Drama in the Persian Gulf (Tehran gets uppity)

[davidbfpo]

Does this strange story, originally in a Kuwaiti paper and now on National Interest's website have an effect on the current situation?

It starts with:

Iranian Air Force commander Brigadier General Farzad Ismaili, who had been in office since 2010, has been fired by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after he kept secret that Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-35 stealth fighters had violated Iran’s airspace, the Kuwaiti daily Al Jarida reported on Saturday. The newspaper emphasized that it was the original media source that exposed the Israeli raids, which had taken place in March 2018.

The most puzzling sentence is this, with my bold:

According to Al Jarida, Iranian intelligence received top secret information that the Israeli fighter planes even managed to photograph Iran’s underground bases. Khamenei, who received this information, now suspects a cooperation between Russia and Israel, and that the Russians gave Israel the secret code of the Russian radar in Iran – according to the Kuwaiti newspaper.

Link:https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...-iran-airspace

[davidbfpo]

A pessimistic story which concludes:

The bottom line: It’d be hell on earth

Link:https://www.vox.com/world/2019/7/8/1...p-nuclear-iraq

[davidbfpo]

Two articles I caught today. A 'Long Read' in the NYRB by two SME and the title almost gives away their view 'Iran: The Case Against War'. Curiously they end with:

At this point, even senior Israeli officials—who have backed the United States’ aggressive courtship of Saudi Arabia and confrontation with Iran—have become concerned about American bellicosity and myopia, and are loath to be seen as encouraging a US–Iran military confrontation.⁷ The Israelis have no doubt started to consider the long-term regional impact of a war between the US and Iran. Their change of heart should be a warning that US policy is spinning out of control.

Link:https://www.nybooks.com/articles/201...e-against-war/

Then a shorter, hostile interpretation of the British role, starting with the seizure of an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar and now a likely riposte with a UK flagged tanker being sized in the Gulf. A few here have noted the public silence of the EU after the Gibraltar seizure by the EU, ostensibly the tanker breached EU sanctions.
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...wk-john-bolton