American Armada Prepares To Take On Iran

It is four and a half acres of US power in the middle of the Arabian Sea but the influence of USS Dwight D Eisenhower stretches hundreds of miles.

The aircraft carrier, backed by its sister vessel, a handful of destroyers and a shoal of support ships, has placed a ring of steel around an increasingly unstable region.

While the Eisenhower is ostensibly assisting US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is increasingly occupied by the looming threat of Iran.

Recent tensions between the US and Iran over Teheran's meddling in Iraq and attempts to build a nuclear bomb have raised the prospect of its third regional war in a decade.

The addition of a second aircraft carrier to its strike groups has fuelled the belief that the US is gearing up for a fight with Iran. Not since the Iraq war in 2003 has America amassed so much fire power around the Persian Gulf.

As flagship of the Fifth Fleet, the Eisenhower welcomed the arrival of the second Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS John C Stennis, and its accompanying destroyers on Tuesday.

Captain Dan Cloyd, the Eisenhower's commanding officer, compared the situation with the international tension of the Cold War.

"There was a time when we had two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean," he told The Daily Telegraph. "The world changes and we adapt."

The quietly spoken Capt Cloyd embraced the suggestion that the dual deployment is at the forefront of efforts to stop Iran getting a nuclear bomb, pointing out that his maritime assets have been tasked to quash any challenge to global security.

"Our presence here is an affirmation of our resolve to engage with the nations of the region either where we share common goals or where we face challenges."

The Eisenhower has more than 5,000 people on board and its range of missions is virtually limitless.

As it patrols the shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, the Eisenhower ensures the safe passage of oil tankers. It also prevents the trading routes being used to transport materials that would help rogue nations build a nuclear weapon.

Capt Cloyd said: "Our maritime security mission is about denying the use of the seas to any potential spread of weapons of mass destruction."

Iran's belligerent posture has increased the challenges facing the Eisenhower since it was deployed to the Middle East last October. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, issued a stark warning that Iran risks triggering an "accidental war" during aggressive military manoeuvres.

During the Great Prophet 2 missile test in November, the Islamic Republic fired a Shabab missile into the six-mile corridor of shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. In such a constricted corridor, the results could have been disastrous.

With Teheran's real strategic intentions unclear, the US takes the threats made very seriously. "They threaten to use oil as a weapon. They threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz," Adml Walsh said. "It is the combination of the rhetoric, the tone, and the aggressive exercises in very constrained waters that gives us concern."

US commanders ascribe the increase in instability to increasingly deliberate aggressive actions by Teheran. For that reason the deployment of the carriers is designed to intensify pressure on Iran to step back from the brink.

A nuclear Iran, like a nuclear North Korea, a nuclear Pakistan, a nuclear Red China and a nuclear Soviet Union, is completely and totally unacceptable.

The danger of Pakistan is overlooked by many -- an extremely radicalized population an assassination or two away from gaining control of the country. .....a nuclear armed country. Allowing them to develop nukes (under Clinton's watch, of course) could very well turn out to be the biggest mistake we've ever made.

Regarding your post #158: Israel can't do it this time. It's a bridge too far, much too far.

Prescisely. ...and for all the reasons you stated. The U.S. is in a much better position anyway, having Iran surrounding on three sides: Iraq to the west, Afghanistan to the east, and our Naval presence in the Persian Gulf to the south. Plus we have far superior firepower, especially quantitatively. Gonna have to be us, if anyone.

It won't be us.
The whole world is against us, including the majority of our own Congress.
There's no gas in the tank for a war with Iran.
Of course if they start it, all bets are off.
They won't. Persians are not Arabs. How many Persian suicide bombers can you think of?
Exactly.
Persians are cooler customers. They're more than happy to indulge in terrorism...just strap bombs to Arab boys and send them in to blow themselves to pieces.
Persians are not going to pick a shooting fight with the US. They'll just taunt the Americans, send arms to the jihadis in Iraq (knowing full well that the Americans will not attack Teheran on account of it, because we haven't for three years and counting), and build their nuclear arms.

We have to win in Iraq. It's there or nowhere.
And we CAN'T win in Iraq under the current strategy.
We have to TAKE SIDES and arm the sides we want to win the civil war. We should arm the Sunni Kurds and the Arabist pro-Iraqi Shi'ites. This will mean a bloodbath of the Sunni Arabs, and it will mean that the pro-Iranian Shi'ites will get some swift kicks from their Arabist Shi'ite brethren (and will get slaughtered if are near Kurdistan).

Forget this "everybody shares the oil". Sunni Arabs share the grave with pro-Iranian Shi'ites. The Iraqi nationalist Arabist Shi'ites get ALL the oil wealth of the South, and the Kurds get ALL the oil wealth of the North. We establish a two-region federal state. Sunni Arab Anbar and Tikrit, what's left of them, will be subjugated rubble heaps.
It's nasty, but it will give us the boots on the ground to destroy our enemies in the country. Brutally, and with a vicious ethnic-cleansing component, but it won't be OUR troops who are doing it.
That's how we win.
Bush has ruled it out.
So instead, we lose.
Another unacceptable but inexorable result, sadly.

The whole world is against us, including the majority of our own Congress. There's no gas in the tank for a war with Iran.

As I mentioned to another poster earlier on the thread we don't need "gas in the tank" (politically, especially) for an operation targeting the Iranian nuke facilities. Again, if the plan were to invade, occupy, and police the joint your assessment would be correct. But thankfully that's not the plan. The entire operation would be over before the our liberal whiners would be able to do a damn thing about it. And that's presicely what scares them -- a clear, overwhelming military success. .....success that would assuredly lessen their chances of recapturing the WH in '08.

Without going into detail I agree with your prescription for victory in Iraq. ....and that the Bush admin. simply doesn't have the stomach for it.

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