- The Samson Option is terminology used to explain Israel's
intention to use its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate defense strategy if
its leaders feel threatened enough to think they have no alternative. It
comes from the biblical Samson said to have used his great strength to
bring down the pillars of a Philistine temple, downing its roof and killing
himself and thousands of Philistine tormentors. It's a strategy saying
if you try killing me, we'll all die together, or put another way, we'll
all go together when we go. Richard Wagner had his apocalyptic version
in the last of his four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen - Gotterdammerung,
or Twilight of the Gods based on Norse mythology referring to a prophesied
war of the Gods resulting in the end of the world.
-
- The Bush Doctrine isn't that extreme, and it's not the
intent of this essay to suggest its unintended consequences may turn out
that way even though the threat it may is real if they start firing off
enough nukes like they're king-sized hand grenades. The Doctrine refers
to the administration's foreign policy first aired by George Bush in his
commencement speech to the West Point graduating class in June, 2002.
It was later formalized in The National Security Strategy of September,
2002 and updated in more extreme form in early 2006 that makes for scary
reading not recommended at bedtime. It mentions Iran in it 16 times stating:
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from
Iran" while failing to acknowledge what Pogo said about us on an Earth
Day poster in 1970 and in a 1972 book titled - "We Have Met the Enemy
and He Is Us."
-
- The updated NSS details an "imperial grand strategy"
with new language more belligerent than the original version that was intended
to be a declaration of preemptive or preventive war against any country
or force the administration claims threatens our national security. It
followed from our Nuclear Policy Review of December, 2001 claiming a unilateral
right to declare and wage future wars using first strike nuclear weapons
that in enough numbers potentially can destroy all planetary life, save
maybe some resilient roaches and bacteria. In still other national security
documents, the administration intends being ready by maintaining total
control over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic
spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to defeat
any potential challengers using all weapons in the arsenal, including those
nukes masquerading as king-sized grenades.
-
- The doctrine got its baptism in Afghganistan right after
the 9/11 attacks and before the 2002 NSS was released. It then played
out in real time "shock and awe" force (without nukes) in Iraq
that seemed to work like a charm until it didn't. That brings us to today
and an administration feeling cornered by failure and needing to change
the subject and get a victory in the face of major defeat or at least buy
enough time to run out the clock on its tenure so a new administration
can take over and deal with the mess left over. It'll be king-sized if
the audible war drums now beating are for real.
-
- Enter Iran to play dual roles for the Bush administration
plus the same one always center stage when strategic resources are at stake.
It's the designated target to pull George Bush's Middle East fat out of
the fire and fulfill our 28 year commitment to regime change in the country
since its 1979 revolution ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi whom we installed to
replace democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953
in the CIA's first-ever go at regime change. Those events began and ended
the same way - violently, but if George Bush proceeds as he's now threatening,
they'll seem like tempest-in-teapot prologues to the main event ahead
looking like full scale war large enough to engulf the whole region and
entire Muslim world with it.
-
- CIA's assessment is blunt. If the US attacks Iran, Southern
Shia Iraq will light up like a candle and explode uncontrollably throughout
the country. CIA ought to know and likely concluded big trouble won't
just be in Iraq, Shia Islam and the Middle East. It may show up anywhere
including a neighborhood near you but not to express reconciliation and
friendship.
-
- Washington's other motive is no mystery to anyone knowing
why we attacked and now occupy Iraq. It had nothing to do with nonexistent
weapons and everything to do with removing a leader unwilling to accept
our imperial management rules whose country happens to have the fourth
largest and easily accessible proven oil reserves in the world we want
to control. The joke goes - how did our oil end up under his sand. The
same is true for Iran and has since 1979. The country's leaders reject
our rules, and it too has easily accessible oil reserves that are the world's
third largest behind Saudi Arabia and Canada (including the country's heavy
reserves). Further, both countries have vast untapped more of them adding
to their allure and Washington's determination to control them alone to
have veto power over who gets access.
-
- If the US attacks Iran, all bets are off on what's to
come. The echoes of Waterloo could turn George Bush's Middle East adventurism
into his inadvertent Samson option by expanding the Iraq conflict to a
regional one with impossible to predict consequences that won't be good
for Western interests and especially US ones. It will inflame the region
and produce a tsunami of Shia rage and solidarity enough to inflame and
unite the whole Muslim world in fierce opposition to America, its culture
and people. It may irrevocably transform the region making it unwelcome
for decades or longer to anything Western that only arrives for what it
can take and doesn't take no for an answer.
-
- It's backlash may also affect the administration and
its party as unintended fallout from an ill-conceived adventure gone sour
and beyond repair. And it may have further unintended consequences as
well - the painful blowback kind from angry people striking back in catastrophic
payback ways far harsher than ever before. It could be a dirty bomb or
two detonated in one more US cities or a nuclear reactor core meltdown
from sabotage or attack releasing lethal radiation in amounts great enough
to make downwind areas from it forever uninhabitable. Imagine a nightmarish
vision of New York or Chicago (surrounded by 11 aging nuclear power plants)
as ghost towns, their structures intact but unfit to be occupied.
-
- There is a macabre bright side, however, once past the
onslaught if it comes and its aftermath. In six years, the Bush administration
achieved the near-impossible. It made the US a pariah state alienating
the whole Muslim world and vast numbers more everywhere including growing
numbers at home with George Bush's approval rating at numbers approaching
the lowest ever for a US president. Its policies of permanent war on the
world, repression at home, entrenched corruption, worship of wealth and
privilege, and indifference to human needs and the people he was elected
to serve already destroyed any notion the country is a model democratic
state or that Bush and his neocon fanatics should be governing it. Their
imperial arrogance accelerated the country's fading global hegemony well
advanced since the 1970s and likely irreversible. They buried the nation's
influence and dominance in Iraq's smoldering sands and Afghanistan's rubble
that are now both graveyards for US ambitions in those regions and beyond.
-
- Attacking Iran will just make things far worse. It would
be a fanatical "hail Mary" act of insanity that by one definition
is repeating the same mistakes, expecting different results. It has no
more chance of success than our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And if nuclear weapons are used, including so-called low-yield ones, it
will be an appalling crime against humanity and catastrophic event potentially
affecting millions in the region by radiation poisoning alone. If it happens,
it will irreversibly weaken US influence and credibility everywhere accelerating
our decline even faster toward second-class status and loss of world leadership
already hanging by a thread. It could also be a potentially lethal blow
to the benefits of "Western civilization" always arriving through
the barrel of a gun and thuggish heel of a colonizer's boot with the US
having the biggest barrels and largest shoe sizes.
-
-
- Key US players know the risks and want our losses cut
before it's too late to act. They want an end to war, not more of it in
a strategically vital world region too important to lose while fearing
it's likely too late. The National Intelligence Estimate supports them
believing the war in Iraq is unwinnable, transforming the country into
a pro-American state impossible, and the president's notion of victory
illusory. George Bush ignores its assessment and presses on.
-
- Reports by Seymour Hersh and others now say the administration
wants to weaken the Bashir Assad-led Syrian government's alliance with
Iran and further undermine Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon and the region
by funding Sunni extremist groups with known ties to al-Queda in what's
called a "redirection program." It's the brainchild of Dick
Cheney/Elliott Abrams (of Iran-Contra notoriety)/Zalmay Khalilzad/Condi
Rice/Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan/Israeli elements & Co. with CIA's
hands are all over it covertly beyond Congress' reach. It includes a larger
effort, with Saudi help, to fund and unleash Sunni extremist elements against
Tehran at the same time Washington is preparing to include Iran and Syria
in regional discussions on the situation in Iraq. It proves again duplicity
and shameless hypocrisy are never in short supply in Washington. They're
only topped by the neocon leadership's crazed strategy to make a hopeless
Middle East debacle catastrophic.
-
- The Concocted Myth of Iran's Threat
-
- The ancient Persian empire became Iran on March 21, 1935.
From that time till now, Iran obeyed international law, never occupied
a foreign territory, and never threatened or attacked another state beyond
occasional border skirmishes over unsettled disputes of the kinds other
nations engage in that are far short of all out wars. It only had full-scale
conflict defensively after Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion
in September, 1980 backed, equipped and financially aided by Washington
that included supplying chemical and biological weapon precursors and crucial
intelligence on Iranian field positions and force strength.
-
- The conflict became known as the Iran-Iraq war. It lasted
till August, 1988 over which time a million or more people died, countless
numbers more were wounded and displaced, with America all the while inciting
both sides to keep up the killing. It hoped to destroy both countries
and then move in to pick up the pieces like it's been trying to do since
in the Middle East and elsewhere with growing difficulty as not everyone
likes our rules and some are even bold enough to renounce them.
-
- Iran became a major US adversary after its 1979 revolution
established the Islamic Republic in February, 1980. Since then, the two
countries have had no diplomatic ties and relations between them have been
frosty and uncertain at best with Washington only interested in normalization
on its usual one-way dictated terms. They're the same kinds offered other
developing states - we're "boss," surrender your sovereignty
to ours, and accede to neoliberal market-based rules made in Washington
that aren't negotiable. Iran refuses so it's public enemy number one topping
the US target queue for regime change. Rule by extremist mullahs and reactors
aren't the problems. They're just pretexts like all the phony intelligence
about Iran destabilizing Iraq discussed below.
-
- Despite a hopeless quagmire in Iraq, the Bush administration
seems focused on further escalation notwithstanding the danger, near-impossible
chance of success, and mounting opposition and anger to its agenda in the
homeland. It's coming from the public on Iraq and even the Congress with
some there getting twitchy enough to voice concern, though still far short
of acting as they can and should with too many there twitching to fight,
not quit. It's also heard in the highest ranks of power from both parties
first circulated in the Jim Baker-led Iraq Study Group that reported its
rumor-leaked findings December 6. It represented a clear rejection of
Bush administration Iraq policies gone sour, a proposed rescue plan and
effort to save his family name, and a scheme to restore US Middle East
dominance, fast slipping away, and near past the point of no return by
now from which there's likely none.
-
- Despite its clout, its recommendations went unheeded,
especially regarding engaging Iran and Syria to help bail Bush's Middle
East fat out of its self-made fire. And nothing's changed in the wake of
Washington's agreeing to include those countries' officials in initial
and follow-up discussions on Iraq's security along with members of the
Arab League, Organization of Islamic Unity, G 8 countries, and five permanent
members of the Security Council.
-
- The decision represents no softening of the US's position,
and the administration likely will use the talks to repeat unproved claims
Iranian elements support anti-American forces in Iraq, continue refusing
broader diplomatic discussions unless Tehran stops enriching uranium which
it won't nor should it be forced to or be punished for, and keep negotiating
the way it always does - making ultimatums and accepting no compromise,
meaning nothing will be resolved and tensions will only be further heightened.
And if anyone doubts that's how things will unfold, the New York Times
was front and center spelling it out. It reported any US discussions involving
Iran and Syria won't be "from a position of weakness (so the administration
intends) ratcheting up the confrontational talk (to show) the United States
was in more of a driver's seat" and not planning to negotiate in good
faith. No surprise.
-
- The Bush administration's rejectionism has even deeper
roots going back at least to a 2003 "grand bargain" offer from
Iran - unreported, of course, in the corporate media. It was approved
by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former President Mohammad Khatami
and former Foreign Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Former Bush National
Security Council official Flynt Leverett revealed it calling it a "serious
proposal (he knew from multiple sources) went all the way up to former
Secretary of State Colin Powell (who) 'couldn't sell it at the White House.'
" It was part of a six year Bush administration pattern of rejecting
all Iranian overtures with responses of ultimatums, threats and Washington-style
bullying all framed to send the same message. Washington wants nothing
less than regime change and may go to war for it.
-
- Fast forward to today and the largely unreported testimony
of former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee February 1. He highlighted
it in an op ed piece in the Los Angeles Times February 11 calling "The
war in Iraq....a historic strategic and moral calamity undertaken under
false assumptions.... undermining America's global legitimacy (and) tarnishing
America's moral credentials. (It's) driven by Manichean impulses and imperial
hubris, it is intensifying regional instability." It's too bad he
ignored the most damning fact of all - the Iraq and Afghan wars are both
acts of illegal aggression the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme
international crime" and Nazis convicted of it were hanged. Don't
expect a hint of that from a spear-carrying member of the empire in good
standing.
-
- Brzezinski did say the conflict is ominous for the national
interest, and if the country stays bogged down in Iraq it's on track for
a "likely head-on conflict with Iran and much of the Islamic world."
He believes if it happens it will mean a "spreading and deepening
(protracted) quagmire lasting 20 years or more and eventually ranging across
Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (causing) pervasive popular antagonism"
and plunging the US into growing political isolation. He stated a "plausible
scenario (for war with Iran) might be "some provocation in Iraq or
a terrorist act (real or otherwise) blamed on Iran."
-
- Brzezinski represents powerful interests using him as
their influential spokesman. They want an end to policies gone sour they
see harming "the national interest" meaning their own. He and
they want "a significant change in direction" with a strategy
to "end the occupation of Iraq" with a serious US commitment
to "shape a regional security dialogue that includes all Iraq's neighbors
including Iran and Syria and other major Muslim countries like Egypt and
Pakistan." He's calling for an unambiguous "determination to
leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time," and believes the
US should "activate a credible and energetic effort (to end the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict without which) nationalist and fundamentalist passions (will eventually
doom) any Arab regime (perceived supporting) US regional hegemony."
Brzezinski sounded alarmist about the Bush administration's hostile intentions
toward Iran, and his implications are clear. Washington's agenda is ominous
and threatening the national interest. He denounced the scheme and pressed
Congress to engage Iran, not attack it. His message so far is unheeded.
-
- Brzezinski's influential voice was joined by Russian
President Vladimir Putin's addressing the international security conference
in Munich February 10. He stunned listeners with his harsh frankness
accusing the US of endangering the world pursuing policies aimed at making
it "one single master (in a) unipolar world." He went on saying
"It has nothing in common with democracy (and the people) teaching
us democracy (but) don't want to learn it themselves." He continued
that US policy "overstepped its national borders in every way....in
the economic, political and cultural policies it imposes on other nations."
-
- He claimed the US is responsible for "a greater
and greater disdain for the principles of international law (and) no one
can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect
them." He also accused the US of stimulating "an arms race (in
an environment where) peace is not so reliable." He added "Unilateral
actions have not resolved conflicts but have made them worse," and
force should only be used when authorized as international law requires
by the UN Security Council. He sounded an alarm gone unheard in the West
that "Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force
- military force.... that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent
conflicts (and) Finding a political settlement....becomes impossible."
He further warned about the use of "space (or) high tech weapons"
with implications of a new cold war, nuclear arms race and frightening
possibility of devastating nuclear war that was unthinkable before the
age of George Bush.
-
- The Dominant Media React
-
- As President of a major world power, Putin's comments
went out to the world getting broad coverage, if only for a day or so,
while Brzezinski's were largely and shamelessly ignored by the corrupted
corporate media still carrying the administration's water and trumpeting
its phony claims like verifiable gospel. It happened on February 11 in
the New York Times as reported by correspondent James Glanz. His column
breathed the scantiest hints of skepticism that smacked of the same kind
of Judith Miller-type journalism about WMDs helping take the country to
war with Iraq in 2003. He said the US military showed "their first
public evidence of the contentious assertion that Iran supplies Shiite
extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most lethal weapons in the war....used
to kill more than 170 Americans in the past three years" with only
hints about its reliability or the source presenting it having none.
-
- He cited senior defense officials in Baghdad February
11 displaying "an array of mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades
with visible serial numbers (claimed to be directly linked) to Iranian
arms factories." Without credible proof, they said "Iranian leaders
had authorized smuggling those weapons into Iraq for use against Americans
(basing their judgment) on general intelligence assessments (of the same
kind used to justify attacking Iraq, meaning phony ones.) The specious
Times report reeked of innuendos for what it lacked in hard proof about
lethal weapons. They could have come from any source, manufactured anywhere,
including by Pentagon contractors easily able to duplicate anything scattered
around the country and on Iraqi streets for years after the Iranian conflict
and now used by resistance fighters or anyone else who has them.
-
- Typical Times saber rattling was at it again after Bush's
inept February 14 news conference trumpeting his claim Iran was sending
weapons to Iraq to undermine security and kill Americans while never looking
more pathetic and awkward doing it. In "Times talk," reporters
Stolberg and Santora stated "Mr. Bush's remarks amounted to his most
specific accusation to date that Iran was undermining security in Iraq....(and
he) dismissed as 'preposterous' the contention by some skeptics that the
United States was drawing unwarranted conclusions about Iran's role."
They barely questioned the president's nonsensical claim he's certain
"the (paramilitary) Quds Force, a part of the government, has provided
these sophisticated I.E.D's that have harmed our troops" that has
as much credibility as those WMDs we had to fear along with that "mushroom
shaped cloud" we couldn't afford to wait to see before acting.
-
- Facts On the Ground Trump the Propaganda
-
- Revealed facts on the ground in Iraq belie all Pentagon
and administration phony assertions along with their shameless daily echoing
on the Times front pages. The military couldn't even get its evidence
straight in presenting an 81mm mortar shell Iran doesn't make, and the
ones shown the media had fake markings in English for a Farsi-speaking
country. It's also inconceivable Shia Iran would be fighting Iraq's Shia
government it's allied with and aids. The US has been fighting an anti-Iranian
Sunni resistance largely in al-Anbar province and the most violent parts
of Baghdad. It stretches credibility to imagine Iran is arming its enemy
that denounces Iraq's dominant Shia puppet government as a US pawn.
-
- That hardly deters Washington claiming further solid
evidence Iranian agents are involved in what the State Department calls
"networks" (meaning Iranians) working with individuals and groups
in Iraq sent there by the Iranian government without a shred of evidence
to prove it. Even General Peter Pace, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman,
dismisses the claim as unproved and further said during a February trip
to the Pacific region there is "zero" chance of a US war with
Iran.
-
- He may be echoing the kind of sentiment the London Times
reported February 25 that "highly placed defence and intelligence
sources (say) Some of America's most senior commanders are prepared to
resign (in protest) if the White House orders a military strike against
Iran." The paper calls this type of high-level internal dissent unprecedented
signifying great distaste and misgivings in the Pentagon for an attack
on Iran. That's a sentiment even its Joint Chiefs Chairman may share as
well as the six retired generals (and likely others) who publicly denounced
the Pentagon's handling of the Iraq war last spring and the administration's
incompetence overall.
-
- Nonetheless, preparations for war go on that veteran
journalist Seymour Hersh again wrote about in late February in the New
Yorker magazine. According to Hersh's informed sources: "The Pentagon
is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on Iran....at
the direction of the President. (It includes) a contingency plan...that
can be implemented (in) 24 hours....The Iran planning group (is assigned)
to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding
militants in Iraq (on top of its previous focus to destroy) Iran's nuclear
facilities and possible regime change." Hersh's report supplements
others, like one from BBC, saying the US military is planning an all out
"shock and awe" blitzkrieg on the country's nuclear facilities,
military and infrastructure that may come in the spring that's now just
days away.
-
- A clear sign of that possibility is the huge naval buildup
in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean with two heavily equipped and armed
carrier groups in theater and a reported third en route either to replace
one there or add to it. The combined task force in place is a formidable
assemblage of 50 or more warships with nuclear weapons, hundreds of planes
and contingents of Marines and Navy personnel.
-
- The buildup is part of former Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's plan for preemptive nuclear war specifically targeting Iran
and North Korea. Earlier, Dick Cheney originated the idea when he served
as GHW Bush's Defense Secretary in the early 1990s. Rumsfeld picked up
the scheme in 2004 as authorized by the 2002 National Security Strategy
proclaiming an official doctrine of preemptive or preventive war for the
first time. From it he approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike
Alert Order" for military readiness against hostile countries that
included the nuclear option. He drew on CONPLAN (contingency/concept plan)
8022 completed in November 2003 detailing a plan to preemptively strike
targets anywhere in the world judged a national security threat including
hardened structures using tactical so-called low-yield nuclear bunker busters
with Iran the apparent first target of choice. The Omaha-based US Strategic
Command (StratCom) would run any operation if undertaken as it's the command
center for the country's nuclear deterrent and overseas the military's
nuclear arsenal.
-
- All military branches have ready battle plans to implement
against Iran under the name TIRANNT for Theater Iran Near Term. If an
attack order comes, it can be launched from the assembled Naval task force
in the region and/or by long-range US-based bombers and other warplanes
and missiles strategically based in locations like Diego Garcia and elsewhere
within striking distance of Iranian targets. It will be able to assault
Iran round the clock for weeks against a claimed number of 1500 nuclear-related
sites located at 18 main locations in the country. Also designated are
thousands of strategic military and civilian targets including vital infrastructure,
industrial sites, air, naval and ground force bases, missile facilities
and always command-and-control centers with possible help from Israeli
warplanes that might, in fact, initiate an attack with US forces then joining
in to support their regional partner.
-
- That kind of devious scheme could persuade Congress to
go along never wanting to offend the Israeli Lobby that's been spoiling
for a fight with Iran for years and now may get it horrifically with unimaginable
consequences. They'll affect Israel and the US alike as well as spillover
to unstable countries in the region like the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians
and Lebanese and may be unsettling enough to unseat sitting rulers and
governments replacing them with the kinds of fundamentalist regimes not
likely to welcome US presence or influence in the region and intending
to do something about it.
-
- The Bush Roadmap to War with Iran
-
- Reports circulated as early as last year and in 2005
that the Bush administration signed off on a "shock and awe"
attack against Iran to destroy its perfectly legal commercial nuclear program
that may involve using so-called "mini-nuke robust earth penetrator
bunker-buster" weapons that won't be "mini" in their catastrophic
effects if indeed used. These are powerful dangerous weapons. They can
be made to any desired potency, would likely be from one-third to two-thirds
as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb that destroyed an entire city, but could
have far greater explosive capability that potentially will be catastrophic
to the area struck and well beyond by radiation contamination alone.
-
- Pentagon false and misleading reports about them claim
they're "safe for civilians" because they penetrate the earth
and explode underground. Test results prove otherwise showing when released
from 40,000 feet a B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator burrowed about 20 feet
in the soil for a pre-explosion depth able to produce intense fallout over
the area struck that's unremediable and would result in enough permanent
surface contamination to be unsafe for human habitation. Nonetheless,
weapons able to cause a nuclear holocaust are cleared for use real time
along with conventional ones if a "shock and awe" attack is ordered
against Iran or any other nation on the false and misleading pretext of
protecting the national security only threatened by a rogue leadership
at home willing to risk catastrophic mass destruction in pursuit of its
insane and unachieveable imperial aims.
-
- Not surprisingly, we have an eager partner in Israel
straining at the leash to fulfill its long-term agenda to attack Iran alone
(possible but doubtful) or along with its US ally that keeps getting reinforced
by bellicose statements by its high officials like the one reported February
13 by ultra-right wing Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He
commented in a radio interview that if necessary "We will have to
face the Iranians alone, because Israel cannot remain with its arms folded,
waiting for Iran to develop non-conventional (nuclear) weapons."
Officials like Lieberman, current Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and
former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are dangerous men on the far right
allied with others in government and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) all
dripping war talk that must be taken seriously from a nation dedicated
to conflict and never shy about striking the first all out aggressive blow.
-
- The same theme comes from a report published February
11 that vice-president Cheney's national security advisor, John Hannah
(who replaced Lewis Libby just convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury
and lying to the FBI), speaking for the Bush administration, considers
2007 "the year of Iran" saying a US attack is a real possibility.
Hannah played a key role in the run-up to the Iraq war having written the
first draft of Colin Powell's infamous pre-war speech to the Security Council
citing bogus evidence. He also played a lead role putting out phony pre-war
intelligence from Iraqi exiles. Now he's at the seat of power and must
be taken seriously, especially since his boss barely disguises his aggressive
posturing for war against the Iranian state he's wanted for 15 years or
more.
-
- They're both part of the high-level propaganda messaging
similar to the lead-up to the Iraq war. It's aim is instill fear to make
the administration's case that Iran poses serious threat enough to justify
military action against it. It follows UN Resolutions 1696 in July demanding
Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31, which it didn't, and 1737
in December imposing limited sanctions on Iran for not abiding by what
the Security Council demanded in July. A second deadline passed putting
the Iranian matter back in the Security Council to consider new sanctions
be imposed and ratcheting things closer to a US attack as further events
unfold.
-
- And so the beat goes on with US oil reserves being stockpiled,
Iranian diplomats apprehended in Iraq, the Pentagon and Israeli forces
scheming together, the US military buildup in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean
continuing, US ground forces moved to the Iran-Iraq border, Patriot missiles
strategically installed in Israel and neighboring Arab states, a "surge"
of up to 50,000 additional troops planned, and a change of commanders on
the ground in Iraq made replacing less hawkish ones with others supporting
the Bush war strategy.
-
- They're part of the new Pentagon team under Defense Secretary
Robert Gates who told the Senate Armed Services Committee the military
needs to prepare for large-scale operations against countries like Russia,
China, North Korea and Iran that reaffirms the administration's commitment
to its "long war" Dick Cheney said won't end in our lifetime,
but may end up shortening it. Clearly Iran is the next planned target,
the dominant media echoes the threat, and Congress is just a talking-shop
like always posturing as the gathering storm in the Gulf intensifies.
-
- Published reports, citing credible sources, point to
an attack on Iran by April by an administration on total expanded war footing
with the president spoiling for a fight by goading Iran to react in response
to his order to "seek out and destroy" (supposed) Iranian "networks"
in Iraq. Bush minced no words in a radio interview saying "If Iran
escalates its military action in Iraq (even though there's none)....we
will respond firmly." Other officials joined the jingoistic chorus
accusing Iran of involvement in sectarian violence practically signaling
an upcoming attack that easily could follow a manufactured pretext if Iran
fails to provide one on its own which it won't. It's never hard to do,
and the infamous trumped up Gulf of Tonkin one in August, 1964 shows how
easy it is to fool the public and get Congress to go along.
-
- Iran could save us the trouble by responding to US provocations
going on now for months by illegally flying unmanned aerial surveillance
drones across its airspace and secretly placing special forces reconnaissance
teams on the ground "to collect targeting data and to establish contact
with anti-government ethnic minority groups" according to an earlier
report by Seymour Hersh. So far, Iran hasn't taken the bait even though
it knows what's happening and reportedly downed one or more intruding aircraft
it has every legal right to do but is treading dangerously against an adversary
looking for any pretext to pounce. It's leaders also knew what Washington
was up to after being made a charter member of Bush's "Axis of Evil."
In that status, it's blamed for the administration's failure in Iraq with
false claims of arming the resistance and inciting violence.
-
-
- War on Iran may, in fact, have already started, and two
bombings in Southeastern Iranian Zahedan bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan
the week of February 12 may have been one of its volleys. Arrests were
made and a video seized according to provincial police chief Brigadier
General Mohammad Ghafari. From it he claims the "rebels (have an)
attachment to opposition groups and some countries' intelligence services
such as America and Britain." An unnamed Iranian official also told
the Islamic Republic News Agency one of those arrested confessed he was
trained by English speakers, and the attack was part of US plans to provoke
internal unrest.
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- While none of this conclusively proves US involvement,
there's no secret Washington wants regime change, is actively stirring
up internal ethnic and political opposition toward it, and reportedly is
working with exiled Iranian leaders including the Mujahideen el-Khalq (MEK)
Iranian opposition guerrilla cult the US State Department lists as a terrorist
organization, but not apparently when it's on our side.
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- Full-scale war on Iran may just be a concocted terrorist
attack away from starting the "shock and awe." There's no secret
what's planned and none whatever that doing it will be another unprovoked,
unwarranted act of preemptive illegal aggression only the US and Israel
support. It's also no secret Iran is no pushover. It's no match for US
and/or Israeli power, but it's got powerful weapons one writer says are
"unstoppable" like Russian-built SS-N-22 Sunburn Missiles and
more advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhont anti-ship ones designed to sink a US carrier
that's a formidable weapon of war but not invulnerable. Iran also has
Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems and NATO-made Exocet and Chinese
Silkworm anti-ship missiles that pack a punch and can sink our ships when
launced from land, surface ships or submarines along with 300 or more warplanes,
and a large ground force estimated at around 350,000.
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- US engaging Iran may now hinge on resolving the Washington
power struggle between Bush administration neocons and more practical trilateralist
types in the camp of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jim Baker, and other powerful
Washington figures including the president's father. It's also up to Congress
to decide which side it's on and whether it will act or watch from the
sidelines and risk nuclear war and its fallout. It may not be long finding
out how events will unfold. Just the kind and level of rhetorical noise
will tell who's winning with congressional inaction and media complicity
so far giving the hawks a big advantage. Haven't we seen this script before,
and isn't the likely ending clear, except this time the stakes are far
greater and so is the risk to everyone on both sides.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
tune in online to hear The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The
Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.
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