Israel and the United States are preparing for open war with Iran, with joint anti-missile exercises this spring or even this month. The only question left to ask: will “exercises” become an all-out conflict?

US troops stationed in Israel

Last September, the United States Army, for the first time, stationed troops permanently in Israel. Specifically, the Army, with help from the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, shipped an X-band radar system and the people and equipment to support it, to Navatim Air Force Base, in the eastern Negev southeast of Beersheba. The report in Defense News says that more than a dozen C-5, C-17, and similar aircraft took part in the airlift. US troops have held joint anti-missile exercises with troops of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) before, but have never permanently assigned troops to Israel.

NOTE: Representative Ron Paul (R-TX-14) protested, two months later, that the US government was setting a precedent that young Americans would automatically go to Israel to protect that country. Whether this shipment did, or did not, prompt Dr. Paul to make that protest, no one has ever asked him or tried to figure out in any other way.

Then on December 20, 2011, The Jerusalem Post reported that Lieutenant General Frank Gorenc USAF, commander of the Third Air Force, was in Israel to discuss a massive anti-missile exercise. The Post said that this exercise would take place in the spring of 2012. But Global Research of Canada reported two days ago that another Israeli media source (which it did not name or link to) said that the exercise would take place this month. The exercise will use some of the best anti-missile defenses that the United States has. This includes the Army’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, and the US Navy’s AEGIS system. The Americans plan to use these together with missile defense systems that Israel already has: the Patriot, the Arrow, and the Iron Dome.

The presence in Israel of such a high-ranking American general officer is significant in itself. The IDF has a unified command structure, with all three services (ground, naval, and air forces) under one set of general officers. Furthermore, the IDF has only three general officer ranks, and only one man, the Chief of Staff, holds the highest rank. So technically, General Gorenc could outrank any Israeli in the field whom he works with, and would be equal in rank to the Israeli Chief of Staff.

Tensions with Iran

Flag of Israel

The Islamic Republic of Iran has, of course, threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz if the European Union and other international bodies do not lift sanctions against that country. Recently the USS John C. Stennis passed through the Straits toward the open ocean, and now the Iranians have told the US Fifth Fleet not to return to the Persian Gulf. The US government, for its part, says that the Fifth Fleet will go where it pleases, whatever Iran says about it. US diplomats are also talking intensely to Israeli government officials, trying to persuade them not to attack Iran on their own.

Meanwhile, the American blogosphere is buzzing about US troops going to Israel. Many bloggers expect war to break out, and Americans to take part in it. Most of them are not happy about it.

A New Jersey Tea Party activist told CNAV to expect war to break out this May. Nick Purpura, of Wall, NJ, said that the man now holding office as President, Barack H. Obama, might provoke war to improve his flagging electoral fortunes.

He knows that his numbers are in the tank. He has also left a sour taste in Jewish mouths, as if he had offered them pork to eat. But he also knows that no US President has ever lost re-election in the middle of a major war. So he is getting ready to start something with Iran, just to show how tough he is and to try to win back the Jewish vote.

Author Mike Evans, head of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, sees the anti-missile drill as a sign of open war between Iran and Israel.

At that point all of the pieces for a serious joint strike against Iran to halt their nuclear weapons program will be in place. I do not know that open war will happen in May, but this is one of the clearest signals I’ve seen yet…

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