- There are many unanswered questions surrounding the capture
of the fifteen British seaman/inspectors by the Iranians this week. Were
they in Iraqi or Iranian waters? How can we be sure? Why did the British
Foreign Office prohibit the frigate from going to the aid of the sailors
when it could have? Why would Iran be so foolish as to hand the British
and Americans an excuse to turn this provocation into an attack on Iran?
Will it be enough to provoke war?
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- All are pertinent and interesting questions. Here is
what we know so far. The dividing line is supposed to be down the middle
of the channel, but that can be very difficult to discern visually with
irregular shorelines. The British have provided GPS coordinates that show
the site of the capture slightly inside Iraqi waters. But this position
appears close enough to the center of the irregular channel that neither
side could have known for sure if they were in violation or not, without
individual GPS on each patrol boat. Even more strange, the crew of the
Frigate has admitted they had contact with the British Foreign Office and
were told specifically NOT TO INTERVENE. Did they want the provocation
of hostages? If so, the British certainly won't admit to it. They certainly
could have blown the Iranian patrol boats out of the water, if they had
wanted. This lends to the suspicion that the Brits were looking for a excuse
to being victimized by Iran.
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- As to the larger question of why the Iranians are risking
a dangerous provocation, I can only say that it seems to fall in line with
Iran's long-standing series of disputes with the world. Pres. Ahmadinejad
seems hell bent on provoking a conflict he can't possibly win. He challenges
Israel's right to exist (although the actual threatening language that
was supposedly used is in dispute due to a tendency of the Western media
to inflame the issues, misquote him, or give a loose translation of his
remarks). But even if Iran wanted to eliminate Israel in some future war,
it should certainly be savvy enough not to pick a fight with US first,
which would seriously put its military forces at risk.
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- Iran shows no sign of restraint, however. It is almost
as if Ahmadinejad has been chosen by the higher powers in Iran because
he will NOT be careful in his actions or remarks. Russia could very well
be complicit in this goading on of Ahmadinejad by giving him false assurances
that Russia will not allow the US to attack. But Russia told Saddam Hussein
that same thing, and it was a lie. Russia is demonstrating that it is all
too willing to sacrifice a few pawns on the global chessboard in order
to help the US create more antagonism against itself. Iraq was a client
state of Russia and Russia let it fall. Iran is also a client state, and
I believe Russia intends to let it fall as well.
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- Puppet or not, I really think Ahmadinejad is a radical
leader and does intend to strike Israel someday, perhaps through a surrogate
like Syria. And while I do not think he is a direct threat to America,
he is a threat to our troops that have been purposely put in harms way
by our own leaders as they stubbornly persist in occupying and antagonizing
Iraq.
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- As a matter of principle, I do believe that anytime a
leader of another country openly proclaims his intention to strike out
militarily at another nation (without justification in the defense of his
own nation's fundamental rights), it is the right of any of those threatened
nations to pre-emptively strike and disarm him. That doesn't include the
US, in my opinion, but it does include Israel. That is why I think Israel,
or perhaps Britain now will make the first move--especially since the US
has so vehemently denied any intention to pre-emptively strike Iran on
its own.
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- That said, I do believe that Israel is in collusion with
the US to provoke this war--handing the US the excuse to enter the conflict
after Iran retaliates against US forces in the area. I do not believe that
Americans can trust their own government to do a limited surgical strike
on Iran's nuclear program. If Bush strikes, his handlers will order an
all-out decapitating strike on Iran's military, industrial, and civilian
utilities and infrastructures.
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- After watch Shawn Hannity interview Ollie North and Newt
Gingrich on Thursday, I'm all the more convinced this hostage incident
is being used on the Fox network to build up a surge of American indignation,
prepping the way for a military response. Both neocon guests took turns
vilifying Iran's leaders (mostly deserved) over the 1979 hostage crisis
and expressing vehement hostility toward that country. They were obviously
for provocations like cutting off Iran's supply of imported gasoline. That
kind of sanction is reminiscent of Roosevelt cutting off Japan's oil supplies
in order to provoke the Pearl Harbor attack. As they were ranting on, I
thought, "How ironic they aren't criticizing and threatening North
Korea-an even more radical nation, whose leaders killed thousands more
of our troops, tortured our prisoners of war, and currently possess many
more WMDs than Iran.
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- In the end, our government has ulterior pecuniary and
globalist motives, which will lead to a strike on Iran by an means possible.
The main motive is to further antagonize the Muslim world and to keep terrorism
and suicide bombers growing among Muslims. A second motive is further promote
the image of America as the "bully of the world," which is essential
in providing Russia and China with an eventual excuse to attack the US.
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- There is one semi-plausible explanation for Iran's stupidity
in initiating or falling into a provocation: the issue ofwanting to trade
hostages for hostages. The US paid several billion dollars to Iran in the
release of the captured embassy workers in 1979, so the US is now known
to have given into such means. The US is holding several Iranians in custody
and some think that Iran is keeping the 15 British seamen to increase their
leverage to obtain the release of the five Iranians the US captured at
the Iranian consulate-to-be in Kurdestan.
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- As Pepe Escobar wrote this week, "Hardliners like
the Republican Guards and the Basiji--Iran's volunteer Islamist militia--asked
the government of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad not to release the sailors
until the five Iranian diplomats arrested by the US in Iraq were freed.
They also demanded that the new United Nations sanctions imposed on Iran
over its nuclear program be scrapped. And all this was under the watchful
eyes (and ears) of the US Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain.
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- "Much of the Western press assumed Iran wanted Western
hostages to exchange for the five Iranian diplomats, without ever questioning
the Pentagon's illegal capture of the Iranians in the first place. Then
the plot was amplified as an Ahmadinejad diversion tactic as the UN Security
Council worked out a new resolution for more sanctions on Iran even as
Russia told Tehran to come up with the outstanding money or the Bushehr
nuclear plant it is building in Iran would not be finished."
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- The kidnapping of Iran's Intelligence Ministry envoy
in Baghdad and the sudden disappearance of Iranian Colonel Amir Muhammad
Shirazi in Turkey may also add to the suspicion that we have a hostage
crisis brewing. The Iranians certainly accuse the Americans of kidnapping
Col. Shirazi in Turkey.
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- As veteran intelligence analyst Robert Baer told Time
Magazine, "But then again you'd be missing the grimfatalism that has
settled over Iran of late, the resigned belief that a war with the U.S.
is all but inevitable. This week Iranian diplomats are telling interlocutors
that, yes, they realize seizing the Brits could lead to a hot war. But,
they point out, it wasn't Iran that started taking hostages--it was the
U.S. [true], when it arrested five members of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps in Erbil in Northern Iraq on January 11. They are diplomats,
the Iraniansinsist. They were in Erbil with the approval of the Kurds and
therefore, they argue, are under the protection of the Vienna Convention.
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- I think the hostage-exchange motive is there, but not
the real motive. I think the real reason has to do with usinghostages as
a shield against US attacks. Even if it works for a while, it will only
play into the globalists' hands by allowing them to make Iran look even
more deserving of eventual attack, in the eyes of the British and American
public. In either case, war is inevitable both because the Iranian leadership
is radicalized and because the globalists want more conflict, not less.
This is not going to have a pretty ending.
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- RUSSIAN'S WARNING (OR DISINFORMATION) ABOUT IMMINENT
US ATTACK ON IRAN
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- In light of the increasing British-Iranian tensions,
a strange story has surfaced from a reputable journalist in Russia that
Russian intelligence has discovered that a US attack on Iran is going to
happen on the 6th of April. The Journalist may be reputable and honest,
but his source's intentions in the leak are more problematic. Webster Tarpley
reports from Washington:
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- "The long awaited US military attack on Iran is
now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April
6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian
journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly 'Argumenty Nedeli.' Uglanov
cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his
account." Uglanov claims the attack will come on a Friday holiday
in Iran and will be called "Operation Bite." Target lists include
uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories. Naturally,
the Russians claim that out of deference to them, the US attack will spare
the nuclear reactor the Russians are building at Bushehr.
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- "The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian
air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be
sunk in the Persian Gulf, and the for the most important headquarters of
the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out. The attacks will be mounted from
a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean
and ... from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those
of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will
be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian
peninsula."
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- Is this credible? I have no direct way of finding out,
but I have my doubts. First, even if it is based upon truth, the US will
surely change dates just to make sure it doesn't appear true. Second, it
is very much unlike the Russians to reveal this much about their intel
gathering capabilities. Normally, they would not reveal such details as
knowing the code name for the operation nor the specific target lists.
Those kinds of things let the US know how deep the penetration is. Wisdom
requires that such details be omitted or generalized so the US can think
they are only guessing. In short, the leak has a little too much detail
in it to be credible, and there is no actual need to leak this much to
the public, even if Russia wanted to blow the whistle on the impending
US attack. It would have been sufficient for the Russians to merely advise
the affected parties directly--especially if they wanted to help Iran prepare
for the attack on that day.
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- The mainstream press (AP) is saying that suddenly that
"Russia has fully restored its espionage capabilities against the
United States after a period of decline following the Cold War, a senior
U.S. counterintelligence official said Thursday... 'The Russians are now
back at Cold War levels in their efforts against the United States,'"
What is false about this story is that there has suddenly been an increase.
The Russians never did stop spying on the US. These kinds of stories emerge
from time to time to provide cover for even worse indications of Russian
treaty violations and war preparations, as well as to give the impression
that the US is not totally asleep at the switch about Russia.
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- In the meantime, the US is increasing its own provocation
of the situation in Iran by starting a major two-carrier task force exercise
this week. The NY Times concluded, "In a calculated show of force,
the United States Navy began a major exercise in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday,
a move that Bush administration officials said was part of a broader strategy
to contain Iranian power in the region." Somehow the difference between
contain and provoke seems to elude the major players.
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- Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution
permitted.
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- Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief
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- http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
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