Islam Times - UK itches to taste Iran might at sea

Islam Times - British Foreign Secretary has once more talked of “all options” including a military strike against Iran over its civilian nuclear program amid speculations that British warships stand no chance against Iranian missile battery in the Persian Gulf.

“It is not our way of dealing with [Iran’s nuclear program] … to advocate military action. Although I do stress again, we are taking nothing off the table," Hague said.

Hague also claimed Iran “are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons program” adding “If they obtain nuclear weapons capability,” that would lead to a “threat of a new cold war in the Middle East.”

Hague’s saber-rattling follows months of similar remarks by British officials, including Prime Minister David Cameron, who have threatened Iran with a military strike from its southern waters in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

However, the facts on the ground seriously undermine the talks of “consequences” for Iran in case of a conflict, raising questions whether it is rather Britain that would suffer unwelcome consequences if it joins its mentors in the US and the Israeli regime to attack Iran.

Britain has been trying to make the case that Iranian forces are no match for the British forces and that Iran cannot pay British attacks back.

This is while Britain is now deploying the same class of vessels as HMS Sheffield and HMS Coventry - the obsolete Type-42 destroyers class - which Argentina sent to the bottom of the Atlantic with the subsonic Exocet missiles during the 1982 Falklands War.

Britain is also deploying the smaller Type-23 frigates, employing radar systems and other equipment that go back to the 1989, effectively making the British naval forces extremely vulnerable to Iran’s advanced supersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles.

Iranian Navy displayed the smart “Khalij Fars” supersonic anti-ship ballistic missile in late 2011.

The solid-fuel missile is capable of destroying targets at a 300 km range and enjoys search and targeting systems that lock on the target only in the final phase, giving hostile vessels no chance of escape.

The specifications of Khalij Fars missiles, and those of other Iranian missiles, make them greatly superior to the Exocets that sunk the British warships 40 years ago.

Iran has also recently test-fired a range of indigenous, state of the art medium- and long-range missiles, including the anti-radar surface to air Mehrab projectile, the surface-to-surface Nour, and the coast-to-sea Qader missile, with a range of 200 kilometers.

Iran’s missile capability makes it actually probable that British navy could face a tragic scenario similar to the outcome of the US war games in the Persian Gulf in 2002.

The US launched the much-hyped Operation Millennium Challenge in the Persian Gulf back in 2002 after two years of planning and at a cost of $250 million.

After the naval drills ended, Lt. Gen. Paul van Riper, who led the enemy or the Force Red in the war games, leaked to the US Army Times that the outcome of the mock battles saw most of the US fleet sent to the bottom of the Persian Gulf to predict the worst US naval disaster since Pearl Harbor in case of a war with Iran.

Van Riper said if the games were real, 16 US warships including an aircraft carrier and two helicopter carriers were sent to the bottom of the Persian Gulf while others were in disarray leaving thousands of American soldiers dead, dying or wounded.