Arab world fears an Iran war may be impending

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that the Iranian satellite carrier space launch Sunday, Aug. 17, was prompted by a joint caution to Tehran from Saudi King Abdullah and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

After their meeting Saturday, the spokesman of the presidential palace in Cairo, Suleiman Awwad, said: Iran should not present on a silver platter the “justifications and pretexts for those [US and Israel] who want to drag the region down a dangerous slope.”

This warning was interpreted by the London Arabic daily Al Quds as a warning to Tehran that an attack is impending by the US, some European nations and Israel.

The article recalled the fate of Saddam Hussein “who didn't adequately refute claims over Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction.”

Tehran immediately responded to the warning by launching the Safir satellite carrier into orbit, thereby exhibiting a ballistic missile capable of reaching outside the Middle East, as far as Britain and France, should they decide to join an American attack on Iran, as well as US military installations on that continent.

Our military sources report that the war scare in Cairo and Riyadh also infected Kuwait.

Last week, the small oil emirate placed its military on “war alert,” to avoid being caught off-guard by a possible conflict in the region. On Saturday, Kuwait boosted its naval force in the Persian Gulf to ward off a possible Iranian reprisal against its oil installations if attacked.

The scare was fed by the impending arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the USS Ronald Reagan, and the USS Iwo Jima in the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US strike forces in the region, as first revealed by DEBKAfile on August 11.

They are to join the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is patrolling the Arabian Sea opposite Iran, and the USS Peleliu, on beat in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. This deployment would be the largest naval task force the US and its allies had massed in the region since the 1991 Gulf War.

A US Pentagon spokesman last week denied that these forces were gathering to impose a partial naval blockade on Iran, but declined to disclose their mission. The denial apparently failed to convince the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait.