Middle East News Jan. 17, 2016

Friends, on Jan. 25, 2016 I rec'd 

Friends, I rec’d the following comments from a former Navy Seal friend; I withheld his name for security reasons.

XXXXXXXX “Former Navy Seal on the Iran situation.”

“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."

Friends, above see the Psalm 83 "Battle Map"; there are three candidates for the next prophetic event that I’ve not been able to prioritize and I believe all of them have to precede the Battle of Ezekiel 38. In no particular order, they are the Rapture of the Church, the destruction of Damascus (Isaiah 17), and the battle in which Israel will neutralize its next door neighbors (Psalm 83).

Despite all the anxiety over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, I don’t believe the Battle ofEzekiel 38 can take place yet. In the first place, if Israel goes after Iran’s nukes it will be the opposite of Ezekiel 38, because it would require Israel to mount a sneak attack against Iran instead of the other way around. In addition, the US has to be taken out of Israel’s defense equation, Israel has to be persuaded that they and their neighbors are at peace with one another, and God has to be finished with the Church as well. None of these is the case as of today.

A day after many sanctions on Iran were lifted under the international nuclear pact’s implementation, the US Treasury Sunday imposed new sanctions — over Iran's ballistic weapons. Eleven companies and individuals were targeted for procuring items of Iran’s missile program. The White House noted, “US statutory sanctions focused on Iran's support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and missile activities will remain in effect and continue to be enforced." After the partial lifting of sanctions Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would not renew full diplomatic relations with the United States.

My Baghdad sources reported Sunday night that the three unidentified American military men and their Iraqi interpreter, who were kidnapped in the Iraqi capital, are in the hands of a pro-Iranian Shiite militia, after being abducted in the Shiite Dora district of southern Baghdad, on the bottom of the map above, which is ruled by that militia. It would represent a serious turn of events for US-Iranian relations, just a day after the lifting of sanctions and the release of three American prisoners by Iran.

The US State Department said it knew that the three Americans had been kidnapped and was working with the Iraqi government to recover them. A large group of American military personnel are positioned in Baghdad to advise the Iraqi army on tactics against ISIS.

The UN nuclear watchdog confirmed Saturday night, Jan. 16, that Iran had fulfilled its side of the nuclear deal with the six world powers and that sanctions could be lifted, after US Secretary of State John Kerry, EU’s Federica Mogherini and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had been kept hanging about for the IAEA’s from early morning for a verdict worth some $100-150 billion to Tehran. The wording did not explicitly confirm that Iran had met all the terms of the nuclear deal or that it had mothballed most of its uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

From the start, the deal was viewed with deep suspicion by Israel, Saudi Arabia and US lawmakers. Even the White House spokesman Josh Earnest was moved to comment Friday that “the United States wants to make sure than Iran doesn’t cut any corners.” 

Iran had managed to dodge compliance with key terms of the nuclear deal. Nine tons of enriched uranium were indeed shipped to Russia, but most expert watchers are dubious about three other commitments:
1. Washington and Tehran have claimed that the Iranians fulfilled their commitment to pour concrete into the core of the Arak reactor to disable its capacity for producing plutonium. Two days ago, on Thursday, Iranian officials denied this had been done: Only a token operation may have taken place, if any.
Officials associated with Iran’s radical Revolutionary Guards, which fought tooth and nail against the nuclear accord, commented that instead of pouring concrete into the Arak reactor, it should be poured into the hearts of President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, for negotiating the accord with the six powers.

Such comments rarely reach the Western media. They are important because they mirror the fierce power struggle ongoing in Tehran, which is heavily fueled by infighting over the nuclear deal and sanctions.

2.  That deal provided for the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at the Natanz center to be reduced from 19,500 to 5,050. Our sources report that 9,000 are still in operation.
3. There is no confirmation that the number of centrifuges operating at the underground facility of Fordo was cut down to one thousand, as agreed.
On top of these deviations, the Obama administration admitted last week that the dispute over Iran’s nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, which were tested last month, is still open, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. This makes Tehran liable to a fresh set of sanctions, as US officials too have indicated.

The capture of two US patrol boats by the Revolutionary Guards speedboats last Tuesday, with the 10 American sailors aboard forced to surrender before they were released, was clearly a last-ditch attempt by Iran’s radicals to derail the nuclear accord before the Saturday deadline was reached.

That will not be the last such episode: Iran’s radicals may embark on more such actions to counteract the nuclear deal by striking more American targets and looking for trouble with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies.

The fact is that the hard-line factions in Tehran don’t want the sanctions lifted, because they see them as net profit for President Rouhani and his moderate conservatives and his leading backer, former president Hashem Rafsanjani, head of the powerful Assembly of Experts.
Iran's Finance Minister Ali Tayyebnia gave the radicals fodder when he said last week that even $100 billion in cancelled sanctions would not haul the Iranian economy out of crisis or balance the state budget, because the country’s indebtedness is far in excess of that huge amount.

The Iranian-Saudi row is another factor that could upset the nuclear deal, although paradoxically, since oil prices sank below $30, the Guards and Riyadh have a common interest in its collapse.

Iran's expected return to an already glutted market - through the removal of sanctions - will drive prices down further. This, neither the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which control Iran’s oil sector, nor the Saudis want to see.

Therefore, the rosy prospect the Obama administration paints of a successful landmark deal for curbing Iran’s nuclear capabilities is a far cry from being realized.

The UN Security Council has removed Iran’s Bank Sepah and its international subsidiary from its sanctions blacklist. The move came only a day after Iran and the P5+1 group of countries implemented their historic nuclear agreement. Bank Sepah, which is Iran’s oldest bank, was under the UN sanctions since 2007 over its alleged role in supporting firms linked to the development of Iran’s missile technology. The UN Security Council imposed four sets of sanctions on Iran from 2006 to 2010, all of which were scrapped under Iran’s nuclear agreement. Watch the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe2JwmX2v7I


Three American contractors have been reported missing in a southern neighborhood in Baghdad. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xsSLgfFzRE