Some 20,000 marines, seamen and air crews from six countries, a US nuclear aircraft carrier strike group and three US Marine gunship carriers are practicing an attack on a fictitious mechanized enemy division which has invaded its neighbor in the largest amphibian exercise seen in the West for a decade. "Bold Alligator 2012" simulates an Iranian invasion and a marine landing on the Iranian coast. debkafile: It is the prelude to the stationing of this aircraft carrier and marine force opposite Iran.

US President Barack Obama, by asserting Sunday, Feb. 5, he doesn't think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran, sought to keep Israel away from military action and set aside as a strategic reserve, while using its threat of attack to bring Iran to the table.  Monday, Feb. 6, Bashar Assad reportedly redoubled his deadly assault on Homs and, for the first time, Aleppo, taking advantage of the respite granted him by the Russian-Chinese veto. Syria is now a hub of the US-Iranian confrontation. 

The West and Russia had a major showdown Saturday Feb. 5 over the Arab League resolution calling on Bashar Assad to step down. US President Barack Obama said the UN must take a stand against his "relentless brutality" and hold a vote before the end of the day. The vote was defeated by Russian and China vetoes. debkafile: Moscow backed its hard line against the West by putting Rapid Reaction Force (aka Spetsnaz) units on the ready to set out for Syria.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has hired hit squads to kill top Lebanese government, intelligence and security officials whom he suspects of helping insurrectionists and Saudi and Qatari agents smuggle fighters and weapons into the country to fight his regime. debkafile's counter-terror sources report that one Lebanese hit squad was captured and confessed to being armed and assigned by Syrian Military Intelligence to murder the two heads of Lebanese Internal Security by rigging bomb cars in Beirut. A second plot targeted a Lebanese lawmaker.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been outspoken about a possible Israeli offensive being launched against Iran from April, but has not leveled about massive US war preparations. The question is no longer if armed hostilities are afoot, but when. Tehran too is gearing up with a new three-week "exercise" and calling allies to the flag, including Syria. There, the appalling bloodbath has reached a scale – 350 Saturday, Feb. 4 alone – which potentially rivals nuclear Iran as the trigger for a Middle East confrontation.

Iran has completed the development of a nuclear weapon and is only waiting for a sign from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to start assembling its first nuclear bomb, said Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Thursday, February 2. By the end of 2012 or early 2013 Iran may have a single nuclear bomb, he said, but by 2015 the figure would jump to four or five. Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon: None of Iran's nuclear installations are immune from attack.

Hamas-Damascus, contrary to Western reports, is firmly maintaining its ties with the Assad regime and the Iranian officials posted to the Syrian capital and Beirut as well as Hizballah, debkafile's sources report. Neither is Hamas seeking to break its ties with Iran, its arms and cash supplier for years. Indeed, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is seizing on the coming Tehran visit by Hamas' Gazan Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as opening a back door for mending its fences with the Iranian leadership.

A hurried decision not to de-commission the USS Ponce helicopter marine carrier after duty in Libya - but to refit it for deployment in the Persian Gulf by May as a floating base for SEAL commando teams - was confirmed by the US Pentagon and Navy Sunday, Dec. 29. This base will expand the commandos' range in coastal areas, especially against Iranian speedboats, and support counter-measures against mines which Iran threatens to plant in the Strait of Hormuz for the US-EU oil embargo. 

Military tensions in the Persian Gulf shot up again Thursday, Jan. 26, after Dubai police commander Gen. Dhahi Khalfan said an imminent Gulf war cannot be ruled out and first signs are already apparent. "The world will not let Iran block Hormuz, but Tehran can narrow the strait to the maximum," he said.  Saudi Arabia and Dubai doubt  the US Navy and Gulf forces can keep Hormuz open at all times. A war of attrition is therefore expected to unfold from February to July.

Syrian President Bashar Assad is reported by Persian Gulf sources Tuesday, Jan. 31 to have confided to his advisers that he will start up a regional conflict if the UN Security Council calls on him to step down. The heads of the Syrian armed forces and intelligence have been given their orders. Other sources tell debkafile that the Russian flotilla in Tartus appears to be on alert and Sunday, a US nuclear submarine and destroyer sailed through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea.

India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, debkafile reports exclusively.  Our sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both will therefore substantially cushion the impact on the Iranian economy of the European decision of Monday, Jan. 22, to impose an oil embargo on Iran and freeze the assets of its central bank.