{"id":188704,"date":"2019-05-22T05:42:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T05:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=188704"},"modified":"2019-05-25T05:42:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T05:42:56","slug":"iran-threat-has-diminished-says-us-defense-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=188704","title":{"rendered":"Iran ‘threat’ has diminished, says US defense secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julian Borger and Patrick Wintour \u2013 The Guardian May 21, 2019<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The acting US defence secretary has claimed that the alleged threat from Iran<\/a> has receded as the result of an American show of force in the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve put on hold the potential for attacks on Americans,\u201d Patrick Shanahan told reporters before briefing Congress on the situation in the Persian Gulf and the military deployments that the US said were a response to a danger of imminent attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

The arrival of an aircraft carrier and its accompanying ships was recently accelerated<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, and B-52 bombers were sent to Qatar. Tensions increased with mysterious sabotage attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf, and drone strikes on Saudi oil installations, claimed by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nerves in the region were put even more on edge on Sunday by Donald Trump\u2019s tweeted threat<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that any conflict with the US would mean \u201cthe official end of Iran\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The remarks from Shanahan appeared to be a sign that tensions were easin<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked what he meant by saying that the threat was \u201con hold\u201d, the acting defence secretary said: \u201cThere haven\u2019t been any attacks on Americans. I would consider that a hold.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that the threats that we\u2019ve previously identified have gone away,\u201d Shanahan added. \u201cOur prudent response, I think, has given the Iranians time to recalculate. I think our response was a measure of our will and our resolve that we will protect our people and our interests in the region.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump administration did not make public the intelligence it claimed showed an imminent Iranian threat to the US in the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n

An investigation is under way into the sabotage attacks on four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates last week. The UK and Norway are helping the US with the inquiry, which was expected to report on Monday, but has been delayed for reasons that have not made clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the tankers attacked was Norwegian-flagged. The secretary of state, spoke on Tuesday<\/strong><\/span><\/a> with the country\u2019s foreign minister, Ine S\u00f8reide, about the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n

A European diplomat said: \u201cWe are very careful not to make attribution for recent attacks unless we are certain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials briefing the media have also claimed that overhead photography showed missiles being loaded on to dhows on the Iranian coast, and chatter about potential attacks on US facilities and personnel in Iraq. The state department withdrew non-essential staff from its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Erbil.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was unclear what Iran\u2019s aim was supposed to be in loading missiles on to dhows. Experts said that it would be very difficult to fire a missile<\/a><\/strong><\/span> from a small boat and if the intelligence reports were true, it was more likely they were being shipped to the Houthi movement in Yemen, or moved for safekeeping.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later reports suggested that the Iranian military deployments and discussion of targets could have been contingency measures for a possible response<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in the event of a US attack on Iran, seen as increasingly likely in recent months with the apparent ascendancy of John Bolton, the ultra-hawk national security adviser, in foreign policymaking.<\/span><\/p>\n

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Joseph Dunford, were expected to brief the House and Senate on Iran on Tuesday afternoon. Bolton was not on the list of speakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy take is that the Iranians saw an attack coming and they prepared to strike back and that caused alarm in the White House and particularly with the president,\u201d<\/strong> said Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council, who now teaches at Georgetown University.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe line sold to Trump by Bolton and Bibi Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman is he could strike Iran, show US dominance, and not risk anything. Iran showed it was preparing to strike back. Trump is smart enough to know that a war would be devastating, and not just for his political interests.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could it be that there never was a \u2018threat\u2019? Or that in the words of Trita Parsi, (and we think that this is particularly telling): \u201cthe Iranians saw an attack coming and they prepared to strike back and that caused alarm in the White House\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=188704"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188709,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188704\/revisions\/188709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=188704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=188704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=188704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}