ONCE MORE: THE IRANIAN ULTIMATUM.

fifth rough draft

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CAUTION (Update):

The Iranians have just said that the harmful idiots had "manufactured" the encounter/clash in the Strait of Hormuz. How's one to deal with this denial? On the one hand, it's clear that the Iranians had issued an ultimatum. On the other, the harmful idiots have had a decent track record of trying to entrap the Iranians. (The old "let's lure Saddam Hussein into Kuwait" scheme.) So, frankly, I'm at a loss on who to believe.

(Note: On or about May 1, 2007, less than two weeks before a planned visit by the Iranian President to the UAE, that country's navy detained 12 Iranian divers in contested waters. The harmful idiots, through their "assets" within the UAE military, seemed to have been playing for an Iranian reaction that would jeopardize the planned visit and convince the Gulf Arabs that they needed US protection. There were quite a few other entrapment schemes of the kind, meant to engineer an Arab backlash against Iran and perhaps a like backlash in the US Congress.)

Why would the Iranians dare the US Navy in a place where the US military is far superior? Are the Iranians entrapping the US military instead of the other way around, as a way of firing up their domestic front? In meeting their ultimatum the Iranians could more productively (excuse the word) respond in Plantation Iraq or Plantation Lebanon -- or even in Plantation Afghanistan.

I disagree with a number of Arab observers that the US is getting ready for war with Iran. The Saudi foreign Minister is correct: the region's stability is too crucial to the health of the world economy. And even idiots who are harmful by now understand that. Unless, that is, the harmful idiots are using the Strait of Hormuz incident as a bluff (no more) to once again pressure the Iranians to cooperate in Plantation Iraq.

The entire thing is a no-win situation for the US which, by occupying Iraq, has lost all flexibility militarily and politically. The Iranians know that.
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In the last few posts this newsletter built on an Iranian ultimatum to the harmful idiots issued via the Lebanese As-Safir.

I wasn’t clear about whether the Iranians had meant as deadline the New Year according to the Gregorian or the Islamic calendar. That New Year date would've been the deadline by which they would act out if the harmful idiots hadn't made relevant concessions.

The recent encounter between Iranian small boats and US Navy ships should be seen from that perspectiv -- the perspective of the ultimatum.

I looked it up: 8/9 January is the first day of the Islamic New Year. (So it was the Islamic New Year.)

The harmful idiots likely have not made the needed concessions. A President wants to leave office having “succeeded” in Iraq. Never mind

(1)all the begging he's done(e.g., to Russia, Turkey, and likely to Israel) which if anything has further devalued American prestige, now non-existent;

(2) all the silly ruses against the Iranians which spoke of helplessness, an established fact in Iraq -- appearances and spin to the contrary; and

(3) all the colonial schemes on the ground ("counter-insurgency") which in the end likely will set up Iraq for the most vicious civil wars ever in that country's history.

Will the Islamic Republic be that kind?