It certainly seems as if the Iranian mullahs have become nervous about a potential strike against their nuclear weapons programs. Today comes the news from the official Iranian news agency that Iran is now threatening action against any of its neighbors that help in any way with such an attack. According to the deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, "Any spot used by the enemy for hostile operations against Iran, will be subjected to retaliatory aggression by our armed forces."
So what does this threat mean? First of all, it is a warning to any country housing US forces that they will be targets of retaliation if there is an American attack. But this is not news. Needless to say, were American forces to attack Iran, the Iranians would try to strike back against US installations in the region even if they were in countries like Kuwait or the Gulf states. Instead, I believe it is a warning to the Saudis. It is well known that Saudi Arabia is in favor of a strike against the Iranian nuclear program. Indeed, rumor has it that the Saudis will cooperate with the Israeli airforce so that an Israeli strike force could operate from Saudi bases in any attack. This would reduce the distance to Iranian targets by many thousands of miles and would put all of the Iranian nuclear targets witin range of Israeli planes. It would also mean that the Israeli planes could approach Iran from an unexpected direction and basically spring inot Iranian airspace without ever being detected by their air defense systems.
Today's warnings make perfect sense if the mullahs fear such Saudi-Israeli cooperation.
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