Iran Tests 'New Weapon', Says It Can Easily Close the Strait of Hormuz

Iran Tests 'New Weapon', Says It Can Easily Close the Strait of Hormuz

www.foxnews.com

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran tested a new weapon for use at sea and says it can "easily" close a major oil passageway, the chief of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted Monday as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

The commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, claimed the new marine weapon is "unique in the world" and has a range of 300 kilometers (186 miles).

(visit the link for the full news article)

Iran getting ready to show their power, or just propaganda from Faux News? Supposedly Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz easily.

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well I for one am so glad I don't live near the Strait of Hormuz. Really, I think I would die of boredom because ANYTHING Fox News (read: US Government propaganda machine) says in relation to Iran is obviously nonsense and I am sure nothing will happen there

I'm actually getting kind of sick of the chest pumping between the US and Iran. If Bush Co is going after Iran, I doubt it will happen until close to election, and I honestly think Iran is just defending themselves against the propaganda that the US is feeding out.

Iran is scared poo-less.

They are the frightened puppy barking as it is backed into a corner.

Remember, China gets it's resources from their too.

I am sure China would not be happy with Iran cutting off the majority of China's energy imports.

BTW, since Iran imports most of it's refined gas and AV fuel, cutting off the gulf would cut them off as well.

Since their blocking of the gulf would hurt ALL gulf countries, i doubt too many would help Iran after that, maybe fellow terrorist state Syria, maybe Russia (Idiots).

The problem with that area of waterway is that at its narrowist its only 21 miles accross - and the deep channel is around 10 miles from the nearest island - within LOS for artilery , let alone missile batteries

Originally posted by Mekanic
I'm actually getting kind of sick of the chest pumping between the US and Iran.

You wrote the above. So, with your American Flag avatar, how about a little knock on the iranians for their part in all of this?

Or is this just another U.S. bashing, pro-iran thread? What would that be now, just one of hundreds, maybe thousands of similar threads?

Level playing field.

Deny hypocrisy.

Obviously, nothing new to see here. Time to move along.

It's not that Iran does not have missiles/artillery that could sink a ship(s) in the gulf.

It is the back-lash they would get from ALL parties concerned.

Think Qatar/united emirates........and even Turkey would like the gulf closed???

Iran loves to make threats and chest thump, but when it comes down to it, (imo) they are nothing more than "LITTLE" dogs barking loudly.

reply to post by centurion1211


I'm actually getting kind of sick of the chest pumping between BUSH CO. and Iran.

Better? I'm not bashing one country in particular, I'm saying both need to quit or take action. The US says that Iran is bad and evil, and that they are going to attack American soil, then Iran retaliates either verbally or brags about weapons they have. Somebody either needs to grow a set, or shut up.

i thought it was the u.s shouting WOLF WOLF all the time ,

russia is building the powerplants there
china is buying oil

mabye its time to accept that most of what (u.s) media sais about iran is total bs,



they are trying to get people aware of the fact that israel holds 200+ nucelar warheads that they can fire anywhere they like in the middle east , they even openly display their ballistic achivement with jerico missiles ,

and no one cries wolf when they do it.....


get a grip

So, what is this supposed new "weapon"?

With a "186 mile range", I'm theorizing that it is nothing more than an iranian speedboat with an extra gas tank. **need a new "shows fear" emoticon for this**

Originally posted by mrmonsoon
and even Turkey would like the gulf closed???

The closing of the Hormuz Straits would be to Turkey's advantage since the completion of the Tblisi-Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline would make it a safe overland export route to Turkey's largest mediterranean oil-export terminal...they'd be in a position to leverage any oil-transit fees they liked

Originally posted by centurion1211

Originally posted by Mekanic
I'm actually getting kind of sick of the chest pumping between the US and Iran.

You wrote the above. So, with your American Flag avatar, how about a little knock on the iranians for their part in all of this?

Or is this just another U.S. bashing, pro-iran thread?

What would that be now, just one of hundreds, maybe thousands of similar threads?

Level playing field.

Deny hypocrisy.

Obviously, nothing new to see here. Time to move along.

Little question....who just recently invaded Iraq illegally and caused havock around the region...pretty sure it wasn't Iran...And what *part* are they playing in all this exactly? To me it looks like one sided aggression...the other side defensive...

Maybe the USA should show Iran some weapons that could make the passageway bigger?



It would make Iraq and Afghan. a bit more controllable.

[edit on 4-8-2008 by ALLis0NE]

CRAZY - Iran has been attempting to build nuclear bombs, and now they insist they have a weapon that can close the straights.

STRANGE - I wonder what kind of weapon could possibly do that?

This weapon is not new and likely NOT Iranian.

The Iranians are spreading some tried and true disinformation here.
So far the Iranian Ballistic Missile forces have only fielded simple, one to two stage MRBM's that use very simplified inertial guidance and carry relatively small payloads. Most of their missiles are derived from Russian copies. And most are highly inaccurate.
I doubt they've suddenly had an engineering breakthrough.

The missiles they are referring to here are likely Russian-made, anti-shipping cruise missile they got their hands on through some recent transactions with the Russians, or from a satellite state like Ukraine or Kazakhstan, via "less legal" means shall we say.

I'm guessing it's either one of these 4:

The Kh-20:
An older, Mach 2, Nuclear cruise missile with a 2,300kg Nuclear warhead and a cruise ceiling of 20,000m. With a range of 600km. Capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
en.wikipedia.org...

The Kh-22:
An anti-shipping and anti-radiation missile that travels at Mach 4, carries a 1,000kg shaped charge Nuclear warhead and a range of 440km which is well beyond the realm of interception by the Navy's AEGIS defence system or any other American SAM. Capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
en.wikipedia.org...

The Kh-55:
A subsonic, air-launched cruise missile powered by a ramjet with a range of over 3,000km, and a 2,000kg warhead. Capable of carrying Nuclear warheads. Can potentially be launched from the ground, although Russia nor any other operators deploy them this way.
en.wikipedia.org...

Or the SS-N-22 Sunburn Missile:
A Ramjet propelled, anti-shipping cruise missile with a top speed of Mach 3, and a 320kg war head. It's referred to as a Sea-skimmer, because it flies above the surface of the water thus avoiding any aerial warning radars.
Apparently one of the world's most advanced anti-ship cruise missiles:
www.globalsecurity.org...
It gives around 30 to 25 seconds interception time due to it's low attack profile making it impossible to intercept without prior warning.

While Iran does have a very large, indigenous missile development program I doubt they have refined it to the point that they could develop an anti-shipping missile that can as they claim: "destroy any ship in the world".

According to Boston News, Iran has acquired some Kh-55's from Ukraine in 2001, but I don't know where that is sourced from or if it's reliable:

New missile designs under development could travel 400 miles farther, it said, while Iran purchased at least a dozen X-55 cruise missiles from Ukraine in 2001 that are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Italy.

www.boston.com...

I seriously doubt this missile is Iranian-made, they simply don't have the infrastructure as of yet to develop anything remotely potent to US ships that can't be intercepted.

This morning I heard a caller phone in to a national news program saying his friend, whose a border guard fuels up his gas tank on the Mexican side cause its half the cost. Which I'm sure has something to do with the foreign exchange
along with the nationalization of Oil/Gas in Mexico.

If Iran had all the diamonds that the USA has it would have shut down the straits a few years ago.

That's fine, Iran. Go ahead and "close" the Strait. The funny thing about closing something, sometimes it's far, far more difficult to keep someone from strolling in and opening it right back up. You'd have that bad boy closed up for just about as long as it takes the US Navy to determine where your boat or command center is that's responsible for this "new weapon" of yours.

On MSNBC they were just talking about what my make Oil prices go back up, and they have been talking about Iran every now and then since I got up.

One of the people said that the actual supply disruption would be very little, since the US Navy could pull out any sunken hulls in at most 48 hours or so.

The only way I could see Iran actually closing the straight may be a little permanent for them, since it would involve those nukes they may or may not have.

Honestly, I have to side with the opinion that it's Iran running counter-propaganda. The only people who would love for Iran to close the straight are those that are energy independent (Brazil I think) or those that import very little but export a lot (Russia or Venezuela maybe?) and that would drive up prices as high as you could imagine and then some.

I imagine Iran is getting pressure from many different areas. Heck I bet ol' Hugo Chevez has called over to ask him to negotiate in order to negate the "demand damage" from "overpriced oil" (fair value according to him is $100/barrel)

Its part of the mind game, preparing the public for an attack. A little bit of fear hear and there to remind the people how "evil" Iran is.

The US pepper bombed thousands of civilians in Iraq in an illegal war, tortured captives in a prison camp for years, keeping these without trial and perpetrated a terrorist act to give them selfs justification to do this (9/11)

One is bad as the other imo, and its getting boring,