Iran Arrests 30 US Spies As It Builds Venezuelan Missile Base; America Sends A Third Aircraft Carrier To Persian Gulf

From Zero Hedge:

A week ago Die Welt reported that, in what may soon be a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis, US arch-enemy Iran, following a secret agreement signed on October 19, 2010 of strategic cooperation, Venezuela has allowed Iran to commence construction of a missile base on Venezuelan soil. The base, which will be located on the northernmost peninsula de Paraguana, 120 kilometers from the Colombian border, has recently been visited by a group of leading engineers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard-owned construction company Khatam al-Anbia, is unofficially designed "to help develop an infrastructure to protect against air attack. Also planned is the construction of a command and control station, residential areas, watchtowers, and bunkers, in which warheads, missile fuel and other items can be stored.

In cooperation with its Venezuelan partners, Iran also intends to build missile silos at a depth of about 61 ft." The project appears to be funded by Iran: "Information gathered by Die Welt also suggests that on their visit to Venezuela, members of the Iranian delegation carried cash in their luggage for the project’s initial funding.

Western security circles suspect that this involved tens of millions of dollars siphoned off from Iran’s burgeoning oil profits." But most importantly is the discovery that while presumably defensive, Venezuela has told Iran, that it will be granted use of the base when completed: "According to the secret agreement between the two countries, Venezuela pledged to Iran that it will be able to strike its enemies from the joint missile base.

Iran is attempting to boost its strategic threat to the U.S., similar to the Soviet strategy in Cuba during the 1960s." And while skeptics may say that the base located about 2,400 miles from DC has no chance in striking the US capitol, the reality is that the Iranian long-range ballistic missiles Shahab 5 and 6, are rumored to be a three-stage system, which has a range of anywhere between 3,000 and 10,000 miles. So with missile base supplies most likely to come by sea (Venezuela is a few hundred miles away from Cuba), is a recreation of the 1961 Cuban missile crisis the next big political diversion?.....read on