Barak's "unexpected trip" to US may signal Iran attack imminent

The always legitimate Startfor.com has an alarming angle on recent Iran-U.S.-Israel developments -- signs that may point to the attack clock having reached zero.

The biggest alarm to Stratfor is Ehud Barak's cancellation of his Spain trip. Instead the Israeli Defense Minister is headed to the U.S. for last minute meetings with Obama, "which are certain to revolve around Iran."

Stratfor also says the Obama administration has issued orders to immediate tap the strategic petroleum reserve in the event of a severe fuel disruption. We can translate this to mean a military strike on Iran would bottle up the Strait of Hormuz for a period of time.

The next point Stratfor makes is even more Rabbit Hole, and very intriguing. The recently postponed Israel/U.S. military exercises may in fact be a ruse to insert special forces into Iran.

Keep watching the U.S.-Israeli Juniper Cobra exercises. The one-week delay to the exercises and the manner in which Israel denied that there was ever a delay is still bothering us. We need a better understanding of what units and systems the United States sent in and, more important, if and when the personnel and equipment are returning home. We need to be open to the possibility that these exercises could be a cover for the insertion of U.S. forces in preparation for a military operation against Iran.

Seems we've been expecting this since Bush, but at this point, it really does appear a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear plants is inevitable. And while unrelated, Stratfor does have an interesting take on recent U.S./Russian relations. The item questions whether the U.S. realizes Russia's political and economic climate is actually very unstable:

The U.S. administration has been acting extremely confident lately in dealing with the Russians.

Is Washington's confidence stemming from its intelligence on the true state of Russian power? There are a lot of questions to be answered still, but we need to re-examine all our previous assumptions on the U.S.-Russian-Iranian nexus given the changes we're seeing within the Kremlin.

I can infer from this that the U.S. and Israel aren't too scared of a Russian military response to an attack on Iran.

Hold your horses Israel and USA!! There's expected to be wide-spread protests in Iran on 4th November, and at later dates as well! Give this a chance first, don't turn them all against us at the time they are against the regime! The collapse of this regime will be inevitable and 4th Nov. is a big today towards that!

[edit on 2-11-2009 by john124]

reply to post by behindthescenes


Is this content from stratfor subscription content btw?

Even though I think it's a bad idea, I wouldn't be surprised if this happened by the end of the month. As Iran was given until December for sanctions, so to take them by surprise possibly.

[edit on 2-11-2009 by john124]

US and Israel reiterate to Moscow: Military option is on the table

DEBKAfile's US intelligence sources report indications of impending war preparations against Iran after Tehran's rejections of the UN-brokered proposal to ship its enriched uranium overseas for further enrichment. These sources reveal that the administration is seeking congressional authorization to open America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Furthermore, the US-Israeli joint US-Israel Juniper Cobra ballistic exercise is in full swing. Finally, US and Israel officials have been instructed to warn Moscow that the military option is still on the table if Iran's nuclear program is not halted by diplomatic means.

The US SPR which contains 727 million barrels of petroleum is only opened in time of war. Under an agreement signed with Israel in 1975, Washington undertakes to supply Israel with its fuel needs for five years in an emergency.

Word of these apparent war preparations appeared Saturday Oct. 31, the day after Iran's senior nuclear negotiator delivered a counter-proposal to the UN-brokered plan to the IAEA in Vienna which excised its main object, which was to reduce the enriched uranium stocks in hand for Iran to make a nuclear bomb.

The joint US-Israeli military exercise which ends Tuesday, Nov. 3, moved to the Tel Aviv arena last Tuesday with US forces drilling defensive action against a prospective Iranian missile attack or a seaborne strike from the Mediterranean on Israel's central conurbation.

For the last three days, Moscow has had nothing to say about the Iranian rejection of a plan which would have sent Iranian uranium to Russia for reprocessing, although Tehran previously indicated to the Kremlin that the international plan would sail through. DEBKAfile's Moscow sources regard the rebuff as Tehran's response to the suspension of Russian S-300 missile defense batteries after they had already been packed for delivery to Iran.

IF they were inserting teams of US anything, it would have been the new AGEIS anti missle team. They were on standby in the fall of last year but their orders were cancelled at the last minute.

I think the most alarming thing for me is Debka.com's lack of reporting on this. .

It is clear that Debka is a Mossad run information outlet which constantly runs disinfo regarding "imminent" Israeli attacks. . . Until now.

I think most countries are talking about what ifs

if the Iranian people raise up on the 4th will anyone rush to their support???
maybe not... but if things start to spill into other countries things could change fast.. we'll know in two days wont we...

reply to post by DaddyBare

if the Iranian people raise up on the 4th will anyone rush to their support???
maybe not...

If the west bombs Iran, some of the protestors will want to defend their country. Being there will be different than seeing CNN liberation "shock and awe" footage.

It's more efficient to let this regime crumble of its own accord under the power of the opposition demonstrations causing squabbling in the ranks. Bombing them may end up working, but it seems a bit too risky at this moment in time.

There's also other factors to take into account: such as how far away from producing warheads are they? Maybe the suspicions are strong enough that they can't wait until xmas even. Or maybe Israel doesn't really want Iran as a friend, and would prefer the Iranian people to back the regime, so they can continue arming themselves with US taxpayer money, under a cold-war style doctrine.

[edit on 2-11-2009 by john124]

reply to post by john124


Oh I wasn't eluding to us going in if there squabble spilled over into Iraq... they have other not so nice neighbours too... Pakistan maybe Turkey Obviously Afghanistan would sit it out... it's not just the US who's not thrilled with them

With the exception of Syria, none of the Arab nations are too pleased with the Persians.

Iran is a large country, and ingress routes are many. If anything is to be executed, it's been in the planning for a couple years or more.

Most Iranian aircraft are older US aircraft that F-22's could negate fairly quickly. Airfields and ports would be very vulnerable to the B-2's.

And that doesn't even begin to account for the stealth cruise missiles.

After all, there are many paths to reach the same point. Points.

Funny though how we have forces already in Israel for a joint exercise. Men. Equipment. In place.

One characteristic of all Israeli actions: brilliant planning, brilliant execution, and precise results. Those boys can drive a bus through a one-car garage doing ninety, and never even scratch the paint.

The US forces are right up there with the Israelis, and take a backseat to no one. They can jump the garage with that same bus.

Interesting times we live in.

Originally posted by LeaderOfProgress
IF they were inserting teams of US anything, it would have been the new AGEIS anti missle team. They were on standby in the fall of last year but their orders were cancelled at the last minute.

U.S., Israel: Juniper Cobra 2009
October 6, 2009 | 1927 GMT

Alongside the Israeli Arrow system and Patriot batteries, the United States is deploying:

The newer Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), designed for terminal phase BMD.
The Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which works in conjunction with PAC-3 to conduct intercepts in the late descent and early terminal phase, essentially creating overlapping coverage.
The Aegis/Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), the most operationally proven and capable of all American BMD technologies. The SM-3 is deployed aboard upgraded Aegis-equipped guided missile cruisers and destroyers and is capable of ascent and decent phase intercepts. It was used to bring down a wayward satellite in 2008.

Above from Stratfor article sent to me by e-mail. The time to attack is now with all that hardware in and around Israel.
I lost the link that I had that told me where the Navy's ships are on deployment. If we don't have four carriers in the area I would not expect an attack.

reply to post by dooper


If Russia flexes its muscles when people target Iran, they'll have to look at Israel's second biggest customer of arms, space technology, and military tactics. India is quite a threat, quite close diplomatically and strategically with Israel. Israel does a lot of aid work for Tibetan farmers in India which India likes.

I think that if Russia starts shouting about protecting Iran they'll hear shouting in Hindi about protecting Israel. Just a thought.

reply to post by dooper



Interesting development

Missile threat shifts to Black Sea

The transformation of America’s security architecture for eastern Europe has thrown Romania into the spotlight as a key strategic location for defence against the threat of medium-range ballistic missiles.

US vice president Joe Biden made the first moves into this direction when, on a recent visit to Bucharest, he welcomed Romania’s “embrace” of the new US proposals for combating short and medium range airborne weaponry.

But it was unclear whether this could translate into Romania hosting either a land-based anti-missile defence system or whether the Black Sea itself could support US or US-allied ships bent on defending the region against a missile assault.

reply to post by behindthescenes


wow you guys are really REALLY over analysing this stuff i'll just sit here and watch nothing happen for the next what 8 weeks untill 2010 trust me NOTHING will happen us and israel can't do anything to iran sure i'd like to see that amidinaJIHAD (see what i did thar?) blown to pieces i just don't think it's going to happen this year there is too much attention around it and i don't think obama is going to like a war on his hands if he can avoid it NEXT YEAR however oh man rule of thumb by my count is every 2 years MAJOR stuff happens 2001 9/11 2003 iraq 2005 nothing but 2006 LEBANON 2008 GEORGIA 2010 IRAN come on baby on a side note i think you might be onto something dooper

reply to post by rationaluser


I totally agree with you, this is all media hype. Every scrap of news is a sensation.

What made Barak's trip to the States interesting to me was his repetition of the Israeli government's call for a Palestinian State. He even suggested creating a temporary state until the final details are hammered out such as the status of East Jerusalem and Palestinian right of return (and of course Fatah dropping their charter's declaration of war with Israel).

I think he's calling Abbas's bluff, because he knows full well that Abbas and Fattah are terrified by the prospect of true independence (they won't have big bad Israel to protect them from Hamas for one thing).