December 3, 2012

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Syrian Peace Deal: UN’s Cloak to NATO’s Dagger

April 10, 2012 By 1 Comment

Turkey begins fabricating “cross border” incidents to justify Brookings prescribed “safe havens” inside Syria.
by Tony Cartalucci on April 9, 2012

From the very beginning, US policy makers admitted that Kofi Annan’s “peace mission” to Syria was nothing more than a rouse to preserve NATO’s proxy forces from total destruction and create “safe havens” from which to prolong the bloodshed. It was hoped that with established “safe havens” in Syria, protected by Turkish military forces (Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952) violence and pressure verses the Syrian government could be perpetually increased until it finally collapsed and the carving up of Syria could commence.

Photo: Annan is a trustee of Wall Street speculator George Soros and geopolitical manipulator Zbigniew Brzezinski’s International Crisis Group (ICG), along side Neo-Conservative corporate lobbyist and warmonger Kenneth Adelman, US State Department-listed Iranian terror organization MEK lobbyist - General Wesley Clark, Wall Street-backed color revolution leader- Mohammed ElBaradei of Egypt, and Brookings Institution’s Samuel Berger. Serving as “advisers” to the International Crisis Group include, Neo-Conservative warmonger Richard Armitage, former Foreign Minister of Israel Shlomo Ben-Ami, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bank of Israel Governor Stanely Fischer, and President of Israel Shimon Peres. While Annan poses as a representative of the “United Nations” he is in reality representing the pro-regime change agenda of the ICG and the special interests that fund its work.

….

This has been confirmed by Fortune 500-funded, US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution which has blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria andIran. In their latest report, “Assessing Options for Regime Change” it is stated (emphasis added):

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership.This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.” -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Click to enlarge

Image: Also out of the Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

….

And while “peace” was being peddled by Soros-funded International Crisis Group trustee Kofi Annan, the US, UK, France, and members of the West’s proxy Arab League simultaneously called for Assad to stand down and withdraw troops from secured cities while openly declaring that arms and cash would continue to flow to the rebels. The “Friends of Syria” summit would even ludicrously declare that “wages” would be paid to rebels to continue their battle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Clearly the label “peace deal” is inappropriate for a proposal that seeks to empower and indeed see one side prevail militarily over another whose hands are purposefully tied. It is an unconditional surrender to foreign-funded terrorists simply labeled as a “peace deal.”

The Brookings Institution’s “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who has been threatening to partially invade Syria for weeks in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on “humanitarian concerns,” examining Turkey’s abysmal human rights record in addition to its own ongoing genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.

Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing “suspected” rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya’s Qaddafi and Syria’s Assad have been accused of doing, in all of their hypocrisy, are now calling for a partial invasion of Syria based on “humanitarian concerns.”

….Now, Turkey is fabricating stories involving Syrian troops “firing across” the Turkish-Syrian border. The New York Times published these bold accusations before admitting further down that “it was unclear what kind of weapons caused the injuries on Sunday around six miles inside Turkish territory,” and that “there were conflicting accounts about the incident.” As are all the accusations used by NATO, the UN, and individual member states to justify meddling in Syria’s affairs, these tales involve hear-say from the rebels themselves.

It is clear that Turkey, NATO, and the UN are attempting to set the pretext for the establishment of “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” intended to circumvent the UN Security Council which has seen attempts to green-light military intervention vetoed twice by Russia and China. As the UN “peace deal” deadline of April 10 comes and goes, we can expect an ever increasing din of propaganda purporting Syrian violations against Turkish sovereignty, the continued propaganda campaign accentuating the “victimization” of NATO’s death squads, and the public roll-out of Brookings’ Turkish established “safe haven” within Syrian territory.

Image: Some of the corporate sponsors behind the Brookings Institution, from whose playbook Kofi Annan is being directed in his disingenuous “peace mission” to Syria. (click image to enlarge)

Image: Just some of the corporate and “institutional” sponsors of the International Crisis Group, upon which Kofi Annan sits as a “trustee” with other dubious personalities including George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Egypt’s Mohammed ElBaradei, and Neo-Cons Richard Armitage and Kenneth Adelman. (click image to enlarge)

….The UN “peace deal” was a rouse from the beginning. The West has no intention of leaving Syria intact and will seek all means by which to prevail in toppling the government, carving up the country along sectarian lines, plunging it into perpetual violence as it has Libya, and moving next toward Iran. While it is essential to expose the truth behind Syria’s unrest, is also important to identify the corporate-financier interests driving this nefarious agenda and boycott them entirely while seeking out viable local solutions to support instead. If none exist, it is our duty to use our time, money, attention, and resources to create such alternatives instead of perpetuating the self-serving agenda unfolding before us.

Ultimately it is “we the people” paying into this current paradigm that allows it to continue moving forward, therefore it by necessity must be “we the people” who undermine and ultimately replace it.

Source: https://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/syrian-peace-deal-uns-cloak-to-natos.html

Filed Under: Africa, British Petroleum, China, Corporations, France, Genocide, Human Rights, Iran, Libya, Military Industrial Complex, NATO, Russia, Safety, Syria, Terrorism, Turkey, United Kingdom, United Nations

Cheney Calls For Air Strike On Iran Over Captured Drone

December 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By David Edwards

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Monday that President Barack Obama should have ordered an “air strike” on Iran after they recently captured a U.S. drone.

Earlier on Monday, President Barack Obama had explained that U.S. officials asked Iran to return the RQ-170 Sentinel surveillance drone.

“The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it,” Cheney told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “You can do that from the air. You can do that with a quick air strike, and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone.”

“I was told that the president had three options on his desk. He rejected all of them,” the former vice president added.

“They all involved sending somebody in to try to recover it, or if you can’t do that, admittedly that would be a difficult operation, you certainly could have gone in and destroyed it on the ground with an air strike.”

For their part, Iran has called on the U.S. to apologize, saying the U.S. broke international laws by violating their airspace.

 

Source: https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/13/cheney-calls-for-air-strike-on-iran-over-captured-drone/

Filed Under: Iran, USA Tagged With: ,

Iran Threatens To Send ‘OIL’ To $200 A Barrel

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you ready for ‘OIL’ to skyrocket to $200 a barrel? Iran is! And, they’re prepared to play their trump card to send it there.

Faced with a rash of mysterious explosions, military drones caught flying overhead, and renewed promises to end their nuclear ambitions, the Iranians are threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz — otherwise known as “the economic jugular vein of the world” — again.

As Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sarvari said yesterday, “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.”

The announcement came just weeks after Iran’s energy minister told Al Jazeera television that Tehran was prepared to use oil as a political tool in any “conflict over its nuclear program.”

Given Iran’s dominance over this bottleneck for oil exports from the Persian Gulf, this is a promise they can likely keep…

Today’s price of $100 a barrel doesn’t even come close to pricing in the geopolitical calamity closing the Persian Gulf would present.

Just 34 miles wide, thirteen tankers carrying 15.5 million barrels of crude oil pass through the Strait each day, making it one of the world’s most important waterways.

In all, 33% of the oil shipped via tankers passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait is so vital to the world economy, its closure would be considered an act of war that only the U.S. Navy has the power to fix…

 
Source: https://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/iran-threatens-to-send-oil-to-200-a-barrel/3335

Filed Under: Iran, Oil, USA

Major Explosion At Iranian Steel Plant

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By https://flipthepyramid.com

At least seven people were killed Sunday night in an explosion at a steel mill in the Iranian city of Yazd. Foreign nationals, possibly North Korean nuclear arms experts, are believed to be among the dead.

The explosion follows two blasts that occurred in Iran in recent weeks at sites linked to Tehran’s nuclear program.

The Ghadir steelworks was opened by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad some six months ago, and the factory’s link to Tehran’s nuclear development program remains unclear. According to reports in recent months, however, the Iranians are struggling to produce steel of the grade required for the construction of centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium. Some of the reports note that the new factory includes a closed military zone used for the production of an unknown material.

The cause of Sunday night’s explosion remains unknown, with Iranian reports initially putting it down to water getting into the facility. Subsequent reports said the blast was caused by munitions that had accidentally found their way into steel that was being recycled in the plant.

There is no evidence linking the three blasts, and no one has claimed responsibility for the explosions, but if the three incidents are indeed connected, the choice of targets indicates a clear attempt to strike at the various links of the Iranian nuclear program chain - the production of raw materials, uranium-enrichment operations, and the development of launch capabilities for missiles with nuclear warheads.

The explosions in the past few months join a series of assassination attempts on Iranian nuclear scientists over the past two years. Tehran has accused Israel and the United States of being behind these attempts.

 

Source: https://flipthepyramid.com/index.php/entry/major-explosion-at-iranian-steel-plant

Filed Under: Iran, Weapons Tagged With:

Ahmadinejad: Iran Has ‘been Able To Control’ U.S. Drone

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By the CNN Wire Staff

(CNN) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his country has “been able to control” the U.S. drone that Iran claims it recently brought down, Venezuelan state TV reported.

“There are people here who have been able to control this spy plane,” Ahmadinejad told VTV. “Those who have been in control of this spy plane surely will analyze the plane’s system. Furthermore, the systems of Iran are so advanced also, like the system of this plane.”

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate or specify what precisely he meant when he referred to people “who have been able to control” the drone. He spoke in Farsi, which VTV translated into Spanish. The Farsi portion of the interview was not audible.

President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States has asked Iran to return the drone aircraft that Iran claims it recently brought down in Iranian territory.

“We’ve asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said.

Ahmadinejad’s comments to VTV seemed to suggest that Iran did not plan to return the aircraft.

“The North Americans at best have decided to give us this spy plane,” Ahmadinejad said. “In the unpiloted planes, we have had many advances, much progress and now we have this spy plane.”

Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the drone no longer belongs to Washington.

“The U.S. spy plane is among the assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Vahidi told reporters Tuesday, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. “Our country will decide what to do with it.”

The United States owes Iran an apology and needs to admit its crime, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday, the Iranian Students’ News Agency report.

“The U.S. should know that what it did regarding violation of our air space can put international peace and security in danger,” he said. “The U.S. should take responsibility for the consequences of the measure.”

American officials have not confirmed that the drone shown in a video released last Thursday by Iranian media is a U.S. aircraft. But Pentagon spokesman George Little has said that an American drone is missing and had not been recovered.

Two U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN that the missing drone was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission that involved both the intelligence community and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said the country’s armed forces had downed the drone near Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) from the border with Afghanistan on December 4.

The Ahmadinejad interview was aired in Venezuela Monday night.

 

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/13/world/meast/iran-spy-plane/index.html?iref=werecommend

Filed Under: Iran, USA Tagged With:

It’s On: Iran Closes Straits Of Hormuz, Oil Explodes

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Tyler Durden

Iran has closed the Straits of Hormuz for military training as was expected yesterday, according to RanSquawk. Oil, and all other commodities, are soaring.

And for those curious about more, RanSquawk speculates that the source of the data is a report in the Tehran Times saying that Iran will hold War Games in which it would close the Straits. Unclear if this is what Ran referenced when they said the Straits were already closed.

TEHRAN - MP Parviz Sorouri of the Majlis National Security and
Foreign Policy Committee has said that Iran plans to practice its
ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most
strategically important chokepoints, which accounts for about 30% of the
world’s seaborne oil shipments.

“Currently,the Middle East region supplies 70 percent of the world’s energy needs,
(most of) which are transported through the Strait of Hormuz. We will
hold an exercise to close the Strait of Hormuz in the near future. If
the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world
insecure,” ISNA quoted Sorouri as saying on Tuesday.

 

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/its-iran-closes-straits-hormuz-oil-explodes

Filed Under: Banks, Iran, Oil, Politics Tagged With:

U.S. Asks Iran To Return Spy Drone

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By David S. Cloud and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

The Defense secretary says he doesn’t expect Tehran to comply. Iran says it is planning to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies.

Reporting from Washington— The Obama administration has sent a formal diplomatic request asking Iran to return the radar-evading drone aircraft that crashed on a CIA spying mission this month, but U.S. officials say they don’t expect Iran will comply.

“We have asked for it back,” Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. “We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”

His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned.

Capture of the futuristic-looking unmanned spy plane has provided Tehran with a propaganda windfall. The government announced that it planned to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies.

The embarrassing loss of the CIA drone has focused attention on the use of an air base in western Afghanistan over the last several years to launch aerial surveillance missions against suspected nuclear facilities and other targets in neighboring Iran.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called the U.S. request for return of the drone “appropriate,” but he acknowledged that Iran’s government, which last week lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations about the U.S. spy plane violating its airspace, was unlikely to send it back.

“I don’t expect that will happen, but I think it’s important to make that request,” Panetta told reporters traveling with him aboard a U.S. military aircraft.

Officials declined to say how the U.S. filed the formal request. Washington doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Tehran, and normally communicates through the Swiss government. Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, refused to discuss the issue, saying he would not comment on intelligence matters.

Iranian state media reported Monday that Iranian experts were recovering valuable data from the drone, which appeared relatively intact in photographs released by Iran, and were trying to reverse-engineer its unique capabilities.

Parviz Sarvari, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said that Iran is “in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft’s secret code.”

“The findings will be used to support our accusations against the U.S.,” Sarvari said in comments reported by the state-run Al Alam news channel.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who commands the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Forces, told the semiofficial Fars News Agency that the aircraft “was downed in Iran with minimum damage,” according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

U.S. officials said they don’t believe Iran’s scientists can reverse-engineer the craft’s stealth design and skin coating, which help it evade detection on radar. But they expressed concern that Iran may figure out the drone’s flight path, and thus learn the CIA’s surveillance targets inside Iran.

U.S. officials also are concerned that Iran could offer the drone to China or other U.S. rivals or adversaries that are building their own stealth aircraft, including drones.

Panetta said it was unclear how much Iran could glean from the recovered spy plane, or what condition it was in.

Iran said it downed the drone about 140 miles inside Iran through electronic warfare, suggesting hacking or signal jamming. U.S. officials say the aircraft malfunctioned and went down on its own.

 

Source: https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-obama-drone-20111213,0,6677845.story

 

Filed Under: Iran, Surveillance, USA, Weapons Tagged With:

As Chinese President Advises Navy To Prepare For War And Iran Readies Its Missiles, Is $250/barrel Crude Oil Near?

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Iran’s foreign minister had earlier warned of a $250/bbl Crude Oil in the event of attempting to harm the country. With China preparing for military combat and Iran readying its missiles, $250/bbl does not seem like a distant possibility.

The smell of war

-Yahoo News reported Chinese President Hu Jintao as saying that the Chinese Navy should “make extended preparations for warfare” and urged his navy to prepare for military combat. This follows statements by China’s Major General Zhang Zhaozhong who said that China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a Third World War in order to safeguard its domestic political needs.

-The Telegraph meanwhile has reported that Gen Mohammed Ali Jaafari, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has raised the operational readiness of status of country’s forces, initiating preparations for potential strikes and covert operationswhile also initiating plans to disperse long-range missiles, high explosives, artillery and guards units to key defensive positions

Crude oil aims for the sky

-Iran is the third largest exporter of crude oil in the world. Much bigger than Libya. Problems in Libya had pushed prices to $110 and even though it declined, later on, oil is still at $100/bbl because of the tight physical market. So obviously the loss of oil from a much larger oil exporter like Iran could easily push up prices to scary levels.

-However, the most important reason prices could spike to $250/bbl and even above is the fact that Iran nearly controls the Strait of Homruz through which almost 18% of the world’s daily oil flows from the Middle East. It is the single most important oil waterway in the world. Conflict in the area will result in a loss of millions of barrels of oil which will definitely propel prices to unseen levels.

Cracks in the economy
Even at current prices, $100 oil is terribly expensive. Imagine the case of a $250/bbl scenario! That’s a 150% rise in fuel prices alone together with rising cost of food, consumables and every form of products that requires transportation. And this will happen at a time when personal income will remain stable/unchanged!

In a world where economies are contracting,growth is slowing, unemployment is increasing, public dissent is rising and governments are becoming nearly bankrupt and insolvent, a $250/bbl oil is the last thing the world needs. Combined with the trillions of war dollars (possibly funded by even more debt) that will be spent, a war will easily set back the economy by decades!

 

Source: https://www.commodityonline.com/news/as-chinese-president-advises-navy-to-prepare-for-war-and-iran-readies-its-missiles-is-$250barrel-crude-oil-near-44248-3-1.html

Filed Under: China, Economy, Imperialism, Iran, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Oil, USA

War On Iran Has Already Begun. Act Before It Threatens All Of Us

December 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Seumas Milne on December 9, 2011

If the covert stealth war, which has already begun, turns into a full-scale attack on Iran, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.

They don’t give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilisation of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the US and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.

It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a US-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France.

Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.

The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales – the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US– and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The British government’s decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.

It’s a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a US spyplane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a “new kind of war” has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.

Last month the Guardian was told by British defence ministry officials that if the US brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would “seek, and receive, UK military help”, including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia.

Whether the officials’ motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked US attack on Iran – just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.

What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as “unthinkable”, and for David Cameron became an option not to be taken “off the table”, now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the US decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences.

But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw’s successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of “sleepwalking into a war with Iran”. That’s all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.

There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano – described in a WikiLeaks cable as “solidly in the US court on every strategic decision”.

As in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on “secret intelligence” from western governments. But even the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.

The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.

Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?

As Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would “probably” want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state “must vanish from the page of time” bear no relation to reality

Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world’s most powerful military force.

The real challenge posed by Iran to the US and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As US troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.

A US or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the US and US Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.

All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, said last week it would be a “catastrophe”. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that it could “consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret”.

There seems little doubt that the US administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the “right decision at the right moment”; and the prospects of drawing the US in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.

Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.

 

Source: https://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/iran/975-war-on-iran-has-already-begun-act-before-it-threatens-all-of-us

Filed Under: Iran, USA, War

Iran Oil Sanctions Set to Shrink the Circle of Foreign Buyers

December 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Iran faces new hurdles to getting paid for its oil as the U.S. tightens financial sanctions to deter buyers from the world’s third-largest crude exporter.

The U.S. approved additional curbs on Iran’s banking system and oil industry on Nov. 21, hoping to thwart the country’s nuclear program, and the European Union may follow. Current sanctions have led Indian importers to route payments for Iranian crude through a Turkish bank. These refiners, concerned Turkey may stop cooperating amid the latest U.S. rules, are asking banks in Russia to arrange alternatives, said three people with direct knowledge of the situation.

“The idea of the sanctions is to shrink the circle of buyers and so increase their ability to extract discounts from Iran,” said Robin Mills, an analyst at Dubai-based Manaar Energy Consulting, who worked for a decade at Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) in the Middle East.

The U.S. is stepping up pressure after a Nov. 8 report from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons program. At stake is crude supply from the OPEC nation, whose exports last year were exceeded only by those of Saudi Arabia and Russia. Oil is Iran’s main source of income, earning it $56 billion in the first seven months of 2011, according to U.S. Energy Department estimates.

The country pumped 3.6 million barrels a day last month, a Bloomberg survey showed, and exported an average 2.58 million barrels a day in 2010, according to Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries statistics.

European Pressure

“On Iran, we need to step up pressure,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy told ambassadors today in Brussels. “The EU is preparing new restrictive measures,” he said.

France has proposed that the EU ban Iranian oil, French Budget Minister Valerie Pecresse said Nov. 23. Maja Kocijancic, an EU spokeswoman, said the same day that European foreign ministers will discuss the topic at a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Iran, which is already subject to some UN and EU sanctions, denies it is developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian protesters broke into and vandalized the British Embassy’s compound in Tehran yesterday. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, in a statement, called the attack “outrageous and indefensible” and said all staff had been accounted for. Britain today ordered the closure of Iran’s embassy in London.

Financial Impact

“The latest measures will make it even harder for people to finance trade with Iran,” said Nick Grandage, a London-based partner at law firm Norton Rose LLP, who specializes in trade finance. Sanctions have stifled trading of Iran’s oil in London, Europe’s financial hub, and may have forced importers to pay for crude in non-dollar currencies, he said in a Nov. 22 interview.

Should Europe adopt more formal restrictions on Iranian crude, the Persian Gulf nation would likely be forced to offer oil more cheaply to refiners in Asia, its biggest market, Olivier Jakob, managing director at Oberwil, Switzerland-based Petromatrix GmbH, said in a Nov. 28 note to investors.

By targeting financial transactions and stopping short of sanctioning international trade in Iranian oil, the U.S. aims to pressure Iran without risking a surge in crude prices at a time of global economic fragility, said Mills of Manaar Energy.

Russia Option

Indian refiners, which got 11 percent of their imported oil from Iran in 2010, are trying to arrange a conduit for payments via Russia, said the three people familiar with the matter, declining to be identified because the talks are private.

Vladimir Lavrov, a spokesman for Russia’s central bank, declined to comment this week about the Indian effort. The U.S. sanctions against Iran are “unacceptable and violate international law,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Nov. 22. Turkey, which gets half its oil imports from Iran, also criticized the U.S. action.

Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS (HALKB), the Ankara-based lender Indian refiners have used to transfer cash to Iran, declined to comment on its transactions other than to say Halk complies with UN rules, according to a bank official, who cited company policy for declining to be identified.

Iran’s past flexibility over payment terms makes it an attractive supplier. The country gives Indian refiners 90 days to pay their bills, compared with 30 days from Saudi Arabia, according to the people with knowledge of those purchases. When Indian importers were unable to pay on time because of sanctions, Iran kept supplying them even as they amassed $5 billion in unpaid invoices.

Saudi Crude

Saudi Arabia will increase oil shipments to Indian refiners next year, four people with knowledge of the plans said Nov. 15. India’s Petroleum Ministry Media Director R. C. Joshi didn’t answer two calls for comment to his mobile phone yesterday.

Refiners in Europe, collectively the second-largest market for Iranian oil after China, may also face difficulties from tighter constraints on transactions with Iran.

“Europe has been importing crude oil from Iran, and it certainly hasn’t lowered amounts recently,” Jakob of Petromatrix said by telephone Nov. 22. “Greece is importing most of its crude oil from Iran.”

A potential EU ban on Iran’s oil would have a smaller financial impact on European companies than the recent Libyan crisis because state-run entities control oil output, Fitch Ratings said in a note today. Still, European companies “would feel the impact of a ban through their refining operations as they would have to replace Iranian crude,” it said.

Greek Refiners

Motor Oil Hellas SA Chief Executive Officer Petros Tzannetakis said on a conference call yesterday that a potential ban would not affect it because the Greek refiner sources crude from other nations such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. Hellenic Petroleum SA (ELPE), Greece’s biggest refiner, declined to comment on Nov. 25 on its exposure to Iran.

Oil prices rose this year as political turmoil in the Middle East stoked concern about the reliability of supply. The price of European benchmark Brent crude rose to more than $125 barrels a day in April as exports from Libya dwindled because of the rebellion in that country. Brent has risen 18 percent this year and traded at $111.63 a barrel at 1:59 p.m. in London.

Iran’s three biggest national customers — China, Japan and India — together buy more than half its exported oil, according to U.S. Energy Department data. This concentration of customers and Iran’s reliance on oil sales for income make the country vulnerable to disruptions, Jakob said.

China Wins

An unintended consequence is that China, a critic of the latest U.S. sanctions, may benefit from any price discounts, said Mills, the Dubai-based consultant. “It will favor non-U.S. allies who will be able to get oil somewhat more cheaply.”

China accounted for 22 percent of Iran’s export volumes in the first half of this year and increased its purchases by 27 percent over the same period of 2010, U.S. data show. The EU, Japan and India bought 18 percent, 14 percent and 13 percent of Iran’s oil, respectively.

China’s economic ties don’t violate UN Security Council resolutions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Nov. 24.

Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said in a Nov. 19 television interview with Al Jazeera that any disruption to his nation’s oil exports would create “severe problems” for global markets. Iran abuts the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about one-fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies.

“If Iran were to respond to outside aggression by sealing off the Straits of Hormuz, this would severely hamper exports from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates,” researchers led by David Wech at Vienna-based JBC Energy said in a Nov. 23 report.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-29/iran-financial-sanctions-set-to-shrink-circle-of-foreign-buyers-of-crude.html

Filed Under: Iran, Oil, Politicians, USA
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