Iranian cyber-intelligence operatives are said to have hacked into a ship tracking website to track civilian vessels and used other measures to track US military ships, according to former US officials.

The US Cyber Command launched a retaliatory strike Thursday against what is said to be the Iranian intelligence group allegedly responsible for last week’s bombings of two oil tankers, according to Yahoo News report, citing two unnamed former intelligence officials.

According to the report, an undisclosed intelligence group, which has ties to Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has “hacked” into marine traffic tracking websites and gathered information about civilian vessels, and somehow digitally tracked military ones operating in the Strat of Hormuz. The report does not disclose why Iranian needed to hack into a website openly available for anyone on the Web.

The US Cyber Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by reporters on Friday, The Hill report says. The scale of the secret cyberattack is undisclosed.

According to officials, Iranian cyber intelligence has ramped up its efforts to gather information on ships in the region. Secretive Iranian cyber spies used to rely on fake social media accounts using images of almost naked women to attract naval officers, according to James Lewis, a cyber expert at the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Oblivious to Iranian honey traps, US sailors eagerly disclosed ship location and destination, the former intelligence officials said.

Iran’s cyber warriors now incorporate more sophisticated and time-consuming methods, officials assert.

The alleged US cyberattack comes in the wake of several weeks of mounting tension in the region escalating after two tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The US blamed Iran for the attack, which Tehran denied, adding that it does not seek to go to war with any nation.

Earlier this week, Iran shot down a US spy drone, which Tehran claims had invaded Iran airspace, to send a “clear message” to Washington that the Islamic republic will defend itself against US military provocations.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump did not order a missile strike against Iran, claiming that he did not want to kill an estimated 150 Iranians in retaliation for a downed unmanned drone.

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https://sputniknews.com/military/201906221076015648-us-launches-secret-c...

Um, wow. From this morning’s New York Times:

He heard from his generals and his diplomats. Lawmakers weighed in and so did his advisers. But among the voices that rang powerfully for President Trump was that of one of his favorite Fox News hosts: Tucker Carlson.

While national security advisers were urging a military strike against Iran, Mr. Carlson in recent days had told Mr. Trump that responding to Tehran’s provocations with force was crazy. The hawks did not have the president’s best interests at heart, he said. And if Mr. Trump got into a war with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye.

This is true, actually. The Republican president and the Republican Party led this country into a disastrous and unnecessary war with Iraq. One reason we have a Republican president now is because Trump ran against that appalling record. If Trump throws it away to start what will surely be a vastly more complicated and devastating war with Iran — my God, the Republican Party will deserve to be reduced to silt. More:

The concerns that Mr. Trump heard from Mr. Carlson reflected that part of the presidential id that has always hesitated at pulling the trigger. Belligerent and confrontational as he is in his public persona, Mr. Trump has at times pulled back from the use of force, convinced that America has wasted too many lives and too much money in pointless Middle East wars and wary of repeating what he considers the mistakes of his predecessors.

As Mr. Carlson and other skeptics have argued, a strike against Iran could easily spiral into a full-fledged war without easy victory. That, Mr. Trump was told, was everything he ran against. And so the president struggled into the early evening, committed to taking action to demonstrate resolve right up until the moment he decided against it and called off the warplanes and missile launchers.

And:

The decision made, the military ordered ships and planes in the region to stand down. At the White House, Mr. Trump turned on his television to watch the opening of Mr. Carlson’s 8 p.m. show, where he heard what surely must have sounded like vindication. Onscreen, Mr. Carlson declared that “foreign wars have ended in dismal failure for the United States.”

While no decision had been announced yet, Mr. Carlson praised Mr. Trump for resisting military intervention in Iran. “The same people who lured us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago are demanding a new war, this one with Iran,” he said. “The president, to his great credit, appears to be skeptical of this — very skeptical.”

But read on to see what Sean Hannity said after Tucker’s show.

We have come to the point at which pretty much the only thing standing between America and a new war is a prime time conservative talk show host. Watch the key Tucker broadcast here. It’s important...

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https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/tucker-carlson-saved-amer...

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The point is also that Iran isn't Iraq's Hussein... Attacking Iran CANNOT BE a cakewalk. War game simulations have indicated that though Iran could be defeated, the cost to the US would be enormous in lives and cash. Meanwhile the whole region would become inflamed. Civil war in Lebanon, Iraq joining Iran, Qatar destroyed, the UAE destroyed... Saudi Arabia on the brink... etc. And this before Russia or China join the fray... The first US casualty would be their massive aircraft carrier plonked like a sitting duck, even at full speed doing 35 knots. But we can't expect too much from the US administration. "We're going to have more sanctions in Iran" says the Donald... more or less awaiting for someone to make a "mistake" so he would not be blamed for the bloodbath.…

See also:

It was earlier reported that while President Donald Trump "agonised" over the decision whether to attack Iran over a downed US drone, his team, including State Secretary Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and CIA Director Gina Haspel, incited him to unleash fire and fury. 

President Donald Trump stood against his national security team by deciding not to go ahead with retaliatory strikes on Iran earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting. We don't need any more wars", the commander-in-chief is alleged to have told one confidant about his advisers, per the WSJ.

While lamenting the loss of a $130-million drone shot down by an Iranian missile, Trump chose not to retaliate because he reportedly thought that American voters would have been more outraged over human losses rather than lost funds.

The report comes just a day after the US president told reporters that he has confidence in National Security Adviser John Bolton even though he disagreed with him on a number of issues, including his policies in the Middle East.

"I disagree very much with John Bolton. His attitude in the Middle East and Iraq - going into Iraq, I think that was a big mistake and I've been proven right but I've been against that forever. John Bolton is doing a very good job but he takes a generally tough posture. I have other people that don't take that posture, but the only one that matters is me", he said, while describing Bolton as a "hawk".

Asked about his decision not to attack Iran, Trump said, "Everyone was saying I'm a warmonger. Now they're saying I'm a dove".

Addressing the potential casualties of a strike against the Islamic Republic, the president said that "anything is a lot when they shoot down an unmanned [drone]. I didn't like it", and added that Iran was "very wise" for not hitting a manned aircraft and "we appreciate" the decision.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201906231076024910-trump-snubbed-nati...

So, "the president is sane" — unlike Bolton and all the others... We all can hope that the president's sanity won't be cured...

The Night Donald Trump Became President

It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war.

By W. JAMES ANTLE III • June 24, 2019

Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.

Hugh Hewitt called it the “big blink,” inviting Liz Cheney—who is very much her father’s daughter on foreign policy—on his show to warn, “Weakness is provocative.” Hewitt compared it to Barack Obama’s failure to enforce his “red line” in Syria. “Much worse” argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic. Other reporting focused on a “total breakdown in process.”

It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply illustrate the Beltway’s strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops home from Syria.

A Republican-controlled Senate passed a non-binding resolution rebuking Trump for contemplating the end to a war  Congress never authorized. Similarly, war with Iran is Congress’ call under the Constitution, not Trump’s. Still, with the single (but significant) exception of Yemen, Trump has faced more pushback when he has tried to keep his more antiwar campaign promises than when he has escalated the bombing and droning already going on, mostly without congressional authorization, all over the world.

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-night-donald-trump-...

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Tweeting in rare agreement after Trump announced a new round of sanctions against Tehran, Zarif said that removal of US forces would be “fully in line” with the interests of the US and the world.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/462596-iran-zarif-trump-persian-gulf/

Here are the key things Trump said on the White House lawn:

• On Acosta, and his deal with Epstein: “He made a deal that people were happy with, and then 12 years later they’re not happy with it. You’ll have to figure all of that out. But the fact is, he has been a fantastic secretary of labor."
• On this weekend's ICE raids: "It starts on Sunday, and they're going to take people out and they're going to bring them back to their countries ... We're focused on criminals as much as we can, before we do anything else."
• On Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "I’ll tell you something about Nancy Pelosi that you know better than I do, she is not a racist. OK? She is not a racist."
• On former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan: "Paul Ryan let us down. Paul Ryan was a terrible speaker. Frankly, he was a baby. He didn't know what the hell he was doing."
• On Joe Biden's 2020 campaign: "President Xi, Putin all of these guys go to bed at night and they pray that Joe Biden or somebody like him becomes president so they can continue to rip off our country."