Upping the Ante, Sabre Rattling in the Gulf

Iran is pushing back. Just days ago the U.S. Navy led a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf supposedly to practice blocking shipments of nuclear material to Iran. The Americans were joined by warships from Australia, Britain, Bahrain, France and Italy. The exercise was clearly intended to rattle Tehran which replied by staging its own maneuvers.

Today, Iran test-fired dozens of missiles including one that has ample range to hit Israel or most U.S. forces in the region. Iran said its maneuvers were aimed at putting a stop to western meddling in the Persian Gulf region.

Iran is obviously emboldened by the support it is getting from Russia and China. Russia continues to supply arms to Iran including these, state of the art missiles:



Russia claims the weapons it is selling Tehran are strictly defensive in nature. These missiles are a lot like the American Patriot and are designed to knock down fast-moving incoming threats such as aircraft, missiles and cruise missiles, the very type of weapons the U.S. might use in any pre-emptive attack on Iran.

The U.S. had another setback today when Russia and China announced they would refuse to support the U.N. sanctions America is pressing for from the Security Council.

We should be worried about Iran getting a nuclear weapon but there is also plenty of reason to worry about spillover from some rash action from Washington. There are ample signs that the Arab world has had all the adventures from Mr. Bush that it can tolerate.