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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 7323324" data-attributes="member: 92282">Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard on Thursday started large-scale war  games in the Persian Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz, state  television reported.Iran has been holding military maneuvers in  the gulf and the Strait of Hormuz annually since 2006 to show off its  military capabilities. The last four editions of the games were held in  the summer, but there has been no official explanation why they were  brought forward this year.The war games have routinely heightened  tension in the region, but they have more recently taken added  significance as the standoff between the West and Tehran over Iran's  nuclear program grows deeper.The West suspects the program  conceals a nuclear arm production drive, a charge that Iran denies.Iran  has in the past signaled that it would close the Strait of Hormuz if  attacked by the West, something that makes holding war games there a  particularly sensitive move. Some 40 percent of the world's oil and  energy supplies pass through the narrow waterway at the mouth of the  Persian Gulf.In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff  Morrell played down the significance of the maneuvers, saying "they  don't seem out of the ordinary" from what Iran's military has done in  the past.Asked Wednesday — the day the maneuvers were announced  in Tehran — what concerns he had about the Iranian war games, Morrell  said: "I haven't heard any particular concerns.""They conduct  exercises and tests and war games with some frequency," he told a  Defense Department news conference. "I think any sovereign state is  obviously within its rights to drill and prepare and make such  preparations for their own defenses."The Iranian television  report said naval, air and ground units from the Guard were  participating in the three-day games codenamed "The Great Prophet." It  said the war games will witness the commissioning of what it described  as an "ultra-speed" vessel called "Ya Mahdi" and a total of 313  speedboats with the capability of firing rockets and missiles also would  participate.On Wednesday, Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi  said "new weapons" would be test-fired in the war games, but did not  give any details.Tehran, said Morrell on Wednesday, often makes  exaggerated claims about its weapons testing."What's always been  interesting is how much what they do comports with what they say," he  said. "It's more often the case with testing of weaponry than it is with  exercises and drills, but often they profess and claim to have  capabilities which are not demonstrated in reality based upon our review  of intelligence after the fact."Tehran was angered by President  Barack Obama's announcement this month of a new U.S. nuclear policy in  which he pledged America would not use atomic weapons against nations  that do not have them. Iran and North Korea were pointedly excluded from  the non-use pledge, and Iranian leaders took that as an implicit  threat.Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said  Wednesday that the U.S. "nuclear threat" is a "Stigma in the U.S.  political history," saying Iranians will not allow the U.S to dominate  the country.Iran's archenemy, Israel, has not ruled out military  action against Iran's nuclear facilities.<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8w9jEuGdIs_8V7JE8IhdP10_i4gD9F8396O0" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.google.com/hostednews/img/ap_logo.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></blockquote>

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