The CIA's 'Persia House' Has Been Sending Stealth Drones Deep Into Iran For Years

"The RQ-170 Sentinel drone lost over Iran late last year was not the United State's first foray into Iran with the stealth UAV, and the Sentinel was not simply plying the northern border of Afghanistan as officials have maintained.

The doomed flight, where the Iranians claim they brought down the drone electronically, and the U.S. says it went down due to a malfunction, was simply the most recent reconnaissance mission deep into Iran by the CIA in the three years since the missions began.
Joby Warrick and Greg Miller at The Washington Post report that RQ-170s have flown more than 600 miles inside Iran for that long before the most recent incident brought the surveillance program into the limelight.
The effort began with president Bush who committed to increased intelligence on Iran's nuclear program during the final years of his presidency, and has been turning out choice information for years.
The drone operations are one part of a multi-agency effort.
The CIA's Iran Operation Division, known internally as "Persia House," is working with the NSA to pull high quality intelligence out of the Middle East country to offer President Obama the options he'll need to decide if Iran's nuclear program focuses on weapons...."

at  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cias-persia-house-has-been-sending-stealth-drones-deep-into-iran-for-years-2012-4#ixzz1rZZ0Cuqy

US gears up for land operation in Persian Gulf?

"The US is sending an amphibious assault group and a couple of thousand US Marines to the Persian Gulf. With another US carrier making its way to Iran’s doorstep, US military still insist that this is a “regularly scheduled deployment”.
­The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group is comprised of amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima, amphibious transport dock USS New York, and amphibious dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall. It is also reinforced with an atomic submarine and a marine helicopter squadron.
The group, which is “a versatile sea-based force that can be tailored to a variety of missions,” left port on Tuesday and is heading to the Gulf, the US Navy says.
Over 2,000 US Marines are to come on board Iwo Jima when the group makes a stop in North Carolina.
Many of those marines are veterans of ground combat in Iraq and Afghanistan making their first shipboard deployment, dailypress.com points out.
The US already has an amphibious group with an expeditionary marine unit in the Gulf region. The Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group was deployed there in January, after Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial route that allows the delivery of around 20 per cent of the world's oil..."

at http://rt.com/news/us-amphibious-group-land-operation-iran-663/

IN HIGH GEAR: Advanced Preparations of U.S.-Israel War Against Iran

"Following the highly scrutinized meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month in Washington, consensus held that Obama had managed to secure assurances from the war-hungry Netanyahu that Israel would delay a military strike against Iran till 2013. That is, till after the November U.S. presidential election.

According to the Israeli daily Maariv, this commitment of Israeli “restraint” had been bought with the sale of U.S. “advanced bunker-busting bombs and long-range refueling planes” to the Israeli Defense Forces, as al-Akhbar (3/8) reported. Needless to say, such advanced weaponry would be required in any Israeli attack on Iran.

“You shall still have your war,” Obama thus seemingly sought to convey to Netanyahu, “but only in due time.”

Since the Obama-Netanyahu summit, however, indications of such Israeli restraint have dissipated. The Israeli dogs of war are not so easily tamed. In fact, in his latest column for Bloomberg (3/19), the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports that talk of striking Iran is once more convulsing through the Israeli political establishment. And according to Goldberg, all such discussions have assumed a rather optimistic bent.

“One conclusion key officials have reached,” Goldberg writes, “is that a strike on six or eight Iranian facilities will not lead, as is generally assumed, to all-out war.”

We learn further that Israeli officials interpret Obama’s claims of “having Israel’s back” as meaning that even in the event of an Israeli strike against Iran in the face of U.S. protest, “Obama would move immediately to help buttress Israel’s defenses against an Iranian counterstrike.”

All this leaves Goldberg to assess that Israel shall ultimately strike Iran. As he writes, “I’m highly confident that Netanyahu isn’t bluffing—that he is in fact counting down to the day when he will authorize a strike against a half-dozen or more Iranian nuclear sites.”

This unnerving assessment mirrors that held by another favored media conduit for Israeli propaganda, Ronen Bergman, who after similarly speaking with senior Israeli leaders earlier this year, concluded in the New York Times Magazine (1/25) that, "Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012."

Notably, Goldberg’s Bloomberg piece appeared the very day the New York Times (3/19) reported on a secret U.S. war game held earlier this month. The war game reportedly simulated an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. And as the Times reported, the exercise “forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead.”

(The report did not specify to any detail on the expected regional war unleashed by an Israeli strike. Nor did the paper mention any projection of potential Iranian casualties. But why would they? After all, as U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks averred back in 2002: “We don’t do body counts.”)

And of course, where there is smoke, there is fire..."

at  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29942

US navy to position three aircraft carriers near Iran

"TEHRAN: Iran will make absolutely no concessions on its nuclear programme, a key lawmaker declared on Sunday amid high geopolitical tensions and ahead of mooted talks with world powers.

“The parliament will never allow the government to go back even one step in its nuclear policy,” Aladin Borujerdi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary foreign policy commission, told the official IRNA news agency.

Iran’s recent announcements that is stepping up uranium enrichment and made its own 20-percent enriched nuclear fuel showed the country “totally masters nuclear science,” he said. “If the P5+1 countries don’t accept the reality of Iran’s nuclear abilities, they will suffer from that,” Borujerdi was quoted as saying.

His comments precede expected talks agreed to by Iran and the P5+1 group of powers — the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany.Iran has formally requested a date and venue for the negotiations, the previous round of which collapsed in Istanbul in January last year.

The Islamic republic has been buffeted in recent months by ramped-up Western economic sanctions. It has also been threatened with possible military action against its nuclear facilities by Israel and the United States.

Throughout, Tehran has maintained that its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, denying Western suspicions — largely echoed in a November report by the International Atomic Energy Agency — that it was conducting military research towards designing nuclear weapons.

Borujerdi told IRNA that the United States and its allies have seen in recent months that Iran’s scientists have managed to make nuclear fuel enriched to 20 percent, among other achievements..."

at    http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-98472-US-navy-to-position-three-aircraft-carriers-near-Iran

Gunboat diplomacy: America launches Persian Gulf surge

"Washington is planning to deploy even more ships, subs and choppers to the Persian Gulf despite the fact that it already stations aircraft carriers in the region. This was confirmed by Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan W. Greenert.
­Speaking during a Friday breakfast in Washington, Greenert told reporters about the bold plans to deploy more patrol boats, minesweepers, Sea Stallion helicopters and drone subs – all keeping an eye on Iran..."

at http://rt.com/news/america-persian-gulf-surge-831/

U.S. To Increase Minesweeping Presence in the Persian Gulf

"The United States is planning to substantially expand its forward-deployed minesweeping presence in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, stating that four minesweepers would be moved to Bahrain, joining eight others, including four UK Royal Navy minesweepers. The current detachment of four minesweeping helicopters will be increased to eight. The paperwork, published in February, calls for the mine countermeasures (MCM) ships to transported to their destination onboard a larger civilian vessel.
In January it was announced that the USS Ponce (LPD 15) would undergo a conversion to an afloat staging base for MCMs -- essentially a mothership that can facilitate and coordinate at-sea and aerial operations. The USS Ponce is expected to arrive in region this summer and should represent an important expansion of capability and capacity above the simple doubling of the U.S. MCM presence discussed in the CNO’s testimony..."

at http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/us-increase-minesweeping-presence-persian-gulf-0