Tag Archives: Iran

To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them

Robert Baur on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, GWOT

From an interview with former CIA agent, author Robert Baur in Mens’ Journal May ’08:

“We’re going on seven years in Afghanistan, and the Taliban are still closing down schools in Kandahar. It’s a joke. And Iraq is a corpse that Petraeus keeps putting lipstick on to make it look like it’s still alive. All the Iraqis are doing is cooperating to get American arms. Petraeus says it’s thanks to Iran that they’re keeping the peace. That’s an extraordinary statement: Our main Middle Eastern enemy is keeping the peace for us? We’re fucked. What to do? Come home. Just come home. Impose visas, make sure you know who’s coming into your country, lock the cockpit doors, and be nice to Muslims here. The worst thing to do is to continually shed Muslim blood.”

You said it bro. “Just come home.” I’ll point out, however, that Ron Paul said it first.

Time Columnist Dares to Speak Out

“I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel’s best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran.

Happily, these people represent a very small sliver of the Jewish population in this country. Unhappily, their views have had an impact in the highest reaches of the Bush Administration–and seem to have an influence on John McCain’s campaign as well.

. . . .

I am not going to make the same mistake twice. I don’t think a war with Iran is coming, thank God, but this time I am not going to pull any punches. My voice isn’t very important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m going to do my job–and that means letting you know exactly where I stand and what I believe. I believe there are a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who are pushing for war with Iran because they believe it is in America’s long-term interests and because they believe Israel’s existence is at stake. They are wrong and recent history tells us they are dangerous. They are also bullies and I’m not going to be intimidated by them.”

Iran Watch

Here’s what I know. Here’s what I see:

Since Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen visited Israel early this month, the consensus among bloggers has been that an Iran strike by the U.S. is off the table. Worldtribune.com has even reported that an attack in 2008 is off the table for Israel, and a nascent diplomatic effort seems to have formed in the White House. I’m relieved, but the drama continues:

Predictably, The neo-con voices in the media are in a tizzy:

MSNBC’s Fred Kagan said the only way to force Iran to halt its nuclear program is to attack. (Video Here)

John Bolton said the U.S. should help Israel strike Iran. “We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible.” Bolton also predicted that Israel will attack between the U.S. election and inauguration. This ex-Mossad chief agrees.

The reason for this window is that the Israeli war crowd wants to attack while the current administration is in power, but fears an attack would tilt the election toward Obama. (They prefer McCain)

The issue continues to feature prominently in our politics. Obama has adopted an increasingly hostile tone toward Iran, barely distinguishable from McCain’s.

Meanwhile, our ever-obsequious Congress is considering House Resolution 326, which would pretty much guarantee a war with Iran. The anti-war movement (whose existence Big Media does not acknowledge) has had some success pushing back against this idiotic legislation.

Retired Military Leaders Oppose Provocative House Resolution on Iran

“WASHINGTON – July 11 – Three retired military leaders sent a letter to lawmakers urging them to abandon a resolution currently making its way through Congress that might lead to a blockade or the use of force against Iran. The retired military leaders say H.Con.Res. 362 is ‘poorly conceived, poorly timed, and potentially dangerous.'” Read more from commondreams.org

See full text of the letter by Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr., U.S. Army (ret.); former Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Lawrence J. Korb; and Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, U.S. Navy (ret.)

Ron Paul on Congress’s latest Iran resolution
(and a list of congressmen who co-sponsored it)

Ron Paul’s statement on the house floor:

Today the Dow Jones Average was down 350-some points, gold was up $32, and oil was up another $5. There is a lot of chaos out there and everyone is worried about $4 gasoline. But I don’t think there is a clear understanding exactly about why that has occurred.

We do know that there is a supply and demand issue, but there are other reasons for the high cost of energy. One is inflation. In order to pay for the war that has been going on, and the domestic spending, we’ve been spending a lot more money than we have. So what do we do? We send the bills over to the Federal Reserve and they create new money, and in the last three years, our government, through the Federal Reserve and the banking system has created $4 trillion of new money. That is one of the main reasons why we have this high cost of energy and $4 per gallon gasoline.

But there is another factor that I want to talk about tonight, and that is not only the fear of inflation and future inflation, but the fear factor dealing with our foreign policy. In the last several weeks, if not for months, we have heard a lot of talk about the potential of Israel and/or the United States bombing Iran. And it is in the marketplace. Energy prices are being bid up because of this fear. It has been predicted that if bombs start dropping, that we will see energy prices double or triple. It is just the thought of it right now that is helping to push these energy prices up. And that is a very real thing going on right now.

But to me it is almost like deja vu all over again. We listened to the rhetoric for years and years before we went into Iraq. We did not go in the correct manner, we did not declare war, we are there and it is an endless struggle. And I cannot believe it, that we may well be on the verge of initiating the bombing of Iran!

Leaders on both sides of the isle, and in the administration, have all said so often, ‘No options should be taken off the table — including a nuclear first strike on Iran.’ The fear is, they say, maybe some day [Iran is] going to get a nuclear weapon, even though our own CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate has said that the Iranians have not been working on a nuclear weapon since 2003. They say they’re enriching uranium, but they have no evidence whatsoever that they’re enriching uranium for weapons purposes. They may well be enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, and that is perfectly legal. They have been a member of the non-proliferation treaties, and they are under the investigation of the IAEA, and El Baradei has verified that in the last year there have been nine unannounced investigations and examinations of the Iranian nuclear structure and they have never been found to be in violation. And yet, this country and Israel are talking about a preventive war — starting bombing for this reason, without negotiations, without talks.

Now the one issue that I do want to mention tonight is a resolution that is about to come to this floor if our suspicions are correct, after the July 4th holiday. And this bill will probably be brought up under suspension. It will be expected to be passed easily. It probably will be. And it is just more war propaganda, just more preparation to go to war against Iran.

This resolution, H.J. Res 362 [listed as H. Con. Res 362 online] is a virtual war resolution. It is the declaration of tremendous sanctions, and boycotts and embargoes on the Iranians. It is very, very severe. Let me just read what is involved if this bill passes and what we’re telling the President what he must do:

This demands that the President impose stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran, and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials.

This is unbelievable! This is closing down Iran. Where do we have this authority? Where do we get the moral authority? Where do we get the international legality for this? Where do we get the Constitutional authority for this? This is what we did for ten years before we went into Iraq. We starved children – 50,000 individuals it was admitted probably died because of the sanctions on the Iraqis. They were incapable at the time of attacking us. And all the propaganda that was given for our need to go into Iraq was not true.

And it is not true today about the severity [of the need to attack Iran]. But they say, “Yeah, but Ahmadinejad — he’s a bad guy. He’s threatened violence.” But you know what? Us threatening violence is very, very similar. We must – we must look at this carefully. We just can’t go to war again under these careless, frivolous conditions.

The Road to (another) War

The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh continues to detailing our road to war with Iran with remarkable clarity:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. . . .

In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy. . . .

Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.”

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. . . .

The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.” . . .

“When Fallon tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.” . . .

But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military. . . .

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.” . . .

In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit JSOC or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership. The Iranian press reports are being carefully monitored by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran for the federal government, think tanks, and universities. The Iranian press “is very open in describing the killings going on inside the country,” Gardiner said. It is, he said, “a controlled press, which makes it more important that it publishes these things. We begin to see inside the government.” He added, “Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere. There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.”

Earlier this year, a militant Ahwazi group claimed to have assassinated a Revolutionary Guard colonel, and the Iranian government acknowledged that an explosion in a cultural center in Shiraz, in the southern part of the country, which killed at least twelve people and injured more than two hundred, had been a terrorist act and not, as it earlier insisted, an accident. It could not be learned whether there has been American involvement in any specific incident in Iran, but, according to Gardiner, the Iranians have begun publicly blaming the U.S., Great Britain, and, more recently, the C.I.A. for some incidents. The agency was involved in a coup in Iran in 1953, and its support for the unpopular regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi—who was overthrown in 1979—was condemned for years by the ruling mullahs in Tehran, to great effect. “This is the ultimate for the Iranians—to blame the C.I.A.,” Gardiner said. “This is new, and it’s an escalation—a ratcheting up of tensions. It rallies support for the regime and shows the people that there is a continuing threat from the ‘Great Satan.’ ” In Gardiner’s view, the violence, rather than weakening Iran’s religious government, may generate support for it. . . .

Gardiner also mentioned a trip that the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, made to Tehran in June. After his return, Maliki announced that his government would ban any contact between foreigners and the M.E.K.—a slap at the U.S.’s dealings with the group. Maliki declared that Iraq was not willing to be a staging ground for covert operations against other countries. . . .

The Pentagon consultant told me, “We’ve had wonderful results in the Horn of Africa with the use of surrogates and false flags—basic counterintelligence and counter-insurgency tactics. And we’re beginning to tie them in knots in Afghanistan. But the White House is going to kill the program if they use it to go after Iran. It’s one thing to engage in selective strikes and assassinations in Waziristan and another in Iran. The White House believes that one size fits all, but the legal issues surrounding extrajudicial killings in Waziristan are less of a problem because Al Qaeda and the Taliban cross the border into Afghanistan and back again, often with U.S. and NATO forces in hot pursuit. The situation is not nearly as clear in the Iranian case. All the considerations—judicial, strategic, and political—are different in Iran.”

He added, “There is huge opposition inside the intelligence community to the idea of waging a covert war inside Iran, and using Baluchis and Ahwazis as surrogates. The leaders of our Special Operations community all have remarkable physical courage, but they are less likely to voice their opposition to policy. Iran is not Waziristan.” . . .

The former official said that, a few weeks later, a meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. “The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” he said. . . .

Obama repeated his plea for “tough and principled diplomacy.” But he also said, along with McCain, that he would keep the threat of military action against Iran on the table.

Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran

“Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear complex.

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn’t want to wait for a new administration.”

Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq

There’s an important, controversial and (surprise, surprise) under-reported effort underway to legitimize our military occupation of Iraq past this coming December’s expiration of the UN mandate.

In Debate Over Permanent Bases In Iraq, U.S. Seeks Authorization For War In Iran
The ongoing negotiations between Iraqi leaders and the Bush administration over the future role of the military occupation “have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate.”

The Bush administration’s demand for 58 permanent bases in Iraq — a near doubling of the current 30 bases — are causing Iraqis to warn that the status of forces agreement would be “more abominable than the occupation.” The administration is reportedly holding hostage “some $50bn of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement.”

The reason the White House is so hell-bent on signing a long-term agreement may have less to do with Iraq and more to do with Iran. According to press reports of the ongoing negotiations, the Bush administration is seeking the “power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq.” Ali al Adeeb, a leading member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party, confirmed:

The Americans insist so far that is they who define what is an aggression on Iraq and what is democracy inside Iraq. . . if we come under aggression we should define it and ask for help.

The administration’s request would seemingly allow the U.S. to brand Iran as an enemy of Iraq and attack Iran in the name of defending Iraq pursuant to a legal obligation under the status of forces agreement. Read more from thinkprogress.org

—

Iraq takes a turn towards Tehran
[Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki] is torn between appeasing the United States, which brought him to power and kept him there despite all odds, since 2006, and pleasing his patrons and co-religionaries in Tehran.

The Americans tell him to sign a long-term agreement between with the US, maintaining 50 permanent American military bases in Iraq. The Iranians angrily order him not to, claiming this would be a direct security threat to the region as a whole, and Iran in particular. The Americans reportedly are pressing to finalize the deal by July 30, 2008, upset that no progress has been made since talks started in February. Iran has carried out a massive public relations campaign against the deal, calling on all Shi’ites in Iraq to drown it. Read more from Asia Times Online

—

Baghdad insists on right to veto US operations
Iraq is insisting on the right to veto any US military operations throughout its territory under a “status of forces” agreement currently being negotiated between Baghdad and Washington, according to a senior member of the Iraqi government.

The agreement will last for a maximum of two years and can be terminated by either side with six months’ notice, Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s oil minister, told the Guardian yesterday.

His remarks come amid intensive closed-door negotiations between the Iraqi and US governments which have led to complaints in the US Congress as well as Iraq that the Bush administration is tying the next US president’s hands by seeking to maintain long-term bases in Iraq for possible attacks on Iran and other neighbouring states.” Read more from prisonplanet.com

—

Legalizing occupation: Bush’s last manoeuvre in Iraq
Now the Bush administration is ready to crown its Iraq travesty with a long-term strategy that would turn Iraq’s occupation into a lasting one. The US is ‘negotiating’ a treaty with the Iraqi government, one that would replace the UN mandate and legalise the US occupation of Iraq permanently.

Basically, time is running out for Bush. If no treaty is reached by the end of the year, his administration could find itself pleading to the Security Council for another extension of the mandate. This would be an embarrassing and dangerous scenario for US diplomacy because it would allow Russia and China to re-emerge as important players wielding fearsome veto powers. Read more from onlinejournal.com

—

What Obama Said

The unfortunate truth is that any and every media-approved politician goes before AIPAC and promises whatever they want. Even Obama, the supposed peace candidate, joins them in their great lies. Iran is NOT a threat to the the United States. Obama also weighed in very inappropriately on the long-standing issue of Jerusalem. I’m no longer sure I can vote for him.

from ynetnews.com (6/4/08): “Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Wednesday Iran posed a ‘grave’ danger in the Middle East and vowed to stop it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

‘The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat,’ Obama said in a speech to a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. ‘I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon; everything,’ he said to a standing ovation. (Reuters)”

-I’m tired of everyone pretending like this shit isn’t being said. He, like McCain, is pledging another needless war. More and death and destruction, more hatred and lies by our media, more deployments for our military, more coffins, more trillions of dollars borrowed from Asia or printed out of thin air. Enough is enough. The threat of terrorism best met by good police, and good border security, not military occupations of foreign countries, and certainly not by invasions of countries under false pretenses.

See Also:
–From salem-news.com: Carter Reveals Israel’s Possession of 150 nuclear weapons
–From thinkprogress.org: Lieberman, Bennett, And Kristol See Petraeus Hearing As ‘An Argument’ For ‘Going Into Iran’
–from english.aljazeera.net: Arabs Shocked by Obama Speech

II.

from ynetnews.com (6/4/08): “Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at an AIPAC meeting in Jerusalem saying that ‘Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel.'”

-Why does the road to the U.S. Presidency seem to run through Israel? Jerusalem was captured by Israel during the 1967 war. It’s status is a long-standing and very controversial issue between Israel and Palestine. Obama has no business siding so definitively on Israel’s side for political gain.

See Also:
–from nytimes.com: Israel Demolishes 8 Arab Homes in Jerusalem
–from haaretz.com: Israel razes Arab home in J’lem over illegal building permit. “While the home was built without a permit, Palestinians say it’s virtually impossible for them to obtain building permits in Jerusalem.”
–The Israeli Committee Against House Demolition
–from ynetnews.com: Israel approves plan to build 1,300 homes in East Jerusalem.
–from news.bbc.co.uk: “The rights group, B’Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks. A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way. So far, no-one has been arrested.” BBC News obtained video footage of yet another violent settler attack against Palestinians, this time, a 70-year-old farmer and his 58-year-old wife. Realize that this is what our taxes subsidize.
–from upi.com: US suspends move of embassy to Jerusalem.

Olmert to U.S.: Impose naval blockade on Iran

Me to Olmert: Do it yourself, asshole

McCain blasts Obama for saying Iran poses lesser threat than Soviets

Top Clinton Aide: “The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel.”

On March 18, 2008, a group of Jewish leaders met with aides representing Clinton, Obama and McCain. Kurtzer represented Obama. Anne Lewis represented Clinton. The “correct” message seemed to be belligerence toward Iran, and knee-jerk endorsement of anything Israel does.

“Kurtzer, granted his turn to speak, attempted to argue that ‘on issues relating to Israel, frankly, there aren’t any differences among the three candidates.’ Eagleburger looked at him incredulously; the audience laughed.

Kurtzer attempted to defuse the Wright controversy. ‘For many of you who belong to synagogues and Jewish community centers, as I have all my life, we would not want to be judged by the words of rabbis who sometimes say ridiculous things,’ he reasoned.

The others used their time to raise doubts about Obama’s fealty to Israel. ‘Senator Obama has said that he commits in his first year as president to meeting with President Ahmadinejad of Iran,’ Lewis said. McCain, Eagleburger added, ‘will not talk with the Syrians, will not talk with the Iranians, will not talk with Hamas and Hezbollah. . . . He isn’t going to push the Israelis.’

The skepticism continued through the question time. Daroff said he had ‘heard in the hallways here’ that Obama ‘doesn’t see the U.S.-Israel relationship as much of the mainstream of the Senate or the Jewish community sees it.’

Kurtzer blamed such sentiment on ‘attack dogs’ and writers of scurrilous e-mails. ‘He’s right within the mainstream of American society and Jewish community concerns,’ TBA said.

Next question to Kurtzer: Obama’s assertion that he needn’t have a ‘Likud view’ — that of Israel’s right-wing party — to be pro-Israel. Kurtzer explained that Obama wanted to see a ‘plurality of views.’ Silence in the room.

To that, Lewis retorted: ‘The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties.’ The audience members applauded.”

(Read more from washingpost.com)

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” — Bertrand Russell

What Iranians Want Americans to Know About Iran

Facts List

Also, please watch this clip for a very brief history lesson.

Press Favoring Hillary among Dems

Planted audience, planted questions, questioners are supporters, former staffers conduct post-debate analysis. This was even reported in The New York Times and Daily Kos.

Public vs Pundits. Vast difference between public perception and media interpretation of Obama-Hillary answers on whether they’d speak to Iran’s leader.