The first link below reports that Iran intends to have a new naval base for its warships in Beirut. It states that Iranian surface warships will afterwards be followed by Iranian submarines. This is a very serious development as it would place Iranian ships with cruise missiles within easy range of Israeli cities. Because Iran’s leader has said he wants to “wipe Israel off the map,” the Israelis have every right to view this development as a strong threat to their national security.
As news-conscious readers of this website no doubt already know, two Iranian warships are already making their way to the Mediterranean Sea via a Suez Canal routing (see second link). There may be a delay in their ability to transit the Canal due to their failure to file a 48 hour advance notice for warships intending to transit the Canal (an item I heard on the news today), but with Egypt in a state of confusion, it is likely that the Iranian warships will be allowed to transit the Canal.
I find the timing of this Iranian ship deployment to be of interest. The Iranian warships will transit the Canal to the cheers of the Moslem Brotherhood members in Egypt, inciting them to even greater rebellion against the Egyptian Military Council which now governs Egypt.
This plot gets even thicker. Russia intends to establish a permanent naval base in Syria in the near future. The third link reports that Russia intends to expand its naval facilities in Syria to accomodate and base missile cruisers and perhaps even an aircraft carrier in a Syrian base. It further reports that Russia intends to send tanks, helicopters and other military equipment to the Lebanese Army now that Hezbollah has all but taken over the government of Lebanon.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see two major threats in these combined Russian-Iranian plans to build naval bases on the eastern Mediterranean coast. These actions will help encircle the Israelis and make their security situation more precarious. However, Russian and Iranian naval bases in the Mediterranean Sea also directly threaten NATO nations as well. The Mediterranean Sea has generally been a “NATO lake,” but Russia and Iran are making plans to change this situation. The Gog-Magog alliance prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39 is starting to move more aggressively to challenge NATO forces in its own home regions. With Turkey (which controls sea access between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea) moving inexorably into Iran’s camp and away from NATO, NATO is in serious decline and its home nations are coming under greater threat. A recent post at this blog site reported that Russia already has substantial military forces in its Kaliningrad region on the Polish north coast.
Perhaps NATO ought to forget about chasing the Taliban around the rocks of Afghanistan and start worrying about defending its own member nations.
http://warsclerotic.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/an-iranian-naval-base-planned-in-beirut/
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/16/israel.iran.warships/index.html
http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/2011/01/kremlin-says-eyeing-new-naval-bases.html
