Yesterday, Jonathan Tobin at Commentary wrote:
With the International Atomic Energy Agency set to release a new report next month detailing Iran’s efforts to create a nuclear weapon, Tehran’s main protector in the international community is making a last ditch effort to squelch the watchdog group’s efforts to blow the whistle on this threat.
Russia announced today it opposed the IAEA’s plans to publish a report about the military implications of Iran’s illegal push for nukes.
Tobin goes on to write:
Since the beginning of the last decade, Iran has played Western diplomats for fools with Russian assistance.
While Tobin conceded that “the Russians have as much reason to fear a nuclear Iran as anyone else”, Tobin claimed that Russian support for Iran was because Prime Minister Putin “believes anything that thwarts American foreign policy goals constitutes a win for his government”.
This didn’t seem to make any sense. On the one hand Tobin – as well as other neocons and their allies – is accusing Russia of helping Iran cover up what they think is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, while at the same time saying that a nuclear-armed Iran would not be in Russia’s interest any more than anyone elses. Why would they help Iran cover up their so-called nuclear weapons program?
In order to clarify Tobin’s stance, I emailed him. I wrote:
What you are saying, Jonathan, is tantamount to suggesting that Russia is complicit in aiding Iran to become nuclear armed. I wonder, can you explain how a nuclear armed Iran would be in Russia's interest?And, even if it were in Russia's interest, would it not be easier for Russia to simply supply Iran with the nuclear arms you say it seeks?
His response was even more confusing than his article. He replied:
As I wrote, a nuclear Iran is not in Russia's interest. But its delight in thwarting American policy aims seems to trump common sense in this case. Russia has been Iran's chief enabler in international diplomacy as their effort to suppress the IAEA report shows. While Russia knows better than to give Iran nukes, a Middle East in which Iran displaces the U.S. as a power is one that they may think they can live with.
The response provided more questions than answers. I wrote back to him saying:
May I take this a little further since your reasoning seems to be contradictory. We can agree that a nuclear armed Iran is not in Russia's interest, but how can Iran 'displace the US as a power' without being nuclear armed? And, if it's not in Russia's interest, how is it that Russia could 'live with' that?
I’m still, not unsurprisingly, awaiting his reply.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
IRAN: IS CONFRONTATION NEAR AT HAND?
In recent days America has accused Iran of plotting to commit an act of war on American soil by assassinating a Saudi Arabian diplomat. The first question one would need to ask is: why on earth would Iran commit such a deliberate act of war against the US and Saudi Arabia?
And the answer, of course is: they simply wouldn’t.
Yet, this is exactly the ludicrous scenario that the US administration is hoping the world of will accept. “We’re in the process of uniting world public opinion continuing to isolate and condemn their behavior. Nothing has been taken off the table,” vice–President Joe Biden told ABC News on the ‘Good Morning America’ show.
Robert Baer, an ex-CIA intelligence analyst specializing in Iranian affairs, however, has doubts about the veracity of the report about an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, DC, saying that the plot is “completely out of character” for the Iranians.
Apart from a load of wild accusations and an arrest of one of the so-called plotters, the US has not provided any evidence whatsoever of any plot. It seems to be yet another case of ‘we have said it has happened and, therefore, it has’. The world is then expected to believe it just on that basis despite having been gullible enough to have fallen for this nonsense so many times before.
Two questions remain unanswered. First, my original one: why would Iran do such a thing: and two, why would the US want to accuse Iran of plotting such an outrageous act knowing that it could lead to war?
As readers of my blog will be aware, I have warned for some time of a coming confrontation between Iran and Israel and its allies. For years, the Israelis and the US together with their other Western allies have accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program. And for just as many years, not a skerrick of evidence has ever been produced to support the claims. Iran has consistently claimed that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only in order to produce electrical energy and for medical purposes. And, contrary to claims by the US, Iran has allowed the IAEA access to all of its facilities and no evidence has ever been found that supports the accusation that Iran has a ‘nuclear weapons program’.
While the US continues to claim that Iran does have a nuclear weapons program, it does so purely to maintain the propaganda rhetoric; it certainly doesn’t have any hard evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program that would justify it attacking Iran. It is for this reason that the US has resorted to making other accusations about Iran’s hostility toward the US – and in this case, has also attempted to wedge an already extremely fragile relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran into the bargain.
The reality is that Iran is in no position to provoke a war against either Israel or the US. Both Israel and the US, however, would gain extensively from a war that resulted in regime change in Iran.
If the US attacked Iran, say, on the pretext that Iran threatened to commit an act of war against the US, then Israel would be provided with a pretext to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on the basis that they would be pre-empting a retaliatory strike by Hezbollah and Hamas who are Iran’s allies. And just for good measure, the Israelis would also launch a full scale invasion and full military occupation of the West Bank in order, so they would tell the world, to prevent hostile Palestinian elements taking up arms against Israel and the Israeli settlers in the West Bank. While the American attack against Iran would take the world’s centre stage, the Israeli reaction to an American attack against Iran – attacks against Hezbollah and Hamas – would be seemingly only of minor significance compared to the war against Iran whereas in fact the entire war is really is about Israel’s desire to rid itself of its enemies once and for all and thus go some way to realising their dream of creating a Greater Israel.
The fact is; Iran is not at all a threat to the US and never can be, but while Iran supports Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran will always be there to thwart Israel’s dreams of a Greater Israel.
Only a full on war against Hezbollah and Hamas and regime change in Iran will give the Zionists of Israel what they have yearned for since 1948. And that can only be achieved by America attacking Iran.
And the answer, of course is: they simply wouldn’t.
Yet, this is exactly the ludicrous scenario that the US administration is hoping the world of will accept. “We’re in the process of uniting world public opinion continuing to isolate and condemn their behavior. Nothing has been taken off the table,” vice–President Joe Biden told ABC News on the ‘Good Morning America’ show.
Robert Baer, an ex-CIA intelligence analyst specializing in Iranian affairs, however, has doubts about the veracity of the report about an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, DC, saying that the plot is “completely out of character” for the Iranians.
Apart from a load of wild accusations and an arrest of one of the so-called plotters, the US has not provided any evidence whatsoever of any plot. It seems to be yet another case of ‘we have said it has happened and, therefore, it has’. The world is then expected to believe it just on that basis despite having been gullible enough to have fallen for this nonsense so many times before.
Two questions remain unanswered. First, my original one: why would Iran do such a thing: and two, why would the US want to accuse Iran of plotting such an outrageous act knowing that it could lead to war?
As readers of my blog will be aware, I have warned for some time of a coming confrontation between Iran and Israel and its allies. For years, the Israelis and the US together with their other Western allies have accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program. And for just as many years, not a skerrick of evidence has ever been produced to support the claims. Iran has consistently claimed that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only in order to produce electrical energy and for medical purposes. And, contrary to claims by the US, Iran has allowed the IAEA access to all of its facilities and no evidence has ever been found that supports the accusation that Iran has a ‘nuclear weapons program’.
While the US continues to claim that Iran does have a nuclear weapons program, it does so purely to maintain the propaganda rhetoric; it certainly doesn’t have any hard evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program that would justify it attacking Iran. It is for this reason that the US has resorted to making other accusations about Iran’s hostility toward the US – and in this case, has also attempted to wedge an already extremely fragile relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran into the bargain.
The reality is that Iran is in no position to provoke a war against either Israel or the US. Both Israel and the US, however, would gain extensively from a war that resulted in regime change in Iran.
If the US attacked Iran, say, on the pretext that Iran threatened to commit an act of war against the US, then Israel would be provided with a pretext to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on the basis that they would be pre-empting a retaliatory strike by Hezbollah and Hamas who are Iran’s allies. And just for good measure, the Israelis would also launch a full scale invasion and full military occupation of the West Bank in order, so they would tell the world, to prevent hostile Palestinian elements taking up arms against Israel and the Israeli settlers in the West Bank. While the American attack against Iran would take the world’s centre stage, the Israeli reaction to an American attack against Iran – attacks against Hezbollah and Hamas – would be seemingly only of minor significance compared to the war against Iran whereas in fact the entire war is really is about Israel’s desire to rid itself of its enemies once and for all and thus go some way to realising their dream of creating a Greater Israel.
The fact is; Iran is not at all a threat to the US and never can be, but while Iran supports Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran will always be there to thwart Israel’s dreams of a Greater Israel.
Only a full on war against Hezbollah and Hamas and regime change in Iran will give the Zionists of Israel what they have yearned for since 1948. And that can only be achieved by America attacking Iran.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
COULD TARGETED ASSASSINATIONS LEGITIMISE TIT-FOR-TAT KILLINGS OF THE LEADERS OF THE BELLIGERENTS?
I’ve spent much of the day reading a dozen or so newspaper articles, opinion pieces and commentaries on the pros and cons of the killing of American citizen and Jihadist, Anwar al Awlaki, who died in Yemen yesterday after being targeted by a Hellfire missile fired from an American operated drone aircraft.
The left and the civil and human rights folk together with folk from the libertarian right have condemned the killing as illegal and unconstitutional, while the right-wing, led noisily by the neoconservatives, have praised the killing as a victory and argued that in time of war such killings are quite justified.
What’s missing from all of these arguments from both sides is the fact that such extra-judicial killings can work two ways. No matter what the rights and wrongs of these kinds of killings are, it means that if it’s okay for the US and its allies to kill their enemies in this way, then its okay for the enemy to do likewise and kill American leaders and leaders of American allies; and since the President of the United States also happens to be the Commander in Chief of American forces, he now becomes a quite legitimate target by exactly the same virtues and logic that the President viewed al Awlaki to be a legitimate target.
Targeted assassinations, of course, are nothing new; the Israelis have quite famously and openly attempted to legitimise the extra-judicial killing of its non-combatant enemies for years. It could even be argued from an historical point of view that Israel’s long history of not very seriously challenged policy of targeted assassinations has paved the way for the Americans to do likewise. Whilst the practise has caused outrage in the past, that outrage hadn’t stopped the killings – killings which continue almost daily in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere against Islamic militants, both combatant and non-combatant. Today, people have become so war-weary they have become immune to more news about such killings. In the case of the latest killing, the uproar is because al Awlaki was an American citizen but this too will soon become just another killing that will usher in a new era of Americans killing Americans justified solely on the basis that they are a threat to security.
One wonders how long it will be before a militant will be targeted and killed in America itself simply because he represents ‘a threat to security’.
And one wonders how long it will be before American and Israeli leaders are themselves targeted by their enemies.
The left and the civil and human rights folk together with folk from the libertarian right have condemned the killing as illegal and unconstitutional, while the right-wing, led noisily by the neoconservatives, have praised the killing as a victory and argued that in time of war such killings are quite justified.
What’s missing from all of these arguments from both sides is the fact that such extra-judicial killings can work two ways. No matter what the rights and wrongs of these kinds of killings are, it means that if it’s okay for the US and its allies to kill their enemies in this way, then its okay for the enemy to do likewise and kill American leaders and leaders of American allies; and since the President of the United States also happens to be the Commander in Chief of American forces, he now becomes a quite legitimate target by exactly the same virtues and logic that the President viewed al Awlaki to be a legitimate target.
Targeted assassinations, of course, are nothing new; the Israelis have quite famously and openly attempted to legitimise the extra-judicial killing of its non-combatant enemies for years. It could even be argued from an historical point of view that Israel’s long history of not very seriously challenged policy of targeted assassinations has paved the way for the Americans to do likewise. Whilst the practise has caused outrage in the past, that outrage hadn’t stopped the killings – killings which continue almost daily in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere against Islamic militants, both combatant and non-combatant. Today, people have become so war-weary they have become immune to more news about such killings. In the case of the latest killing, the uproar is because al Awlaki was an American citizen but this too will soon become just another killing that will usher in a new era of Americans killing Americans justified solely on the basis that they are a threat to security.
One wonders how long it will be before a militant will be targeted and killed in America itself simply because he represents ‘a threat to security’.
And one wonders how long it will be before American and Israeli leaders are themselves targeted by their enemies.
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