The Saudis have facilitated the construction of a secret IAF forward base, five miles outside the city of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and Israelis, as usual, pretend not to know each other. The Saudis have closed Tabuk airport for civilian flights for several days as the Israeli Air Force landed jet fighter aircraft and military supplies. Civilians were not told of the purpose of the closure, but were accommodated by the Saudi government elsewhere.

The base outside Tabuk, according to unconfirmed sources, is a ‘forward’ operating base for combat assault helicopters along the ‘corridor’ that has been created for the free passage of IAF combat assets on their way into Iran… greatly reducing the distance that Israeli aircraft would have to travel to reach their targets in Iran. There can be no greater indication of the fear that Iran has caused among the middle east Arab states than that there is not one word of invective or protest against the ‘zionist occupiers’, which is an Islamic catch-word for all things Israeli.

It is ironic in the extreme that scrappy little Israel is not only in the position of having to save itself, but will be existentially carrying the banner of the crescent into combat for the solidly anti-Israeli, but timid, Arab states who seriously fear an Iranian hegemony over the region enforced by an Iranian thermonuclear threat. This is the latest in a long series of preparations that have resulted in Iran quickly shifting large numbers of combat troops from the home guard, tanks, artillery and missile assets closer to the north-western border and into the Caspian region, in what is described by the Iranian high command as a state of war.

Israel’s recent additions to its defensive/offensive capability include a new secret combat satellite system launched into low earth orbit on June 24. The Israeli military would only say that the new satellite, Ofek 9, has unprecedented military capabilities. Ofek joins two other Israeli satellites presently in orbit and has Tehran in a quandary, as the resolution from the orbiting satellites is said to be less than a meter. You can run but you can’t hide, seems to be the message.

The United States has several naval carrier strike forces including an anti-submarine strike group and amphibious landing ‘Expeditionary Strike Group 5′, which includes elements of the United States Marine Corps 15th Expeditionary Brigade from Camp Pendleton, California, said to number some 6,000 Marines and sailors. With American, German, Israeli and Canadian Naval assets now in position and Israeli land air and sea assets at the ready, it would seem that hostilities are imminent. Combat-ready troops cannot be kept at an extreme state of alert for long periods in advance of an assault… it tends to take their edge off.

Further, I don’t think that at this point the Mullahs could get off the hook if they rolled over and said they’d make nice… it’s gone much farther than that now. In addition, the government has lost control of the country’s nuclear weapons programs which have been taken over by fanatical home guard units, as the Iranians rush to the finish line for their Islamo-bomb.

Can they be as blind to their situation as Saddam Hussein was during the American preparations for taking out his regime? Only time will tell, but time is running out for the Iranians.
God bless America, Israel and our other allies in this ugly but very necessary task.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010