© AP Photo / Fars News Agency, Mahdi Marizad
Earlier, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) held large-scale military drills in the Persian Gulf. The IRGC said they were ready to disrupt other countries' oil shipments through the strait if Iran's own exports were impeded.
Iran has full control of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, according to Alireza Tangsiri, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard's navy chief.
Iranian officials have earlier threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the main oil shipping route, in retaliation for any hostile actions from the US.
In early July, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps held large-scale military drills in the Persian Gulf. The drills were part of the annual exercises framework.
Earlier, the Iranian Supreme Leader's Top Adviser for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati said at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow that if Iran was not permitted to export its oil via the strait, no other Middle Eastern state would be able to do so.
Iran's ground forces commander Brigadier General Kiomars Heidari has warned the US and its allies to avoid trying to bring Iran's oil exports to a halt adding that the country's armed forces have all they need to defend the nation.
In turn, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that the US is poised and ready to ensure uninterrupted oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz despite threats from Iran.
Comment: According to FRN, the IRGC chief, Maj. Gen. Ali Jafari, confirmed Tangsiri's declaration. The drills, supported by Chinese Navy, went "live", and Iran is now poised to enforce full control over the Gulf and Strait. FRN reports:
Iran has confirmed that any number of friendly and neutral states will continue to have full commercial access to the strategic water-way. China has confirmed its support for today's major move on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The strait will now be a part of a strategic co-prosperity zone for Axis of Resistance countries, as well as increasingly neutral states including other Gulf Monarchies, like Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, who are now in a process of pushing out of Saudi-Israeli interference and control. The orientation of these states had begun to shift dramatically in the 2016-17 period, when the success of Iran and Russia in the Syrian war became evident.
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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been holding large-scale military drills in the Persian Gulf. The IRGC said they were ready to disrupt other countries' oil shipments through the strait if Iran's own exports were impeded.
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Through the use of and under the cover of 'drills', supported by the Chinese, the Iranian Navy was able to assume full control, unopposed and without a shot being fired, of the Strait of Hormuz.
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Both Russian and Iranian media, under a dangerously increasing regime of US corporate media and internet censorship, have apparently intentionally downplayed today's major, breaking news event. The connection between the drills, and the sudden Iranian military announcement, is not concretely made, even while both events are mentioned in the relevant journalistic reportage of this major event. Iran's English language PressTV has not covered it, and the Sputnik news coverage appears to have intentionally failed to 'connect' some fairly obvious and glaring 'dots'.
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Senior US officials had said they aimed to reduce Iran's oil exports to zero. Today's events appear to bring a close to that dashed aim.
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From the perspective of the rising the Multi-Polar Revolution (MPR) in progress, today's immense development cannot be overstated. The Strait of Hormuz is a water-way of tremendous significance, and Iran's liberation of this passage, supported by the Chinese Navy stationed in nearby Oman, signifies the tectonic shift we have witnessed over the last five years. It was five years ago that the US's military planners strategists came to the sober conclusion that they no longer had the force-projection ability, nor the international support, to strike Damascus directly with US or UK air force assets.
This marked a huge turning point in history, almost as if an alternate time-line had crossed into our own, one in which the US Empire was suddenly feckless and incapable of militarily defeating a 4th rate regional military power. In reality, the US military had been in terminal decline, along with its economy, as well-noted, by the neoconservative think-tank, the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) since 2000. In their white paper, they described that only a 'Pearl Harbor like event' could spur the sort of investment in military re-arming that could turn the tide. Ultimately, these efforts were successful in breathing life back into imperial projects, but only for another decade, ending with the destruction of Libya. Their gambit to seize Crimea by staging a coup in Ukraine, and create a permanent war-zone there, also ended in failure.
Comment: According to FRN, the IRGC chief, Maj. Gen. Ali Jafari, confirmed Tangsiri's declaration. The drills, supported by Chinese Navy, went "live", and Iran is now poised to enforce full control over the Gulf and Strait. FRN reports: