Is U.S. already at war with Iran?

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Iranian flag

WASHINGTON – Analysts are suggesting the war already has begun with Iran, as the radical Islamic regime is considering ways to retaliate over the recent bombings of its facilities, the persistent cyber-attacks on its nuclear program and the assassinations of its top nuclear scientists by Western agents, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

To the Iranians, the recent U.S. allegation of an Iranian attempt to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States and the downed U.S. spy drone in their country are further evidence of increased Western pressure that analysts believe will prompt an indirect Iranian retaliatory response.

The analysts suggest expecting sharply increased hostilities in the region is reasonable.

That indirect response could include encouraging increased Shi'ite uprisings in the Gulf Arab countries, attacking U.S. personnel and allowing Iranian proxies of Hezbollah and Hamas to undertake attacks against Israel and its U.S. and Saudi allies, according to regional expert Brian M. Downing.

Meantime, Iran has obtained a favorable response from Afghan Deputy Defense Minister Homayoun Fawzi in its suggestion Afghanistan stop allowing the U.S. to launch spy drones from its territory. This action follows the recent downing of a stealth RQ-170 Sentinel U.S. spy drone inside Iran after it was launched from Afghanistan. It may have developed mechanical problems and fallen into Iranian hands with minimum damage.

The intelligence benefits to Iran are potentially great, since the drone was stealth and would reveal the coatings and designs that help it evade all radar detection. U.S. intelligence officials believe that not only will Iran learn stealth technology methods and be able to develop countermeasures to it, but the drone's technologies will be shared with Russia and China. The Iranians also hope to gain considerable insight into the sophisticated electronics that were on the downed drone, since it had a variety of intelligence-gathering capabilities.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of our good friends and we will not allow any threat to Iran from Afghanistan's soil," Fawzi told Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in underscoring how the security of both countries is linked.

Esmaeil Kowsari, a member of the Iranian parliament and vice chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, still contends the Iranians brought down the drone through sophisticated hacking of satellites that control such drones.

As an indication that Iranian electronic measures may be aimed at U.S. forces in the region in retaliation, Kowsari warned that the Iranians will be undertaking electronic warfare against "all computer-based network systems in the U.S. and Europe."

This assertiveness by the Iranian government is just part of the response that it has launched in recent weeks.

As G2Bulletin recently reported, the Iranian government also intends to sail Iranian warships off of the U.S. coast and possibly use port facilities in Venezuela, Cuba and possibly Brazil to help maintain its patrols.

In Tehran, meantime, the government a few weeks ago allowed Iranian students to seize the British embassy briefly with what analysts say was with the help of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

And in recent days, Iran announced the temporary closure of the strategic Straits of Hormuz through which some 40 percent of the world's oil passes.

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