The Coming Confrontation With Iran

Things appear to be heating up in the Persian Gulf:

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran rose Monday after the Obama Administration quietly increased the capability of land and sea-based missile defenses in several Gulf nations to protect American allies against a potential Iranian strike.

Administration officials said over the weekend that the U.S. was speeding up arms sales to a number of Gulf Arab states and that it had also deployed warships capable of knocking down hostile missiles in flight to the region.

The moves, which include the sales of anti-missile systems to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, are designed to deter Iran from launching attacks against its Sunni Muslim neighbors and to send a message to Israel that a preemptive strike against Iran is unnecessary.

The deployments come as President Obama enters a new phase in efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program after the failure of a diplomatic offensive. Washington is anxious to get a tough new round of U.N. sanctions against Tehran, something that China and Russia have shown little interest in backing.

Iran's crazy president is making not-too-veiled threats about a big event on February 11th, the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, and opposition leaders in the country are calling for major protests that day.

Will Iran launch some sort of crazy attack that day? I'm beginning to think that our forces in the area believe they will.