ISRAEL AND THE U.S. LOSE 'CASUS BELLI' FOR WAR WITH IRAN – OR DO THEY?

Yesterday the Iranians surprised the world with their brokered decision to allow 1200 kgs of their Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) to be sent to Turkey in exchange for 120 kgs of Medium Enriched Uranium (MEU) that can be used to manufacture isotopes for medical purposes.

The move has taken the wind out of the sails of both the US and Israel who were hoping to move on to the stepping-stone of sanctions which they then hoped would lead ultimately toward a regime-changing attack on Iran.

For both the US and, to a much greater extent, Israel, the Iran ‘problem’ has never been about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ – Israel, the US and their Western allies are very much aware that Iran doesn’t actually have one – but, rather, it has always been about Iran’s ability to support Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, the three entities that stand in the way of Israel’s long term goal of creating a Greater Israel that includes retaining the Golan Heights and gaining the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon up to the Litani River.

The West’s rhetoric about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ has been aimed exclusively at shifting public opinion via a fearmongering propaganda campaign to ultimately supporting a Western strike against Iran with a view to regime change. The West has been unable to provide any actual hard evidence to support their claims about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’. Even the IAEA, who are usually warily ambiguous with their pronouncements on the matter, have said that they have found no actual evidence of Iran producing, or attempting or even to produce, the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) needed to produce a nuclear bomb.

So, where do these new circumstances leave Israel and the US?

Well, the goals, of course, have not changed; both want regime change in Iran. The question now is: How can it be achieved?

The ideal for the US and Israel would have been for the Iranian people to have brought about regime change themselves. However, the opportunity for that to happen has long since passed with the failure of the so-called Iranian opposition at the elections of June 2009 and the subsequent protests, stirred on by CIA and Mossad agents provocateurs, over alleged election fraud.

With that opportunity lost, it was back to Plan A whereby the US, Israel and their Western allies would seek to impose tighter sanctions on Iran knowing that such sanctions would likely be ignored which, in turn, would ultimately provide a casus belli to attack Iran ostensibly to stop its so-called nuclear weapons program but in reality to destroy Iran’s defenses and government institutions forcing the Iranians to capitulate and seek an armistice from the UN which the US would ensure be conditional on regime change to a government friendly to the West, the US and Israel. Clearly, with the new situation, however, the US is very unlikely now to convince the UN Security Council that tighter sanctions are necessary since China and Russia will very likely block any attempt to bring on such a resolution.

So now the US, Israel and their allies will have to think about a Plan C if they still want to pursue regime change.

For the Israelis and their neoconservative supporters in the US and, indeed, around the world, regime change is absolutely essential if they want to achieve their ultimate aim of creating a Greater Israel.

Direct confrontation with Iran after showing that sanctions weren’t working was only one of several options of achieving regime change as was the possibility of regime change from within. Both of these options are now off the table.

There are other options, however. One of these is for Israel to simply attack Iran ‘unilaterally’. Of course, such a strike would be anything but ‘unilateral’ since Israel could not possibly strike Iran without the US being complicit in such a strike. The ordnance and fuel for such a strike would have to come from the US and the ordnance and fuel required to fight the resulting war with Hezbollah and Hamas would also need to come from the US. Once Israel has made the first strike against Iran, the US would then be compelled, albeit with a massive show of faux reluctance, to support Israel by launching attacks against Iran designed to prevent Iran launching any retaliatory strike against Israel.

While the US is then dealing with finishing off Iran, the Israelis would then be free to massively attack both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip followed up by invasion and occupation, all while the worlds eyes are on the ‘main event’ which is the US bringing Iran to its knees.

Another option would be for the Israelis to somehow provoke, possibly by some false flag event, war with Hezbollah and/or Hamas which they would then quickly escalate. Then, the moment either Hezbollah or Hamas fire any rocket at Israel that was not previously in their arsenal, Israel and the US would have casus belli to attack Iran.

Whatever option the Israelis and the US choose, the world is now in a very dangerous place.