Iran threatens US if carrier group moves to Gulf
In response to the news that the US may move the USS John C Stennis to the Persian Gulf to enforce sanctions that are beginning to take their toll on the Iranian economy, and observe Iran’s war games, the head of Iran’s Army, Ataollah Salehi said, according to Reuters;
“Iran will not repeat its warning … the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf,” army chief Salehi said.
“I advise, recommend and warn them over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once.”
Oh, so we’re “the enemy” are we? Doesn’t that sort of mean that we’re at war? This administration and Ron Paul don’t think so.
Thanks to ROS for the link.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
LOL… one CV battlegroup has more firepower than their entire nation can muster. Obama had better jock up and do the exact same thing Reagan did when Gaddafi (or however it’s spelled this week) claimed to be a badass. Park the Stennis well inside of their line, and smile at them. Nobody owns the Gulf. It’s about time they learned that.
I’d venture that Iran isn’t in much of a position to do anything about it, even if they wanted to.
Iran’s economy is already on life support. Getting into an actual shooting war with these United States might finally finish off the decaying remains of the Persian Empire for good.
Now I’ll bust the balls of skimmers pretty much at the drop of a hat, but seriously, threatening a carrier battle group when your “navy” consists of a few rusting hulks no bigger than a frigate?
Reminds me of the mouse flipping off the eagle with the caption, “The Final Act of Defiance”.
@3- They have some of those sweet Soviet-built Kilo class boats as well. Scary stuff, if it was 1954.
Sparky’s right. The Iranians might get the first shot, but I have no doubt we’d get the last.
I doubt the White House has the ‘nads to provoke the Iranians, or anyone else, unless he can get the UN or NATO to play along. Heaven forbid we should do anything on our own; we could ruin our image in the region and make people mad at us.
I say bring in several carrier battle groups (together with their attack sub escorts) and take control of both sides of the Straits; fly 24 hour over watch missions with plenty of things that go boom. Of course, we’d have to be careful of sea-skimming passenger aircraft loaded with naked dead bodies.
Saber rattling? Sure, a carrier group seems like an appropriate response.
Ah, haven’t the Iranian mullahs been at war with the Great Satan since 1979? Or did I miss another memo.
I wouldn’t be so cocky. It wouldn’t take much to disable a CVN. The Chinese surfaced a diesel boat inside the Kitty Hawk perimeter back in 2007. If that had been a shooting war and not the Chinese fucking with us, it would have been over for her. Yes, the Iranians are third world inbred imbeciles. It’s not out of their capacity to get lucky.
@ #8, Red:
Actually, it’s been longer than that, but let’s not quibble over whether it’s been a long time, or a longer time. Point being, it’s been going on much longer than the past 10 years in spite of entirely too many pretending that ignoring it made the threat go away.
The Iranians know that Obama won’t do crap. He is afraid of them (why, i don’t know) and they know it.
Doesn’t the Navy have something similar to CALL? If we fought a war with complete abandon like we could how long would Iran last? Hours, minutes? We have already had the fastest advance in human history. We take into account not harming civilian targets, hospitals, churches, schools, etc.. We show compassion for our enemies. We punish our own for war crimes, if we acted half as bad as we have been accused how long would Iran realistically last against us? Protecting civilians made my job way harder than it had to be, but that is why we are who we are.
I move that we put RP on the Iranian tugboat and let him talk them down.
I’ll second the motion myself.
All those in favor say, “Aye.”
“Aye.”
Outstanding.
“I wouldn’t be so cocky. It wouldn’t take much to disable a CVN. The Chinese surfaced a diesel boat inside the Kitty Hawk perimeter back in 2007. If that had been a shooting war and not the Chinese fucking with us, it would have been over for her. Yes, the Iranians are third world inbred imbeciles. It’s not out of their capacity to get lucky.”
Word on the street was that (1) we knew the Chicom boat was there and (2) the Chinese skipper did something extraordinarily stupid (opening torpedo tube doors and flooding the tubes), whereupon every damn ship in the formation started sonar-lashing the idiot. They surfaced so that they could hear themselves think. They probably were doing a good impression of Brett from “Pulp Fiction” when they got back to base. “WHAT?”
@9–that’s on the escorts as much as anything else. If a CVBG has a high SOA transiting an area, the SSN’s would have to “sprint and drift” ahead of the group. A lot of times, we weren’t tasked to any group, but could be if the need arose.
The fact Kitty Hawk was without SSN escort is the most likely scenario. If it got into a shooting match, you can bet your ass there’d be at least a couple with the group.
But teddy is right–Kilos? Spare me. Yeah, they’re quiet for diesels, but even diesels gotta snorkel. If the Russians had sold them a few Victor-III’s or an Akula I might be a bit concerned, but less so given the fact most of the Middle Eastern sailors I ran into early in my career couldn’t pour piss out of a boot, let along properly rig for dive.
@15- exactly. The Kilo is a decent boat, and I’m pretty sure AW1 Tim could tell us a story or two of a Kilo shadowing one of ours on his scopes. However, the Soviets built their boats and developed their doctrines amongst 50 years of war games against an actual enemy. Soviet sub crews and skippers were as hard as their hulls by the time the wall fell, and the Kilo couldn’t cut it towards the end (you don’t export your best stuff).
Iran, however, only recieved the boats, without the doctrines, techniques, or crews to make them work. They could get lucky. Chances are more likely, however, that they’re in the crosshairs of an ADCAP right now and don’t know it.
teddy–according to Global Security, the Iranians have 3 Kilos. Last time I checked, we’ve got at least that in/around the area, to say nothing of the SSGN floating around off Diego Garcia. How many of those 3 Kilos are at sea at any given time? How many are rusting, welded to the pier?
Yeah, go ahead, Iran. If you’re gonna piss someone off, you better do it before January 20th, 2013.
However, teddy–I can’t speak to the abilities of the Virginia-class boats, but in shallow water ops, I’d take a 637 over a 688 any day. YMMV.
“I move that we put RP on the Iranian tugboat and let him talk them down.
I’ll second the motion myself.
All those in favor say, “Aye.”
“Aye.”
Another Aye.
Aye.
Teddy,
Yup……. hard to track a battery, but it isn’t impossible, and like was said, those aren’t the Soviet crews operating those Kilos.
I suspect we could easily splash a couple CAPTOR mines in the vicinity and stand back and watch the fun commence.
Could the Iranians get lucky? Yup. They certainly could.
However, even no nuts Obama would have to slam the hammer down if the US lost a carrier, or even a bunch of sailors in international waters. The US citizens wouldn’t stand for it.
Those straits belong to everyone, and freedom of navigation is a right that is recognized internationally.
The Iranians might sink one carrier. However, we have 10 more just like it, and several SSBN’s worth of nuclear hellfire to back those up.
Forget the fight…. No contest… Worry about the oil prices. Today I locked in our Legion Post for 12 months.
AYE.
“The Iranians might sink one carrier. However, we have 10 more just like it, and several SSBN’s worth of nuclear hellfire to back those up”.
That may be true, but let’s hope, if the Iranians really want to dance, they step up, before the 10 carrier battle groups become 5, and the SSBN’s get moth-balled. And, don’t forget Obama’s stance on the use of nuclear weapons, “Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.” This is a guy who hasn’t spent a dime on modernizing the nuclear deterrent since he took office. And, now, he wants to gut the conventional forces, that are supposed be “an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances”.
We were doing fine until dickless over there got elected President!
““Iran will not repeat its warning … the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill.” Um no, that piqued our interest, no question about it numbnuts. It was your threat of closing the straits that brought our gaze directly upon thee, not you exercise.
If attacked we should destroy their Navy for a parry. Then for a reposte we should attack everything on our wishlist from IRGC HQs, suspected nuclear sites, terrorist jumping off camps on the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan. I haven’t even mentioned destroying their economy by embargo or destruction of their one oil refinery. Yeah Bitches make our day.
Frankly I hope they pull this, it would serve our interests.
Hmmm….we pull all our troops out from their west flank, minimize the troops to their east flank and all of a sudden Iran is getting mouthy? Shocker….
oh please give us a reason to carpet bomb them