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Iranian naval chief Habibollah Sayyari said Wednesday that "Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say it will be easier than drinking a glass of water." Parisa Hafezi of Reuters reports Sayyari then topped this off by saying that while his forces could do this at any time, there was currently no need, as they control the Sea of Oman and therefore all shipping through the strait. Iran's threats Tuesday to close the strait sent oil prices up close to 2%, but it won't last. Oil analyst Thorbjoern bak Jensen, with...

Iran today threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the United Nations imposes sanctions on Iranian oil as a response to Iran’s sketchy uranium enrichment program, according to a report from Reuters. Iran has defiantly expanded nuclear activity despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions meted out since 2006 over its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to U.N. nuclear inspectors and investigators.Many diplomats and analysts believe only sanctions targeting Iran’s lifeblood oil sector might be painful enough to make it change course, but Russia and China - big trade partners of Tehran – have blocked such...

Iranian state and semi-official media lined up behind the regime this week in a show of nationalistic pride as Iran’s navy began 10 days of war games designed to showcase its “regional dominance” and display its ability to shut off the crucial Strait of Hormuz if threatened. Naval spokesmen were quoted as saying the “Velayat 90” maneuvers, the biggest ever of their kind, were being held across a vast area from the Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden – waters stretching between Somalia in the west, the Indian subcontinent in the east, and Oman and Yemen to the...

As the rest of the world enjoys Festivus or whatever celebration one indulges in, Iran is launching a "massive" 10 day war games naval exercise right in the belly of the beast. From Xinhua: "Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari on Thursday announced the upcoming launch of ten-day massive naval exercises in the international waters, the local satellite Press TV reported. Sayyari said at a press conference on Thursday that the naval maneuvers dubbed Velayat 90 will start on Saturday and will cover an area of 2,000 (1,250-mile) km stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in...

Brian is sitting in for Tim Conway, Jr. Paulbots call in and refuse to give an answer about what Ron Paul would do if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. They simply go through the talking points of all the bad things we have done. LISTEN ONLINE TO KFI

Energy Independence: As our enemy Iran threatens to close a vital waterway for the shipping of oil, plans for a secure, job-creating supply from our ally Canada gather dust on the president's desk. The blustering threat from the quite mad Iranian mullahs and their supremely mad leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be just a bluff, but then again it might not. It may just be an attempt to intimidate and poke the eye of an American president perceived as weak and whose failure to support and exploit the "Iranian Spring" of 2009 may come back to bite us. These are not...

(JTA) -- Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz if its oil exports are subjected to foreign sanctions, the Islamic Republic's official news agency reported. "If they impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Straits of Hormuz," IRNA quoted Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Iran's first vice-president, as saying, referring to Western countries. Oil from Persian Gulf countries travels through the Straits of Hormuz on its way to oil-importing countries around the world. The strait is the Persian Gulf's only outlet and is bordered by Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The Obama debacle continues on... Iran has threatened to halt traffic through the strait if the West moves to toughen sanctions including an oil embargo to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program. The strait is the passageway for about a third of the world’s seaborne-traded oil last year, according to US Energy Department data. “Iran has total control over the strategic waterway,” Iranian Naval Commander Admiral Habibollah Sayari told Iran’s Press TV yesterday as the Iranian navy conducted a 10-day exercise in international waters. “Closing the Strait of Hormuz is very easy for Iranian naval forces.” “The free flow...

The mullahs are playing with fire in Strait of HormuzThe leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran continue to rattle their scimitars, threatening a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Bring it on. Iran is under increasing pressure to abandon its nuclear program. The United States is about to ban commerce with Iran's central bank. The European Union is considering a new round of economic sanctions and joining the U.S. oil embargo against Iran. Saudi Arabia has decided to increase production to fill the gap should Europeans stop buying Iranian oil. In response, Tehran is threatening to stop all Persian...

Iran's first vice-president warned on Tuesday that the flow of crude will be stopped from the crucial Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if foreign sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, the country's official news agency reported. "If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz," IRNA quoted Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying. About a third of all sea-borne oil was shipped through the Strait in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.

Iran's official news agency on Tuesday quoted a top official as saying Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off oil exports, if the West imposes sanctions on Iran's oil shipments. According to the IRNA report Tuesday Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi said Iran does not want hostilities but . . .

We Stand for Principle Over Politicsand the Establishment Can't Stand It December 21, 2011 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the mess. The House was set to hold a pro forma session, but two top Democrats, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, demanded to be recognized to try to force a vote on the...

A high-ranking Iranian official has said Iran's military will practice sealing off the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transport channel, in a provocative move that illustrates Iran’s capability of disrupting the world’s oil supply. The announcement Monday by Parviz Sarvari sent oil prices up about $3 to $100 a barrel based on the speculation of a disruption during the military drills, Bloomberg reported. “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz,” Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, said in a statement reported by Reuters. “If...

Iran has more to lose than America in current standoffIran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. Go ahead, make our day. On Monday, Parviz Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament's national security committee, said, “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.” Closing the strategically important strait has long been viewed as one of Iran’s trump cards in the give-and-take with the United States and the West. The impact of a strait crisis is overrated....

TOKYO (AFP) – Militant jihadists have claimed that a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week, the US monitoring group SITE said. Mitsui OSK Lines had previously reported that one of its tankers, the M Star, appeared to have been hit by an explosion July 28 in the waterway between Iran and Oman. SITE said the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam claimed in a message on jihadist websites that it had placed a suicide bomber on the tanker, identifying him as Ayyub al-Taishan. It said the attack was carried out in...

There were no U.S. Navy or maritime coalition vessels near a Japanese supertanker damaged in an incident in the Strait of Hormuz, a Fifth Fleet spokesman said. Asked if there were any U.S. navy or coalition vessels close to the supertanker at the time, he said: “No, there were none close to the ship ... none of our vessels were involved.”

On Aug. 6, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, DSCA, informed Congress of the sale to Israel of 60 million gallons of unleaded gasoline, 284 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and 100 million gallons of diesel fuel at an estimated cost of two billion dollars. The date is significant, intelligence sources find. Ten days earlier, the Japanese tanker M.Star was attacked in Omani waters of the Strait of Hormuz with 200,000 tons of oil. Although American experts who examined the vessel, they never attributed the damage to sabotage by Iran or al Qaeda, despite the latter's claim of...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates said Friday that a Japanese oil tanker was hit by an explosives-laden dinghy in the Persian Gulf in what would be the first attack in the strategic waterway where millions of barrels of oil are transported each day. The report — which came days after an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for attacking the vessel — raised fears about the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for many petroleum exporting countries.

When the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution on June 9 authorizing a fourth round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran for its controversial nuclear program, the risk of conflict in the Persian Gulf also escalated considerably. One of the potential points of tension is the resolution’s explicit call for cargo inspection. Iran has warned vehemently against such a move. According to Brigadier Ali Fadavi, Iran’s military forces, especially the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), maintain a “special and suitable response to the inspection of Iranian vessels” (Fars News, June 14; Press TV, June 22, July 4)....

MUSCAT/TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese oil tanker damaged in an explosion in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping lanes, was being diverted to a port in the UAE on Wednesday. One of the 31 crew aboard was injured but no oil leaked from the M Star very large crude carrier (VLCC), according to the Japanese transport ministry. It said an explosion occurred onboard at around 00:30 a.m. local time (2030 GMT Tuesday), but the cause was unclear. "A crew member saw light on the horizon just before the explosion, so (ship owner Mitsui O.S.K.) believes...