I missed this story a few days ago: Iran tests short-range missile. Iran began a series of war games, but I don’t think the war games themselves are cause for alarm since the article says that: “Iran has routinely held war games over the past two decades to improve its combat readiness and to test equipment such as missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers.” Keyword: routinely. Nothing new. However, the surface-to-surface missiles they tested are troubling. They seem to be sending a signal similar to the one that North Korea was sending a while back, when were testing missiles. Is the message one telling the West to stay back, or is it aggression towards Israel? Or both? If only we lived in a world without nukes… this would not be troubling at all. One more thing: I wonder if they bought these missiles from Russia.

In the next bit of news from Iran: Iran ‘fires on Romanian oil rig’. An Iranian warship fired at a Romanian oil rig (owned by a private company) and then boarded and occupied the ship. I wonder how much attention this received in the news. (Probably not much.)

The explanation for this is murky: “The Romanian company in Iranian courts earlier this year over a dispute involving another oil rig, Fortuna, the financial weekly Saptamana Financiara has reported. It was unclear whether the incident was related to legal issues.” (Is that even proper grammar?)

Even if it did have legal issues, what gave Iran the right to take over the oil rig? I wish I knew more details, but the aggression on Iran’s part seems unwarranted.

I’ll be following this story.