Chossudovsky: Iran and the Globalization of War [audio]
Global Research TV
January 31, 2012
“Iran and the Globalization of War” with Michel Chossudovsky. Recent developments in the Middle East including the wider implications of the destabilization of the entire area; the current global war as a different kind of conquest than that of World War I and II; US military deployment in the area; the role of Israel; Iranian Defenses; US war planning and war scenarios since 2003 concerning the nation of Iran, including Austere Challenge 12, Theatre Iran Near Term, Global Strike 2003, Concept Plan 8022, and Vigilant Shield; the effect of sanctions; and The Responsibility To Protect.
Visit http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25185 for more info
“Guns & Butter” investigates the relationships among capitalism, militarism and politics. Maintaining a radical perspective in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, “Guns & Butter: The Economics of Politics” reports on who wins and who loses when the economic resources of civil society are diverted toward global corporatization, war, and the furtherance of a national security state.
Produced and hosted by Bonnie Faulkner
Originally aired on KPFA, January 18, 2012
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/77020
The Road To Tehran Goes Through Damascus
By Nile Bowie
NileBowie.blogspot.com
February 15, 2012
Between the chaos and artillery fire unfolding in Homs and Damascus, the current siege against the Ba’athist State of Bashar al-Assad parallels events of nearly a century ago. In efforts to maintain its protectorate, the French government employed the use of foreign soldiers to smother those seeking to abolish the French mandated, Fédération Syrienne. While former Prime Minister Faris al-Khoury argued the case for Syrian independence before UN in 1945, French planes bombed Damascus into submission. Today, the same government – in addition to the United States and its client regimes in Libya and Tunisia – enthusiastically recognize the Syrian National Council as the legitimate leadership of Syria. Although recent polls funded by the Qatar Foundation claim 55% of Syrians support the Assad regime, the former colonial powers have made a mockery of the very democratic principles they tout.
Irrespective to the views of the Syrian people, their fate has long been decided by forces operating beyond their borders. In a speech given to the Commonwealth Club of California in 2007 retired US Military General Wesley Clark speaks of a policy coup initiated by members of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Clark cites a confidential document handed down from the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2001 stipulating the entire restructuring of the Middle East and North Africa. Portentously, the document allegedly revealed campaigns to systematically destabilize the governments of Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Under the familiar scenario of an authoritarian regime systematically suppressing peaceful dissent and purging large swaths of its population, the mechanisms of geopolitical stratagem have freely taken course.
Syria is but a chess piece being used as a platform by larger powers. Regime change is the unwavering interest of the US-led NATO block in collaboration with the feudal Persian Gulf Monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This is being accomplished by using Qatar-owned media outlets such as Al-Jazeera to project their version of the narrative to the world and by arming radical factions of the regions Sunni-majority population against the minority Alawi-Shia leadership of Assad. Since 2005, the Bush administration began funding Syrian opposition groups that lean toward the Muslim Brotherhood and their aspirations to build a Sunni-Islamic State. The Muslim Brotherhood has long condemned the Alawi-Shia as heretics and historically attempted multiple uprising in the 1960’s. By arming radical Sunni factions and importing Iraqi Salafi-jihadists and Libyan mercenaries, the NATOGCC plans to topple Assad and install an illegitimate exiled opposition leader such as Burhan Ghaliun (leader of the Syrian National Council) to be the face of the new regime.
The recent example of implementing foreign policy by arming Al-Qaeda fighters in Libya has proved disastrous – as the rule of law passes from the NATO-backed Libyan Transitional Council to hundreds of warring guerilla militias. At a meeting between Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Hillary Clinton, Davutoglu pledged to find ways outside the United Nations Security Council to pressure Assad. In addition to bolstering longstanding sectarian divides in Syria, the US is smuggling arms into Syria from Incirlik military base in Turkeyand providing financial support for Syrian rebels. Syrian opposition forces led by defected Syrian colonel Riad al-Assad have been trained on Turkish soil since May 2011. Exclusive military and intelligence sources have reported to Israel’s DEBKAfile that British and Qatari special operations units are assisting rebel forces in Homs by providing body armor, laptops, satellite phones and managing rebel communications lines that request logistical aid, arms and mercenaries from outside suppliers.
Although the UK has vehemently denied these reports, Qatar’s leader Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani recently suggested sending troops into Syria to battle Assad’s forces. Military bases situated near Turkey’s southeastern border with northern Syria have become a crucial hub used for the delivery of outside supplies. Unmarked NATO warplanes near Iskenderum have received fighters from Libya’s Transitional National Council wielding weapons formerly belonging to Gaddafi’s arsenal. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, (former leader of the extremist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group turned NTC military governor at the directive of NATO) is leading the infiltration of Libyans into Syria in person with the help of the Turkish government. It has also been reported that Mahdi al-Harati, resigned from his functions as deputy chief of the Military Council in Tripoli to oversee the Free Syrian Army.
Syrian press has also reported that armed terrorist groups brandishing up-to-date American and Israeli weapons have roamed the countryside of Damascus committing blind acts of terror by setting off explosive devices and kidnapping civilians. As the NATOGCC continue to insist that Assad is committing acts of genocide against unarmed civilians, one must draw correlations between events reported by the Syrian state media and recent statements released by the leadership of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, praising the arrival of Iraqi fighters in Syria and advising rebels to use roadside bombs. Paradoxically, Al-Qaeda front man Ayman al-Zawahri has called on Muslims from across the Arab World to mobilize and support the Free Syrian Armyafter the disappointing Russian and Chinese veto at the UNSC. Few things are more absurd than the notion of Al-Qaeda terrorists – unanimously portrayed as ostensible “savages” by virtually all-Western media sources – entrust the apparatus of the United Nations and their capacity to resolve the Syrian conflict. The true purpose of Al-Qaeda and its role in influencing foreign policy has never been more evident.
Surely, Assad accusing foreign-sponsored terrorist groups of fomenting violence in Syria is simply evidence of his illegitimacy – as Western and Gulf allies assert. Even as Syrian state TV broadcasts reports showing seized weapons stockpiles and confessions by terrorists describing how they obtained arms from foreign sources, the NATOGCC continues to draft legislation in an effort pressure the Assad regime into dissolution. In the face of an outright campaign of foreign-funded sabotage, Syrian hackers have targeted Al-Jazeera’s “Syria Live Blog”, which provides ongoing coverage of the unrest. The hacker-ring boldly denounced Al Jazeera for broadcasting “false and fabricated news to ignite sedition among the people of Syria to achieve the goals of Washington and Tel Aviv.”
Through the fiery rhetoric of Susan Rice and her relentless condemnation of Assad – like Gaddafi before him – the United States is again attempting to invoke the Right to Protect (R2P) doctrine to take direct action against the Assad regime. In another parallel to the Libyan conflict, the UN’s astounding official death toll in Syria is taken solely from human rights groups, backed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Criminal Court and the Syrian National Council. The official numbers rely exclusively on an obscure organization known as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) – based in London, not Damascus – whose evidence is largely reliant on hearsay, pixelated YouTube videos and activist Twitter feeds. SOHR’s disputed reports present evidence that would not hold up in any court of law, much less should it be the basis of United Nations resolutions. The Observatory’s director Rami Abdelrahman collaborates directly with British Foreign Minister William Hague and derives legitimacy solely from connections with corporate/foundation-funded civil society networks. Claims that Assad’s security forces indiscriminately kill scores of newborn babies are palpably a product of Britain’s foreign office.
As a further indication of the on-going media war in Syria, none is more telling than the report produced by the Arab League’s observer mission into Syria. The contents of the report were completely ignored by the corporate-media after Qatar disputed its findings, the only nation to do so in the Arab League’s Ministerial Committee. The report unalterably concluded that the Syrian government was in no way lethally repressing peaceful protestors. Furthermore, the report credits armed gangs with the bombing of civilian buses, trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and the bombing of bridges and pipelines. During an interview with Arab League observer Ahmed Manaï, he praises the Sino-Russian veto at the UNSC and encouraged the Syrian leadership to implement reforms. Manaï states, “The Arab League is entirely discredited by burying the report of its own observers’ mission and its appeal to the Security Council. It missed the opportunity to participate in the settlement of the Syrian affair. All it can offer in the future will be worthless.”
While the initial observer report is predictably absent from mainstream media coverage and cited as inept (presumably for contradicting the official line of the allied Western-Gulf powers), Arab League mission leader Mohammed al-Dabi officially resigned, stating, “I won’t work one more time in the framework of the Arab League, I performed my job with full integrity and transparency but I won’t work here again as the situation is skewed.”The United Nations and the Arab League are now considering what was originally a joint observer mission – now referred to as a peacekeeping mission. The Arab League, in tandem with Saudi Arabia is preparing a nearly identical resolution calling for an armed peacekeeping council to present to the UN. Much like the indistinguishable saber rattling seen before Libyan intervention, the new resolution condemns Assad for lethal repression and calls for a transitional shift to democracy. The resolution is expected to create similar Sino-Russian divisions over its implementation, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, previously scorned the document as “the same unbalanced draft resolution text.”
The conflict in Syria has brought light to longstanding Cold War divisions between world powers. The Sino-Russian veto of the UNSC resolution calling for intervention has blocked the opportunity for Western powers to exert overt aggression, as demonstrated by NATO in Libya. Instead, it appears that the Assad regime will be destabilized through covert mercenary groups bent on committing blind acts of terrorism by means of sniper assassinations and roadside bombs. Learning from the Libyan experience, Russia and China perceive the UN Human Rights Report authored by Karen Koning AbuZayd, a director of the Washington-based corporate-funded think-tank, Middle East Policy Council – to be explicitly comprised; victims among the civilian population are a result of armed paramilitaries doing battle with the Syrian military in residential areas. In an interview with former Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov pledges that Russia will protect Iran, Syria, and the world from American fascism. In a show of support for the Syrian government, Russia has sent a large naval force into the region and China has further warned against a strike on Syria.
It is truly a paradox that the countries least fit to dictate principles of human rights, do so largely unhindered on the world stage. Without hesitation Hillary Clinton proclaimed, “What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty” referring to the Sino-Russian veto. She then called for the formation of an international alliance between the war-profiteering elite of the West and absolutist Wahhabi Persian Gulf monarchies – amusingly titled, the Friends of Syria. International calls to abstain from violence have done little to influence the Gulf Cooperation Council and their brutal crackdown against Shiites in Bahrain. Incredibly, Saudi Arabia has entered the dialogue on human rights and democracy promotion – perhaps the world’s most defining feudalistic theocracy, a nation that prohibits political parties and national elections and executes those who apostatize Islam.
Iran’s Press TV news network has reportedly leaked intelligence exposing the American agenda in Syria. The report calls for the recognition of the Syrian National Council as the legitimate government and their positioning in Turkey to work against the Assad regime. Washington would then task Turkey with sending troops into Syria to arm the opposition forces, followed by Wahhabi fighters and Libyan mercenaries. Ominously, the intelligence stipulates that Israel will enter the fray to carry out military operations against Syria. If the regime fails to dissolve, Syrian state television channels will be taken down and Assad will be assassinated. Considering how other enemies of the West have faired in recent times, the sequence of events reported by Press TV would be largely unsurprising. The Wahhabis of the Persian Gulf are playing junior to American aggression in an effort to dominate the Shia-Alawi religious faction presently upheld by the leadership of Syria and Iran, but also to secure their places as regional powers.
Domestic affairs in Syria are of little consequence to the powers trying to topple the nation; the real priority is to further isolate Iran by eliminating its Shia-Alawi ally in Damascus. Israel reaps enormous benefit from toppling the Assad regime, as the Syrian Nation Council pledges to cut ties with Iran and discontinue arms shipments to Hezbollah and Hamas. If Syria falls and Iran is directly threatened, the potential for a regional conflict of the utmost seriousness exists, assuming China and Russia move in to defend Iran. Such a conflict would create detrimental implications for the global economy, potentially triggering a hyper-inflationary financial crisis. William Hague and billionaire financiers behind the civil society groups bestowing legitimacy to violent opposition actors are not the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. Although the reforms have been slow, the Assad government is in the midst of drafting a new constitution. Syria’s sovereignty has come under direct fire from powers claiming to be defending Syria’s people. An attempt on the life of Bashar al-Assad may have similar consequences to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. As the Syrian National Council familiarly calls for the implementation of a no-fly zone, those members of the International Community with any integrity left must work diligently to diffuse conflict in the region.
—————–
[hat tip: Land Destroyer Report]
Chossudovsky: “War on Iran would mean World War III” [video]
Global Research TV
January 30, 2012
The military build-up and economic sanctions against Iran are designed to unleash a global war from the Mediterranean to China with unpredictable consequences, warns Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Tensions between Iran and the West are close to crisis level. With massive help from the western media, Iran has firmly become embedded as the root of all evil in the minds of many westerners.
The author of the book Towards a World War Three Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War told RT that “The issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons is a red herring, but this red herring could lead us to a WWIII scenario.” He also recalled all the American military bases with nuclear weapons close to Iran’s borders.
Michel Chossudovsky recalled that a couple of weeks ago, America’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta quite categorically stated to CBS that Iran neither possesses, nor is developing nuclear weapons. Panetta did not rule out that there are still diplomatic means to cut Iran’s Gordian knot.
But considering the US military preparations around Iran, this statement rather looks like a deceptive maneuver.
Last week, EU nations adopted an unprecedented set of sanctions against the Islamic Republic..
These include a complete embargo on oil supplies from Iran, and are expected to come into force in July.
“What we are witnessing here is a build-up towards a military confrontation. These sanctions constitute the staging of a military agenda,” feels Michel Chossudovsky. “In turn, we have massive deployment of US military hardware, troops going to Israel to be stationed in Israel, more troops go to Kuwait, [American] naval forces are entering the Persian Gulf.”
Michel Chossudovsky believes that “What the United States wants now, including its allies, is some kind of a green light which will give a human face to a war.”
On Monday, the UN nuclear inspectors started a three-day mission to examine Iran’s atomic activities.
Tehran says the talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the first in more than three years, will prove its nuclear program is purely peaceful.
With the visit of the IAEA inspectors, Iran is playing a diplomatic card, believes Chossudovsky. The IAEA is not politically controlled, so once it confirms Iran’s nuclear program has peaceful purposes, this should undermine the aggressive intentions of the West.
The US needs a contrary statement from the IAEA to use this for transition to a new — military — stage in the Iran drama.
“This war has already started. There are drone attacks, there are special [American] forces inside Iran and there is financial warfare,” considers Michel Chossudovsky.
Plans to invade Iran emerged immediately after the invasion of Iraq, Chossudovsky informs, with military preparations begun around 2005, so by now everything should be ready and in place for a full-scale military conflict.
“The WWIII scenario is unthinkable. This war would extend from the Meditarranean to the Chinese border. It could possibly include Russia and China,” Michel Chossudovsky concluded. “We could find ourselves at a very critical crossroads.”
Originally aired on RT, January 29, 2012
http://rt.com/news/us-iran-ww3-chossudovsky-025/
Possible False Flag on the USS Enterprise
How real is the possibility of a false flag attack on the USS Enterprise? A navy combat veteran who served in the Persian Gulf provides his perspective…
By Mario Andrade
DeadlineLive.info
January 30, 2012
The USS Enterprise -perhaps one of the most well-known aircraft carriers in modern history- is scheduled to be decommissioned in one year.
Nevertheless, it is still being deployed to the Persian Gulf, which has caused a lot of speculation about how the U.S. Government might provoke an attack (whether real or manufactured) to sink it and blame Iran to start a war.
The possibility of this event was first discussed a few days ago by talkshow host Mike Rivero.
Given the long track record of false flag attacks throughout U.S. Naval History, this is a scenario that cannot and should not be ruled out.
It is a well-known fact that the U.S. Government blew up the USS Maine in 1898 in order to blame Spain during the Cuban revolt, which led to the Spanish-American War. On June 8 of 1967, Israeli aircraft bombed the USS Liberty so the U.S. Government could blame the attack on Egypt.
More recently, Journalist and writer Seymour Hersh stated in public that during the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to ‘trigger’ a war against Iran by using Navy SEALs disguised as Iranians attacking one of our own ships. These are only a few examples.
Possible scenarios for the false flag attack on the USS Enterprise…
An aircraft carrier is very difficult, but not impossible, to sink. An attack on the USS Enterprise can be coordinated so surface-to-surface missiles, combined with torpedo-attacks possibly launched from submarines as Rivero’s video suggests, and perhaps mine warfare would cause significant damage for it to sink.
If a submarine is involved in the attack, then this scenario would likely occur in the Gulf of Oman because the water there is deep enough to conduct submarine warfare.
The possible sinking scenario can also be achieved by using saboteurs or traitors among the crew to inflict damage to one or more of the EIGHT nuclear reactors on board the Enterprise.
Unfortunately, the possibilities of this scenario to happen are very likely, given how easy it is to have access to the nuclear propulsion machinery rooms.
The nuclear reactor sabotage, along with bombing from an outside vessel or aircraft could inflict enough damage in which nuclear radiation can be released to the crew’s living and working compartments.
The nuclear contamination and the damage to the ship’s structure could very well force the captain to issue the order to abandon ship.
A sabotage can also be coordinated and carried out by intelligence assets and special operations forces. One can only read one of Richard Marcinko’s book to realize how easy it would be for one or two Navy SEAL teams to take over an aircraft carrier.
The Dick Cheney scenario also comes to mind, in which special forces (disguised as Iranians) can use one or more gun boats, or torpedo boats to attack the carrier, while getting air support bombing, or placing high grade explosives under the ship’s keel. After all, that’s one of the Navy SEAL’s main specialty –underwater demolition operations.
One last possible scenario would actually involve the Iranian navy. The U.S. Government might provoke the Iranians in order for them to attack the USS Enterprise.
The Enterprise’s battlegroup, which may include a submarine, two frigates (now being replaced with Littoral Combat Ships), two destroyers and one guided missile cruiser may (intentionally or unintentionally) leave the carrier vulnerable to an attack.
To sink, or not to sink…
The possible false flag attack on the USS Enterprise may not necessarily be significant enough for the ship to sink. It can be engineered to cause a spectacular –made for television- explosion or hull damage like the attack on the USS Cole.
The ship can sustain significant damage and casualties and still stay afloat, which in fact can be spinned as a symbol of endurance or survival by the government and the media.
The Persian Gulf has very shallow water, with an average of 70 or 80 feet in depth. Therefore, a large aircraft carrier like the USS Enterprise would not fully sink. However, in the Gulf of Oman (which is where most carriers operate), the depth can reach over one thousand feet.
Possible area where the water would be deep enough for an aircraft carrier to sink.
However, the possibility for an aircraft carrier like the USS Enterprise to sink is still remote, given its massive size and how well the damage control teams can isolate the affected compartments.
Nevertheless, an attack that involves significant amount of damage can be sufficient enough to cause a psychological reaction that may change public opinion to favor a war against Iran.
One can only visualize the images on television of a damaged aircraft carrier being towed to a shipyard to be decommissioned because of the ‘evil-doers’ in Iran.
The irony of an attack on the USS Enterprise would be that this was the first U.S. Navy aircraft carrier that began using nuclear propulsion, and the false flag attack would be made to look like it was carried out by Iran – a country which is trying to develop nuclear reactors for the first time.
Undoubtedly, this would also be reported by the media if the attack takes place.
* Mario Andrade is a U.S. Navy veteran who served in the first Gulf War. His specialization was mine warfare, mine clearance maneuvers, navigation, shipboard damage control and underwater explosives neutralization, among many other duties.
[hat tip: The Intel Hub]
Signs False Flag Against Iran is Coming [video]
The Truther Girls
January 16, 2012
Former Israeli Intelligence officer Avi Perry says the US is getting ready for a false flag against Iran. Now the media is telling us that US vessels are being harassed by Iranian speed boats in the Strait of Hormuz. The US just needs one good excuse to go into full-on war with Iran. If you hear their ships have been attacked by Iranian vessels, you can be pretty sure they are using the same strategy they used to get into WWII, Vietnam, and the GWOT.
http://theintelhub.com/2012/01/14/iran-target-of-false-flag-strategy/
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/exclusive-u-s-harassed-by-iranian-sh…
The Battle For Iran [video]
Press For Truth
January 11, 2012
The global elite want a complete takeover of the middle east. The situation with Iran is being manipulated in an effort to get the west behind their war of aggression in the name of peace and security.
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Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio – part VIII
By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
January 26, 2012
It gives me no pleasure to report that the situation with Iran is only getting more heated and the push for war continues to get stronger.
An Israeli investigative journalist and highly connected analyst for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Ronen Bergman, recently wrote a piece for the New York Times magazine which states that indeed Israel will strike Iran in 2012.
Bergman bases his analysis and conclusions on meetings with “many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and intelligence.”
He says that the United States may choose to intervene, something which I think is quite likely, but he does say that “from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that.”
I am not quite sure why they would think that the United States would take a back seat in this conflict given the unmatched power the Israel lobby has in Washington coupled with the growing American presence in region of the Persian Gulf, which I have been detailing in this series.
However, the British Guardian rightly points out that Bergman’s words are more significant than those coming from most analysts and pundits given his close ties to political, military and intelligence figures in Israel.
The Guardian writes that since he spends “a significant amount of time with the politicians, spies and generals who are going to make the ultimate decision … his assessment carries more weigh[t] tha[n] your average Israel-Iran analyst.”
Note: I had to modify the above text (and other excerpts), as for some reason the Guardian’s article had an egregious amount of errors which one would think might be caught by the editor of a large news outlet but apparently not. It’s always humorous to me when a one-man-operation like End the Lie churns out higher quality content than a large-scale enterprise like Guardian.co.uk which recorded £1 million in profits in 2006 and is owned by the Scott Trust.
Bergman says that the Israelis are already preparing for the strike, something which I think is quite obvious and mirrored in the actions of the United States’ military as well.
Bergman writes, “The Israeli Air Force is where most of the preparations are taking place. It maintains planes with the long-range capacity required to deliver ordnance to targets in Iran, as well as unmanned aircraft capable of carrying bombs to those targets and remaining airborne for up to 48 hours. Israel believes that these platforms have the capacity to cause enough damage to set the Iranian nuclear project back by three to five years.”
Other estimates are much more conservative, but I honestly think that the Israeli estimate isn’t too wildly off the mark, although the author of the Guardian piece characterizes it as “very confident.”
This is mostly due to estimates from the likes of United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta who estimated one to two years in a best case scenario and Rafi Eitan, a Mossad veteran, who told Bergman it would set them back “not even three months.”
The two factors at play here are Iran’s physical capability to continue the nuclear program after taking a massive hit along with Iran’s drive to become self-sufficient and a scientific leader in the region.
It seems that Iran has been able to survive and continue their efforts in the face of tough sanctions, something which the country’s Supreme Leader Khamenei boasted about not too long ago.
There were also reports of roughly 1,300 students switching their major over to the field of nuclear sciences due to the most recent assassination and the many others that have occurred as of late.
It seems to me that the Western world’s hyperfocus on Iran has only served to embolden their efforts, as they feel they’re being unfairly targeted and thus should fight back by doing exactly what the West is trying to stop them from doing.
However, I must emphasize that this does not mean that I believe Iran will use a nuclear weapon against Israel or any other target, as I think it is quite clear that they are not, in fact, pursuing any nuclear weapons program at all.
Indeed Leon Panetta himself said as much on national television, yet the talking heads in the establishment media and the bought-and-paid-for politicians in Washington continue to spread disinformation about their nuclear ambitions.
I think that continued strikes and sanctions will in fact serve to embolden the Iranians and drive them to work even harder on their nuclear program.
A direct strike on their facilities would likely have a similar effect but the larger question is if they actually have the money and material capability to continue at this rate after an attack.
While they have indeed announced that they have created an underground enrichment facility which would be much harder to take out from the air, this is only one facility and I doubt that they have enough facilities which are sufficiently protected from air strikes to sustain their program after an Israeli assault.
If Israel managed to strike all above-ground facilities and take them out completely, perhaps even damaging their underground facilities with the use of so-called “bunker buster” bombs, I seriously doubt that they would be able to recover in the “not even three months” cited by Eitan.
Honestly, I think Eitan’s statement very likely represents the ever-present Israeli fearmongering about Iran which is intended to make us believe that Iran is some bloodthirsty nation itching to pull the trigger and nuke Israel and/or the West.
I think this assertion is laughable in its inaccuracy given that Iran is more peaceful than both Israel and the United States and they likely are well aware of the fact that any strike would be seen as justification for an attack on their nation.
I seriously doubt that the Iranian leadership is clueless enough to think that the West wouldn’t take any attack as an opportunity to utterly destroy Iran.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, spent a great deal of time with Bergman which allows us to get a peek into how the Israeli leadership views Iran.
“From our point of view,” Barak said, “a nuclear state offers an entirely different kind of protection to its proxies. Imagine if we enter another military confrontation with Hezbollah, which has over 50,000 rockets that threaten the whole area of Israel, including several thousand that can reach Tel Aviv. A nuclear Iran announces that an attack on Hezbollah is tantamount to an attack on Iran. We would not necessarily give up on it, but it would definitely restrict our range of operations.”
“And if a nuclear Iran covets and occupies some gulf state, who will liberate it?” Barak asked. “The bottom line is that we must deal with the problem now.”
This is a prime example of the Israeli approach: propagandize, instill fear, posit hypothetical situations with no basis in reality, then once you have your subject completely fearful and looking for a solution, you offer the solution which is inevitably a strike on Iran.
The problem here is that all of what Barak said is completely divorced from reality.
Since when was Iran threatening to occupy a gulf state? In reality, it is the United States and the West in general which poses a greater threat of occupying a gulf state.
Furthermore, if anyone is guilty of occupation, it is Israel, which has illegally occupied Palestinian land for decades and committed egregious war crimes in the process.
Has Iran done such a thing? Is Iran flouting international law on a daily basis by illegally occupying territory captured during a war?
However, not all individuals are easily duped by this type of psychological operation which is exemplified by Barak.
Take, for instance, Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East specialist for the CIA.
In a recent piece published in the Lebanese Daily Star, Riedel argued that even if Iran had a nuclear bomb (which it doesn’t) it would still not be an existential threat to Israel.
The Guardian thinks that Riedel’s view is representative of the majority opinion of the CIA and White House, even though there are no indications that this is the case.
Bergman goes on to examine this supposed divergence between the approaches of the United States and Israel (something which I think is wholly superficial) and wonders what notice, if any, Israel would give Washington of an attack on Iran.
Israel has previously said that they will not necessarily warn the United States of an upcoming attack on Iran, but I do not think that Israel would actually carry out a large-scale attack without telling the United States.
First of all, these two nations are the closest of allies, secondly the United States would likely be aware of an Israeli air campaign the second it began due to the presence of carrier strike groups in the region which have advanced radar capabilities.
However, a piece recently published in Mondoweiss claimed that Israel would give the United States 12 hours of warning before an attack on Iran because Netanyahu supposedly doesn’t trust Obama. This seems a bit off to me given that 12 hours is enough time to mobilize the troops in the region to some extent.
On the other hand, Matthew Kroenig, who was formerly an advisor at the Pentagon, now serving at the infamous Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), thinks that Israel’s warning will be “an hour or two [before the attack], just enough to maintain good relations between the countries but not quite enough to allow Washington to prevent the attack.”
This is borderline absurd to me, given that the United States has no ostensible interest in preventing an attack on Iran.
Figures in the United States’ military establishment have been pushing for an attack on Iran for years, leading many analysts to believe that an attack was imminent even though it never materialized.
What’s more, the increasing American military presence in the region surrounding Iran, which you can read about in painstaking detail in the previous installments of this series (a list of which can be found at the bottom of this article), indicates that the United States is indeed preparing for an assault on Iran.
In writing for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg rightly points out that the same individuals giving intelligence to Bergman had convinced Goldberg that an attack on Iran would come last summer.
Goldberg blames his miscalculation on the success of the Stuxnet attack, although honestly I think this is more of an attempt to keep whatever scrap of reputation he has left untarnished.
This makes me wonder, why would Israeli military and intelligence figures be trying to convince individuals in the media that a strike on Iran is imminent?
I believe that this very well might be in an attempt to pressure individuals in America to preemptively strike Iran or prepare for such a strike in order to make the Israeli job easier.
My impression is reflected in the Guardian piece in the passage which reads, “Clearly, [Israel] has a motive in conveying the impression that an attack might be imminent, to stir up urgency in the West to confront Iran.”
In my analysis of the events surrounding Iran, I have found that this is very likely the case and the constant “leaks” regarding plans to attack Iran are meant to push the United States into taking action first.
The military buildup in the region very well might be proof that this approach being taken by Israel is working.
There is also the issue of a third carrier strike group making its way into the Persian Gulf region, a group which would include the aging USS Enterprise.
In the previous installment of this series, I discussed the possibility that the “Big E” could be used as a target for a false flag attack which would give the West free license to assault Iran.
I find this to be likely because it would not only give the West the justification they so desperately have been seeking which has been proving difficult to achieve through pure propaganda, but it would also save the United States a great deal of money in decommissioning the vessel.
While I went over this in some detail before, I believe it is worth exploring more closely in an article devoted entirely to the subject, something which I plan to do in the near future.
If you have any information to share which could help me in this series or in my analysis of a possible false flag attack on the USS Enterprise, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at admin@EndtheLie.com with whatever you have to share.
Short URL: http://EndtheLie.com/?p=35681
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