US-Israel vs Iran: War Games Prelude to War? Iran Rails Against West's 'Economic War'| Common Dreams

US-Israel vs Iran: War Games Prelude to War? | Common Dreams

The drumbeats of war are on the rise this week as the United States and Israel exchanged threats with Iran and prepared for joint 'wargames' - used to simulate future wars.

Iranian submarines participate in naval parade war game on Sea of Oman near Strait of Hormuz (Reuters)The Jerusalem Post reported on December 20 that Washington and Tel Aviv have planned to hold what they call the largest-ever joint military exercise in Israel in the coming months, a development the US media have failed to cover.

Iran's PressTV headlines today:

'US Deploys Troops in Israel for Iran War'

The US military is preparing a massive military campaign against Iran, sending thousands of American troops, warships and weaponry to Israel. An unnamed source said the military deployment of US anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel will occur in January and later this spring...

And just day's after President Obama signed into law tough new sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and financial sector Agence France-Presse's Farhad Pouladi is now reporting:

Iran Rails Against West's 'Economic War'

Iran's currency market was in turmoil Wednesday as the central bank imposed draconian measures to try to shore up its beleaguered rial in the face of existing and looming Western sanctions.Iran on Thursday said the West was waging "an economic war" through sanctions, after European diplomats said there was a preliminary agreement for an EU ban of oil from the Islamic republic.

"The enemies of the Islamic republic's regime, with all their tricks, have not been able to chain the nation and now they want to chain the economy," Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini said, in comments carried by the official IRNA news agency.

"These sanctions are an economic war against us," he said, urging Iranians to defeat them.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse also reports today that US neocons are actively promoting a US attack on Iran:

WASHINGTON -- Fed by diplomatic tensions and election-year politics, talk about a coming conflict with Iran has reached a fever pitch in the US capital.

Speculation of a possible war with Iran ebbs and flows, but a confluence of events has served to fuel dire predictions among politicians and pundits that war may be on the horizon — either by necessity or by accident.

Some of the same hawkish voices that portrayed Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq as a dire threat requiring urgent military action are now warning that the United States must be prepared for war with Iran, while accusing President Barack Obama of lacking backbone.

John Yoo, a former Justice Department official under ex-president George W. Bush, has called on Republican presidential candidates to “begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”

Calling it an “unavoidable challenge,” Yoo wrote last week in the National Review that the United States would have legal grounds to strike at Iran’s nuclear sites — similar to the arguments made before the invasion of Iraq.

AFP added that poor communications between the US and Iran could turn a minor incident into all-out war:

Shortly before retiring, the former top-ranking US officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, worried a lack of communication between the two countries' militaries could turn an incident into a potential conflict.  "We are not talking to Iran. So we don't understand each other," Mullen said in September. "If something happens, it's virtually assured that we won't get it right, that there will be miscalculations." http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/05-3