Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War

Hugh Pickens writes "The high stakes standoff between Iran and the U.S. over the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-fifth of the world's oil, escalated this week as Iran's navy claimed to have recorded video of a U.S. aircraft carrier entering the Port of Oman and the deputy chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami rejected U.S. claims that it could prevent Iran from closing the strait. To drive the point home, Iran has started a 10-day naval exercise in the Persian Gulf to show off how it could use small speedboats and a barrage of missiles to combat America's naval armada while in a report for the Naval War College, U.S. Navy Commander Daniel Dolan wrote that Iran has acquired 'thousands of sea mines, wake homing torpedoes, hundreds of advanced cruise missiles (PDF) and possibly more than one thousand small Fast Attack Craft and Fast Inshore Attack Craft.'" (Read more, below.) Hugh Pickens continues: "The heart of the Iran's arsenal is its 200 small potential-suicide boats — fiberglass motorboats with a heavy machine gun, a multiple rocket-launcher, or a mine — and may also carry heavy explosives, rigged to ram and blow a hole in the hull of a larger ship. These boats will likely employ a strategy of 'swarming' — coming out of nowhere to ambush merchant convoys and American warships in narrow shipping lanes. But the U.S. Navy is not defenseless against kamikaze warfare. The U.S. has put more machine guns and 25-millimeter gyro-stabilized guns on the decks of warships, modified the 5-inch gun to make it more capable of dealing with high-speed boats, and improved the sensor suite of the Aegis computer-integrated combat system aboard destroyers and cruisers. 'We have been preparing for it for a number of years with changes in training and equipment,' says Vice Admiral (ret.) Kevin Cosgriff, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command."

Comments

Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil

[Anonymous Coward]

For a start, read about how our CIA led a coup to overthrow an elected leader who wanted more profits from the oil companies to go to the people. It was called Operation Ajax. We have a history of meddling in nations when leaders nationalize resources we want (Vietnam and Nicaragua, too). In Saudi Arabia we support an oppressive *monarchy* (i.e., NOT a democracy), apparently because we like their oil. Our presence there was a stated motive of Al Qaeda. So it's not so much stealing the oil as it is trying to control the government which gives us a good deal on the oil.

Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes ’02 War Game

[taxman_10m]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html

In the days since the encounter with five Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, American officers have acknowledged that they have been studying anew the lessons from a startling simulation conducted in August 2002. In that war game, the Blue Team navy, representing the United States, lost 16 major warships — an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels — when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats.

“The sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack,” said Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps officer who served in the war game as commander of a Red Team force representing an unnamed Persian Gulf military. “The whole thing was over in 5, maybe 10 minutes.”

Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil

[rainmouse]

"Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War"

It's no wonder the Iranians are deeply upset by the sanctions. Surely some people do realise that economic sanctions will likely kill an awful lot of the poorest people in Iran and the sanctions are in themselves, a declaration of war. Theses sanctions worked so very well in Iraq with estimations of up to 1.7 million civilian deaths as a direct result of these sanctions by 1995. http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq17.html.
Like with Iraq, there is no direct evidence of a reason for war and we have already seen the political posturing and powers that be, who already have Iraqi blood on their hands are still lying to us with articles such as this http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/ahmadinejad_words.htm.

For people who don't see how sanctions can kill so many people (taken from UNICEF report 1995 (sorry original link to the report is no longer working ) “Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq... What has become increasingly clear is that no significant movement towards food security can be achieved so long as the embargo remains in place. All vital contributors to food availability - agricultural production, importation of foodstuffs, economic stability and income generation, are dependent on Iraq’s ability to purchase and import those items vital to the survival of the civilian population.”

Re:Flogging a dead horse much?

[deanklear]

Perhaps they're remembering the near three decades of the Shah's rule in Iran, marked by murders, torture, SAVAK secret police -- all supported by the United States and Britain? That ended in 1979. Or maybe they're remembering the war we helped create that killed a million Iraqis and Iranians in the 1980s once the Shah fell from power, and we decided to crown Saddam Hussein as our new friend on the block. That ended around 1988.

But answer this question for me: how many decades would pass before you would forget having your government overthrown, controlled by an outside party, and then being subjected to three decades of a police state followed by an eight year war that wrecked your whole nation? I guess real men can watch their families and society get destroyed and just "get over it."

Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil

[um... Lucas]

Name a war that Iran started. Yeah. Didn't think so. Why don't you read something rather than watching fox news?

Re:Already done, and the US lost

[JimCanuck]

Just that one?

In 1981 a Canadian diesel submarine managed to sink the USS America (a American aircraft carrier), and another one sunk the U.S.S. Forrestal also a aircraft carrier in NATO's Ocean Venture exercise.

In 1989 The Royal Netherlands Navy in NATO's Northern Star exercise was also credited with sinking another American aircraft carrier using a submarine.

In 1996 during RIMPAC 1996, Chile managed to sink the American aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Independence.

In 1999 again the RN Navy sunk the USS Theodore Roosevelt in JTFEX/TMDI99, as well a Swedish submarine is credited with the sinking of the USS Ronald Reagan in the same exercise.

In 2000 a couple of Russian fighters decided to test the response time of the USS Kitty Hawk, got the the carrier without being detected and managed to do a few fly overs before the Americans decided to do anything about it. Gen. Anatoly M. Kornukov, the Russian air force's commander in chief. ‘In the pictures, you can clearly see the panic on deck.’

In 2002 Australian Navy submarine H.M.A.S. Sheehan, took on and defeated the U.S.S. Olympia in another war game.

In 2003, the Australians in another exercise also got credit for sinking another American aircraft carrier, and they successfully took on 2 Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarines in the exercise as well.

And well the US Air Force did well against Iraq, regretfully, most of the Western world has time and time again made a mockery of the American Air Force, just as the mockery of the American's battle fleets.

For the sake of the rest of the world, I hope the American's can learn something from their past before they end up fighting a enemy who wants to fight.