Guest Post by
Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower transits through the Suez Canal towards the Persian Gulf , November 4, 2023
A massive US naval deployment in a wide arc of the so-called Greater Middle East is under way — stretching from Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean, into the Red Sea and the Bab el Mandeb and into the Gulf of Aden and all the way into the Gulf of Oman. This deterrent display may transform as large scale offensive operations and aims to rework the geopolitical alignments and bring them back to the traditional grooves of intra-regional rivalries in the Gulf region.
Ship spotters first said that as of Thursday, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its escorts were sailing just outside the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman, and were approaching the Persian Gulf. A Pentagon official confirmed the location but would not say whether the carrier will enter the Persian Gulf passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US naval build-up in the region consists of another carrier strike group as well — USS Ford and its escorts — which last week moved away from Israeli coast and is now re-positioned to the south of Crete, according to ship spotters, apparently beyond the missile reach of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Apart from the two carrier strike groups, the US deployment also includes a three-ship Bataan Amphibious Ready Group with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit and several guided-missile destroyers — USS Bataan and USS Carter Hall operating in the northern portion of the Red Sea, and USS Mesa Verde in the Eastern Mediterranean along with the command ship USS Mount Whitney.
Additionally, there are some number of US attack submarines in the region, but the Pentagon does not typically disclose their locations — except for a rare disclosure recently by the US Central Command of the transit on November 5 of nuclear guided-missile submarine USS Florida to the east of Suez.
The most obvious explanation for such a formidable naval buildup is that it is part of the US effort to keep the current conflict in southern Israel and Gaza contained. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and anti-tank missiles into Israel from Lebanon; Iran-backed Shia militant groups are attacking US bases in Iraq and Syria; and Houthi rebels in Yemen are firing missiles towards Israel. During the period since October 17, there have been at least 58 attacks on US bases, mostly in Iraq.
The hardline opinion in the US is that the militant groups attacking the US forces are acting at Iran’s behest. This allegation is an old US-Israeli bogey and keeps surging whenever Iran is in the crosshairs and/or there is requirement of a blame game. Expert opinion, including in the US, has always been wary of it.
Longtime observers estimate that while Tehran is openly helping the various resistance groups operating in the Middle East to push back the US and Israel, that does not exactly make these groups “Iranian proxies”. Thus, it transpired that Iran was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7. According to Reuters, at a recent meeting in Tehran with Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the group’s political bureau, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brought this up.
At any rate, it is a known fact that the US establishment is well aware of the ground realities of its state of play with Iran and has not hesitated to use back channels to lean on Tehran to use its good offices with the Shia militant groups operating in Iraq to exercise restraint. But the bottom line is that Iran too has its limitations in such extraordinary times such as today when hatred and anger towards the US and Israel has risen to a crescendo in the Muslim countries.
Interestingly, coinciding with the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its escorts in the waters off the Strait of Hormuz, the International Maritime Security Construct [IMSC] — a consortium of countries headquartered in Bahrain, whose official stated aim is the maintenance of order and security in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden and Southern Red Sea, particularly regarding maritime security of global oil supply routes — issued an advisory on Thursday for vessels travelling through the approaches to Bab al Mandeb and Red Sea and specifically advising that “when choosing routes, orient toward creating maximum feasible distance from Yemeni waters.”
Two days later, the Israeli military has said that Yemen’s Houthis had actually seized a cargo ship in the southern Red Sea as it was sailing from Turkiye to India; although the military added that the vessel was not Israeli-owned and had no Israelis among its crew, ownership details in public shipping databases associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.
It doesn’t need much ingenuity to figure out that the US, which is already smarting under the humiliation of the Houthis shooting down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over international waters recently, is moving against the Houthis. This needs some explaining.
The point is, IMSC is a US-led “coalition of the willing” outside the purview of the mission of the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations specialised agency “to promote safe, secure, environmentally sound, efficient and sustainable shipping through cooperation.”
It was established in 2019 against the backdrop of the war in Yemen and comprises, amongst others, the UAE and Saudi Arabia from the Gulf region. Its leitmotif was to counter the Iran-Houthi axis during the Saudi-Emirati intervention in Yemen — essentially, as part of the US’ containment strategy against Iran dominating the regional politics at that time.
Significantly, if the Biden Administration plans to hit the Houthis and makes it look as a retaliatory / punitive strike and to that end, it is invoking the IMSC platform, which belongs to a bygone era before the Saudi-Iran rapprochement brokered by China, that becomes a brilliant geopolitical ploy where the US hopes to achieve multiple objectives kill many birds with a single arrow.
These objectives range from bringing down Iran by a notch or two in the regional folklore of power dynamic; driving a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Iran at a juncture when the amity between the two traditional rivals is frustrating the US plans to “integrate” Israel; res-establishing the shock and awe of US power in the Middle East (and globally); keeping the Red Sea shipping lines open for Israeli vessels; and, in strategic terms, dominating the waterways of the Red Sea leading to the Suez Canal.
By the way, Red Sea is lately witnessing big power contestation — China has a naval base in Djibouti and Russia hopes to establish a submarine base in Sudan; Eritrea is a virulently anti-US littoral state on Red Sea; and, US is desperately trying for a regime change in Ethiopia, the largest country in the African continent, which is on very friendly terms with Russia.
A quagmire for the US?
Even more curious is the timing of the US aircraft carrier group in the Persian Gulf region. The Chinese foreign ministry announced on Sunday that a delegation consisting of Arab and Islamic foreign ministers will visit China from November 20 to 21 to hold “in-depth communication and coordination” with Beijing “on ways to deescalate the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, protect civilians and seek a just settlement of the Palestinian question.” The delegation comprises Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki and Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Hussein Brahim Taha.
The above development is a Saudi initiative. There is no question that the collective outreach by the Muslim countries to China as their principal interlocutor at the present stage of the Palestine-Israel conflict is a diplomatic rebuff to the US. Succinctly put, the Arab unity is also becoming a thorn in the flesh for President Biden at a time when the US finds it increasingly difficult to block the Chinese-Arab push for a ceasefire in Gaza and counter the international condemnation of Israel’s horrific violence against the Palestinian people, especially in the Global South.
By attacking the Houthis of Yemen, the Biden administration’s game plan is to undermine the Saudi-Iran rapprochement by playing on the Saudi antipathy toward the Houthis on the one hand and taunting Tehran on the other hand. Basically, the US hopes to pay Iran back in the same coin.
As an opinion piece in the Hill put it, “It is time Biden and his principal advisers on his national security team… must assume an active defence by striking Iranian proxies hard and unapologetically, when they present a threat, not after they have already attacked. And probable cause must be good enough for protecting our service members manning remote bases in Iraq and Syria… bloody nose is the only response Iran understands, and precisely the response the US must deliver.” (here)
The Biden Administration must be sensing already that the Israeli operations against Hamas are not getting anywhere and may turn into a long day’s journey into night, thanks to the Zionist state’s stubborn refusal to confront its guilt and shame or accept a two-state solution to the Palestine issue. The American public opinion is becoming sceptical about Biden’s handling for the situation and the US’ allies feel troubled. Indeed, Israel itself is a deeply divided house.
Meanwhile, the US’ diplomatic isolation in the Middle East is touching an unprecedented level today. The big question is whether through coercion — “smart power” — it is possible to retrieve lost ground where the crux of the matter is that the US is not trusted anymore in the Middle East. Moreover, Iran holds the patent for “smart power,” which it has finessed as a diplomatic tool through the past four decades successfully to ward off existential challenges from the US.
The US risks getting entangled with the resistance groups, which have nothing to lose and everything to gain by creating a quagmire for Washington. The heart of the matter is that the resistance groups are operating in their native lands and enjoy vast networks of social support. This, therefore, becomes an unequal battle, in the final analysis. Whether it is worth taking the risk — all for the sake of boosting the sagging Israeli morale — should be a soul-searching question for the Biden Administration before embarking on yet another forever war in the Middle East.
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We declared war on Iran the day the CIA helped overthrow the democratically-elected government of Mossadeh in 1953 and installed our brutal, murderous puppet, the Shah. Then we continued the war on the Iranian populace by funding and training his Savak secret police who murdered and tortured the “enemies of the state” for nearly 25 years. But most folks want to believe that our history with Iran began the day of the revolution and the hostages were taken from the US embassy in Tehran. The Iranians know better, even if US citizens are kept ignorant.
I’d replace the term ‘We’ with ‘The Creeps’.
Sorry…habit.
Thank you. Beat me to it. Imagine if Iran had finished becoming a liberal, Western-flavored democratic republic all this time? The CIA must be splintered, as JFK wished. No entangling alliances.
“splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” -JFK
It was right about then that the CIA was on the phone to E. Howard Hunt and his pals
Kennedy was not killed.
Ridiculous.
You are right, Lib, about Mossadegh being replaced by “our” puppet, the Shah; but carry the thought through: who is “our” here?
It was the CIA and MI6 who fomented the 1953 revolution, since they stood to lose control of the Iranian oilfields that had been under their control since 1921 (when they installed the first Shah). Mossadegh was going to nationalize Iran’s oil under their control; Iran was only getting 16% of the profits under a deal made with the Brits in 1901, which was for 60 years.
Iran never had a chance; five American oil companies, plus Royal Dutch Shell and the French, backed the coup, as they bought out Iran’s military, and hacked up the fields as quickly as they could after the revolution. This is what happens to countries who defy Big Oil.
Over in the thick of it.
Pretty much every player over there is now vulnerable to the uSA sinking it’s own ships and blaming it on them.. …
Which is why the ships were sent, so as to be vulnerable to the age old False Flag attack.
It was why they moved the Pac fleet to Hawaii.
With the added benefit of being able to stage a foreign atack against the USA on foreign soil. [Hawaii 1941, was not the USA]
This is how the US starts wars.
It places assets in a non usa country.
Attacks and destroys some of the assets.
Jumps straight to The USA was attacked for no reason.. and then proceeds to obliterate the innocent.
Remember The Maine – Sink The Lusitania – Pearl Harbor – Gulf Of Tonkin – 9 / 11
IRAN did it !!! …….. in 3 …… 2 …… 1
Historians say Japan attacked the United States.
They did not.
They attacked the us navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, A foreign country at the time.
And a long time after the US government attacked them on behalf of the Chinese.
Flying Tiger war crimes!
Pending global threats from the Israel-Hamas war that are not being aired in Western media just yet
During my interview yesterday morning with WION, India’s premier English-language global news service, I was given the opportunity to expand upon the latest development in the southern sector of the Red Sea, namely the seizure by a Houthi (Yemen) attack force of a merchant vessel partly owned by Israelis. As I commented, Russian news tells us that the capabilities of Yemen to create havoc with global shipping through the Suez Canal and Red Sea are vastly underappreciated and underreported at present. Despite its figuring in world news these past several years for a murderous civil war fed by the Saudis, and besides its being considered the poorest nation among the Arab countries of the Middle East, Yemen has a 30 million population and, according to Russia, a very strong arsenal of ship-sinking missiles with 2,000 km range that they themselves manufacture. If there is no other lever to stop the Israeli rampage, it is certainly credible that the Yemenis will attack global shipping routes…
Now Yemen enters the fray with a capability of disrupting global logistics.
Twenty years ago when Bush, Jr unleashed his War on Terror, all the talk of global security experts was about the threat to the status quo posed by “non-state actors” operating with paltry funds. Now the art of war has progressed to the point where state actors can stand up to the mightiest high budget state armies like Israel and its 20 billion dollar war budget. The Netanyahu cabinet seems not to have taken in the significance of this change, whereas the Kremlin absorbed the lesson quickly during its war with Ukraine and is now very proficient at pursuing its objectives on the battlefield in the age of kamikaze and attack drones.
The only reason to send those ships there is for them to be sunk.
US to use the deliberate sacrifice of the Strike Carrier groups as the spark to justify WW3.. .. ..more importantly, to justify rationing and martial law.
1941 US Moves Pacific Fleet To Hawaii.
2023 US Move Carrier Group to Persian Gulf of Tonkin.
The ” Big Lie ” being repeated until believed as true and this below statement still in constant use.
“Naturally the common people don’t want war…but after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship…all you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” | Herman Goering, (One of Hitler’s top men. Quote during the Nuremberg Trials)
This video dates from before the alleged Saudi-Iran rapprochement. Said rapprochement appears to be an increasing possibility, although watching this, hearing the crowd, reading the subtitles and observing the chanter’s eyes and facial expressions can only make one wonder. These are the people the neo-cons wish to take on next.
I lived in the Middle-east in the 70s and when people had a big wedding, circumcision or other party, their big rhythmic drums and flutes etc would wondrously pulsate all night. If they got rid of the Satanic Verses of the Koran, their Culture would be a beautiful asset. Make no mistake, we are in their face supporting their cruel bloody enemy and those are passionate War Drums. They are going to do to Israel what Israel did to Gaza.
I lived in North Africa in the early ’80s, loved it and found the people very hospitable and friendly, enjoyed the weddings and as an amateur drummer, well… In over three years, no one said anything about Islam to me unless asked to do so. Out of respect and affection for friends I still have, I say nothing about it either.
The last thing either the US or Israel want is war with Iran. Iran has enough non nuclear missile firepower to turn all of Israel into a lifeless pile of rubble. They also have the firepower to put a US aircraft carrier task group on the bottom of the sea.
Israel has the ability to nuke Iran, and the rest of the Middle East along with Europe which it has threatened to do. Bottom line is no one wants that to happen. The militias are kicking the shit out of US bases in Syria and Iraq, and the US is going to try to hit them back, but they are in a poor situation, and if this thing does not wind down, the US is going to lose a lot of troops in Iraq and Syria, and they will be forced to run away the same way they were forced to run in Lebanon.
Now there is a school of thought that the US would start a war with Iran just to get rid of Israel, and have one less problem, but that is unlikely….
No way would the aircraft manufacturers [who all have very lucrative military contracts] build a backdoor access into their airplane flight control computers [and anywhere in the air traffic control system network] so as to be able to stage this and any other attacks on demand, whenever a diversion story is needed.
Hmm right before thanksgiving a story to terrify the tourists.
Where are the China carrier groups?
Where are the Russian carrier groups?
Where are their submarines?
Is it possible the west is far enough away from home for home to be sacked?
Not to rain on everyone’s “Piss on the US Gov. Foreign Policy & International Grifting”, of which I too am a HUGE fan, But…..
Please let us not forget: We, the Collective “Western Civilization” have been, and still ARE, at War with Islam. It was not the West who declared war on Islam, it was quite the other way around. MOST of the Middle East were, by the time of Muhammad, (may the Fleas of a Thousand Camels Infest His Balls and Eat), “Christian” lands. They didn’t become Islamized by persuasive intellectual reasoning. It was by the edge of the Sword.
If it wasn’t for Charles “The Hammer” Martel at Tours in 732, and later, John III Sobieski at Vienna in 1683, the entire Western World probably would have suffered the same fate as Constantinople in 1453.
The Far East fared little better. Just do a little reading about the Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent that took place between the 13th and the 18th centuries. Pretty brutal, and the enmity between Pakistan and India today are a direct consequence of it.
While the defeat of .Gov and the Great Reset Crowd is of critical importance, I personally couldn’t care LESS about how many Mohammadans die at the end of our “lance”.
Political Islam’s overarching and blatantly stated goal, is worldwide domination of Islam over the planet.
Very pragmatic position you’ve staked out there.
Kudos for having a brain! Many here do not.
Now repeat the same thought exercise for ‘Modernity’ versus Christianity.
You must be the big fat yellow peanut M. Ain’t he the stupid one?
Hey dumbass…. Who is in who’s yard? The last thing we need here is another idiot spreading lies. Go the fuck away.
That brings back memories of the Iran hostage crisis. Been through the Suez Canal on an aircraft carrier myself.
The writer makes some very good points. The US is like a man who only has a hammer so he treats every situation as if it’s a nail. War/violence (soft or hard power, economic sanctions is a form of warfare) is the hammer the West uses the most. A US showdown with Iran is what Israel would love to see; if you recall the early rhetoric coming from Israel immediately following the Hamas “surprise attack”, they kept bringing up Iran as the sponsor of terrorism (a clear psychological projection of the Anglo-American-Zionist axis of insanity’s motives and intention onto Iran).
The US knows Iran has supported Russia’s SMO in Ukraine so they want get back for that and US bases in Iraq and Syria are being attacked by supporters of Palestine so things are heating up quite nicely for the MIC, warmongers and imperialists.