Ayatollah Khamenei: No Fleet of Warships Able to Confront Iran in Persian Gulf.......he might be right.(Fars).Tehran - A senior Iranian analyst and researcher praised the Iranian Navy for its might and power in safeguarding the country's security, and underscored that no country with even the most powerful fleets of warships can stand against Iran in the Persian Gulf. "Given the fact that the Persian Gulf, unlike oceans, is limited in width and area and Iran has a highly functional and efficient power which is suitable for this region, huge fleets of warships are not able to confront Iran and they will be vulnerable," Head of the Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute (Hekmat Sadra Foundation) Ayatollah Seyed Mohammad Khamenei told FNA on Monday. He reiterated that the power balance between the two sides of a war should not merely be evaluated on the basis of the number of war tools and equipment or their quality, preciseness and speed, but other factors and parameters are also important. Khamenei described the high morale of the Iranian forces as a winning card for the Iranian side in any war, and said the US forces deployed in the region are tired and depressed and cannot be counted on for fighting in a serious war. He also referred to the sympathy of the regional Arab youth as well as military and political activists for Iran, and said many of them have risen for the Islamic Awakening and share the same religion, ideology and goals with Iran and they can be considered as Iran and Islam's soldiers and will enter the scene for Iran in case of any war. Iran's naval power has even been acknowledged by foes. In a Sep. 11, 2008 report, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy also said that in the two decades since the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the Islamic Republic has excelled in naval capabilities and is able to wage unique asymmetric warfare against larger naval forces. According to the report, Iran's Navy has been transformed into a highly motivated, well-equipped, and well-financed force and is effectively in control of the world's oil lifeline, the Strait of Hormuz. The study says that if Washington takes military action against the Islamic Republic, the scale of Iran's response would likely be proportional to the scale of the damage inflicted on Iranian assets. The Islamic Republic's top military officials have repeatedly warned that in case of an attack by either the US or Israel, the country would target 32 American bases in the Middle East and close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. An estimated 40 percent of the world's oil supply passes through the waterway.A recent study by a fellow at Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Caitlin Talmadge, warned that Iran could use mines as well as missiles to block the strait, and that "it could take many weeks, even months, to restore the full flow of commerce, and more time still for the oil markets to be convinced that stability had returned".Hmmmm.....The Pentagon’s own war simulations have shown that a war in the Persian Gulf with Iran would spell disaster for the United States and its military. One key example is the Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) war game in the Persian Gulf, which was conducted from July 24, 2002 to August 15, 2002 and took almost two years to prepare. This mammoth drill was amongst the largest and most expensive war games ever held by the Pentagon.In Millennium Challenge 2002’s war scenario, Iran would react to U.S. aggression by launching a massive barrage of missiles that would overwhelm the U.S. and destroy sixteen U.S. naval vessels – an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and five amphibious ships. It is estimated that if this had happened in real war theater context, more than 20,000 U.S. servicemen would have been killed in the first day following the attack. Next, Iran would send its small patrol boats – the ones that look insignificant in comparison to the U.S.S. John C. Stennis and other large U.S. warships – to overwhelm the remainder of the Pentagon’s naval forces in the Persian Gulf, which would result in the damaging and sinking of most of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the defeat of the United States. Quote: "You Sunk My Carrier!" After the U.S. defeat, the war games were started over again, but “Red” (Iran had to operate under the assumption of handicaps and shortcomings, so that U.S. forces would be allowed to emerge victorious from the drill. This outcome of the war games obviated the fact that the U.S. would have been overwhelmed in the context of a real conventional war with Iran in the Persian Gulf.Hence, the formidable naval power of Washington is handicapped both by geography as well Iranian military capabilities when it comes to fighting in the Persian Gulf or even in much of the Gulf of Oman. Without open waters, like in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. will have to fight under significantly reduced response times and, more importantly, will not be able to fight from a stand-off (militarily safe) distance. Thus, entire tool boxes of U.S. naval defensive systems, which were designed for combat in open waters using stand-off ranges, are rendered unpractical in the Persian Gulf........Whoever sold Iran Bladerunner 51, the British-built speedboat hailed among the fastest in the world was a moron.Since 2002's war game Iran has been modernising and expanding it's weapons arsenal.Read the full story here.
