U.S. LED GULF WAR GAME AIMS MESSAGE TO IRAN
Pushing, pushing, pushing……
Frigates, patrol boats and intelligence and law enforcement officers from 23 nations are massing in Bahrain over the weekend, poised to stalk and intercept a British-flagged ship as it steams across the Persian Gulf with a cargo purported to be parts for a nuclear weapons program. If all goes as planned the vessel will be intercepted Monday before it reaches a destination that a senior U.S. official would identify only as a “country of proliferation concern.” But he added, “I understand the exercise has gotten the attention of the Iranian government.”
Which is just the way the U.S. and its allies want it. While the international diplomatic effort to stop Iran from acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons appears stymied, Plan B is the Proliferation Security Initiative, an anti’smuggling project launched by the U.S. and ten partners in 2003 and now boasting 80 participating nations. Next week’s multinational training exercise, codenamed “Leading Edge,” represents the first such counter-proliferation war game to be staged in the Gulf, and the first to include the participation of the Gulf states - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
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Filed: Iran
