Operation Barbara Ann

Getting ready to strike the Iranian frontier:

The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.

“If the situation in Basra goes back to what it was like before, America is likely to blame Iran and carry out a surgical strike on a militant training camp across the border in Khuzestan,” said one source, referring to a frontier province.

Reporting on the arrival of USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf last week, NBC News says we have a "target list" already drawn up:

Meanwhile, Iranian state news is in panic mode --- the Sword of Damocles hangs over their head:

On April 29, a second American aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived in the Persian Gulf in what observers see as a tacit declaration of war on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Under a plan approved by the US Defense Department, Central Command would be allowed to retaliate for an Iranian attack with US air strikes. The US government is in fact contemplating on an attack against Iran. Yet they are waiting for a ripe time. Any excuse they find can be used for their attack. According to reports, the attack would range from a limited to full-scale one.

Elsewhere on that Iranian state news website, US Democrats are lauded:

Presidential superdelegates have advised the Democratic Party to regard direct negotiations with Iran as a vital foreign policy issue.

I'm trying to make a closing joke about how Obama can no more disown the effective use of American gunboat diplomacy than ... whatever. His eager, naive capitulation to our enemies just isn't funny.

Comments

[cranky]

I'd be really disappointed if we didn't already have a target list developed. Since I have little faith in the MSM's ability to accurately report on anything involving the military, my guess is that NBC was speculating about the existence of a target list but they got this one right. Broken clock. Blind squirrel.

[Snooper]

Good post

[rick554]

If I was an Iranian, I'd be digging VERY deep! Frankly the MSM is only good for its jihadi embedded "journalists" . Hopefully we will get some great live shots of "training camps" going up in dust.

[DANEgerus]

I'm amused that people suggest that Iran's enriching uranium, that they claim is for fuel for nuclear plants they don't have, after being caught with nuclear weapons designs, and after their proud display of MIRV'd missiles that can only carry 100lb payloads suitable for nuclear warheads... is even an issue.

[davidp]

Iran shells Iraqi kurdish villages because they think rebels/insurgents are there. Why shouldn't the US bomb Iranian "insurgent training camps" if they are confident of the identification? It's a straight forward matching of indisputable Iranian behaviour

[Sobek]

I didn't realize the training camps are in Khuzestan. That's interesting. Khuzestan has huge Arab populations. During the Iran/Iraq war, Saddam helped foment rebellion by Khuzestani separatists to distract the Iranians.