Plural!? IIRC there is only one south american nation with a (CTOL) carrier…

1) What would Egypt, a US ally with which Israel has signed peace, do? –
Nothing. It permits Israeli submarines to pass through the Suez Canal, as long as they obey the navigation rules & pay the toll. It has no cause to treat any Iranian ships differently.

2) What would post-aparrtheid South Africa do? –
Nothing. The Iranian ships would be treated the same as any other warships in transit, i.e. permitted to take on supplies, as long as they behaved themselves in South African waters.

3) What would Nato-member Spain and Morocco do? –
Nothing. The Strait of Gibraltar is an international waterway, with the right of passage.

4) What would Syria do? – Cheer the Iranians from the sidelines, but not risk getting shot at.

5) What would Lebanon do? – Nothing. Someone elses problem.

The canal is owned and maintained by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Under international treaty, it may be used “in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal

“The Gulf of Suez occupies the northwestern arm of the Red Sea between Africa proper (west) and the Sinai Peninsula (east) of Egypt. It is the third arm of the triple junction rift system. The second arm of the triple junction system is the Gulf of Aqaba.

The length of the gulf, from its mouth at the Strait of Jubal to its head at the city of Suez, is 195 miles (314 km), and it varies in width from 12 to 20 miles (19 to 32 km).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Suez

All of the Gulf of Suez can be considered Egyptioan territorial waters. While Egypt may not refuse the use of the canal as such, it could refuse entry by foreing navy ships into into it’s territorial waters.

“The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa. Europe and Africa are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.24 km) of ocean at the strait’s narrowest point.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Gibraltar

Similarly, Spain and Morocco could deny access to their territorial waters.

“Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most twelve nautical miles from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. The territorial sea is regarded as the sovereign territory of the state, although foreign ships (both military and civilian) are allowed innocent passage through it; this sovereignty also extends to the airspace over and seabed below.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters

Would an armed convoy escort of Iranian military ships get ‘innocent passage’?

“Innocent passage is a concept in admiralty law which allows for a vessel to pass through the territorial waters of another state subject to certain restrictions. The United States Department of Defense defines innocent passage as:

The right of all ships to engage in continuous and expeditious surface passage through the territorial sea and archipelagic waters of foreign coastal states in a manner not prejudicial to its peace, good order, or security. Passage includes stopping and anchoring, but only if incidental to ordinary navigation or necessary by force majeure or distress, or for the purpose of rendering assistance to persons, ships, or aircraft in danger or distress”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_passage

See also UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
PART II TERRITORIAL SEA AND CONTIGUOUS ZONE
SECTION 3. INNOCENT PASSAGE IN THE TERRITORIAL SEA
SUBSECTION A. RULES APPLICABLE TO ALL SHIPS
Article19 Meaning of innocent passage
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part2.htm

As for Lebanon and Syria, would they allow Iranian transport aircraft to fly in naval equipment?

There’s a lot in the article that is extremely disingenuous though. For example:

“the U.S. and South Korea were engaged in joint anti-submarine warfare exercises just 75 miles away”

JUST 75 miles away???. In ASW terms 75nm, 150,000yds+, might as well be the other side of the Pacific. You arent going to get a hit on a minisub in a high ambient noise environment, such as 60ft shallows, from 150,000yds without SURTASS-LFA.

The best platform to hunt in those waters is a pinger chopper with a FLASH type dipping set. Second best, ironically, is a platform like Cheonan with an active medium frequency set. Problem is always going to be that active detection even with such a set will be a couple of thousand yards at best. Meaning that a sharp sub skipper always stands a chance at getting a HWT shot off. This being the reason for the preferred littoral ASW sensor platform being offboard and netted back….like a chopper, a UUV, a USV or a buoy based solution.

“To us, stealth denotes the latest technology – billions of dollars in research and development in armaments,” said John Park, a Korea expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “The North Korean version of stealth is old-school diesel-battery operated subs that evade modern detection methods.”

This is jibberish – it says nothing about how the ‘North Korean version of stealth’ is limited to waters where the subs can exploit their small size and low acoustic signature. It says nothing about how short a radius of influence ‘North Korean stealth’ has within those defined waters. It says nothing about what ‘North Korean stealth’ can achieve outside of those specific waters where the conditions favour its systems.

There does seem to be a, miserable, irony in the fact that Cheonan’s ASW ‘exercise’ hunting may have been precisely the thing that got it torpedoed though!.

Which USN and ROKN assets were involved in the exercise?

As of 2009, SURTASS was deployed on the four T-AGOS-19 Victorious class and single T-AGOS-23 Impeccable class Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) vessels.
…
There is presently two SURTASS LFA sonar systems, one each onboard the USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23) and Able (T-AGOS-20), both operating in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Victorious_(T-AGOS-19)

Note that T-AGOS ships were involved in incidents with PLAN in 2009.

In addition, minisub bases and boat movements were monitored (as is evident from the report on the Cheonan sinking). Perhaps also as part of the exercise (how far are those bases from the exercise area > if similar distance then that monitoring too might have involved SURTASS-LFA. Recall, incidents with T-AGOS in 2009 were in the area of PLAN sub bases)

[QUOTE=Lindermyer;1590796]

BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81) still in service ?

I was under the impression she still is, her sisters definatly gone.
mind you I thought the Brazzillian carrier was now defunct, but i keep hearing how brazil will be operating rafale off it (is she big enough)

Rafale trialed from sistership Clemenceau.

BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81) still in service ?

Apparently, yes.

Oh, ok. What about the NAe São Paulo? Or the Uruguayan ROU 03 Montevideo?

Cheers,

Logan

Depends on what you consider ‘western world’ to mean 😀

BAP Almirante Grau?

A German Navy spokesman said the crews of the decommissioned boats will be retrained to serve on the U-212A subs.

“Until now, every crew was assigned to its own boat, but we will change this to a two-crew concept,” the spokesman said.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4656689&c=EUR&s=SEA

IT says different here:

Germany retires six submarines to save money
Jun 3, 2010, 17:02 GMT

Berlin – Germany is to retire six of its Type 206A submarines in order to save money as its defence budget dwindles, a spokesman said in the Baltic naval port of Gluecksburg on Thursday.

The German Navy had originally planned to phase out its 10 remaining Type 206A subs gradually. The six were scheduled to be retired by 2015 and sold to other navies, but the order has now been given to mothball them with immediate effect.

The diesel-electric submarines, which were designed to attack shipping in the shallow Baltic Sea, have been in service for 40 years. They are being replaced by the Type 212A, a hush submarine that can remain underwater for weeks thanks to its fuel-cell motor.

A naval spokesman said the decision was for economic reasons. The Defence Ministry has been told to prepare for drastic budget cuts.

The spokesman said the Navy would redeploy the six idle Type 206A crews to share duties in rotation on the remaining four submarines of the same class.