“Iran’s military has shot down an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran.”-Iranian government statement
In the early morning hours on December 4 (U.S. time), the Iranian military shot down a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone is used for intelligence, surveillance and for target acquisition.
An unnamed Iranian military official said Iran will take action against all foreign UAVs, even those outside Iran’s borders: “…the operational and electronic measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces against invading aircraft will not remain limited to Iran’s borders.”
This is part of a quickening pace of actions on all sides that look like war is inevitable.
Just before Iran shot down the U.S. UAV, officials with the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University (China’s equivalent to any of the U.S. military academies) announced full military support of Iran: “China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a Third World War.”-Major General Zhang Zhaozhong
Just this past week the U.S. Treasury Department asked all nations to stop buying oil from Iran (a futile move I pointed out). If anyone really knows the ‘why’ of why Japan attacked the United States on December 7, 1941, it is because the U.S. stopped all oil sales to Japan. At that time the U.S. was the world’s main supplier of oil.
Just a few days ago the Japanese government responded to the current request from the U.S. Treasury by saying that out of necessity they can not stop buying Iranian oil. Currently nearly 10% of the oil Japan gets comes from Iran. With more than 80% of their nuclear power plants off line, Japan’s need for petroleum is skyrocketing: “We need to be very careful in making such a decision, given that our priority is securing energy supply in the aftermath of the massive earthquake.”-statement from Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
I also pointed out that the result of such an oil ban would actually hurt us little guys: “As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel.”-Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran’s Foreign Ministry
Also in the past week, the United Kingdom cut off all diplomatic ties with Iran, after Iranian protestors took control of the British Embassy in Tehran (on November 29, U.S. time). This despite the fact that Iranian police arrested at least 12 of the protestors, and Iran officially apologized. Western governments, and media refused to report the apology but Spanish officials confirmed it: “He said he was aware that it had violated the Vienna Convention and for that reason he was passing on to his apologies.”-Trinidad Jimenez, Foreign Minister of Spain
Even British officials admitted that Iran apologized, but said they didn’t care: “…this remains a very serious failure by the Iranian government.”-William Hague, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom
U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, said there’s no proof that the Iranian government was behind the U.K. embassy take over: “I don’t have any indication how and or if it was orchestrated.”
The U.K. has thrown out all Iranian diplomats in Britain, and Iran has now done the same with British diplomats.
Norway also closed their embassy in Tehran, temporarily. They re-opened their embassy on December 1.
On December 1, former Assistant Counsel of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Franklin Lamb, said Iran was being set up for inevitable war: “The other side (the UK) is provoking them (Iranian government). Hopefully the Tehran government will not fall in some of these traps that I think are being laid for it in a very dangerous way.”
On December 3, Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said he would not allow the U.S. to use Iraq as a base for attacking Iran: “Clearly we are no enemy to Iran and we do not accept that some who have problems with Iran would use us as a battlefield.”
Recently al-Maliki was the target of an assassination bomb.
On December 2, U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, said Iran is “a very grave threat to all of us”, and, any threat to the shipping of oil out of the Persian Gulf was the “red line” that would cause the U.S. to attack Iran. Iran has warned that if they are threatened they will close the Strait of Hormuz, blocking all shipping from the Persian Gulf.
Also on Decmber 2, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, and current Security Council President, Vitaly Churkin, said the latest IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program was a trick, because Iran was actually cooperation on the nuclear issue: “We thought that we were on the verge of restarting those talks on the basis of our proposals, because we started receiving some encouraging signals, substantive signals from the Iranian side…”
On December 1, the U.S. Senate passed, yet again, new sanctions against Iran, this time targeting the banks of Iran, and any foreign or U.S. banks doing business with Iran.
Also on December 1, the European Union passed new sanctions against 37 Iranian individuals and 143 companies/organizations from Iran, or doing business with Iran.
In response to the latest sanctions, Russia and China warned the West: “We hope the countries involved will keep calm, rational and restrained to avoid emotional actions.”-Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry
“We speak out categorically against cranking up a spiral of tension and confrontation on issues linked with Iran. We believe that this…is fraught with severe consequences.”-Alexander Lukashevich, Russian Foreign Ministry
And all these statements and events took place in just the past week.