{"id":10335,"date":"2012-05-31T11:08:53","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T18:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10335"},"modified":"2012-05-31T11:08:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T18:08:53","slug":"iran-clarifies-territory-us-deploys-f22s-in-ramp-up-to-regional-war-us-public-generally-clueless-about-obamas-new-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10335","title":{"rendered":"Iran clarifies &#8220;territory&#8221; . US deploys F22s in ramp up to regional war &#8211; US public &#8220;generally clueless&#8221; about Obama&#8217;s new war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Iran Guards chief visits disputed Gulf islands<\/strong><br \/>\n31 May, 2012 &#8211; Agence France Presse<\/p>\n<p>TEHRAN: The head of Iran&#8217;s powerful Revolutionary Guards on Thursday made a pointed visit to three islands in the Gulf whose ownership is fiercely disputed by Tehran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).<\/p>\n<p>Guards Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, accompanied by his naval commander, Ali Fadavi, went to the islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb to deliver a speech stressing they were Iran&#8217;s &#8220;strategic and sensitive territory,&#8221; the Guards&#8217; official news website said.<\/p>\n<p>Jafari expressed satisfaction with the condition of Iranian combat units stationed on Abu Musa, it said. He also offered a message of &#8220;friendship&#8221; to neighboring Arab countries on the Gulf.<\/p>\n<p>The visit was likely to be viewed as incendiary by the UAE, which claims the islands under the terms of a 1971 agreement signed when Britain ended its colonial-era reign over that part of the Gulf.<\/p>\n<p>But Iran rejects any UAE claim to the islands, saying they have always been part of its territory and that it never renounced its ownership.<\/p>\n<p>Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered the fury of the UAE and its allied Arab monarchies when he visited the islands in April to reinforce Tehran&#8217;s position.<\/p>\n<p>The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council called Ahmadinejad&#8217;s trip &#8220;a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the United Arab Emirates over its three islands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#8217;s military has vowed to defend the islands. It maintains a permanent military base and airfield on Abu Musa, the biggest of the three and the only one to be inhabited.<\/p>\n<p>The islands are at a strategic location in the oil-rich Gulf, permitting control over access to the waterway.<\/p>\n<p>The UAE has won support from the United States in the dispute, with Washington urging Iran to agree to the UAE&#8217;s demand that the issue be resolved through direct negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>The United States this month sent an unspecified number of its highly sophisticated F-22 Raptor fighter jets to the UAE, though it presented the deployment as &#8220;routine&#8221;.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailystar.com.lb\/News\/Middle-East\/2012\/May-31\/175263-iran-guards-chief-visits-disputed-gulf-islands.ashx\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D10335&amp;text=Iran+clarifies+%22territory%22+.+US+deploys+F22s+in+ramp+up+to+regional+war+-+US+public+%22generally+clueless%22+about+Obama%27s+new+war&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran Guards chief visits disputed Gulf islands 31 May, 2012 &#8211; Agence France Presse TEHRAN: The head of Iran&#8217;s powerful Revolutionary Guards on Thursday made a pointed visit to three islands in the Gulf whose ownership is fiercely disputed by Tehran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Guards Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, accompanied by his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10335#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1469],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10337,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335\/revisions\/10337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}