"Cleaning Up The Parking Lot"

 

This is a good analogy, and yes I shamelessly cribbed it off farcebook.  Yes I do fall into the first group, I will return the shopping cart plus any other on the way to the shopping cart corral.  The shopping cart corralling is a good analogy for the decay of society, way back in the day, people took civic pride in doing the little things that made the greater society function.  Now it is all about "me-me-me".  Iran is a symptom, nobody wanted to deal with the messy situation, and kept pushing it down the road, and hoped the problem would go away, well President Trump doesn't care, he knows this is his second term, and besides he is a fixer, not a kick the can down the road person, so the can is getting handled.

  Samelessly clipped from Michael Smith.

I’ve posted before about the “shopping cart test.” You know the one. It asks whether we are the kind of people who return the cart to the cart corral in the parking lot, or whether we simply set it free to roam the vast asphalt plains as nature intended.

We have one of those Walmart Express stores about three miles from our house. I had to run down there yesterday and either the cart wranglers had just donned their silver spurs, mounted their electric steeds, and rounded up the herd for delivery to the railhead in Abilene, or the shoppers were all passing the test, because there were no carts milling about unsupervised anywhere.

I also post a lot about history—not because I claim to know everything about it, but because historical patterns reveal something important about human behavior. Humans tend to believe their age is unique, that the problems of their time are unprecedented, and that human nature itself has evolved—but it really hasn’t. The basic impulses that drive human conduct—ambition, fear, pride, self-interest, responsibility—are remarkably constant across centuries. What changes are the tools. Each generation simply invents new and more dangerous toys while repeating the same old mistakes. I just posted about the connection between Botticelli’s final painting, completed more than five hundred years ago, and the strange moment we are living through in America today.

As I was driving home from what we call “Baby Walmart,” I was catching up on some podcasts and thinking about President Trump’s posture toward Iran. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that the shopping cart test provides a useful analog for how nations approach persistent global problems. For those in Rio Linda, that means I’m about to use examples to explain a larger point—that’s what an analogy is.

Imagine the world as a parking lot. In that global parking lot there appear to be four general schools of thought when it comes to the carts.

The first group believes the carts should be returned to the cart corrals by the people who used them. It is the simplest model of responsibility: if you took it out, you put it back. Order exists because individuals accept small obligations that keep the broader system functioning.

The second group believes the carts are entirely the responsibility of the store employees. After all, someone is paid to deal with it, so why bother? Just unload the groceries, leave the cart wherever it stops rolling, and drive away. From this perspective, maintaining order is always someone else’s job.

The third group sits somewhere between the first two. They intellectually agree that the carts should be organized and returned, but they quietly assume someone else will probably handle it. They support the idea of responsibility in the abstract, just not necessarily the practice of it.

Then there is the fourth group. These are the people who don’t really think about the carts at all. They leave the trolley wherever it happens to land—sometimes squarely in the middle of a parking space—and go on about their day without giving the matter another thought.

When it comes to Iran, much of the world seems to fall into the latter three groups.

Many believe the United Nations should be dealing with the issue, because international institutions were supposedly created to manage such problems. Others assume it is not really their concern as long as they keep enough distance from the situation. And still others simply avoid thinking about it altogether.

In truth, nearly every American president since Jimmy Carter has treated Iran like the far corner of the parking lot where abandoned carts accumulate. Since 1979, leaders of both parties have tried variations of the same approaches. Some argued it was not truly America’s problem. Some handed off the issue to international bodies in the hope that diplomacy would gradually bring the carts back into order. Others simply tried to stay far enough away that the mess would not affect them directly. None of those approaches solved the problem, at best they managed it temporarily. They nudged a few carts out of the way and bought some time. Yet the underlying disorder remained, and over time the number of loose carts in that corner of the lot simply continued to grow.

Eventually a parking lot full of stray carts produces predictable consequences. Cars get dented by runaway trolleys. Parking spaces disappear beneath clusters of metal. Customers start walking halfway across the lot just to find a cart to use. Even if you personally return your cart every time, if enough people do not, the disorder eventually affects everyone. The probability that your brand-new 2026 GMC Sierra 1500 AT4X gets a nice little ding on the door steadily increases. That is how neglected problems work. They rarely stay politely confined to the corner where we left them.

At some point only one thing restores order: someone deciding the problem has gone on long enough. Someone walks out into the lot, looks around at the mess, gathers a team, and begins pushing carts. The broken ones go to the scrap pile. The usable ones go back to the store. Order is restored not through discussion alone, but through the decision to act.

That, for better or worse, is the role Trump appears to be assuming. After more than four decades of presidents from both parties leaving the carts scattered across the Iran section of the parking lot, he has essentially looked at the situation and said the mess is no longer sustainable.

He has told Pete Hegseth to get a crew together and start cleaning up the lot. The rusty fifty-year-old carts that cannot be fixed go into the scrap bin. The serviceable carts get pushed back where they belong.

Reasonable people can debate whether that approach will succeed. Foreign policy is rarely simple, and history has a habit of surprising those who think they have solved it.

One thing is clear: leaving the carts scattered across the parking lot forever was never a solution. Eventually a functioning system requires someone willing to walk into the mess, grab the handle, and start pushing things back into order—because if nobody does, the parking lot eventually belongs to chaos.

Monday Music "ThunderStruck" by AC/DC

 

I know that I did this song recently,  I was running with a bunch of songs from the 70's, I was planning on putting another "Kenny Rogers and the 1st Edition" today but events pushed this back.  This song also is dedicated to the Mullahs of Iran, we are putting paid to an account that is 47 years past due,  and about time.  I will do my rant er an opinion probably tomorrow.

I know that this song is er, ah well, hmm mumble 36 years old, but to me it is young because loud rock crunching songs are a throwback to the songs of the 1970's when stadium rock ruled.  

    I decided to go with AC/DC "thunderstruck"   This song hit in 1990 while I was in Germany and it was very popular, this was one song that every would play LOUD.  Something about good crunching Heavy Metal Rock and Roll.    When we were in the Gulf, we had dedicated this song to Saddam Hussain and his Republican Guard as they were "Thunderstruck" by the United States Military.

"Thunderstruck" is the first song on the 1990 album The Razors Edge by the hard rock group AC/DC.
The song was released as a single in Germany, Australia, and Japan, and peaked at No. 5 on U.S. the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. In 2010, "Thunderstruck" topped Triple M's Ultimate 500 Rock Countdown in Melbourne, Australia. The top five were all AC/DC songs.
With the exception of new material from an album they are touring behind, this is one of only two songs released after Back in Black that the band still regularly performs live in concert, the other being "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)".

Angus Young stated in the liner notes of the 2003 re-release of The Razors Edge:

It started off from a little trick I had on guitar. I played it to Mal and he said 'Oh, I've got a good rhythm idea that will sit well in the back.' We built the song up from that. We fiddled about with it for a few months before everything fell into place. Lyrically, it was really just a case of finding a good title ... We came up with this thunder thing, based on our favorite childhood toy ThunderStreak, and it seemed to have a good ring to it. AC/DC = Power. That's the basic idea.

The song has sold over a million digital copies since it became available for digital download.

The video which accompanied the single was filmed at London's Brixton Academy on 17 August 1990. The audience members were given free T-shirts with the words "AC/DC – I was Thunderstruck" on the front and the date on the back, and these T-shirts were worn by the entire audience throughout the filming of the video.being "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)".

Aeroflot Sents an A330 to Iran for Heavy Maintenance Check.

 I wondered how the Russians were going to get around the sanctions imposed after the invasion and knowing the French, I am not surprised that they probably have a cosy relationship with Iran, it is something that they would do.  Call me a cynic, I do know that the Iranians do have a good aviation program so it would stand to reason that they would be able to help the Russians out especially since we are the "Great Satan" and are supplying the Ukrainians heavily.

Russia’s largest airline Aeroflot has sent one of its Airbus A330-300 widebody airliners to Iran for technical maintenance for the first time. 

According to Flightradar24 tracking service, the aircraft with registration number RA-73700 made a technical flight to Tehran on April 5. 

Russia’s RBC online media reported that the aircraft would be served by the maintenance division of Iranian carrier Mahan Air at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran. Aeroflot confirmed in a statement to the media that the provider would conduct a wide range of maintenance on its A330. “The organization has the necessary capacity, certificates and huge experience. The provider performs high-quality maintenance,” the carrier said.

The Iranian provider Mahan Air Engineering and Maintenance says it offers a wide range of component support services for Airbus A340/310/300/A320s as well as for BAe 146s, Boeing 747-300/400s, and Fokker 50 aircraft. 

This is likely the first known experience of a Russian airline servicing a Western-made aircraft in Iran. Aeroflot has previously sent its A330s for maintenance to Hong Kong-based HAECO, owned by the UK-headquartered Swire Group. However, Russian carriers were banned from access to the Western maintenance services and spare parts a year ago in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Aeroflot has its own MRO subsidiary—Aeroflot Technics—which was certified by the Russian authorities to maintain foreign-made airliners. It has already replaced nose and main gears on three A330s from the airline’s fleet this year. But it does not have capacity for a full range of services.

Aeroflot now possessess 12 A330-330s, which were leased in 2008-2012. The carrier bought eight of them back from the Irish lessors in May 2022. RA-73700 was not among them. The aircraft now has a dual registration as it still carries Bermuda registry number VQ-BNS which prevents it from flying outside Russia. 

But Iran evidently turns a blind eye on the dual registration issues as the country has lived under international sanctions, including those which affect commercial aviation, for decades. Moscow has expanded its relations with Tehran in many spheres since the start of the Russian-Ukraine war because it hasn’t joined the Western sanctions. The Iranian Mehr News Agency cited a spokesman of the country’s aviation authorities in June 2022 saying that the partners were in talks about the possibility to export parts and equipment manufactured in Iran to Russia and carry out repair and maintenance services of Russian aircraft by Iran’s repair centers.

Aeroflot operates 179 aircraft which also includes 22 Boeing 777s, 37 Boeing 737s, seven A350s, 100 A320/321ceos and neos and a single Russian-made Superjet 100.

Eight of Aeroflot’s A330s are currently in service, according to Aviation Week Network’s Fleet Discovery. An additional A330 is listed as parked, and two other A330s are stored. RA-73700 is listed as parked/reserve; the aircraft is 11.53 years old.

 

The Blue Falcon Award for Endangering Operators and Allies.

    Personal note, My eye is much better, I can use it to focus and it don't hurt anymore.  I am still using the "drops" and will until they are "gone".  

Holy Shit!, I read the  Yahoo article associated with this posting and all I can say is "Oh Crap".  The information given in this article is too specific and too detailed.  Somebody released information on intelligence sources and details on an open media that involves a hostile power.  If this was "official Sanctions" then this is really screwed up, if the Xiden administration is releasing information and intelligence to suck up to the Iranians like the Obama administration did and after Bin Laden was killed, a lot of information about "Seal Team Six" was all of a sudden available and somehow a regular "Shithook" was Shot Down by the Taliban and a lot of people, me included honestly believe that information was traded to the Taliban for the lives of Seal Team Six as payback and apology for the killing of Bin Laden.   First question I had was "Why were they using a regular '47 instead of the specialized version that they normally use for their insertions that has all the extra stuff they hang on their version to make it much harder to shoot down."   The Obama Whitehouse was known for being anti military and very soft toward the Taliban and other groups that hated America like the Iranians and Palestinians, it wouldn't put it past the Politicians to trade American Soldiers lives for their own goals because they view us as "expendable" anyway.   

I pulled it from "SSG" again, the next generation Think Tank.

A recent article on the killing of Qassem Soleimani had far too much detail to be safe. Someone gave access to a guy they thought had the credibility to put this out without burning them. Now both US units and certainly our Kurdish allies will suffer. The mention of Kurdish units being involved in the mission itself will  quite likely result in reprisals from Iran against Kurds either in Iran or elsewhere. Even if the regime knew about Kurdish involvement having their noses rubbed in it publicly will push them to retaliate.

The author Jack Murphy was a Ranger who now fancies himself a journalist and seems seems to have forgotten what keeps our troops and allies safe. Apparently he feels that outing operationally significant information about a highly-classified mission is good. Mainly because it gets you head pats from the people on the Left who like to pretend spilling classified information is the same as “transparency”. It is most assuredly not

It is unsurprising this came out during a Leftist administration in the same way details of the bin Laden raid did during Obama’s term. Dems don’t value the military and only use it for their own purposes. Biden and the terror-coddling members of his foreign policy and national security team did not approve of the Soleimani op and now they are kissing up to the Iranian regime again.

This whole thing smacks of an information op by the Biden team to hurt allies who helped Trump and show the Iranians they are going to play ball. That probably means they are loading pallets of $$$ on planes to ship to the Mullahs as we speak. Shameful all the way around.

For the uninitiated, Blue Falcon is a euphemism for Buddy F**ker which is someone who screws over comrades in arms for his own benefit.

Operation "Eagle Claw"

I was in High school in Alabama when the Hostages were seized in 1979 and how impotent the United States appeared to be.  We as a nation was humiliated by the seizure of the Embassy  against all international Law.  We were further humiliated when "Desert One" happened, it showed how poor shape the United States Armed forces were in after Vietnam and the resulting "Hollow Army" as it was called.  I remembered the shame we felt as a nation when the hostage rescue failed from a myriad of reasons and plain bad luck, Murphy ran amuck with the planning and execution of the mission.  I remembered President Jimmy Carter on national TV apologizing for the failure of the mission. 

I had a lot of bad things to say about President Jimmy Carter, but he took full responsibility for the debacle which shows good character.  After this Jimmy Carter asked congress to massively increase the Military budget.  After the 1980 elections when President Ronald Reagan pushed for even a bigger increase in the budget because of the poor state of the U.S Armed Forces.  Back in 1980 I as a kid supported Jimmy Carter because he was from my State of Georgia.  Jimmy Carter was a good man but a poor president and his economic policies were a disaster. 

The April 24^th Op is a major event in the history of the United States’ Special Forces operations not just because it was among the first missions of the Delta Force, but because its widespread failure would be a moment of profound humiliation for the United States.
Following the Iranian revolution, which saw the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and an end to his 22 years of autocratic leadership over Iran, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, on the 4^th day of November 1979, ensued.
A group of militant students who supported the Iranian revolution had stormed the US embassy in Tehran, capturing the building and taking 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days, in what would become the longest hostage crisis in history, and widely described by western media as an entanglement of vengeance and mutual incomprehension.

Iran hostage crisis – Iraninan students comes up U.S. embassy in Tehran.1979

In the state-sanctioned act, the Iranian assailants demanded the return of Shah Reza, who had been taken to America for cancer treatment. Reza had been accused of committing crimes against the people and was summoned by Iran’s new leader, Ruholla Khomeini, to stand trial.

Two American Hostages During the Crisis.

The hostage incident was initiated by Iran to spite America for her alleged complicity in Reza’s atrocities. Jimmy Carter was less than pleased by the event, and would succinctly declare that America would never yield to blackmail. The hostage-taking, to America, was an egregious violation of international law.

Ayatollah Khomeini in front of his house at Neauphle-le-Chateau in a media conference.Photo: Sa.vakilian CC BY-SA 3.0

After 6 months of failed attempts at diplomatic negotiations, the United States, on April 16^th, 1980, under President Jimmy Carter, approved a military action. The president, having broken diplomatic associations with Iran, ordered the Pentagon to draw up a plan in a bid to storm Iranian soil in a covert rescue mission codenamed Operation Eagle’s Claw.

The Shah of Iran in the 1970's

The US military spent about 5 months in planning the op. The aircrew trained in Florida and Andersen Airfield in Guam. Based on the plan, 3 USAF MC-130 aircraft would fly an assault group of about 118 Delta Force soldiers from Masirah Island to a remote spot located 200 miles southeast of Tehran; this location was codenamed Desert One. The MC-130s were accompanied by 3 EC-130s which served as fuel transport.
Under the cover of night, 8 US Navy RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters, would fly from the USS Nimitz, which was sailing in the Arabian Sea, to rendezvous with the assault team where they would all fly to Desert Two, another location 65 miles from the target zone, Tehran.

RH-53Ds of HM-16 on the USS Nimitz before repainting.

Once the force was in place it would be show time; the team would be flown the rest of the way into Tehran where they would break into the embassy, neutralize the security, and rescue the hostages. All through the raid, an E-3 AWAC would keep a lookout on Iranian airspace, while establishing command and control communications between Washington, the Carrier Force, and the mission commander.

US Army Rangers 75th Regiment.

They would then fly to Manzarinyeh Air Base, which by that time would have been secured by US Army Rangers. At Manzarinyeh, USAF C-141 Starlifters would fly the hostages and assault team out of Iran, while the Rangers would stay behind to destroy all used equipment including the helicopters before flying out themselves.

A U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell F-4N Phantom II aircraft (BuNo 150480) of Marine fighter-attack squadron VMFA-323 Death Rattlers on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CV-43) in April 1980. Sailors are applying black-red-black identification stripes for the (later aborted) attempt to rescue U.S. hostages from Iran, code named “Operation Eagle Claw” (or “Evening Light”).

This was an extremely complex plan that required a lot of synergy among all the units involved because Tehran was a city well inside Iran’s airspace and far away from any friendly territory. Furthermore, it was hard to get good intelligence about the forces inside the embassy. As a matter of fact, there was no room for any deviation from the stipulated plan as even the slightest mistake was bound to jeopardize the mission.

The first part of the mission went according to plan, with the arrival of the first MC-130 aircraft carrying Combat Control Team (CCT), mission equipment and fuel on board to Desert one. The team’s task at this point was to establish the airstrips and marshal the other aircraft when they arrived. But this was the only successful part of the mission because following the arrival of the other MC-130 aircraft, everything began to fall apart.

A photo of the “Desert One” landing site, a piece of desert in Iran used by U.S. forces as a refueling point in an attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. On 24 April 1980 a U.S. Navy Sikorsky RH-53D Sea Stallion (BuNo 158760, visible at right) collided with a U.S. Air Force Lockheed EC-130E Hercules (s/n 62-1809, wrecked in the foreground) during refueling after the mission was aborted. Both aircraft were destroyed, eight crewmen died. In the background is one of the five intact, but abandoned RH-53Ds. Original caption: “Wreckage at Desert One, Iran (April 1980) where eight Americans died.”

First, a passenger bus was spotted on a highway crossing the landing zone, and because this was supposed to be a covert op, the CCT was forced to stop and detain the passengers of the bus. A tanker truck was also found speeding close to Desert One.  The truck, apparently smuggling fuel, was blown up after refusing to stop, causing the death of the passenger.
The rest of the C-130 aircraft arrived and waited for the helicopters. The RH-53 helicopters took off from Nimitz but along the way, one helicopter—Bluebeard 6—was grounded and abandoned. The crew reported a damaged rotor blade as the cause of the malfunction. The remaining helicopters ran into a severe sandstorm known as Haboob. This would scatter the flight formation, with Bluebeard 5 also abandoning the mission.
The scattered helicopters would arrive at Desert One individually, running 50-90 minutes behind schedule. Bluebeard 2 arrived last but had indications of a broken hydraulic system which consequently made it unfit for the mission. With just five helicopters left and even more losses anticipated, the on-scene commander, Col. James H. Kyle, requested a mission abort.

Three RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters are lined up on the flight deck of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS NIMITZ (CVN-68) in preparation for Operation Evening Light, a rescue mission to Iran.

The new focus was now on getting the assault team back on the MC-130s while the Bluebeards refueled on the Nimitz. During this procedure, tragedy struck.

US burned helicopter in Operation Eagle Claw

Bluebeard 3 was blasted by a desert storm, putting the pilot in a frenzied bid to maneuver his helicopter to stability. In the process, the helicopter’s main rotor blade collided with the wing-root of an EC-130 which was loaded with fuel. Both aircraft exploded, and in the ensuing inferno, 8 servicemen lost their lives – 3 US marines and 5 USAF aircrew.
The USAF pilot and co-pilot survived with severe burns. In the desperate evacuation of the rest of the team, classified files associated with the mission were burned, but the helicopters were abandoned in the desert. With that, Operation Eagle’s Claw, the nadir of the whole hostage rescue affair, came to an end.

Sand Storm of Tabas was cause of Operation Eagle Claw fail. This photo show the remaining aircraft burned.Photo: Tasnim News Agency CC BY 4.0

The failed rescue op resulted in some rather undesirable consequences. Firstly, the hostages were scattered across Iran, to make another rescue mission impossible. Also, the US government received heavy criticism from governments around the world for making such blunders in a very critical situation. As a matter of fact, experts believe that Jimmy Carter’s failure with Operation Eagle Claw was a major reason he lost the presidential election the following year.
Additionally, the failure brought attention to deficiencies in the US special operations system. The Joint Chiefs of Staff led an investigation which birthed the Holloway Report. The report cited failings in mission planning, command and control, and inter-service operability.

CH-53Ds Landing.

It revealed that training was usually conducted in a compartmentalized manner, taking place in scattered locations. Also, there was poor selection and training of aircrew, and it was said that not enough helicopters were put into the mission to counter any unforeseen issues or problems that jeopardized the mission. The hopscotch method of ground refueling which was chosen over air refueling was also criticized.
In reaction to these findings, the US military established United Special Operations Command, and the Air Force Special Operations Command. The lessons learned prompted the creation of the Night Stalkers (the 160^th Special Operations Aviation Regiment) for the training of Army pilots in low-level night flying and aerial refueling.

Operation Eagle Claw Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery

A second rescue operation was planned, but it was never implemented. However, on 20^th January 1981, just after Carter’s tenure, all 52 hostages were allowed to go back home.
To America, Operation Eagle Claw was a profound humiliation which exposed their flaws and vulnerabilities. But to Khomeini and his people, it was a plan foiled by divine intervention.
Operation Eagle Claw was the mission that marked the beginning of a change in America’s Special Operations.

The seizures of the American Sailors by Iran...

This is a quick rant....well kinda a quick rant by me.  I will add a post by Matt Bracken to bolster what I am saying.  Once I heard of this I immediately knew this was an attempt for Iran to humiliate the United States, especially before the State of the Union address.  Once I heard that we had "lost contact" with BOTH boats...this stank of 6 day old fish...They got jumped and communications jammed in the middle of the ocean.  No way both boats would have a "mechanical" breakdown the odds of this happening at the same time is the same as me winning the powerball.

  I believe that the Iranians orchestrated this and President Obama and John Kerry  so wanting a legacy involving the Iranians totally surrendered to the Iranians....Makes great propaganda for the locals.  Iran wants us out of the Persian Gulf.  Remember the undeclared war we fought in the late 80's with them, The Iranians would mine the shipping lanes and shoot silkworm missiles at Oil Tankers.  We in retaliation shot up several of their oil platforms and captured an Iranian dhow full of mines.  We have traversed that area for many years and I am sure that the Iranians knew our shipping schedules.  I am just an Army guy, but this seizures of American sailors is designed to make us look weak and ineffective and with the current denizen on the white house, they are succeeding.

I am cutting and pasting this article from Matt Bracken.

Matt Bracken in the 80's

I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat's icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats "strayed into Iranian waters" is complete bull$#it.

For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation's claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that's why two boats go on these trips and not one! It's called "self-rescue" and it's SOP.

This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face.

Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.

The "strayed into Iranian waters" story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other.

Iran sends forces to aid Syria

It looks like Iran is trying to become a major player in the region, with Iraq neutralized by infighting Iran is capitalizing on its relation with Syria.  The same Iran that sent revolutionary guards to kill American G.I in Iraq is sending troops to prop up the Syrian president in the fighting that is going on in his country.  This will basically tie Syria closer to Iran especially if Israel have to bomb the Iranian nuclear ambitions, this almost would force Syria to attack Israel to support its treaty obligations along with Syria wanting the Golan Heights back.  With Egypt on the cusp of electing a muslim brotherhood as its president this will force a two front war with Israel and the tepid relations between Israel and its most important ally the United States, with Obungler overt support of the Muslim Brotherhood this makes Israel alone in the middle east, a very dangerous position to be in.
 

Tehran Sent Troops to Syria - Iranian Officer

RIA Novosti
13:35 29/05/2012
MOSCOW, May 29 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has admitted that Iran has sent its troops to help the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fight opposition forces.
“Before our presence in Syria, too many people were killed by the opposition but with the physical and non-physical presence of the Islamic republic, big massacres in Syria were prevented,” Ismail Gha’ani, the deputy head of Iran’s Quds force, a shadowy branch of the Revolutionary Guards in charge of overseas operations, said in an interview with the semi-official Iranian Student’s News Agency (ISNA), according to a report by the Persian-language GozaraNews website.
ISNA published the interview on Sunday night, but subsequently removed it from its website “under pressure,” the report said.
Syria is Iran’s most important regional ally, and Tehran has long used its neighbor’s territory as a base for operations to maintain a lifeline to militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s proxies in southern Lebanon and Gaza.
Rumors that Iran has provided military support to Assad, to assist his crackdown on the popular uprising that has challenged his family’s 40-year grip on power, have circulated since the outbreak of protests in Syria in March 2011.
The Gha’ani remarks followed the weekend massacre of more than 100 civilians, including dozens of children, in the Houla township in western Syria, which has triggered an international outcry, including a Sunday statement by the UN Security Council describing the massacre as an “outrageous use of force against civilian population.”
Syrian opposition activists have blamed the killings on pro-government fighters, an accusation categorically denied by the Syrian authorities, who said the tragedy was a terrorist plot aimed at undermining the regime.
UN observers working in Syria have confirmed that tanks and artillery were used in the weekend attacks on Houla, as well as that many of those killed were stabbed or shot at point-blank range, raising questions among observers about who could benefit from the tragedy.

North Korea attack South Korea if Iran is attacked?

The hermit kingdom is strange anyway and with the new gargoyle trying to make a name for himself and solidify his powerbase with the elite of the north from the generals and other government officials.  With Iran and North korea both having exchanged information and I am sure that the North has been "assisting" Iran with their nuclear ambitions.  

     I got this from here

Will N. Korea Attack S. Korea if US Attacks Iran?

A so-called unthinkable question: Will North Korea attack South Korea--and U.S. troops in the South--if the United States attacks Iran over its nuclear program? (Really, this is a matter of when, not if, as decades of Western appeasement of Iran seem to have made war inevitable.)

The answer is probably not. But the possibility of North Korea seeking to exploit an opportunity to defeat the South should be addressed given the following: North Korea's intense hatred of South Korea; the North's dire economic straits, long history of engaging in criminal activities for money, and unique partnership in nuclear and missile crimes with oil-rich Iran, which is believed to have subsidized the North's nuclear and missile tests, and is also believed to be prepared to pay handsomely for strategic North Korean assistance in the event of an Iranian showdown with the West; a conviction on the part of the North Korean military that it could actually win a new Korean war; a related perception on the part of both North Korea and Iran that the U.S., which is still bogged down in Afghanistan, clearly lacks the resources and the political will to fight three wars, or two wars with heavy losses, even for a short period of time, or, perhaps, even, one protracted conflict involving large-scale casualties, following the Vietnam and Iraq debacles; and, last but not least, the North's lips-and-teeth relationship with China, which is strongly opposed to U.S. military action against Iran and infuriated by the Obama administration's declared new geo-strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific region--a U.S. policy shift that Beijing regards as inherently menacing.

That doesn't mean that China would-- or could--order North Korea to come to Iran's aid by attacking South Korea and the approximately 28,000 U.S. troops stationed there. However, there may be hardline elements in Beijing who would very much like to see the U.S. dealt a severe blow--some of these figures actually applauded the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC--and, with that aim in mind, might be willing to back North Korea up militarily if it plunges into an all-out conflict with Seoul and its superpower ally, provided the North refrains from attacking the South and its (sitting duck?) defenders with chemical and nuclear weapons, the use of which could trigger a U.S. nuclear response with consequences too terrible for even the hardest line and most nationalistic and anti-American--but presumably still sane--Chinese generals to contemplate.

Considering all of the above and the fact that Russia has warned Washington in no uncertain terms against attacking Iran, making clear that Moscow would view an armed intervention in its neighbor as a threat to Russian interests, and that U.S.-Russia relations are at an all-time, post-Cold War low point; that Iran has vowed to destroy Israel if it attacks Iran, and to attack the U.S. if it or Israel attacks or appears to be close to attacking Iran; that Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, are bristling with ballistic missiles capable of leveling Israel's civilian population centers--and that Israel is believed to possess one of the world's most formidable nuclear arsenals--the potential for war in the Greater Middle East widening into a global conflict, though thankfully still remote, cannot be dismissed as mere fantasy or pointless speculation.

Time and again, history has shown that the unthinkable can happen.

I got this from one of the English speaking newspapers in Europe

Iranian Schoolbooks: Islam’s World Government

The elemental force of violence that emanates from islamic ideology should never be underestimated. Naïve politicians and journalists have already made this mistake with the Arab Spring™. Now Iran is in the thick of becoming a nuclear power. The kind of apocalypse that will mean can be seen from a glance at Iranian schoolbooks. Contained in those books is the call for the world government of Islam. Note well: These are not remnants from the dark ages of the Ayatollah Khomeini, rather they are totally current “works,” that have come into existence under the leadership of the “reformer” Chatami. Welt Online presents a shocking insight with their article, “The Hearts of the Pupils Shall Be Filled with Hate (Die Herzen der Schüler sollen von Hass erfüllt sein),” as to how tough the youth are drilled: It is more extreme by far than with the Nazis and Communists combined

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Iran and the Straits of Hormuz

By George Friedman
The United States reportedly sent a letter to Iran via multiple intermediaries last week warning Tehran that any attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz constituted a red line for Washington. The same week, a chemist associated with Iran's nuclear program was killed in Tehran. In Ankara, Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani met with Turkish officials and has been floating hints of flexibility in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
This week, a routine rotation of U.S. aircraft carriers is taking place in the Middle East, with the potential for three carrier strike groups to be on station in the U.S. Fifth Fleet's area of operations and a fourth carrier strike group based in Japan about a week's transit from the region. Next week, Gen. Michael Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will travel to Israel to meet with senior Israeli officials. And Iran is scheduling another set of war games in the Persian Gulf for February that will focus on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' irregular tactics for closing the Strait of Hormuz.
While tensions are escalating in the Persian Gulf, the financial crisis in Europe has continued, with downgrades in France's credit rating the latest blow. Meanwhile, China continued its struggle to maintain exports in the face of economic weakness among its major customers while inflation continued to increase the cost of Chinese exports.
Fundamental changes in how Europe and China work and their long-term consequences represent the major systemic shifts in the international system. In the more immediate future, however, the U.S.-Iranian dynamic has the most serious potential consequences for the world.

The U.S.-Iranian Dynamic

The increasing tensions in the region are not unexpected. As we have argued for some time, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent decision to withdraw created a massive power vacuum in Iraq that Iran needed -- and was able -- to fill. Iran and Iraq fought a brutal war in the 1980s that caused about 1 million Iranian casualties, and Iran's fundamental national interest is assuring that no Iraqi regime able to threaten Iranian national security re-emerges. The U.S. invasion and withdrawal from Iraq provided Iran an opportunity to secure its western frontier, one it could not pass on.
If Iran does come to have a dominant influence in Iraq -- and I don't mean Iran turning Iraq into a satellite -- several things follow. Most important, the status of the Arabian Peninsula is subject to change. On paper, Iran has the most substantial conventional military force of any nation in the Persian Gulf. Absent outside players, power on paper is not insignificant. While technologically sophisticated, the military strength of the Arabian Peninsula nations on paper is much smaller, and they lack the Iranian military's ideologically committed manpower.

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