Risk of 'Accidental' Gulf War on the Rise

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,812199,00.html

Everything on display last week in the Strait of Hormuz was pure theater. There were tough words, risky posturing, well-acted one-person pieces and even a taste the risqué, but not much in terms of a plot.

Or at least that's how it was on the stage of the fifth Fujairah International Monodrama Festival (FIMF).

"The world passes through here," the festival's director said during the opening ceremony on Jan. 22. With that, he was hardly referring to the flotilla of warships approaching the small emirate of Fujairah at that very moment, made up of the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, a guided missile cruiser, two destroyers, the British frigate HMS Argyll and the French frigate La Motte-Picquet. All of them were sailing west through the Strait of Hormuz toward the Persian Gulf. The US military already refers to this zone as a "theater," a possible scene of combat.

The Persian Gulf hasn't seen this kind of display of naval power since the final campaign against Saddam Hussein. Indeed, its size has prompted many to wonder whether it is merely posturing and bluffing or, rather, a sign of an upcoming fourth war in the Gulf.

[Lawlbringer]

1. Curious, does Iran

have a pretty sizable military? Stronger than Iraq's in both rounds, right?

[leveymg]

3. Yes. Particularly, its anti-shipping capabilities.

Iran has many hundreds of modern anti-ship missiles of various types - both on numerous small fast boats and roaming around in mobile launchers mounted on delivery trucks (that look just like any other delivery truck) or hidden under sand dunes near the shoreline that extends for hundreds of miles along Iran's western and southern coasts.

It would be practically impossible to get them all, and it takes only one hit (in several "right spots&quot to sink a Nimitz-class carrier or a supertanker, effectively blocking the narrow shipping channels through the Straits along with 40 percent of the flow of oil going to the world market.

Not a very inviting theater of operations.

[leveymg]

2. In 2007-08, there were 3 Carrier Battle Groups in the region. So, hardly

unprecedented since 2003.

[tabatha]

4. I read that it was because Israel was threatening to attack Iran.

[leveymg]

6. That too.

But, I think the Saudis and Gulf States deserve a lot of the credit for creating tensions, that every time the risk-premium on crude oil prices goes up a point, they make another ten billion Dollars, or Euros, or Renminbi, or whatever they prefer these days.

[bemildred]

5. Nothing accidental about it. nt

[leveymg]

7. All quite calculated, I have to agree.

Another costly, protracted optional war should address remaining concerns once voiced openly at Davos about reigning in "the last rogue superpower," once and for all.

[Demeter]

8. Trust me, it will be anything but an accident