern weaponry to be able to regain control of the breakaway Nagorno- Karabakh region quickly and with few losses should peace talks with neighboring Armenia fail, President Ilham Aliyev said.

Defense spending will rise 1.8 percent this year to $3.47 billion, which Aliyev said tops Armenia’s entire state budget.

‘It’s not a frozen conflict, and it’s not going to be one,’ Aliyev said today in remarks broadcast on state television channel AzTV.

Would war in Iran have any effect on the Nagorno-Karabakh situation? The mind reels” Read more.

Report: Russia in deal to deliver Syria fighter jets – “Russia has signed a deal to sell Syria nearly 40 fighter jet trainers for over half a billion dollars, a Russian newspaper reported on Monday, despite growing international criticism over its military trade with the violence-ridden country. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has used troops and tanks to try to crush a 10-month-old popular revolt and thousands of people have been killed.” Read more.

Iranian trucks carrying missile materials intercepted en route to Syria – “Four Iranian trucks were stopped two weeks ago in Turkey’s Kilis province on the border with Syria and were found to be carrying raw materials used in the making of ballistic missiles, Turkish daily Taraf has reported… Although the contents of the trucks were not publicized by customs officials, Taraf stated that on Friday it obtained reports confirming the trucks’ dangerous load. According to the daily, one of the trucks was carrying four six-meter-long cylindrical tanks and heat-resistant materials, while the other three were carrying 66 tons of sodium sulfate, all of which were on their way to Syria possibly to be used in the making of chemical missiles.” Read more.

By David Blair – “This deployment defied explicit Iranian threats to close the waterway. It coincided with an escalation in the West’s confrontation with Iran over the country’s nuclear ambitions.

European Union foreign ministers are today expected to announce an embargo on Iranian oil exports, amounting to the most significant package of sanctions yet agreed. They are also likely to impose a partial freeze on assets held by the Iranian Central Bank in the EU.

Tehran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation. Tankers carrying 17 million barrels of oil pass through this waterway every day, accounting for 35 per cent of the world’s seaborne crude shipments. At its narrowest point, located between Iran and Oman, the Strait is only 21 miles wide.

Last month, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, commander of the Iranian navy, claimed that closing the Strait would be ‘easy,’ adding: ‘As Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water.’

But USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered carrier capable of embarking 90 aircraft, passed through this channel and entered the Gulf without incident yesterday. HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate from the Royal Navy, was one of the escort vessels making up the carrier battle-group. A guided missile cruiser and two destroyers from the US Navy completed the flotilla, along with one warship from the French navy.” Read more.

Fars: Iran ‘definitely’ closing Strait of Hormuz over EU oil embargo – “Tensions in the Gulf could reach a breaking point as a senior Iranian official said Iran would ‘definitely’ close the Strait of Hormuz if an EU oil embargo disrupted the export of crude oil, the semi-official Fars news agency reports. The announcement came in response to a decision by the European Union on Monday to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program. ‘The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table,’ EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said. However, with Washington’s decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU’s attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.” Read more.