Dire Straits - Iran’s navy plays a dangerous game

Weekly Standard ^ | Jan 16, 2012 | Michael Rubin

[nuconvert]

-excerpt-

War games may propel the Iranian Navy into the headlines, but the challenge the Islamic Republic poses to international shipping is broader and growing; indeed, it has been building for a quarter of a century. During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), Tehran and Baghdad each sought to target the other’s business partners. Between 1984 and 1988, in the so-called Tanker War, Iran’s navy and its parallel Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy (IRGC-N) developed a doctrine of maritime guerrilla warfare using speedboats, mines, antiship cruise missiles, and, on occasion, aircraft to target neutral or enemy shipping.

-excerpt-

Iranian tactics should also be cause for concern. In recent years, the IRGC-N has drilled swarming larger ships with increasing numbers of speedboats, and has probed U.S. vessels with increasing frequency. In the last few months, Iranian boats have retreated only when U.S. vessels have fired warning shots. While the Pentagon does not publicize such incidents, sailors say there are now near daily occurrences. The proximity of the Iranian boats means that, should any be intent on a suicide plot, American sailors would likely lose their lives.

-excerpt-

One intelligence officer said that on her previous deployment, an Iranian boat had gotten so close that an Iranian crewman had used a cell phone to photograph her.

[nuconvert]

A bit long, but please read the last 2 paragraphs of the article

[paul51]

go ahead Iran. Make our day

[Bon mots]

They cannot possibly be intimidated by what is in the White House.
He just gave Ahmadinejad and the mullahs a great Christmas present... a super-secret stealth drone... soon to be flying against our boys.

[Pontiac]

When an IRGC speedboat rams a U.S. vessel or smugglers on board a dhow down an American helicopter with a surface-to-air missile, Congress will hold hearings as in the aftermath of the 2000 USS Cole bombing, and the Pentagon will revise its rules of engagement in order to ensure that hostile vessels can no longer get within striking distance of American warships. The question is, why wait to act until American sailors come home in body bags?

Because rules of engagement are written and approved by state department politicians not by military officers.

We are at war with all of Islam and it is about time it is recognized by those in power in Washington. It is time to take off the velvet gloves of diplomacy and put on the mail gauntlet of battle.

[the invisib1e hand]

It’s not a game. They want to engage. Jihad is insanity.

[trebb]

In recent years, the IRGC-N has drilled swarming larger ships with increasing numbers of speedboats, and has probed U.S. vessels with increasing frequency. In the last few months, Iranian boats have retreated only when U.S. vessels have fired warning shots. While the Pentagon does not publicize such incidents, sailors say there are now near daily occurrences. The proximity of the Iranian boats means that, should any be intent on a suicide plot, American sailors would likely lose their lives.

After the Cole, the policy should be put out that any such activity will end up with boats on the bottom of the sea. The first few would cause an uproar, but I doubt if the jihadists would consider it a "noble" way to die by just harassing us.

[Bon mots]

Updated version... :)

Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are not impressed with Amerika's King Hussein.

[nuconvert]

So much for posting rules.......

[bert]

The war, the chess match, exists on several fronts. I would argue that the Iranian bluster over the Arabian Gulf and the Straits are just that.

The bluster is to hide the real war, the battle Iran is actually losing in Syria. Syria is well along the failure mode route. With Syria gone, Hezbollah and Lebanon are gone and Gaza and Hamas are weakened to the point of uselessness.

The navy left the Gulf with a carrier task force but meanwhile, US soldiers have come to Israel. The events must be related. There can be no attack in the Gulf on a carrier group while the real, the consequential battle, battle is underway in Syria

[nuconvert]

Yes, the IRI is always trying to divert attention away from what they really care about at the moment.
Of course, underlying all of this is their race for nukes, so any diversion will do, in order to draw attention away from that.

[meatloaf]

We’re not going to see Obama bite his muslim masters in the ass. It would be unfortunate if one of the ships’ missile fire control systems illuminated one of the speed boats or all of them for all I care.

Do we still use microwaves for that? If so the Iranian sailors could be well done before they knew it. We had a much loved desron commodore that never knew how close he came to being cooked. Of course someone would have gotten all pissy about that ... or not.

[mkjessup]

So much for posting rules.......

You have a point there Sparky?

[mkjessup]

Oh agreed. We’re not going to see the Junior Kenyan Kaliphate take ANY action against his Muslim brethren unless there is some sort of short term political gain from it, that puke always operates on the basis of expediency, we’ve seen that from the beginning. The article hits on one truism, which is the need for another “Operation Praying Mantis”, although such a naval initiative MIGHT have to start on the Potomac.

[deoetdoctrinae]

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[bert]

1. The article was from the Weekly Standard
2. The rules say Standard pieces shall be excerpted.
3. The post was made excerpting an allowable number of words and pointing to all the words with a link.
4. Your Posting the paragraphs exceeded the allowable words posted and thus violated the excerpting/posting rule.
5. You placed Free Republic in danger of a relentless new thread to raise money to defend the lawsuit

[tanknetter]

The proximity of the Iranian boats means that, should any be intent on a suicide plot, American sailors would likely lose their lives.

I'd guess that the USN is wagering that Iran wouldn't try this in a onsie-twosie sort of way, and the "probings" that are taking place would look significantly different than an actual attack. IOW, in a real attack we'd see an attempt to mass-swarm multiple US ships, since Iran would need to really go for broke. Plus (or especially, in that case) we'd have good intel that an attack was going to take place.

If so, the ships would engage the shinyo from much further out. AND we'll find out pretty quick whether the beehive round for the 5"ers is real. Big grin on that one.

[AlwaysThinking]

Has anyone in the Executive Branch made an unequivocal statement that Iran blocking the Strait would be an act of war? If so, it didn’t make much of a splash when they did.

This is not a time for subtlety. The stance should be communicated loud and clear, and it has not been.

[nuconvert]

Thank you.