Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf

www.haaretz.com ^ | 09:26 24/01/2006 | Yossi Melman

[Esther Ruth]

Last update - 09:26 24/01/2006

Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.

This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West.

The news site, affiliated with the radical student movement in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once a member, quoted Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

[Dilbert56]

Sounds like we need "brush clearing" from the water's edge to the range of a silkworm anti-ship missile. If they travel 150 miles, we need to turn the 150 miles adjacent to the Straight into a parking lot. The Iranian Air Force could threaten shipping, their planes and airfields need to be destroyed. Once that's done, we'll stop for breakfast. If the Regime remains belligerent, any nuclear facilities we know of will be obliterated.

[GermanBusiness]

[The Iranians need to pre-emptively seal the Persian Gulf. They need to cut oil supplies to the West for purely strategic reasons.]

Sorry, you guys are right. Yes, the Iranians need to do this right away. The Russians will back them.

[GermanBusiness]

[That and double my payments to my favorite U.S. Senators and media allies.]

I've decided not to give the Iranian regime any good ideas via my postings. They may be reading FR.

Nice map by the way! Can someone post more maps of Iran with terrain markings?

[norton]

"A blockage at the Straits of Hormuz could suspend the flow of more than half of the world's oil to the international market place from the six Persian Gulf oil producers..."

Has anyone stopped to wonder how those other producers might react to their neighbor's advertising a plan to cut off their source of income?

[ASA Vet]

We'd need to destroy more than 10%.

[ASA Vet]

Future maps will refer to it as part of the Persian Sea.

[Boot Hill]

Of course that's a good point and goes to underscore the degree to which Iran's leadership stopped thinking long before they stopped talking. We couldn't ask for a better opponent, than one that drives their potential allies into our arms.

[No Blue States]

Here is a map of some likely Iranian nuke sites to target:

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/images/npp/iran.jpg

An excellent map of the Straight of Hormuz, showing shipping lanes and water depth:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iran_strait_of_hormuz_2004.jpg

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

They followed the money path blazed by the Chinese decades ago. There are no ideas in my posts that they aren't already doing. I would hope that maybe someone on our side might learn something.

Their light infantry (Hezbollah) has been smuggling cigarettes and insurgents in America for quite a while now.
They've been raising millions and people swapping for years. The first one comes in legally and legitamately and is replaced a few years later by an agent who assumes his identity.

The alliance with Russia and China isn't new, either.

[pointsal]

Time to purchase Halliburton stock...

[Bigh4u2]

LOL!

That's funny!

[pointsal]

Time to purchase Halliburton stock...

[ASA Vet]

Shutting down the Strait would also help to prevent a U.S. buildup of forces in Iraq for a land war

How long would it take to establish a Mediterranean beach head where Syria was?

[nuke rocketeer]

I say to Iran..."Go ahead punk...Make my day!"

[Itzlzha]

You Broke The Code!!!

[silverleaf]

With all due respect, you sound like you've gotten your view about conducting military operations in the Arabian Gulf from Hollywood.

I speak as someone who sat many a watch in CENTCOM during the 1980's while the world's oil tankers were steaming slowly through the Gulf under US military escort.... someone who remembers the result of Libya dropping a few mines in the Suez canal...and someone who was involved in DESERT STORM planning, execution, and BDA. Up close and personal.

I have "kinda" been through the pol-mil side and the military operations side .... of Gulf war. Your statements are laughable.

But you could write a good episode of "The West Wing" and let Hollywood defeat the conniving right wing Iranian fundamentalists in a one hour episode. So hurry.

"DU". Indeed.

[poindexter]

So our boys of the deep will still have to sit this next war out.

Actually, no.

Tomahawk missile lauch from a submarine:

[ASA Vet]

But the situation isn't.

[Bigh4u2]

"But the situation isn't."

No. It's not. But the map sure is.

[Allegra]

Has anyone stopped to wonder how those other producers might react to their neighbor's advertising a plan to cut off their source of income?

I wondered that, too. Kuwait, Saudi, the UAE...they may have some strong opinions about this.