WAR AGAINST IRAN: TALKS JUST BUYING TIME FOR OBAMA

Since the desired endgame for both the US and Israel in the stand-off with Iran is not over Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ but, rather, war leading to regime change in Iran and an excuse for Israel to attack and destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, there can be only one reason why talks with Iran have been agreed to; Obama needs more time up his sleeve as the Presidential elections draw closer.

The outcome of any talks is a forgone conclusion; they will end in deadlock. No matter what Iran says or does, it will not be acceptable to the US. There is a certain irony in the fact that, while it is Obama that is stalling for time in the run-up to the elections, it will be Obama who will accuse Iran of stalling for more time in order to complete the construction of a weapon. Just as they did in 2010 when Brazil and Turkey agreed with Iran to broker an enrichment deal that would ensure that Iran never had enough enriched material capable of building a nuclear bomb with, so any agreement reached in these latest talks will eventually end in the Americans walking away from any deal.

This time around the US and their allies have upped the ante. They are no longer demanding that Iran open up their nuclear facilities for inspection but, knowing that Iran is unlikely to concede, they are now demanding that Iran dismantle all of its enrichment facilities.

The long awaited final confrontation with Iran is not a matter of ‘if’, it's just a matter of ‘when’.

WAR AGAINST IRAN: HYPOCRISY AT ITS BEST FROM ELLIOTT ABRAMS

If it wasn’t so serious, you’d have to laugh.

Browsing through the Weekly Standard as I do on a daily basis, this piece by Elliott Abrams jumped out at me. It’s called – and I kid you not – ‘Politicizing Intelligence’. In it, Abrams criticises the Obama administration for using intelligence for political purposes. Abrams main source for his complaint is this quote from the Washington Post:

At a time of renewed debate over whether stopping Iran might require military strikes, the expanded intelligence collection has reinforced the view within the White House that it will have early warning of any move by Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb, officials said.

“There is confidence that we would see activity indicating that a decision had been made,” said a senior U.S. official involved in high-level discussions about Iran policy.

The hypocrisy, of course, is in the fact that Abrams observations are the exact inverse of what neoconservatives were saying about Saddam Hussein and his so-called ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’, the supposed ‘existence’ of which was highly politicised in order to provide the US and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ a casus belli to invade and destroy Iraq. Obama’s motivation for ‘politicising the intelligence’ is not so much to get a war against Iran off the ground, but to delay it to a time that suits him rather than Netanyahu and his neocon supporters, including Abrams, who want the war to get going sooner rather than later.

Abrams had no problem politicising false intelligence for George W. Bush in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq but now here he is getting all precious about Obama politicising real intelligence in order not to go to war – at least not until it’s politically expedient for him to do so.

Hypocrisy and arrogance; the values that ‘they’ really hate about ‘us’. Who can blame them?


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WAR AGAINST IRAN: THE U.S., ISRAEL AND THEIR ALLIES SHIFT THE GOAL POSTS MAKING WAR VIRTUALLY INEVITABLE

The US, Israel and their allies have now shifted the nuclear goalposts by demanding that Iran dismantle its latest newly-built underground nuclear facilities at Fordo; that they immediately halt enrichment operations, and that they transfer all of their already 20% enriched nuclear material out of Iran.

Knowing full well that Iran is highly unlikely to concede to any of these demands is proof positive that Israel and the West are fully intent on going to war against Iran regardless of anything the Iranians do.

Yesterday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told former Japanese premier Yukio Hatoyama who is visiting Iran, that Iran “is pursuing its right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and will not ignore this right”.

Like previous ‘talks’ between the West and Iran, the outcome of this latest set of demands are likely to be long drawn out. The end result, however, will be the same. Israel, at some point or another, will launch the initial attack against Iran while the US will follow up with a massive bombardment of Iran’s defences, as well as its military and governmental institutions with a view to force capitulation of the theocratic government leading to ‘regime change’. Meanwhile, Israel, while the world’s attention is focussed on the spectacle of a war launched against Iran, will launch its own full scale attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza and Palestinian fighters in the West Bank on the pretext that they are pre-empting a retaliatory attack against Israel by Irans ‘allies’. The whole objective of the wars will be for Israel to not just defeat, but destroy its enemies leaving a pathway clear for occupation and eventual annexation of the lands they want as part of their dream of an Arab free Greater Israel.

The slow-motion march to war has somehow also had the effect of slowing up the pace of world-wide protest against war despite the danger of war now being far less a case of ‘if’ but, rather, of ‘when’.


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ANDREW BOLT'S EMBARASSING FAUX PAS

It was just a little thing but it so classically demonstrated what a deceitful and conceited racist Andrew Bolt really is.

Today Bolt posted a piece about how the use of the English language is being eroded by people who migrate to Australia without having learnt how to write English properly. His motivation for the criticism was the opportunity for him to push his anti-multicultural nonsense as part of his program to peddle the cause of his brand of racism.

In the original post Bolt wrote:

Speaking and writing basic English is, after all, a key to good citizenship, neighborliness and effective integration.
The comment I wrote in response went thus:

For most people, Bolt, the answer to the problem would simply be to learn how to write English as well as speak it.

For you the answer would be not to allow 'foreigners' into Australia unless they're able to write English.

‘Speaking and writing basic English’, Bolt, ‘is not the key to good citizenship, neighborliness and effective integration’; tolerance is.

And, by the way, speaking of writing basic English, Bolt, in Australia we spell ‘neighborliness’ with a ‘u’ in it as in ‘neighbourliness’.
The comment was published.

At least, for a little while it was.

When Bolt discovered his embarrassing faux pas he pulled my comment and corrected his extremely embarrassing post as though nothing had happened.

Orwell’s Ministry of Truth has been at it again.

Fortunately, technology has the upper hand these days in countering such woeful deceit.


NOTE
This post can also be seen here

WAR AGAINST IRAN: HILLARY CLINTON’S BIG LIE

Whilst in Saudi Arabia yesterday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a press conference:

With respect to Iran, we had an opportunity to discuss the P-5+1 negotiations – what we expect, what we are intending to present when the meetings begin. We’re going in with one objective: to resolve the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. And I had a chance to talk with our friends here about how we are approaching these talks. I also reiterated what the President has said, that our policy is one of prevention, not containment.

This is pure nonsense.

First, if the ‘international community’ have any ‘concerns’ about Iran’s nuclear program, it is only because the ‘international community’ has accepted the propaganda about Iran having a nuclear weapons program and has done so without seeing any hard evidence whatsoever to support these claims.

All of these claims about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ have originated from the US, Israel and their Western allies. The claims are being believed – or at least supported – by the governments of other nations around the planet that have a vested interest in supporting US foreign policy.

One should also note that the rhetoric has taken a subtle turn in the terminology. As we can see above, Clinton doesn’t actually mention ‘Iran’s nuclear weapons program’; it’s simply referred to as ‘Iran’s nuclear program’ as she now relies on presumptive inference to allow her audience to assume she’s talking about a nuclear weapons program. It seems that earlier references in the rhetoric about a ‘nuclear weapons program’ have done its job and the presumption is now firmly planted in our minds. The reality, of course is; Iran has never denied that it has a nuclear program. It has, however, always denied having a nuclear weapons program and has always insisted that its nuclear program is solely in pursuit of peaceful uses such as power generation and the production of isotopes for cancer treatment.

Secondly, when Hillary Clinton says, “We’re going in with one objective”; it most definitely isn’t to “resolve the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program”. The real objective is simple; regime change in Iran through war and to provide an excuse for Israel to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The fact the US are far more interested in pushing for war is illustrated by Clintons reiteration of US policy as far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned which is ‘prevention, not containment’. If Clinton isn’t interested in ‘containing’ Iran’s nuclear program then, it seems, they will be preventing it – even if the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Clearly, one way or the other, the US, Israel and their Western allies are not interested in listening to Iran’s claims that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and war for Israel is the real is the ‘one objective they’re going in for’.


UPDATE

This interesting piece in The New York Times today illustrates how the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme is juxta-positioned with the ‘Saddam has WMD’s’ rhetoric in the run to the invasion and destruction of Iraq. It shows how the intelligence community are struggling to come to terms with the nonsense over the Iraq intelligence failures yet still maintain their professional dignity in the face of political pressures to repeat those failures within the Iran context

What’s particularly interesting about this piece is how ultra-neocon John R. Bolton concedes that, “The intelligence analysts I’ve dealt with have always been willing to engage in debates on their conclusions, but there is top-down pressure to make the assessments come out a certain way”.

And isn’t that what’s happening now?

WAR AGAINST IRAN: NEOCONS WORRIED ORDINARY ISRAELIS DON’T WANT WAR

Last week’s demonstrations in Israel against a war with Iran seems to have caught the attention of the neocons – and they have clearly got them rattled, indeed, rattled enough to make comment on it in their front line journal.

There were two aspects of the demonstration that the neocons found objectionable – apart, of course, from the fact that the demonstration took place at all. Firstly, they really didn’t like the theme of the demonstrations which wasn’t just ‘no war’, but ‘no war against the people of Iran’. That was compounded by the fact that many of the Israeli demonstrators were even (horror upon horrors!) actually expressing love for the Iranian people. This was too much for the neocons that were compelled to write in Commentary an article titled Love for Iran Takes Ayatollahs off the Hook. Leor Sapir, the author of this particular article, didn’t mention how ordinary Iranians participated in the demonstrations by use of the internet social media of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, though I find it hard to believe that he wouldn’t have known about it. One can only assume that he didn’t want to be responsible for giving those that hadn’t actually heard about the social media’s use any ideas about using it in future anti-war demonstrations.

Sapir then rants on about how the demonstrators called for Netanyahu's resignation over his warmongering calls to attack Iran. Sapir then makes a most extraordinary statement even by neocon standards. He writes:

Most pundits would agree that Iran’s nuclear program has little, if anything, to do with Israel, even though a nuclear Iran would certainly make the region more unstable and dangerous for the Jewish state.

In a way, of course, Sapir is right; Iran’s nuclear program has got nothing at all to with Israel. But then, one has to ask oneself, if that’s the case, why is Netanyahu calling for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities? Clearly, as far as the right-wing Zionists and their neocon supporters are concerned, Iran’s nuclear program has everything to do with Israel, in which case, why should it not be of interest to those Israelis that oppose war against Iran?

As I wrote the other day, the use of the worldwide social media together with street demonstrations, hopefully, is a trend that is likely to be repeated around the world as the anti-war protests grow.

The fact that it’s happening on Israeli streets has the neocons worried.

WAR AGAINST IRAN: AT LAST, A WORLD WIDE ANTI-WAR CAMPAIGN GATHERS PACE

It’s taken a long while to get going but, at long last, the campaign to say ‘no’ to a war against Iran is gathering momentum.

While the threat of war has been around for years, it seems that ordinary people have only begun to take it seriously just recently.

The reason for this is simple; unlike the lead up to the Iraq war where the threat of war was far more palpable, the threat to Iran has been less obvious due to the ‘good cop, bad cop’ propaganda methods used by the Western/Israeli alliance whereby the US and their Western allies present themselves as friends of Israel but, at the same time, wanting to prevent war by restraining Israel who are itching to attack Iran over Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’.

The Western/Israeli alliance has learnt their lesson after the lead up to the Iraq war when literally millions took to the streets around the world to protest the imminent invasion and destruction of Iraq. These big protests happened because the people knew the war was going to happen despite Western leaders saying right up to the eve of invasion that a decision to attack had not yet been made. The world could see right through the Bush/Blair/Howard rhetoric about ‘a decision to attack had not been made’. The world knew it had and that it was merely a matter of ‘when’.

This time, the approach has been different. Instead of presenting a united front threatening war because of Iran being what the Israelis claim to be an existential threat to them, the US and their Western allies are instead insisting that sanctions and diplomacy be given an opportunity to work first. This, of course, was tried with Saddam as well but the difference in his case was that, according to the Western allies, Saddam was a threat to the entire world – and the Western allies proclaimed this very loudly while, at the same time, the Israelis kept a relatively low profile. With Iran it has been the other war round; the emphasis has been on the Iranian threat to Israel while the rhetoric about the Iranians being a threat to the rest of the world has been minimalised with the West insisting that it can be dealt with via the sanctions and diplomacy.

The effect of all this is that the world has been led – up until now – to believe that the US and their Western allies have been sincere in their desire to prevent war with Iran by using sanctions and diplomacy to deal with the perceived threat from Iran. And to give this perception even greater credibility, the US and their Western allies have been asking Israel very loudly to hold off from attacking Iran themselves but knowing full well that, ultimately, if Israel does attack Iran ‘pre-emptively’, the US and her allies will join in to prevent, so they will tell the world, Iran from retaliating against Israel.

Lately, however, the rhetoric for war has greatly increased and, as war seems now more certain than ever before, the ordinary people of the world are beginning to stir once again to demand that there be no war.

The protests this time have also taken on a new and unexpected twist; Iranians and Israelis are now beginning to speak out jointly via Youtube, Facebook and Twitter against war using the worldwide social media to express solidarity with each other. From this the word has spread. In Israel demonstrations against war that include placards expressing solidarity with the people of Iran have already taken place. This use of the worldwide social media together with street demonstrations, hopefully, is a trend that is likely to be repeated around the world as the anti-war protests grow.

However, the world needs to act quickly. If the Israelis and their Western partners get spooked by the prospect of the people of the world waking up to their ploy, they may just be inclined to bring forward an attack using some pretext that will provide a plausible cover for them before the protests and call for no war becomes overwhelming – especially this side of a Presidential election.

Let’s be quite clear about this; sooner or later there will be war against Iran. It will have nothing to do with Iran and its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ but it will have everything to do with regime change in Iran that will reinstate US regional hegemony and it will, at the same time, be about Israel removing the final barriers preventing them from creating a Greater Israel – the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah.


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WAR AGAINST IRAN: NEOCON CONTRADICTIONS ABOUT AL-QAEDA

Several claims from neoconservatives about al-Qaeda seem to be in contradiction with each other.

In The Weekly Standard this month there is an article titled Al Qaeda’s Network in Iran which tells of Iran’s alleged partnerships with al-Qaeda. Elsewhere in The Weekly Standard there is another article called How the Iranians are Helping the Syrians which alleges that the Iranians are in cahoots with Assad. But then we have completely contradictory story from another neoconservative rag, National Review Online, which is running an article titled Al Qaeda in Rebel Syria which alleges that al-Qaeda have infiltrated rebel units fighting against Assad.

Why would Iran be supporting al-Qaeda in Iran while supporting Assad in Syria if al-Qaeda were fighting with the rebels in Syria against Assad?

Here’s the explanation: There is no al-Qaeda as such. ‘al-Qaeda’ is simply a catch-all label for any Islamist that the West thinks are ultimately working against their interests. There used to be a group called ‘al-Qaeda’ but that disappeared long ago when Osama bin Laden died back in December 2001, but, like Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda label was convenient to keep alive to perpetuate the notion of there being an enemy for the West to continue combating. While Osama bin Laden had to be ‘killed off’ because his use-by date had long passed, al-Qaeda, it seems, is still serving a useful purpose – even if it is only to make fools of the neocons with their contradictory nonsense.


UPDATE

As if to demonstrate how loosely the ‘al-Qaeda’ label is bandied about these days, there’s a classic example of its misuse by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman today who is quoted in Ha’aretz as saying about the Palestinian Authority; "We are dealing with Al-Qaeda terror on the one hand and diplomatic terror by Abu Mazen on the other."


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MICHAEL RUBIN: NEOCON APOLOGIST WHO DOTH PROTESTETH FAR TOO MUCH

Michael Rubin is one of those neocon writers who revel in trying to excuse American and Israeli ill-doing in order to damage control the exposed excesses of their policies and goings-on.

In his latest piece in Commentary, Rubin complains of ‘double standards’ comparing the criticism of George W. Bush over the abuse at Abu Ghraib, which Rubin says quite rightly was “both horrendous and inexcusable”, with the recent massacre of civilians in Afghanistan which Rubin says, also quite rightly, was “tragic”. The problem, however, is that Rubin can’t just leave it at that; he needs to put some kind of other spin on this and stories like it. They either get embellished for propaganda purposes or are used for some other ulterior motive. Read his piece – it’s very short – to see what I mean; you don’t need me to explain it to you.

I always wonder what it is about propagandists like Rubin that they should go to such extraordinary lengths to defend the indefensible knowing full well that in doing so they are only digging an even deeper hole in which to bury themselves.

In this piece written in 2004, Rubin attempts to smear one of the whistleblowers who exposed the goings-on at the Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Pentagon during the run up to the war against Iraq as the neocons fed false intelligence up to a gullible President Bush via the very hawkish Vice-President Dick Cheney. In his story, Rubin is not acting merely as a neoconservative propagandist attempting to realign history using Orwellian methods, but he is also actually one of the actors in the screenplay – and in classic Orwellian doublespeak, Rubin titles his piece Web of Conspiracies when, in reality, the only 'web of conspiracies' that existed during this period were the ones being spun by the OSP!

As usual, Rubin goes over the top. He truly does protesteth too much.

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski is the whistleblower Rubin is trying to smear. She worked on the Near East and South Asia (NESA) desk at the Pentagon from May 2002 through to February 2003. Prior to that she worked at the Pentagon as an analyst on sub-Saharan Africa policy and was in the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.

During her time on the NESA desk, which came under the auspices of Doug Feith as did the OSP, Kwiatkowski was in a position to observe the goings-on at the OSP. During her time there she wrote of what she observed. In 2004 they were published as the New Pentagon Papers. The article exposed how the ‘evidence’ of Saddam’s WMD’s was being fabricated and used for propaganda by the neoconservatives to justify invading Iraq.

Knowing, of course, what we know now about the lies that were told to justify the invasion and destruction of Iraq, Rubin’s 2004 article demonstrate the extent to which he and his fellow travellers are prepared to go in order to perpetuate the lies and defend the indefensible.


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WAR AGAINST IRAN: UNILATERAL STRIKE BY ISRAEL IMPOSSIBLE

There has for a long time been a lot of talk of Israel launching a unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. There has even been talk of Israel launching a unilateral strike without warning the US in advance.

Such talk is nonsense. It is merely part of a “good cop, bad cop” strategy designed on the one hand to demonstrate to the world how anxious Israel is about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’, while on the other hand creating the illusion that US President Obama is the reluctant protector of Israel against Iranian ‘threats’ and retaliation.

The reality is this: It would be utterly impossible for Israel to launch a truly unilateral strike against Iran, and to even suggest that Israel would launch such a strike without warning the US in advance, borders on downright stupidity.

The reason it would be impossible for Israel to strike ‘unilaterally’ is simple; everything Israel needs in order to strike Iran – from jet fuel to bombs, to anti-retaliatory measures – comes from the US. Indeed, not only would Israel not be able to unilaterally strike Iran, it would actually need US connivance to do so – no matter how discreet the Israelis wanted to be about protecting Obama from blame of initiating war.

At the moment, Obama needs to tread a very careful path. On the one hand he can’t afford to ‘pre-emptively’ go to war against Iran for the Israelis – at least not this side of an election – but on the other hand, he can’t afford to be seen not supporting Israel – at least not this side of an election when the Jewish vote will be important for him.

But all this is simply for political show. The Israelis really couldn’t care less who the President is, just as long as whoever it is, he ultimately supports Israel. Sure, they would prefer a Republican President to get up at the next election since the Republicans are far more militantly sympathetic to the right-wing Israeli cause and, if a Republican President wins the election, the Israelis will be assured of support from the people of America since the Israeli cause is a major platform of the Republican campaign. But, if Obama is returned, the Israelis know that they can rely on him as a nothing to lose President for support in helping them attack Iran.

At this time, however, the “good cop, bad cop” strategy is in play for the sake of public opinion, but behind the scenes, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, everything is already in place and ready to go.
It’s just a matter of finding – or creating – the right opportunity. That opportunity might arise at anytime, but one thing everyone can be assured of; there will be absolutely nothing ‘unilateral’ about it.


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WAR AGAINST IRAN: THE JEFFREY GOLDBERG CONSPIRACY THEORY

A little over a week ago, the well-known neoconservative warmonger, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote an article titled; In Iran Standoff, Netanyahu Could Be Bluffing. In it Goldberg pushes the theory that Obama and Netanyahu are together playing a game of bluff with the Iranians. The game revolves around simply frightening Iran into giving up its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ by threatening it with attack. Goldberg writes of the background to this theory:

I’m talking about the belief, advanced to me by a former senior Israeli military official, and echoed by other non-insane people, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bluffing: He has never had any intention of launching air and missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, and is working behind the scenes with Obama to stop Iran through sanctions.

Goldberg goes on to say:

The theory has its attractions. For one, Israel hasn’t yet attacked Iran, though its leaders, going back to Yitzhak Rabin, have all stressed the danger an Iranian nuclear program would pose to Israel’s existence. For at least the past two years, experts have argued that an Israeli strike is highly likely, yet it hasn’t happened.
Another attraction has to do with the personality of the man himself: Netanyahu is much better at talking than doing. Despite his reputation in some circles as a trigger-happy extremist, Netanyahu has, when compared with his recent predecessors, only sparingly used force against foes such as Hezbollah and Hamas. What he does deploy, daily, are words -- huge gusts of words infused with drama and portents of catastrophe.

The problem with this theory is that it’s predicated on three factors: 1) that Iran has a nuclear weapons program; 2) that Iran is actually going to build a bomb and; 3) that Iran will use it on Israel.

When one examines the realities revolving around these three factors however, one finds that none of them stack up.

For a start, there is no hard evidence at all that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. For years Israel and the US have accused the Iranians of having a nuclear weapons program and for years they have made a concerted effort to try and convince the world – and for years they have consistently failed to produce a single skerrick of hard evidence. And, without the material, they’re not going to be able to build a bomb. As for actually using it; this is pure nonsense. Within half an hour of using it, Iran’s leaders know full well that the Israelis will retaliate with their own nuclear weapons.

The US, the Israelis, and all of their allies, know all of this. They know that all of this is not about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ at all but, rather, it is about Israel and its endgame strategy of creating a Greater Israel by eliminating Hamas, Hezbollah and the regime in Iran that supports them. At the same time, it is also about US hegemony in a resource-rich region of the world.

There is no conspiracy theory about Netanyahu bluffing about attacking Iran. The entire US/Israeli strategic endgame revolves around them attacking Iran. Without a war against Iran, Israel has no casus belli to attack Hezbollah and Hamas and the US cannot insist on regime change when the time comes for Iran to capitulate or face an overwhelming and devastating bombing campaign on its major centers.

The Americans and the Israeli are ready; it’s now just a matter of when. There is no bluff; there will only be war.

The only conspiracy theory here is the one that says; ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’.


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NEOCONS REALLY ARE VERY DUMB – THEY’VE ONLY JUST WOKEN UP TO THE FACT THAT THE ARAB SPRING REVOLTS HAVEN’T GONE THEIR WAY.

If this piece by neocon writer Andrew McCarthy in the National Review Online is anything to go by, the neoconservatives who have – until now – been advocating wholehearted support of the various Arab Spring uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East, have finally began to wake up to the idea that their unequivocal support for these uprisings may not have been such a good idea after all.

For years the neocons have advocated and supported uprisings against the many and various dictators scattered around the region. Their whole raison d’être about the Middle East was to change the governments of the region to ones that are ‘democratic’, just like the good ol’ US, and, of course, friendly to Israel. They believed that somehow this would entirely alter the Arab and Islamic mindset to one that supports the Israeli cause of creating a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinian and Arab peoples.

The neocons naively believed that the Afghan people would welcome the West when they invaded Afghanistan to get rid of al Qaeda and the Taliban. More than ten years later the Afghan people are still trying to get rid of the foreigners that invaded their country.

The same in Iraq. According to the neocons, it was going to be ‘cakewalk’ and that the allies invading Iraq would be welcomed as ‘liberators’. Almost ten years later in a virtually destroyed Iraq, having suffered around a million dead, millions more maimed and wounded and even more millions displaced, the daily killings are still going on.

When the Palestinians had a go at establishing democracy in January 2006, the neocon-led US government baulked at recognising an elected Hamas government the US and Israel thought had no chance of winning.

Then the Arab Spring got under way starting in Tunisia in December of 2010. By October 2011 the Islamist Ennahda party had become the majority party in the Tunisian assembly. By February 2011 Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s secular dictator and US ally who had kept peace with Israel was also gone. Since then Islamist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, have made extensive gains in Egyptian elections.

Then it was Libya’s turn. Once that had got underway the neocons insisted the US put ‘boots on the ground’ to support the rebels. Obama resisted and instead NATO aircraft were used to bomb Gaddafi strongholds killing and wounding thousands of civilians in the process. As it became obvious that the opposition forces in Libya had attracted Islamist fighters, the neocons then insisted that there be a ‘post-Gaddafi occupation’ of Libya to ensure Islamists didn’t gain a foothold in the government.

In January 2011 unrest also began in Yemen. By February 2012 the dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh had been deposed but Islamist unrest continues. In all of these places and elsewhere throughout the Middle East and across North Africa the Islamists are gaining a foothold in their respective countries.

And now Syria. At first the neocons demanded that there be ‘intervention’ but now it seems they’ve finally woken up to the fact that these Arab uprisings are not serving Israel’s interests at all, indeed, it is having the opposite effect. It has taken them more than ten years to realise that their aspirations were delusional and based on the arrogance of American Exceptionalism. As I previously pointed out, an Assad-free Syria is likely to be even less sympathetic to the Israelis once the Muslim Brotherhood begins to wield influence in Syria’s affairs. The Syrian people still want the Golan Heights back regardless of who is in power. And the Syrian people are still likely to support Hezbollah in Lebanon despite Hezbollah being Shia and the majority of Syrians being Sunni.

As in the past, the neoconservatives know only to advocate the use violence to get their way. For them, full-on American might is the only answer. The confrontation with Iran will be the final straw – one way or the other.


JUST AS AN ASIDE…

“The Bush administration is politicizing intelligence on Iraq. What does “politicizing intelligence” mean? Using intel, or more often partial intel, to produce an effect in line with White House policies rather than giving a full picture of a particular situation.”

Sound familiar? This was what most people around the planet knew in the run up to the war against Iraq in 2002/2003 – except in this case I have taken what Elliott Abrams wrote recently in The Weekly Standard and replaced just two words.

This is what Abrams originally wrote:

The Obama administration is politicizing intelligence on Syria. What does “politicizing intelligence” mean? Using intel, or more often partial intel, to produce an effect in line with White House policies rather than giving a full picture of a particular situation.

Unbelievable!

WAR AGAINST IRAN: A COUPLE OF SETBACKS FOR ISRAEL

Hot on the heels of what was looking like a relatively successful meeting (for the Israelis) between Netanyahu and Obama whereby Obama didn’t exactly give the green light to Israel but nonetheless didn’t disagree with Netanyahu that Israel must do what it thinks is best for Israel, comes two pieces of news that will not be liked by Netanyahu and his Zionist cohorts.

The first is that the Iranians have invited the IAEA to visit what the IAEA considered to be Iran’s most secret nuclear installation at Parchin, previously off-limits because it is under military control. At the very least this will put back any plans the Israelis had for an imminent attack against Iran as the US – who are more than likely seething as well – have no choice but to hold-off any covert support for an attack against Iran pending an outcome to the IAEA’s inspection of the facility and their report.

The second piece of unwelcome news for Israel and the US is that Hamas has declared that it will not militarily support Iran in the event of a war between Israel and Iran. The news is unwelcome because it deprives Israel of a casus belli to attack Hamas in the Gaza Strip which the Israelis were hoping to invade and occupy on the pretext of preventing Hamas from attacking Israel in retaliation for Israel attacking Iran. In the process of invading the Gaza the Israelis were hoping to destroy Hamas once and for all.

The fly in the ointment as far as Hamas is concerned is the Syrian civil war (and let there be no doubt, this is a civil war). While Hamas, a Sunni organisation, supports neither side, the support Hamas received from President Assad was for purely political reasons inasmuch that Syrians and Palestinians have a common problem; large portions of their lands (in the Syrians case, the Golan Heights) are occupied by Israeli Zionists. The problem became complicated because Iran, which is predominately Shia, supports the Alawite (Shia) minority government led by Assad who is an Alawite. To complicate things further, Hezbollah in Lebanon is a Shia organisation that is supported by both Assad in Syria and Iran. Now that Hamas has withdrawn its support of Assad it has also effectively distanced itself from Iran as well.

Iran had been financially supporting Hamas in the Gaza Strip for years to the tune of many millions of dollars per month. That has now all but ceased. For Hamas the shortfall has been made up by other Arab nation’s donations but to nowhere near the levels that Iran contributed. Apart from the political problems, Iran’s own financial situation hasn’t helped either. Both Syria and Iran are also finding it increasingly difficult to finance Hezbollah as well.

In light of these latest developments, it is unlikely that Israel will attack Iran just yet – as much as they would otherwise like to. Meanwhile, time is running out for Assad in Syria and, while the West is hopeful that Assad will be toppled, the replacement regime will in all likelihood not be one that the West would prefer.

The Syrian opposition is mostly made up of Sunni Muslim groups that are largely sympathetic to the Palestinian cause – which, in turn, further creates a problem for Israel.

Lebanon, as well as being home to the Shia Hezbollah group, as also home to hundreds of thousand of Sunni Palestinian refugees who are as equally keen to return to their homes as the Syrians are to the Golan Heights. Just as the post revolutionary Egyptians are sympathetic to the Palestinians, especially those in the Gaza Strip, so it might be that any new regime in Syria will be sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. And, while Hezbollah have had problems with some Palestinian guerrilla groups in Lebanon in the past, they have generally had a good rapport with the Palestinian refugees and the realignment of the political situation in this region of the Middle East could well see a new détente between the two evolve that serves all interests – including Syria’s and possibly even Iran’s.

There are some very interesting but also very dangerous times ahead.


UPDATE

A report appearing in Ha’aretz today says that Hamas refutes earlier reports that Hamas would not be supporting Iran by attacking Israel in the event of Israel attacking Iran.


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WAR AGAINST IRAN: DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS

Back on 14 March 2003 a TV interviewer asked Australian Prime Minister John Howard:

Prime Minister, can I put this proposition to you: you've made the choice, Australia will go to war with the United States with our without UN support.

Howard replied:

Well Steve, we haven't taken that decision.

Within a week Australian forces joined with US and British forces in invading and destroying Iraq in a war that killed hundreds of thousands, if not over a million people, forced millions more to flee their homes, and destroyed most of Iraq’s infrastructure. And Howard expected the Australian people to believe that he hadn’t yet taken that decision.

On 16 March 2003 a journalist present at the Azores Conference asked President George W. Bush:

Regardless of whether the resolution goes up or down or gets withdrawn, it seems to me you're going to be facing a moment of truth. And given that you've already said you don't think there's very much chance Saddam Hussein is going to disarm, and given that you say you don't think there's very much chance he's going to go to go into exile, aren't we going to war?

Bush replied:

Tomorrow is the day that we will determine whether or not diplomacy can work. And we sat and visited about this issue, about how best to spend our time between now and tomorrow. And as Prime Minister Blair said, we'll be working the phones and talking to our partners and talking to those who may now clearly understand the objective, and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Saddam Hussein can leave the country, if he's interested in peace. You see, the decision is his to make. And it's been his to make all along as to whether or not there's the use of the military. He got to decide whether he was going to disarm, and he didn't. He can decide whether he wants to leave the country. These are his decisions to make. And thus far he has made bad decisions.

At the same conference British Prime Minister Tony Blair said:

…now we have reached the point of decision, and we make a final appeal for there to be that strong, unified message on behalf of the international community that lays down a clear ultimatum to Saddam that authorises force if he continues to defy the will of the whole of the international community set out in 1441.

A few days later the Coalition of the Willing invaded Iraq.

Yesterday, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama. While sitting with Obama before the private discussions got under way, Netanyahu told reporters:

Israel has the right, the sovereign right, to make its own decisions.

By the end of the meeting both leaders had genuine smiles on their faces indicating that talks had gone well.

One can read into that whatever one wants with regard to the decisions that Netanyahu and Obama made during their meeting but it’s worth remembering that similar smiles were seen after the meeting US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak last Wednesday.

I’m no expert in reading body language, but in all these post-meeting photos and videos they all looked pretty pally to me – unlike some of the meetings Netanyahu has had with Obama in the past.

If there is one thing that is certain regardless of what these leaders tell us otherwise, the decision, like the decision about attacking Iraq, has never been about ‘whether or not’ to attack Iran, but only about ‘when’.

WAR AGAINST IRAN: IS ISRAELI PRESIDENT PERES TRYING TO LULL IRAN INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY?

Yesterday Israeli President Shimon Peres was said to have come out against an immediate attack on Iran. Today Israel Defence Minister Ehud Barak criticised Peres’ position saying that in the end it is the Israeli government that will make decisions whether or not Israel attacks Iran and not the President.

It is an unfortunate fact that, unlike the US president, the Israeli president has little power in the decision making processes of the Israeli government. The reality is that Peres has more opportunity to influence Israeli affairs outside of Israel than within. That opportunity will arise when Peres meets with US President Obama next week ahead of a meeting Netanyahu has scheduled with Obama later on.

But, one needs to ask, how much of Peres’ reluctance to push Israel to attack Iran is just a feint to lull Iran into some kind of false sense of security?

Plans for the Israelis and the US to attack Iran have already been meticulously made. Is Peres’ apparent reluctance just a part of the propaganda designed to let the Iranians think that Israel and their Western allies are in disarray over whether or not to attack?

Time, of course, will tell.

WAR AGAINST IRAN: A METICULOUSLY PLANNED U.S./ISRAEL JOINT ASSAULT

The way the rhetoric and propaganda is being presented to the world at the moment, one might be forgiven for thinking that any war launched against Iran will be as a result of Israeli impatience of the Obama administration’s apparent reluctance to attack Iran.

That may well be the rhetoric and the propaganda but it is far from reality.

The forthcoming attack against Iran will not be as a result of some series of events that leads to a spontaneous knee-jerk Israeli raid against Iran’s nuclear facilities but, rather, will be as a result of meticulous planning with every single detail and scenario carefully worked out beforehand.

In keeping with the current propaganda whereby Israel says it needs to act now in order to thwart Iran building a bomb at any time very soon but the US on the other hand says it needs to give economic sanctions against Iran time to bite, a war against Iran is likely to be started initially by a first strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel. This initial Israeli strike will then be immediately followed up by a massive bombing campaign against Iranian defence facilities as well as its governmental institutions by the US who will take over entirely from the Israelis who will then concentrate on attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will then be fully occupied as will be south Lebanon up to the Litani River.

While outwardly this series of events may seem to be as a result of spontaneous escalation started by Israeli impatience, in reality it will have been well scripted and thoroughly planned months ahead and awaiting only opportunity to trigger that first strike. This plan gets Obama off the hook with the American people as the November presidential election looms. He can claim that he was a reluctant participant and, despite what he will claim to be Isreali impetuousness, will say he had no alternative to back Israel all the way after they had made the first strike. Once war is underway, the American people will far more likely be in support of it if it can be seen that Israel started it than if Obama made the first strike.

The logistics of mounting a full-on war against Iran are enormous and the propaganda effort leading up to such a war is just a part of those logistics. Both the Israelis and the US have been carefully preparing and planning for this war since at least January 2010 when the US approved money for Israel to begin stockpiling hi-tech weapons and August 2010 when the Israelis ordered massive amounts of military fuel from the US. They know they will only get one shot at realising their real war aims.

The Israelis will say, and have been saying for years, that their war aim is simply to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons and the opening shots of the war will be based on a casus belli of Iran getting too close to building a nuclear weapon. But depriving Iran of nuclear weapons is not at all their real war aims. Their real war aims are far more ambitious.

A strike against Iran will provide Israel with an opportunity to attack both Hezbollah and Hamas on the pretence of pre-empting a retaliatory strike by these groups for attacking Iran. Israel will launch an all-out attack against all its enemies under the cover of the devastating US war against Iran. Their war aims are simple; for Israel it is to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah and begin a process of permanent occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well, so they hope, of south Lebanon up to the Litani River that will lead to eventual annexation and the creation of a Greater Israel. The US by securing victory against the Iranians with overwhelming fire power will eliminate any opposition to US hegemony in the Middle East.

This will not simply be a knee-jerk war out of fear of a non-existent Iranian nuclear bomb threat. This war has been very carefully planned and awaits only opportunity. The aim is regime change to favour both Israel and the US, and it will be an excuse for the Israelis to also eliminate their enemies and to take the next steps toward their dream of creating a Greater Israel.


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‘AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM’: NEOCON ARROGANCE AND HYPOCRISY REVEALED

Here’s a quick observation. Two articles that have appeared recently in the National Review Online have highlighted exactly how arrogant and hypocritical the neocon notion of ‘American Exceptionalism’ really is.

In one article written by neocon old hand Victor Davis Hanson, we are told that:

…America, alone of the major powers, is a multiracial open society bound by one culture, where merit, more than race, tribe, birth, or class, determines success.

There’s the arrogance.

The article that demonstrates the hypocrisy comes from another neocon, Deroy Murdock, who tells us that, far from being “a multiracial open society bound by one culture, where merit, more than race, tribe, birth, or class, determines success”, America is still a racist nation where, “If ID requirements are discriminatory, America is a lot more racist than we thought”. He explains here.

‘American Exceptionalism’? More like delusions of grandeur wrapped up in wishful thinking.

SHIA AND SUNNI: ALLIES AGAINST ZIONIST ISRAEL

While it is true that there have been rifts between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims in many Islamic countries, they have mainly been driven by local tribal and secular political agenda’s. Such rifts which would ordinarily be considered piffling among the two denominations and considered merely as internal power struggles within districts and some Arab nations have been propagandised over the last ten years by right-wing Israelis and their neoconservative supporters around the world in an attempt to polarise the two denominations beyond the domestic quarrels they occasionally have with each other. In the case of Iraq and Syria most of these quarrels have actually been stirred up by Western influences. It’s a classic case of divide and rule.

However, there is one area of Middle East politics where the two denominations, as illustrated below, stand hand in hand with each other, literally, and that is with their support of Arab resistance against Israeli expansionism and Zionist oppression.

President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the left, is a Shi’ite Muslim, while Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is a Sunni Muslim.

The two denominations may squabble over domestic politics in their respective nations, but when it comes to supporting the Palestinian people in their fight to defend their nation against Zionism, they are very much united.

So if Israel and the West think that a change in regime in Syria or Iran is somehow going to be of benefit to the Zionists, they'd better think again. Syrians - Shia or Sunni - will unite when it comes to regaining their lands in the Golan Heights and supporting the Palestinian and Arab peoples of south Lebanon in their fight against Israel aggression and expansionism.

NEOCONS AND ZIONISTS: THE NEW ANTI-SEMITES?

There is a certain irony in the fact that those that speak most vehemently against anti-Semitism have, in doing so, become anti-Semites themselves by virtue of grossly abusing the anti-Semite label into irrelevancy by totally misrepresenting the term for political purposes.

There was a time when the anti-Semite label was an important and powerful symbol that recognised the injustices the Jewish people have suffered during their existence. But now the label has been hijacked by the extreme Right of Zionism who have commandeered the term and trivialised it in order to demonise their detractors. Zionists and their neoconservative supporters around the world, and particularly in the US, have misapplied the anti-Semite label by accusing those who dissent against Zionism, its expansionist aims, their insistence of Jewish exclusivity within Israel and what they hope to be Greater Israel, as being ‘anti-Semites’.

Right-wing Israeli politicians and US neoconservatives have been prominent in leading the ‘anti-Semite’ smear campaign. The idea is to induce within public opinion the entirely false and deliberately deceitful notion that to be anti-Zionist is anti-Israel and anti-Jew and, therefore, anti-Semitic.

While there are indeed some anti-Zionists that truly are anti-Semitic, these people are only anti-Zionist because they really are anti-Semitic. As real Jew-haters they are actually anti-anything connected with Jews, including Zionism.

Most anti-Zionists, on the other hand, see Zionism for what it really is; a political ideology. Among anti-Zionists there are many Jewish people as well as non-Jews. Compounding their misuse of the term ‘anti-Semite’, Zionists and neoconservative have pigeon-holed anti-Zionist Jews as ‘self-hating Jews’.

As a result of their extensive abuse of the ‘anti-Semitic’ label for nefarious political purposes, Zionists and neoconservatives have rendered the term all but irrelevant. By using it as a derogatory term directed at people who clearly and quite obviously are not anti-Semites, they have diminished the true meaning of the term to the point that there is no longer any fear whatsoever of being labelled an ‘anti-Semite’ when the term is used in the context of demonising Jews and non-Jews alike that do not go along with Zionist political ideology. Since Zionists and neoconservatives use the term in a catch-all sense whereby they attempt to tar anti-Zionists with same brush as they tar real Jew-haters, all they have succeeded in achieving is destroying the significance and validity of the real meaning of the term. In other words, they have deprived Jews throughout both the Diaspora and Israel of a potent and powerful symbol that recognised the struggle Jews have endured over time.

Is not that abuse in itself an anti-Semitic act?


For a classic example of the Zionist/neoconservative deceit and misuse of the anti-Semite label, see here.

TIMING THE START OF THE ‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’

After years of observing the events of the Middle East and Israel, if there’s one lesson that’s made itself clear, it is that nothing ever happens quickly there. It always seems to be in slow motion.

The Israeli and Western threat of action against Iran has been no exception.

Ever since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, the threat has always existed. Today, however, the threat has moved up several notches and it now seems to be a matter of not ‘if’ action will be taken against Iran but ‘when’. Today, therefore, timing is of the political essence.

As I have said repeatedly in the past, contrary to some commentator’s view that Israel may make a unilateral strike against Iran, the reality is that logistically Israel cannot possibly strike Iran without the full cooperation of the US.

President Obama is hesitant about openly supporting an attack against Iran during this an election year. He is aware that the American people will not support yet another ‘pre-emptive war’ in the Middle East; indeed, he became President on the back of a mandate that he would end the wars that Bush had started against Afghanistan and Iraq.

This has left Obama in a position where he has had to increasingly appear to be a peacemaker rather than a warmonger as the 2012 November polling date gets closer. He has had to tread a fine line between being accused by the pro-Israel lobby of abandoning Israel and of placating the Israeli right-wing by telling them that ‘nothing has been taken off the table’.

From the Israelis point of view, they too are in a precarious position despite wanting to let loose against Iran as soon as possible. As I’ve said, the Israelis can’t move without the support of the US.

On the one hand, the Israelis could wait until the election in November and hope that a more compliant Republican president gets voted in, but on the other hand, if it seems that Obama will hang on the Presidency, then the Israelis may choose to insist that they attack Iran before the election even if Obama privately councils them not to. In that case, Obama, who has always said he will support Israel no matter what, will have little choice but to accept the fait accompli of war and go to war with Israel against Iran after Israel has fired the opening rounds against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Whatever happens, it would be absolutely crucial for Obama to make it appear that the US is a reluctant partner in its war against Iran if he is to stand any chance of re-election. But that is all it is about – appearances. Despite Obama’s apparent reluctance to go to war, everything militarily is now in place for just that.

When push comes to shove, the US will be there with the Israelis once Israel has made the opening move. The US will launch an all-out devastating bombing war against Iran designed to bring about regime change while at the same time Israel will launch an equally devastating attack against Hezbollah and Hamas with the aim of fully occupying south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and destroying their enemies once and for all.

It’s not a matter of ‘if’ anymore; it’s now just a matter of ‘when’.