http://www.liveleak.com/browse?channel_token=68c_1302955653 Items in channel 'Abaddon666' Sat, 25 May 2013 22:35:58 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?channel_token=68c_1302955653 Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:34:50 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=729_1280892744 Abaddon666 Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity August 3, 2010 MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: War With Iran We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel's leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel. This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens. We believe that comments by senior American officials, you included, reflect misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Actually, the phrasing itself can be revealing, as when CIA Director Panetta implied cavalierly that Washington leaves it up to the Israelis to decide whether and when to attack Iran, and how much "room" to give to the diplomatic effort. On June 27, Panetta casually told ABC's Jake Tapper, "I think they are willing to give us the room to be able to try to change Iran diplomatically ... as opposed to changing them militarily." Similarly, the tone you struck referring to Netanyahu and yourself in your July 7 interview with Israeli TV was distinctly out of tune with decades of unfortunate history with Israeli leaders. "Neither of us try to surprise each other," you said, "and that approach is one that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to." You may wish to ask Vice President Biden to remind you of the kind of surprises he has encountered in Israel. Blindsiding has long been an arrow in Israel's quiver. During the emerging Middle East crisis in the spring of 1967, some of us witnessed closely a flood of Israeli surprises and deception, as Netanyahu's predecessors feigned fear of an imminent Arab attack as justification for starting a war to seize and occupy Arab territories. We had long since concluded that Israel had been exaggerating the Arab "threat" - well before 1982 when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin publicly confessed: "In June 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." Israel had, in fact, prepared well militarily and also mounted provocations against its neighbors, in order to provoke a response that could be used to justify expansion of its borders. Given this record, one would be well advised to greet with appropriate skepticism any private assurances Netanyahu may have given you that Israel would not surprise you with an attack on Iran. Netanyahu's Calculations Netanyahu believes he holds the high cards, largely because of the strong support he enjoys in our Congress and our strongly pro-Israel media. He reads your reluctance even to mention in controversial bilateral issues publicly during his recent visit as affirmation that he is in the catbird seat in the relationship. During election years in the U.S. (including mid-terms), Israeli leaders are particularly confident of the power they and the Likud Lobby enjoy on the American political scene. This prime minister learned well from Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon. Netanyahu's attitude comes through in a video taped nine years ago and shown on Israeli TV, in which he bragged about how he deceived President Clinton into believing he (Netanyahu) was helping implement the Oslo accords when he was actually destroying them. The tape displays a contemptuous attitude toward - and wonderment at - an America so easily influenced by Israel. Netanyahu says: "America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. ... They won't get in our way ... Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd." Israeli columnist Gideon Levy wrote that the video shows Netanyahu to be "a con artist ... who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes," adding that such behavior "does not change over the years." As mentioned above, Netanyahu has had instructive role models. None other than Gen. Brent Scowcroft told the Financial Times that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush "mesmerized;" that "Sharon just has him "wrapped around his little finger." (Scowcroft was promptly relieved of his duties as chair of the prestigious President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and told never again to darken the White House doorstep.) If further proof of American political support for Netanyahu were needed, it was manifest when Senators McCain, Lieberman, and Graham visited Israel during the second week of July. Lieberman asserted that there is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, including "through military actions if we must." Graham was equally explicit: "The Congress has Israel's back," he said. More recently, 47 House Republicans have signed onto H.R. 1553 declaring "support for Israel's right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran ... including the use of military force." The power of the Likud Lobby, especially in an election year, facilitates Netanyahu's attempts to convince those few of his colleagues who need convincing that there may never be a more auspicious time to bring about "regime change" in Tehran. And, as we hope your advisers have told you, regime change, not Iranian nuclear weapons, is Israel's primary concern. If Israel's professed fear that one or two nuclear weapons in Iran's arsenal would be a game changer, one would have expected Israeli leaders to jump up and down with glee at the possibility of seeing half of Iran's low enriched uranium shipped abroad. Instead, they dismissed as a "trick" the tripartite deal, brokered by Turkey and Brazil with your personal encouragement, that would ship half of Iran's low enriched uranium outside Tehran's control. The National Intelligence Estimate The Israelis have been looking on intently as the U.S. intelligence community attempts to update, in a "Memorandum to Holders," the NIE of November 2007 on Iran's nuclear program. It is worth recalling a couple of that Estimate's key judgments: "We judge with high confidence that in fall of 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program. ... We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons ..." Earlier this year, public congressional testimony by former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair (February 1 & 2) and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Ronald Burgess with Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. James Cartwright (April 14) did not alter those key judgments. Blair and others continued to underscore the intelligence community's agnosticism on one key point: as Blair put it earlier this year, "We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build a nuclear weapon." The media have reported off-the-cuff comments by Panetta and by you, with a darker appraisal - with you telling Israeli TV "... all indicators are that they are in fact pursuing a nuclear weapon;" and Panetta telling ABC, "I think they continue to work on designs in that area ." Panetta hastened to add, though, that in Tehran, "There is a continuing debate right now as to whether or not they ought to proceed with the bomb." Israel probably believes it must give more weight to the official testimony of Blair, Burgess, and Cartwright, which dovetail with the earlier NIE, and the Israelis are afraid that the long-delayed Memorandum to Holders of the 2007 NIE will essentially affirm that Estimate's key judgments. Our sources tell us that an honest Memorandum to Holders is likely to do precisely that, and that they suspect that the several-months-long delay means intelligence judgments are being "fixed" around the policy - as was the case before the attack on Iraq. One War Prevented The key judgments of the November 2007 NIE shoved an iron rod into the wheel spokes of the Dick Cheney-led juggernaut rolling toward war on Iran. The NIE infuriated Israel leaders eager to attack before President Bush and Vice President Cheney left office. This time, Netanyahu fears that issuance of an honest Memorandum might have similar effect. Bottom line: more incentive for Israel to pre-empt such an Estimate by striking Iran sooner rather than later. Last week's announcement that U.S. officials will meet next month with Iranian counterparts to resume talks on ways to arrange higher enrichment of Iranian low enriched uranium for Tehran's medical research reactor was welcome news to all but the Israeli leaders. In addition, Iran reportedly has said it would be prepared to halt enrichment to 20 percent (the level needed for the medical research reactor), and has made it clear that it looks forward to the resumption of talks. Again, an agreement that would send a large portion of Iran's LEU abroad would, at a minimum, hinder progress toward nuclear weapons, should Iran decide to develop them. But it would also greatly weaken Israel's scariest rationale for an attack on Iran. Bottom line: with the talks on what Israel's leaders earlier labeled a "trick" now scheduled to resume in September, incentive builds in Tel Aviv for the Israelis to attack before any such agreement can be reached. We'll say it again: the objective is regime change. Creating synthetic fear of Iranian nuclear weapons is simply the best way to "justify" bringing about regime change. Worked well for Iraq, no? Another War in Need of Prevention A strong public statement by you, personally warning Israel not to attack Iran would most probably head off such an Israeli move. Follow-up might include dispatching Adm. Mullen to Tel Aviv with military-to-military instructions to Israel: Don't Even Think of It. In the wake of the 2007 NIE, President Bush overruled Vice President Cheney and sent Adm. Mullen to Israel to impart that hard message. A much-relieved Mullen arrived home that spring sure of step and grateful that he had dodged the likelihood of being on the end of a Cheney-inspired order for him to send U.S. forces into war with Iran. This time around, Mullen returned with sweaty palms from a visit to Israel in February 2010. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran, while adding the obligatory assurance that the Pentagon does have an attack plan for Iran, if needed. In contrast to his experience in 2008, though, Mullen seemed troubled that Israel's leaders did not take his warnings seriously. While in Israel, Mullen insisted publicly that an attack on Iran would be "a big, big, big problem for all of us, and I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences." After his return, at a Pentagon press conference on Feb. 22 Mullen drove home the same point. After reciting the usual boilerplate about Iran being "on the path to achieve nuclear weaponization" and its "desire to dominate its neighbors," he included the following in his prepared remarks: "For now, the diplomatic and the economic levers of international power are and ought to be the levers first pulled. Indeed, I would hope they are always and consistently pulled. No strike, however effective, will be, in and of itself, decisive." Unlike younger generals - David Petraeus, for example - Adm. Mullen served in the Vietnam War. That experience is probably what prompts asides like this: "I would remind everyone of an essential truth: War is bloody and uneven. It's messy and ugly and incredibly wasteful ..." Although the immediate context for that remark was Afghanistan, Mullen has underscored time and again that war with Iran would be a far larger disaster. Those with a modicum of familiarity with the military, strategic and economic equities at stake know he is right. Other Steps In 2008, after Mullen read the Israelis the riot act, they put their pre-emptive plans for Iran aside. With that mission accomplished, Mullen gave serious thought to ways to prevent any unintended (or, for that matter, deliberately provoked) incidents in the crowded Persian Gulf that could lead to wider hostilities. Mullen sent up an interesting trial balloon at a July 2, 2008, press conference, when he indicated that military-to-military dialogue could "add to a better understanding" between the U.S. and Iran. But nothing more was heard of this overture, probably because Cheney ordered him to drop it. It was a good idea - still is. The danger of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation in the crowded Persian Gulf has not been addressed, and should be. Establishment of a direct communications link between top military officials in Washington and Tehran would reduce the danger of an accident, miscalculation, or covert, false-flag attack. In our view, that should be done immediately - particularly since recently introduced sanctions assert a right to inspect Iranian ships. The naval commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards reportedly has threatened "a response in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz," if anyone tries to inspect Iranian ships in international waters. Another safety valve would result from successful negotiation of the kind of bilateral "incidents-at-sea" protocol that was concluded with the Russians in 1972 during a period of relatively high tension. With only interim nobodies at the helm of the intelligence community, you may wish to consider knocking some heads together yourself and insisting that it finish an honest Memorandum to Holders of the 2007 NIE by mid-August - recording any dissents, as necessary. Sadly, our former colleagues tell us that politicization of intelligence analysis did not end with the departure of Bush and Cheney...and that the problem is acute even at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which in the past has done some of the best professional, objective, tell-it-like-it-is analysis. Pundits, Think Tanks: Missing the Point As you may have noticed, most of page one of Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section was given to an article titled, "A Nuclear Iran: Would America Strike to Prevent It? - Imagining Obama's Response to an Iranian Missile Crisis." Page five was dominated by the rest of the article, under the title "Who will blink first when Iran is on the brink?" A page-wide photo of a missile rolling past Iranian dignitaries on a reviewing stand (reminiscent of the familiar parades on Red Square) is aimed at the centerfold of the Outlook section, as if poised to blow it to smithereens. Typically, the authors address the Iranian "threat" as though it endangers the U.S., even though Secretary Clinton has stated publicly that this is not the case. They write that one option for the U.S. is "the lonely, unpopular path of taking military action lacking allied consensus." O Tempora, O Mores! In less than a decade, wars of aggression have become nothing more than lonely, unpopular paths. What is perhaps most remarkable, though, is that the word Israel is nowhere to be found in this very long article. Similar think pieces, including some from relatively progressive think tanks, also address these issues as though they were simply bilateral U.S.-Iranian problems, with little or no attention to Israel. Guns of August? The stakes could hardly be higher. Letting slip the dogs of war would have immense repercussions. Again, we hope that Adm. Mullen and others have given you comprehensive briefings on them. Netanyahu would be taking a fateful gamble by attacking Iran, with high risk to everyone involved. The worst, but conceivable case, has Netanyahu playing - unintentionally - Dr. Kevorkian to the state of Israel. Even if the U.S. were to be sucked into a war provoked by Israel, there is absolutely no guarantee that the war would come out well. Were the U.S. to suffer significant casualties, and were Americans to become aware that such losses came about because of exaggerated Israeli claims of a nuclear threat from Iran, Israel could lose much of its high standing in the United States. There could even be an upsurge in anti-Semitism, as Americans conclude that officials with dual loyalties in Congress and the executive branch threw our troops into a war provoked, on false pretenses, by Likudniks for their own narrow purposes. We do not have a sense that major players in Tel Aviv or in Washington are sufficiently sensitive to these critical factors. You are in position to prevent this unfortunate, but likely chain reaction. We allow for the possibility that Israeli military action might not lead to a major regional war, but we consider the chances of that much less than even. Footnote: VIPS Experience We VIPS have found ourselves in this position before. We prepared our first Memorandum for the President on the afternoon of February 5, 2003 after Colin Powell's speech at the UN. We had been watching how our profession was being corrupted into serving up faux intelligence that was later criticized (correctly) as "uncorroborated, contradicted, and nonexistent" - adjectives used by former Senate Intelligence Committee chair Jay Rockefeller after a five-year investigation by his committee. As Powell spoke, we decided collectively that the responsible thing to do was to try to warn the President before he acted on misguided advice to attack Iraq. Unlike Powell, we did not claim that our analysis was "irrefutable and undeniable." We did conclude with this warning: "After watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion ... beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic." http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/vipstwelve.pdf We take no satisfaction at having gotten it right on Iraq. Others with claim to more immediate expertise on Iraq were issuing similar warnings. But we were kept well away from the wagons circled by Bush and Cheney. Sadly, your own Vice President, who was then chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, was among the most assiduous in blocking opportunities for dissenting voices to be heard. This is part of what brought on the worst foreign policy disaster in our nation's history. We now believe that we may also be right on (and right on the cusp of) another impending catastrophe of even wider scope - Iran - on which another President, you, are not getting good advice from your closed circle of advisers. They are probably telling you that, since you have privately counseled Prime Minister Netanyahu against attacking Iran, he will not do it. This could simply be the familiar syndrome of telling the President what they believe he wants to hear. Quiz them; tell them others believe them to be dead wrong on Netanyahu. The only positive here is that you - only you - can prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) Ray Close, Directorate of Operations, Near East Division, CIA (26 years) Phil Giraldi, Directorate of Operations, CIA (20 years) Larry Johnson, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Department of State, Department of Defense consultant (24 years) W. Patrick Lang, Col., USA, Special Forces (ret.); Senior Executive Service: Defense Intelligence Officer for Middle East/South Asia, Director of HUMINT Collection, Defense Intelligence Agency (30 years) Ray McGovern, US Army Intelligence Officer, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA (30 years) Coleen Rowley, Special Agent and Minneapolis Division Counsel, FBI (24 years) Ann Wright, Col., US Army Reserve (ret.), (29 years); Foreign Service Officer, Department of State (16 years) Source -- http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/080310c.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=729_1280892744 Abaddon666 Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:21:06 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aba_1280808994 Abaddon666 Pentagon has plan for attack By Rowan Scarborough 9:43 p.m., Monday, August 2, 2010 The Washington Times A Pentagon strike against Iran would rely heavily on the B-2 bomber and cruise missiles to try to destroy the regime's ability to make nuclear weapons, analysts say, after the top U.S. military officer said a war plan is in place. The missiles, fired from surface ships, submarines and B-52 bombers, would take out air defenses and nuclear-related facilities. The B-2s would drop tons of bombs, including ground penetrators, onto fortified and buried sites where Tehran is suspected of enriching uranium to fuel the weapons and working on warheads. "It will be primarily an air attack with covert work to start a 'velvet' revolution so Iranian people can take back their country," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former fighter pilot. Gen. McInerney said B-2s would fly over Iran while cruise missiles would be fired off shore. The operation would last several days, he said. John Pike, a military analyst who runs Global Security.org, said that although Iran has many potential targets, only about a half-dozen facilities are so critical that, if destroyed, would set back the program significantly. "Almost all are in isolated areas where civilian casualties would not be much of a problem," Mr. Pike said. "Most of them have co-located staff housing. Bomb the housing, kill the staff, set back the program by a generation." His website's scenario states: "American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States ... two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted." The Obama administration this summer won the backing of the United Nations for another round of economic sanctions against Tehran, but there are doubts that limits on banking and trade would ever persuade the hard-line Islamic regime to give up plans to become a nuclear power. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, threw public attention back to the military option on Sunday when asked on "Meet the Press" whether the military had a plan for attacking Iran. We do," Adm. Mullen said, adding that striking Iran "is an important option, and it's one that's well understood." Adm. Mullen's answer indicates that Pentagon strategists have updated and finalized a war plan for Iran. In Tehran on Sunday, Yadollah Javani, deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, said his country would make the Persian Gulf region unsafe for all if the U.S. attacks it over its nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported. "If the Americans make the slightest mistake, the security of the region will be endangered. Security in the Persian Gulf should be for all or none," Mr. Javani told the official IRNA news agency. A former senior defense official has told The Washington Times that the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the George W. Bush administration held a series of discussions about Iran. But no chief, including Adm. Mullen, who then led the Navy, recommended launching strikes. The prime reason was that the top brass feared the Iranian population would rally behind the regime and abandon a fledging democracy movement. That's why it's important, said Gen. McInerney and other advocates of the military option, to have a covert plan in place to try to destabilize Iran's mullah-run government. If sanctions fail, Washington faces a dilemma: Let Iran build the bomb, with which it can threaten Israel and other U.S. allies, or launch airstrikes. "I talk to unintended consequences of either outcome," Adm. Mullen said, "and it's those unintended consequences that are difficult to predict in what is an incredibly unstable part of the world that I worry about the most." With the retirement of the F-117 Nighthawk, which flew the first bombing run over Iraq in 2003, the Air Force has two stealth strike aircraft: the B-2 and the F-22 Raptor. The F-22 has not been deployed to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Pentagon did dispatch it to Asia last month as a show of force against North Korea. A strike on Iran would fit the F-22, if the war plan calls for putting piloted aircraft over the country. Its forte is penetrating heavily defended airspaces to put bombs on target. It's pretty well known if we were going to go after the sites, we would have to go after underground facilities, and we could probably do that. The B-2s could do that," said retired Air Force Gen. Charles A. Horner, the top air commander in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "It would be the key system." http://www.washingtontimes.com http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aba_1280808994 Abaddon666 PENTAGON - Bombers, missiles could END IRAN nukes Bombers, missiles could end Iran nukes Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:15:43 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aab_1280808854 Abaddon666 Published: Aug. 2, 2010 at 7:05 AM TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- The United States and Israel have agreed to upgrade Israel's Arrow II anti-ballistic missile into a longer-range version, the Israeli Defense Ministry said. The agreement, which will cost the United States an estimated $100 million, will create the Arrow III missile, designed to intercept incoming missiles from as far away as Iran. Development will take up to four years. The agreement was signed in Tel Aviv by head of Israeli Defense Ministry's MAFAT Research and Development Directorate, Brig. Gen. Ofir Shoham, and the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly. Arrow III, to be jointly produced by Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing, will join the Iron Dome and Magic Wand systems in providing multi-layer anti-ballistic missile protection. The latest Arrow, the mark II, has been in service since 2000. It has a two-stage, solid-propellant engine with an operational range of 56 to 92 miles. Maximum flight ceiling of the Arrow II is 37 miles and maximum speed is 6,850 mph. Accuracy is said to be within 13 feet of the target. Unit cost is thought to be more than $3 million. When development of the first Arrow program began in 1989, the cost of its development and manufacture, including the initial production of missiles, was estimated $1.6 billion. By 2007 around $2.4 billion had been reportedly invested in the Arrow program, with the United States contributing between 50 and 80 percent. Israel contributes around $65 million annually. The U.S.-Israeli Arrow agreement last month comes after U.S. President Barack Obama in May approved $205 million in special aid for Israel to establish 10 control centers for the Iron Dome system. Late last month Israel's defense ministry said it intends to buy more Iron Dome missile interceptors after it deploys the controversial anti-missile system starting in November. The mobile Iron Dome system, being developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, is designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells especially coming in from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon where Hamas and the Hezbollah have fired thousands at Israel in the past. First deployment will be along the border of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip from where homemade rockets are fired daily into Israel. After deployment along the Gaza border, it will be used along the Lebanese border, where the Israeli government claims Hezbollah has an inventory of more than 40,000 rockets ready to be fired at Israel. Last month Iron Dome intercepted multiple rocket barrages mimicking Qassams and Katyushas, the mainstay of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks. Iron Dome missiles determined which incoming rockets were threats and which were headed toward open fields. http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/08/02/Washington-backs-Israeli-Arrow-II-upgrade/UPI-71651280747100/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aab_1280808854 Abaddon666 Washington backs Israeli Arrow II upgrade ( IRAN ) Washington backs Israeli Arrow II upgrade Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:13:23 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bbe_1280808675 Abaddon666 EXTENDING the US missile shield into southern Europe is a sophisticated refinement of Cold War deterrence theories. But the target is no longer the Kremlin, and even hardliners should be able to grasp that the move does not pose a threat to Russia. Consider how the Obama administration shifted gear from the missile shield plans of George W. Bush, dropped the idea of installing long-range missiles in Poland and is now going to deploy short-range interceptors. It is clear the aim is the containment of Iran. Moscow can huff and puff but it will not blow down this security architecture. The logic is that although Iran is a long way from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, it can hit targets in Europe. The Europeans are broadly in agreement with the shield, but in the corridors of EU power you pick up mumbles of discontent. The fundamental premise of extending the shield is not that Iran suddenly decides to blast a missile at Rome. Rather, it is that Iran tries to escalate a war after Israelis hit their nuclear facilities. European public opinion is still upset by the Israeli blockade of Gaza. So why are we putting an elaborate defensive system in place to head off rockets that will be fired in response to an Israeli strike? Surely Barack Obama should be leaning on Israel to abandon any first-strike strategy. The fuzziness of Israeli intentions creates more pressure on Tehran than any UN initiative. That is why the Obama shield is a convincing contribution to defensive strategy. It sends a clear message to Iran: you cannot win and you cannot gamble on a military escalation. The Times http://www.theaustralian.com http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bbe_1280808675 Abaddon666 MISSILE plan sends IRAN a CLEAR message Missile plan sends Iran a clear message Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:08:41 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=162_1280808233 Abaddon666 By: Sara A. Carter National Security Correspondent August 3, 2010 While the U.S. military has developed a first-strike plan to take out Iranian nuclear facilities, the political and security consequences of taking that step make it an unlikely option, analysts said. But the wild card in the deck remains Israel, and there is a growing sense among experts that the Jewish state make act first, and explain later, if the threat of a nuclear strike from Tehran continues to grow. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen disclosed Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the Defense Department has plans to attack Iran if required. He did not elaborate on the plan but said he would "be "extremely concerned" about any scenario that led to a military attack on the Tehran government. Alireza Nader, an international policy analyst with an expertise in Iranian affairs at RAND, a think tank in D.C., told The Examiner that Iran would retaliate through proxies in the region if the United States struck first. However, he said Iran would retaliate after a first strike by "potentially fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan." To Nader, taking the step would be "destabilizing and just as potentially harmful for U.S. interests in the Middle East for Iran to have any sort of nuclear capability." Despite the difficulties, Nader said Iran's ties to various groups, including the Taliban, in Afghanistan could have "severe consequences" for American gains in the region if the U.S. strikes first. "Iran is already offering measured support to the Taliban and also has influence among other groups," he said. "A strike could lead to full support and destabilization." He added Iran would not stop with Afghanistan but disrupt efforts by the U.S. and its allies in "Iraq, Lebanon and throughout the Persian Gulf." CIA Director Leon Panetta said in July on ABC's "This Week" that current intelligence suggested Iran was closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. "We think they have enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons," Panetta said. "They do have to enrich it, fully, in order to get there. And we would estimate that if they made that decision, it would probably take a year to get there, probably another year to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable." Panetta said sanctions would be unlikely to prevent a emboldened Iran, saying it may "weaken the regime," but "Will it deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability? Probably not." James Carafano, senior defense analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in D.C., said, "In an ideal world, the U.S. should be very sensitive to the security threats that its ally faces, but I don't think the Obama administration would give Israel the green light, and will try to restrain them." Carafano said if the administration fails to follow through with a first-strike scenario on Iran, "Israel, more than likely, will not consult with the U.S." "It's better to ask later for forgiveness than ask early for permission." A senior Israeli official told The Examiner, "We've signed on to President Obama's policy and strategy vis-a-vis Iran." The official said, however, that "sanctions alone are not enough." The sanctions, which the Obama administration hopes will rein in Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons, have been criticized by some analysts as being too weak. The sanctions have targeted gasoline imports to Iran, and Western companies have cut off exports as well. "We're waiting to see how the Iranians respond," the Israeli official added. "Both the president and other officials have said that all the options are on the table." The official would not expand on whether Israel would strike first if the U.S. refused to follow through with a first-strike option. This puts "Israel in a serious predicament," said a former senior Bush administration official with direct knowledge of the region. "In reality, the only real plan for the U.S. in confronting a nuclear Iran will be left up to Israel, which may be forced to make the first move in order to protect itself, and the situation is not looking good." scarter@washingtonexaminer.com http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=162_1280808233 Abaddon666 Israel more likely to strike IRAN than U.S., analysts say Israel more likely to strike IRAN than U.S., analysts say Sun, 01 Aug 2010 22:18:46 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d2_1280715382 Abaddon666 By C. KRAUTHAMMER 08/01/2010 22:22 "They have decided to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months." - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, July 26. President Ahmadinejad has a penchant for the somewhat loony, as when last weekend he denounced Paul the Octopus, omniscient predictor of eight consecutive World Cup matches, as a symbol of decadence and purveyor of "Western propaganda and superstition." But for all his clownishness, Ahmadinejad is nonetheless calculating and dangerous. What "two countries" was he talking about? They seem logically to be Lebanon and Syria. Hizbullah in Lebanon has armed itself with 50,000 rockets and made clear that it is in a position to start a war at any time. Fighting on this scale would immediately bring in Syria, which would in turn invite Iranian intervention in defense of its major Arab clients - and of the first Persian beachhead on the Mediterranean in 1,400 years. The idea that Israel, let alone the US, has the slightest interest in starting a war on Israel's north is crazy. But claims about imminent attacks are serious business in that region. In May 1967, the Soviet Union falsely told its client, Egypt, that Israel was preparing to attack Syria. These rumors set off a train of events - the mobilization of Arab armies, the southern blockade of Israel, the hasty signing of an inter-Arab military pact - that led to the Six-Day War. Ahmadinejad's claim is not supported by a shred of evidence. So what is he up to? It is a sign that he is under serious pressure. Passage of weak UN sanctions was followed by unilateral sanctions by the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union. Already, reports Reuters, Iran is experiencing a sharp drop in gasoline imports as Lloyd's of London refuses to insure the ships delivering them. Second, the Arab states are no longer just whispering their desire for the US to militarily take out Iranian nuclear facilities. The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to Washington said so openly at a conference three weeks ago. SHORTLY BEFORE the 1991 Gulf War, Pat Buchanan charged that "the only two groups" that wanted the US to forcibly liberate Kuwait were "the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States." That was a stupid charge, contradicted by the fact that George H.W. Bush went to war leading more than 30 nations, including the largest US-led coalition of Arab states ever assembled. Twenty years later, the libel returns in the form of the scurrilous suggestion that the only ones who want the US to attack Iran's nuclear facilities are Israel and its American supporters. The UAE ambassador is, as far as ascertainable, neither Israeli, American nor Jewish. His publicly expressed desire for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities speaks for the intense Arab fear approaching panic, of Iran's nuclear program and the urgent hope that the US will take it out. Third, and perhaps even more troubling from Teheran's point of view, are developments in the US Former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden suggested last Sunday that over time, in his view, a military strike is looking increasingly favorable compared to the alternatives. Hayden is no Obama insider, but Time reports ("An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table," July 15) that high administration officials are once again considering the military option. This may reflect a new sense of urgency or merely be a bluff to make Teheran more pliable. But in either case, it suggests that after 18 months of failed engagement, the administration is hardening its line. The hardening is already having its effect. The Iranian regime is beginning to realize that even President Obama's patience is limited - and that Iran may actually face a reckoning for its nuclear defiance. All this pressure would be enough to rattle a regime already unsteady and shorn of domestic legitimacy. Hence Ahmadinejad's otherwise inscrutable warning about an Israeli attack on two countries. (Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Fox News: "Who is the second one?") It is a pointed reminder to the world of Iran's capacity to trigger, through Hizbullah and Syria, a regional conflagration. This is the kind of brinksmanship you get when leaders of a rogue regime are under growing pressure. The only hope to get them to reverse course is to relentlessly increase their feeling that, if they don't, the Arab states, Israel, the Europeans and America will, one way or another, ensure that ruin is visited upon them. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=183316 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d2_1280715382 Abaddon666 IRAN is feeling the heat Iran is feeling the heat Sun, 01 Aug 2010 22:15:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=755_1280715230 Abaddon666 By The Associated Press Iran vowed Sunday that it would deliver a "crushing response" to Israel and the United States should either attempt to attack the Islamic Republic over its contentious nuclear program. The remarks made by a top commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) came just hours after the U.S. army chief told media that a plan was in the works should an attack become necessary. Iran nuclear plant in Bushehr Technicians measuring parts of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo. Photo by: AP "Security in the Persian Gulf region for all, or for none," Iran's IRNA news agency quoted Deputy IRGC Commander for Political Affairs Brigadier General Yadollah Javani as saying. "The Persian Gulf is a strategic region." he added. "If security in this region is jeopardized, they will suffer, too, and our response will be firm. Turning his attention to Israel, Javani said that Iran did not believe its enemy capable of attacking. Nonetheless, he said, Iran would be prepared in case that equation should change. "Iran never ignores its enemies. Hence, we have been increasing our defense and deterrence capabilities." Mike Mullen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Mullen Photo by: Reuters "Iran will give a crushing response to its enemies," he added. U.S. has plan in case attack on Iran needed, says army chief Earlier Sunday, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday that the U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran if necessary, but clarified that he considered such a strike to be a bad idea. Mullen, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer, has often warned that a military strike on Iran over its contentious nuclear program would have serious and unpredictable ripple effects around the Middle East. At the same time, he has called the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapon unacceptable. Mullen would not say which risk he thinks is worse, but told NBC television's Meet The Press that a military strike remains an option if need be. Should come to that, Mullen added, the military has a plan at hand. He did not elaborate. Both the U.S. and Israel have declared that the option of attacking the Islamic Republic must remain on the table. Also Sunday, Iran's envoy to the United Nations warned that the Islamic Republic would set Tel Aviv ablaze if Israel dares attack it. "If the Zionist regime commits the slightest aggression against Iranian soil, we will set the entire war front and Tel Aviv on fire," Mohammad Khazai said, Kashmar, the Farhang-e Ashti daily reported. Last month, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said world leaders "believe absolutely" that Israel may decide to take military action against Iran to prevent the latter from acquiring nuclear weapons. "Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power the members of the G-8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react preemptively," Berlusconi told reporters following talks with other Group of Eight leaders. Iranian military officials said last week that the United States and Israel would not dare attempt a military strike of Iran's nuclear sites, adding that they were confident that Tehran would easily repel such an attempt. The United States, the United Nations and the European Union have each imposed new restrictions on Iran over its nuclear enrichment activities. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iran-vows-crushing-response-if-attacked-by-israel-or-u-s-1.305344 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=755_1280715230 Abaddon666 Iran vows 'crushing response' if attacked by Israel or U.S. Iran vows 'crushing response' if attacked by Israel or U.S. Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:36:47 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=42f_1280630135 Abaddon666 Global Research, July 31, 2010 by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach ( HUGE POST ) Israel's attack on a humanitarian aid ship headed for Gaza may prove to be the greatest strategic error the government has ever made. Like the Soweto riots in South Africa in 1976, or Bloody Sunday - the American civil rights march on March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, where police opened fire and killed civilians - the Mavi Marmora affair crossed a red line. It has triggered an international wave of condemnation, expressing a shift in attitude toward Israel. The hope is that this international outrage, flanked by growing anti-government dissent inside the country, will provoke an identity crisis among the elite and people of Israel, shake up the political kaleidoscope and allow for a viable pro-peace force to emerge. Unless this occurs, new Israeli aggression, including against Iran, will remain high on their immediate agenda. The details of the May 31 events are well known, documented by passengers on the Mavi Marmora headed for Gaza. Among the most dramatic was the eye-witness account of Ken O'Keefe on BBC's Hard Talk show, who effectively dismantled attempts by his interviewer to legitimize the Israeli position (that the passengers were armed terrorists etc.), and established that the Israeli military opened fire immediately after boarding the ship, killing 9 in cold blood.(1) German doctor Matthias Jochheim, a member of the IPPNW on board, has delivered his own low-key, sober version, confirming the same facts.(2) Israel's violent action was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back; even the wobbly-kneed German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had to denounce it and lend his voice to an international chorus demanding that the illegal three-year Gaza blockade be lifted. Those actions which did follow, like Egypt's reopening the Rafah border crossing and Israel's cosmetic redefinition of what could or could not enter Gaza, led to at least a formal, partial relaxation of the blockade, albeit at the cost of nine innocent lives. Israel's immediate reactions are most clinically interesting. First, the Mossad sent films around the world via Internet purportedly showing passengers assaulting those Israeli troops who had descended onto the ship in international waters (to conduct a passport check, perhaps?). Then came the announcement that the list of permitted goods into Gaza would be replaced by a list of forbidden items. (President Shimon Peres was quick to add cement to the ban.) No sooner had the Israeli government committed a diplomatic faux pas by refusing entry into Gaza to German Development Aid Minister Dirk Niebel than Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman magnanimously invited several European colleagues to visit the Strip.(3) After rejecting numerous calls for an independent international investigation, Israel declared it would set up its own probe, but then Yaakov Tirkel, appointed head of the inquiry, threatened to resign unless he were granted more powers to subpoena witnesses. This gesture may very well have been a piece of cheap theatre; but, no matter: the point is that the Israeli leadership stood exposed as confused, stumbling, and in total disarray, one day engaging in clinical denial, and the next, tossing tidbits of concessions in hopes of placating its critics. With its deadly act of piracy, Israel lost the mandate from heaven that its establishment, and many international actors, formerly believed it to hold. Although Israeli troops were not shooting their own people, the act was comparable to Soweto and Bloody Sunday for its political impact. The Israeli elite miscalculated utterly, and no mad scramble to control the damage will undo the deed or erase its consequences. Like the South African apartheid regime of the time, and segregation in the U.S., Israel's 60-plus-year-old policy of discrimination, oppression, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is finally being acknowledged worldwide as a moral obscenity that can no longer be tolerated. Israel's Ambassador to the U.N., Gabriela Shalev lamented the fact that her country's standing in the world has sunk to new depths. "Our situation in recent months," she told Army Radio on July 11, "can be compared to the 1970s, when Zionism was being called racism."(4) Indeed. Bull's-Eye: Iran Contrary to the mantra repeated in the international press, Israel's assault on the Mavi Marmora was not aimed against Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted as much himself, when he declared he would "not allow the establishment of an Iranian port in Gaza." This is nothing new. Whenever Israel has moved militarily against Lebanon, as in 2006, or Gaza, as at the end of 2008, it was neither Hezbollah nor Hamas who were the actual targets. In both cases, Israel was mounting preparations for a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, and proceeded to knock out -- or at least attempt to knock out -- those forces who could be counted on to lead a political and military retaliatory response. (5) Here, too, the Mavi Marmora massacre had less to do with any Palestinian radicals in Gaza or Shi'ites in Lebanon, than with Tehran. And it is not out of a desire to "stem Iran's growing influence" that Israel went into action, but because of its strategic commitment to eliminate the Islamic Republic as a regional power. One should never forget what sort of political animal Netanyahu is. He first came to power in 1996 with a political platform known as "Clean Break," a program to break with the Oslo Accords, and revert to a policy of confrontation, settlement expansion, land annexation, and continuing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.(6) This scenario, articulated in detail in Netanyahu's Clean Break policy, was to unfold against a backdrop of systematic regime changes in the region. All those governments perceived to be hostile to Israel were slated for replacement. In point of fact, since then we have had the second Iraq war, and the changes in Lebanon and Syria pursuant to the 2005 Hariri assassination. What remains on the original hit list is Iran. Thus, it is not coincidental that the Mavi Marmora affair erupted smack in the middle of renewed international "debate" on Iran's nuclear program. Israel's contribution to the debate has come in the form of outright threats of military aggression and offers to the White House it could not refuse: either you stop Iran or we will. At the end of April, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in the U.S. for talks, warned against giving Iran too much time, because if it were to acquire a nuclear weapons capability that would "change the landscape" of the region and the world (7). Arguing that Iran has not complied with U.N. dictates (to suspend its uranium production, for example), the U.N. Security Council voted up sanctions on June 9, followed on June 17 by the European Union. The U.S. hastened to up the ante with its own unilateral sanctions on July 2. Whether or not the new round of punitive sanctions will undermine Iran's economy and social stability, they will decidedly not lead to a voluntary relinquishment of the nuclear program, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others, has declared.(8) The more interesting question is another: do those who are imposing sanctions actually believe that they will produce the desired effect? CIA Director Leon Panetta, when discussing the new American measures, stated, "Will it deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability? Probably not."(9) Well, then, does the sanctions lobby perhaps understand the measures as a means to keep the "mad god" Israel at bay, i.e., are they punishing Iran in hopes of convincing Israel that it should renounce its intended military attack, while paying lip service to military action as a fallback option? That might cohere with what reportedly transpired in the July 6 meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Barack Obama at the White House. Bibi told Fox News following the talks that he had thanked the President for the new sanctions. He then quickly added that only the U.S. commitment to "keep the military option on the table" would get the Iranians' attention. In tandem, U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman and John McCain assured their Israeli audience in Jerusalem that that option was prominently placed at the center of the table. Lieberman was quoted by JTA Jewish & Israeli News on July 8, saying, "We will use every means that we have to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, through economic and diplomatic sanctions if we possibly can and through military action if we must." Former Senator Charles Robb and former general Charles Wald co-authored an OpEd on July 9, "Sanctions alone won't work on Iran," explicitly threatening "an effective, targeted strike on Tehran's nuclear and supporting military facilities."(10) Now comes the most relevant sequitur: Are the sanctions, then, merely the non-bellicose means to further weaken Iran, economically, politically, and militarily, as a preparation for a major operation? The example of the prelude to two wars against Iraq is germane. None of the sanctions that crippled Iraq's economy aimed at forcing a policy change. They served only to set up Iraq for the kill. The Fraud of the Nuclear Debate That there is no serious interest on the part of the Western members of the Permanent 5 (France, Britain, U.S., Russia, and China) in solving the nuclear issue diplomatically is evident in their response to the brilliant initiative signed by Brazil, Turkey, and Iran on May 17 in Tehran, and delivered to the U.N., IAEA, et al. The proposal is simple and eminently workable. It asserts the right to peaceful nuclear energy under NPT rules, then moves to the issue of nuclear fuel exchange. Iran agrees to send 1200 kg of LEU to Turkey, under IAEA observers, and to notify the IAEA. Once the IAEA, Russia, France, and the U.S. respond positively, a detailed written agreement will be drafted for the 120 kg of fuel to be delivered to Tehran. Iran would deliver its uranium within one month and expect delivery of fuel within one year. Finally, Turkey and Brazil welcome Iran's readiness to pursue talks with the 5+1 anywhere, including on their soil. Before they could possibly have had the time to study the proposal, consult others, and weigh its merits, France and Russia responded with skepticism, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just said no. Asserting it was no "accident" that the declaration came "as we were preparing to move in New York" and that "we had Russia on board, we had China on board," Clinton stated she was "seriously concerned" by omissions in the document. The main omission was reference to Iran's continued enrichment program. Another concern was "the amorphous timeline" for Iran's delivery of its uranium - although the document is precise on this.(11) The series of sanctions followed shortly thereafter. Significantly, both Turkey and Brazil opposed them at the U.N., an act which certainly earned the two governments further contempt. (Some have pointed to the fact that of all the ships in the Gaza flotilla, it was the Turkish one that came under attack. Could this have something to do with the Turkish-Brazilian initiative?) Build-Up for War Most ominous in the broader picture are military activities in the region that would cohere with preparations for aggression against Iran. Egypt reportedly allowed one Israeli and eleven U.S. ships to pass through the Suez Canal on their way to the Red Sea, an apparent signal to Iran. The ships, together with a German vessel, moved into the Arabian Sea after "conducting secret exercises off the shore of south-western Israel," according to the June 26 Jordan Times. Citing an Israeli report, the paper said the exercises included "interception of incoming Iranian, Syrian and Hizbollah missiles and rockets against USA and Israeli targets in the Middle East." The exercises featured fighter bombers carrying out simulated bombing missions, and Israeli and U.S. fighter jets practicing long-range bombing missions. Some facts of the naval deployment appeared also in Global Research.(12) The same Jordan Times cited a Jerusalem Post article week earlier about Israeli military plans for a new assault on Gaza preparatory to a military campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities. Such reports should be taken deadly seriously. Again, the precedent of the military build-up prior to the Iraq wars is instructive. A further disturbing symptom is the behavior of two important Arab Gulf states. On June 12, regional press outlets reported that the Saudis had granted Israel the right to fly over its airspace, to which the Saudis immediately issued a perfunctory denial. But one should not forget the perfidious role played by the Saudis vis-`a-vis Iraq. More alarming was the statement of the U.A.E. Ambassador to the U.S. on July 6 endorsing a military attack on Iran. Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba was quoted by the Washington Times: "I think it's a cost-benefit analysis," referring to the benefits of war on Iran. "I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion ... there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what." His conclusion: "If you are asking me, 'Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?' my answer is still the same: 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the U.A.E." He added that "talk of containment and deterrence really concerns me and makes me very nervous," because he does not believe either would work.(13) Neocons attending the ambassador's session with the Atlantic magazine, at Aspen, expressed surprise at hearing an Arab diplomat endorse military action publicly, although many in the region have uttered similar thoughts in private. It is no secret that most Arab Gulf states fear a nuclear Iran and would sit on the sidelines during US-Israeli aggression. Clearly, Israel will not make good on its threats without a nod from Washington. And that is not there yet, at least not officially. After talks with Barak and Israel's military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi in Jerusalem, Sen. McCain indicated the time had not yet come. "I don't believe we are at the point of making that kind of decision, nor is the Israeli government," he said, "given the state that Iran is in now as far as the development of their nuclear weapons is concerned." When asked by Fox News whether he had discussed the military option with Obama, Netanyahu danced around the issue, but reiterated his conviction that Iran must be made to fear such an option. And Obama? He coined a most curious formulation, Israel's "unique security requirements," and pledged "unwavering ... commitment to Israel's security." When interviewed July 8 for the first time on Israeli television, Obama indicated the two governments would consult with one another, not act unilaterally. "I think the relationship between Israel and the U.S.," he said, "is sufficiently strong that neither of us try to surprise each other."(14) But, one could just as well read this statement as indicating Obama and Netanyahu did discuss the military option, and from an operational standpoint. A number of studies and articles support this hypothesis. First, back in December, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution ran a simulated war game involving an Israeli hit on Iran. The study, written up in the New York Times on March 26, apparently caught the attention of institutions and officials in the U.S. and abroad. That scenario foresees an independent Israeli attack, which angers Washington. The U.S. tells Israel to desist, and deploys anti-missile batteries and cruisers, warning Iran against retaliation. Iran responds with missiles lobbed into Israel as well as Saudi Arabia, but avoids any direct attack on the U.S. Hamas and Hizbollah also fire rockets. The Israel population panics, and many flee, while the economy crashes. The U.S. finally okays an Israeli war against Hizbollah, whereupon Iran attacks Saudi oil installations and mines the Straits of Hormuz. The U.S. sends massive reinforcements into the region, and, 8 days following the first attack, the war game comes to an end.(15) One need not wait for advice from an ageing revolutionary like Fidel Castro to realize that the report smacks of wishful thinking. Iran's top military and political elite have made no secret of their intention -- and ability -- to respond to any attack with total counterforce, and against all possible targets. But the war games story put the option back onto the front pages of major media. Then, on July 19, Andrew Shapiro, Clinton's assistant secretary for political-military affairs, addressing the same Saban Center, boasted that the Obama administration had raised the level of military cooperation with Israel to its highest point ever. Shapiro toed the line that current U.S. policy preferred sanctions to war, but he refused to comment on whether or not there had been discussion of giving Israel a green light to go after Iran. The Wall Street Journal followed up a day later with an article by Bret Stephens, "Why Hasn't Israel Bombed Iran (Yet)?" the gist of which is that, after the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report had placed the military option on the back burner, Obama's "engagement" policy, coupled with the post-electoral chaos in Iran, redefined options.(16) Four possible reasons offered for why Israel has not moved yet are: that they didn't think an attack would be successful; that they preferred to improve their own capabilities first; that some top Israeli political leaders would oppose it; and, that they feared a "Suez reaction" on the part of the U.S. A most telling leak came that same week in a TIME piece by Joe Klein, "An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table."(17) Citing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had ruled out any war in 2008 but was now telling Fox News that a nuclear Iran could not be "contained" (a formulation popping up all over the place), Klein writes that some U.S. military are claiming Iran left them little choice after rejecting a "generous" U.S. diplomatic option. Klein adds: "Other intelligence sources say that the U.S. Army's Central Command ... has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes - aided, in large part, by the vastly improved human-intelligence operations in the region." An Israeli military source told him, "'There really wasn't a military option a year ago. But they've gotten serious about the planning, and the option is real now.'" Klein says that he has been told that "Israel has been brought into the planning process ... because U.S. officials are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its own" (emphasis added). House Republicans Call For Israeli War This makes all too much sense. Israel is on a war-footing and the U.S. is poised to at least let it happen. If the White House has not yet officially issued an okay, the House on July 23 introduced a resolution, signed by a third of the members, explicitly endorsing war. H. Res. 1553 begins, "Expressing support for the State of Israel's right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel...." Asserting categorically that "the national security of the United States, Israel, and allies in the Middle East face a clear and present danger from the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran seeking nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile capability to deliver them," and quoting Obama that a nuclear Iran is "unacceptable," the Resolution proceeds to tick off statements attributed to Ahmadinejad and alleged Iranian violations of IAEA norms. It "condemns" Iran for its threats, pledges cooperation with Israel "to ensure" that it "continues to receive critical economic and military assistance, including missile defense capabilities, needed to address the threat of Iran," and "expresses support for Israel's right to use all means necessary confront and eliminate nuclear threats by Iran ... including the use of military force... etc." It would be foolhardy to think these are only a bunch of arch-conservative Republicans trying to boost re-election perspectives by courting the Zionist faction among U.S. voters. The resolution is a declaration of intent toward war. Neocon John Bolton had defined the role Congress could and should play in igniting conflict. In the July 13 Wall Street Journal, Bolton wrote that Congress must support Israeli "pre-emptive attacks" and justify them on grounds of self-defense. He explained that "having visible congressional support in place at the outset will reassure the Israeli government, which is legitimately concerned about Mr. Obama's likely negative reaction to such an attack."(18) Is it possible to stop the rush towards war? There are two powers that can stop it. One is the U.S. If, as his July 6 tete-a-tete with Bibi suggests, Obama has signed on to an Israeli "rogue" operation, containing the option of "plausible denial" after the fact, , then the sane elements in the U.S. military and intelligence establishment must move into high gear. The new NIE is long overdue, perhaps due to factional strife regarding its contents. If an intelligence assessment were to appear soon, reinforcing the findings of the 2007 NIE to the effect that Iran does not constitute a nuclear threat, that could defuse the arguments in favor of an attack. U.S. military professionals, who know better than to start a new war now, have plenty of ways of convincing a sitting President that such folly would lead to doom. The other force that could prevent war is Israel itself. This entails nothing short of a revolution in thinking and/or a political coup. The war party must be disarmed and discredited, allowing for a new combination of political factors to define an alternative policy. The Backlash This is not unthinkable. Since the Gaza war launched in December 2008, world public opinion has turned against Israel. On March 25, the UN Human Rights Council, which had endorsed the Goldstone Report in October 2009 and forwarded it to the Security Council, voted up a resolution (29 to 6 with 11 abstentions) demanding Israel pay reparations to Palestinians for losses and damages in that war. Two months later the UNHRC voted for a committee to monitor investigations that the Palestinians and Israelis were ordered to undertake. On March 10, the European Parliament had voted (335-267-43) to endorse the report and call for its implementation. For the first time, it acknowledged Israeli violations of international law. Although from the start Israel refused to cooperate with the commission of inquiry led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, and rejected its findings out of hand as "biased," the military's own investigations confirmed parts of the U.N. report. On July 8, the Los Angeles Times reported that in seven cases, the Israeli military had established that a sniper "deliberately targeted" civilians; that Palestinians, including youth, were used as human shields; and "commanders authorized at least three separate bomb attacks that killed and injured several dozen civilians who were taking refuge in a family home, a U.N. compound and a mosque."(19) Compared to the magnitude of the damage wrought in the Gaza campaign, such admissions are paltry, but the fact that Israel's military had to impose token disciplinary actions on its own reflects the power of Goldstone's findings. More cynical was the report posted on the Israeli Foreign Ministry's website and delivered to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on July 19. It pledged that the Israel army, having duly conducted its assessment of the Gaza war, would reduce civilian casualties in future wars!(20) "The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) has ... implemented operational changes in its orders and combat doctrine designed to further minimize civilian casualties and damage to civilian property in the future," as Reuters reported. In addition to providing "protection of civilians," it would restrict the use of white phosphorous bombs in urban settings. Cynical? Outright grotesque? Yes, to be sure. But it is also clinically significant. None of this would have emerged without the Goldstone Report.(21) Turning Point: Flotilla Attack The attack on the Mavi Marmora went too far. NATO Secretary General Rasmussen demanded an inquiry, as well as Israel's release of the ship and its passengers. In a special session in Brussels on May 31 the 27 EU ambassadors called for an immediate, complete, and impartial investigation, access to the passengers, and the opening of border crossings to Gaza. Rage swept through the Arab world. Amr Musa, Secretary General of the Arab League, said the event proved one could not make peace with Israel, which he labeled a rogue state. Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri spoke of a "dangerous and insane step," while citizens took to the streets in Beirut and Amman. Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Chalifa al Thani characterized it as piracy and demanded an end to the blockade. Two weeks later, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued an unprecedented statement saying that the blockade per se violated international law. "The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility," it read. "The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law." (22) Just what stands behind Israel's blockade policy was the subject of a laudable analysis published in Le Monde diplomatique on July 9. Authors Thomas Keenan and Eyal Weizman examine two new developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict: the increasing politicization of humanitarian aid and Israel's "redefinition" of international law as a threat to its existence. The article cites Israeli officials on the aims of the blockade: Dov Weinglass, an advisor to Ehud Olmert, spoke in mid-2007 of putting the Palestinians on a "diet," which, however strict, would not allow them to starve. Israel's highest court ruled in early 2008 in favor of guaranteeing those in the "enemy area" a "humanitarian minimum standard," and nothing more. Details of the "Red Lines" set for this diet appeared in Haaretz: according to a government document, caloric intake for the Gaza population was to be set at a level just above the hunger line defined by the UN food experts. If this is the policy behind the blockade, clearly any humanitarian aid effort aiming to provide food, etc. comes under the rubric of a "provocation," as deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon put it, since there "is no humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. As a corollary, Israel has lifted tax exemptions for NGOs supported by outside forces, and banned all groups who call for putting Israeli leaders on trial. The other development concerns Israel's attempts to rewrite international law, construed as undermining its right to self-defense. This is the meaning, according to Keenan and Weizman, of Israel's violent rejection of the Goldstone Report. Netanyahu delivered a speech in November 2009, in which he listed three threats to Israel: a nuclear Iran, rocket attacks by Hamas and Hizbollah, and the attempt to deny its right to self-defense. That, Bibi declared, was the "intention" of the Goldstone Report. He added that he hoped statesmen and jurists would answer Goldstone's approach by redrafting the laws of warfare. The Coming Implosion in Israel The same Le Monde diplomatique cites a statement by Gidi Grinstein of the Reut Institute, expressing alarm at the constraints placed on Israel in reaction to its anti-Palestinian policies. He wrote: "... our politicians and military personnel are threatened with lawsuits and arrests when they travel abroad, campaigns to boycott our products gain traction, and our very existence is challenged in academic institutions and intellectual circles. The country is increasingly isolated." And, unfortunately, "Israel has failed to recognize these trends for the strategically significant, potentially existential, threat they constitute" (emphasis added). (23) Grinstein's commentary is entitled: "Israel delegitimizers threaten its existence: Israel's enemies are scheming to bring about its implosion by turning it into a pariah state." Granted, it is a hysterical outburst, but nonetheless it contains valuable insights if read from a clinical standpoint. The author laments Israel's military failures in 2006 and 2008, and especially the "offensive on Israel's legitimacy" following these wars. His view is that Israel's enemies "would aim to bring about its implosion, as with South Africa or the Soviet Union, by attacking its political and economic values .... Turning Israel into a pariah state is central to its adversaries' efforts," he warns. "Israel is a geopolitical island. Its survival and prosperity depend on its relations with the world in trade, science, arts and culture - all of which rely on its legitimacy. When the latter is compromised, the former may be severed, with harsh political, social and economic consequences." Grinstein's piece was published on January 1 of this year, long before the flotilla attack. Since then, the trends towards isolating Israel and awarding it pariah status have only multiplied. And, increasingly, it is Israelis and Jewish intellectuals who are fuelling the trend. Henry Siegman, a former director of the American Jewish Congress, published an article, "Israel's Greatest Loss: Its Moral Imagination," in Haaretz on June 11.(24) Right after the Mavi Marmora confrontation, Siegman phoned a friend in Israel, to hear what the mood was. He was shocked to hear his friend say that the worldwide censure of Israel reminded him of the Nazi era. Siegman's analysis is worth quoting at length: "When I managed to get over the shock of that exchange, it struck me that the invocation of the Hitler era was actually a frighteningly apt and searing analogy, although not the one my friend intended. A million and a half civilians have been forced to live in an open-air prison in inhuman conditions for over three years now, but unlike the Hitler years, they are not Jews but Palestinians. Their jailors, incredibly, are survivors of the holocaust, or their descendants. Of course, the inmates of Gaza are not destined for gas chambers, as the Jews were, but they have been reduced to a debased and hopeless existence." Siegman backs up his assertions with facts about nutrition in Gaza and childhood morbidity, an "obscenity" which is "the consequence of a deliberate and carefully calculated Israeli policy aimed at de-developing Gaza by destroying not only its economy but its physical and social infrastructure while sealing it hermetically from the outside world." He notes that jokes about the Palestinian "diet" are also reminiscent of the Nazi period. Though rejecting any one-on-one comparison, Siegman recognizes that "the essential moral issues are the same." His conclusions: "So, yes, there is reason for Israelis, and for Jews generally, to think long and hard about the dark Hitler era at this particular time. For the significance of the Gaza Flotilla incident lies not in the questions raised about violations of international law on the high seas, or even about 'who assaulted who' first on the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmora, but in the larger questions raised about our common human condition by Israel's occupation policies and its devastation of Gaza's civilian population" (emphasis added). "If a people who so recently experienced on its own flesh such unspeakable inhumanities cannot muster the moral imagination to understand the injustice and suffering its territorial ambitions-and even its legitimate security concerns-are inflicting on another people, what hope is there for the rest of us?" Another authoritative Jewish intellectual warning of impending catastrophe for Israel is Daniel Barenboim, the Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor, founder of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which brings together young Israeli and Arab musicians. In a full-page interview in Die Zeit on June 10, Barenboim characterized the flotilla attack as "dumb." Echoing Siegman's idea of Israel's loss of "moral imagination," Barenboim raised the question, what has become of the famous "Jewish intelligence?" - a phrase, he explains, used by both anti-semites and philosemites. Among Israelis there are many intelligent people with whom one can rationally discuss Beethoven, Shakespeare, or Marx, "but when you come to the subject of Palestinians, they are totally blind. It is not explicable." With respect to the political situation, Barenboim is categorical: the problem is the occupation and decades of injustice against the Palestinians, not the "widespread Israeli interpretation" that it all has to do with the Nazis and the Holocaust. "If a Palestinian, whose family has owned a house in Jaffa or Nazareth since the 11th century, now no longer has the right to reside there, and this man then hates the Israelis - that has nothing to do with Adolf Hitler." As for Hamas, Barenboim's view is that "If one wants to make peace, one has to talk to all the factions of the enemy," and adds: "What the world has forgotten by the way: Hamas was a creature of Israel, to weaken Arafat." His conclusion is unambiguous: "If things continue as they are, Israel's days are numbered. The demographic development shows us that the Jews will not remain in the majority. What is occurring is apartheid, which is untenable. And what really makes me angry is that many Israeli governments, not only the current one, are convinced that they have the right to kill people, because they do not acknowledge Israel's right to exist. That cannot be." Israel On The Couch The sub-text running through the views expressed by Siegman, Levy, Barenboim, and other Jewish intellectuals is that there is something fundamentally wrong in Israel, -- not merely that its policies are unjust and in violation of international law, but that there is something unhealthy, irrational in the Israeli mindset. A couple of articles circulated on the Internet in mid-June that made this point explicit. Signed by one Michael K. Smith, they "reported" on the suicides of two psychiatrists, one who had treated Netanyahu for nine years, and the other who had treated Barak (for "Security Addiction Disorder"-SAD). Both accounts, appearing on June 12 and 15, turned out to be spoofs, but they are symptomatic of the growing awareness that a clinical approach to the Israel problem makes sense.(25) Also, they remind us that humor is a powerful antidote in such cases. Mosher Yatom, the fictional name given Netanyahu's would-be psychiatrist, left a suicide note saying that he could no longer tolerate his patient's contradictory behavior. "I can't take it anymore. Robbery is redemption, apartheid is freedom, peace activists are terrorists, murder is self-defense, piracy is legality. Palestinians are Jordanians, annexation is liberation, there's no end to his contradictions. Freud promised rationality would reign in the instinctual passions, but he never met Bibi Netanyahu. This guy would say Gandhi invented brass knuckles." The psychiatrist reportedly suffered a series of strokes, each in reaction to outrageous statements by his patient, for example, that "Iran's nuclear energy program was a 'flying gas chamber.'" An expert in the field, Dr. Rafael Eilam, in commenting on "Massive Attack Disorder" (MAD), which is "rampant among Israeli leaders," says this syndrome may account for the attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, "with both attacks having contributed substantially to Israel's current pariah status." The article ends with the news of a "Free Israel" initiative by psychiatrists worldwide, who want to send a flotilla with relief supplies for the Israeli doctors and their patients: "anti-depressants for the former and elephant tranquillizers for the latter." When the spoofs first appeared on the web, not a few readers took the opening paragraphs seriously, because there was such a ring of psychological truth to them. Anyone who ignores the psychological factor in politics must have been in hibernation during the eight years of the Bush-Cheney pathology. When sane military professionals were testifying to the perils of new wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the neocon faction followed its insane instincts and the bombs began to fall. Dr. Justin A. Frank, an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, authored a brilliant study entitled Bush on the Couch.(25) Relying solely on published speeches, statements, and interviews, Frank diagnosed the president as seriously mentally ill, actually a sociopath. Were Dr. Frank to examine statements on the public record by Netanyahu, Barak, Peres, Lieberman, Tzipi Livni among others, he might come to a similar conclusion. When, at a recent public speaking event in Germany, I asked the IPPNW member aboard the Mavi Marmora, how he, as a practicing psychiatrist, would evaluate the mental state of the Israeli leadership, he quipped that he was merely a psychotherapist, and did not deal with cases of grave psychosis. The sooner the world - emphatically including Israel - recognizes that we are dealing not with politics as usual, but with clinically identifiable attitudes and policies, the better. The generation of "new historians" in Israel, researchers like Ilan Pappe, have done much to deconstruct the mythology of Israel's founding, which is a precondition for defining a sane approach to overcoming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But this is not enough. The Israeli people and elite have to confront that past as well as the recent and current injustices inflicted on the Palestinians, and work through the psychological-moral implications. Continuing outside pressure in the form of U.N. or European investigative and disciplinary actions does have a palpable effect. Grinstein is correct in assessing the consequences of sanctions and boycotts, including those in intellectual circles, but he is wrong in thinking that this has come about because the "enemies" of Israel are "scheming to bring about its implosion by turning it into a pariah state." It is Israel's own anti-Palestinian policies which have isolated the country, making it, yes, a pariah. Grinstein's reference to apartheid South Africa is also pertinent. What forced international firms to pull out of that country was the worldwide moral censure of apartheid. Not the economic impact of sanctions, but the moral thrust which occasioned them ultimately led to the downfall of the racist regime. Similarly, the civil rights movement in the U.S. was successful, not due to the economic damage done by its boycotts, but by virtue of the movement's moral authority. The U.S., which was mired in an immoral war against Viet Nam while simultaneously depriving its own citizens of basic human rights, had become a pariah in the eyes of the world and its leadership had to willfully change. These two cases demonstrate the potential for profound political upheaval when a people faces up to its moral responsibilities. They also pose the critical role of leadership. Does there exist in Israel today a leader with the pragmatic grasp of reality Lyndon B. Johnson had? Is there anyone comparable to Frederik de Klerk, capable of recognizing that a system founded on injustice could not morally survive? Yitzhak Rabin apparently reached that conclusion. Who is prepared to take up his legacy today? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=42f_1280630135 Abaddon666 Israel's Insane War on Iran Must Be Prevented. Israel's Insane War on Iran Must Be Prevented. Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:34:09 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c61_1280629761 Abaddon666 Global Research, July 31, 2010 by Gareth Porter Reuel Marc Gerecht's screed justifying an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack. What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into a direct, full-scale war with Iran. That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start. Gerecht openly expresses the hope that any Iranian response to the Israeli attack would trigger full-scale U.S. war against Iran. "If Khamenei has a death-wish, he'll let the Revolutionary Guards mine the strait, the entrance to the Persian Gulf," writes Gerecht. "It might be the only thing that would push President Obama to strike Iran militarily...." Gerecht suggest that the same logic would apply to any Iranian "terrorism against the United States after an Israeli strike," by which he really means any attack on a U.S. target in the Middle East. Gerecht writes that Obama might be "obliged" to threaten major retaliation "immediately after an Israeli surprise attack." That's the key sentence in this very long Gerecht argument. Obama is not going to be "obliged" to joint an Israeli aggression against Iran unless he feels that domestic political pressures to do so are too strong to resist. That's why the Israelis are determined to line up a strong majority in Congress and public opinion for war to foreclose Obama's options. In the absence of confidence that Obama would be ready to come into the war fully behind Israel, there cannot be an Israeli strike. Gerecht's argument for war relies on a fanciful nightmare scenario of Iran doling out nuclear weapons to Islamic extremists all over the Middle East. But the real concern of the Israelis and their lobbyists, as Gerecht's past writing has explicitly stated, is to destroy Iran's Islamic regime in a paroxysm of U.S. military violence. Gerecht first revealed this Israeli-neocon fantasy as early as 2000, before the Iranian nuclear program was even taken seriously, in an essay for a book published by the Project for a New American Century. Gerecht argued that, if Iran could be caught in a "terrorist act," the U.S. Navy should "retaliate with fury". The purpose of such a military response, he wrote, should be to "strike with truly devastating effect against the ruling mullahs and the repressive institutions that maintain them." And lest anyone fail to understand what he meant by that, Gerecht was more explicit: "That is, no cruise missiles at midnight to minimize the body count. The clerics will almost certainly strike back unless Washington uses overwhelming, paralyzing force." In 2006-07, the Israeli war party had reason to believed that it could hijack U.S. policy long enough to get the war it wanted, because it had placed one of its most militant agents, David Wurmser, in a strategic position to influence that policy. We now know that Wurmser, formerly a close adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu and during that period Vice President Dick Cheney's main adviser on the Middle East, urged a policy of overwhelming U.S. military force against Iran. After leaving the administration in 2007, Wurmser revealed that he had advocated a U.S. war on Iran, not to set back the nuclear program but to achieve regime change. "Only if what we do is placed in the framework of a fundamental assault on the survival of the regime will it have a pick-up among ordinary Iranians," Wurmser told The Telegraph. The U.S. attack was not to be limited to nuclear targets but was to be quite thorough and massively destructive. "If we start shooting, we must be prepared to fire the last shot. Don't shoot a bear if you're not going to kill it." Of course, that kind of war could not be launched out of the blue. It would have required a casus belli to justify a limited initial attack that would then allow a rapid escalation of U.S. military force. In 2007, Cheney acted on Wurmser's advice and tried to get Bush to provoke a war with Iran over Iraq, but it was foiled by the Pentagon. As Wurmser was beginning to whisper that advice in Cheney's ear in 2006, Gerecht was making the same argument in The Weekly Standard: Bombing the nuclear facilities once would mean we were declaring war on the clerical regime. We shouldn't have any illusions about that. We could not stand idly by and watch the mullahs build other sites. If the ruling mullahs were to go forward with rebuilding what they'd lost-and it would be surprising to discover the clerical regime knuckling after an initial bombing run-we'd have to strike until they stopped. And if we had any doubt about where their new facilities were (and it's a good bet the clerical regime would try to bury new sites deep under heavily populated areas), and we were reasonably suspicious they were building again, we'd have to consider, at a minimum, using special-operations forces to penetrate suspected sites. The idea of waging a U.S. war of destruction against Iran is obvious lunacy, which is why U.S. military leaders have strongly resisted it both during the Bush and Obama administrations. But Gerecht makes it clear that Israel believes it can use its control of Congress to pound Obama into submission. Democrats in Congress, he boasts, "are mentally in a different galaxy than they were under President Bush." Even though Israel has increasingly been regarded around the world as a rogue state after its Gaza atrocities and the commando killings of unarmed civilians on board the Mavi Marmara, its grip on the U.S. Congress appears as strong as ever. Moreover, polling data for 2010 show that a majority of Americans have already been manipulated into supporting war against Iran - in large part because more than two-thirds of those polled have gotten the impression that Iran already has nuclear weapons. The Israelis are apparently hoping to exploit that advantage. "If the Israelis bomb now, American public opinion will probably be with them," writes Gerecht. "Perhaps decisively so." Netanyahu must be feeling good about the prospects for pressuring Barack Obama to join an Israeli war of aggression against Iran. It was Netanyahu, after all, who declared in 2001, "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c61_1280629761 Abaddon666 The Real Aim of Israel's Bomb IRAN Campaign The Real Aim of Israel's Bomb IRAN Campaign Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:29:06 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f9_1280629441 Abaddon666 By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 1, 2010 ( HUGE POST ) The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe, part of an intensifying global effort to build defenses against Iranian missiles amid a deepening impasse over the country's nuclear ambitions. Pentagon officials said they are nearing a deal to establish a key radar ground station, probably in Turkey or Bulgaria. Installation of the high-powered X-band radar would enable the first phase of the shield to become operational next year. At the same time, the U.S. military is working with Israel and allies in the Persian Gulf to build and upgrade their missile defense capabilities. The United States installed a radar ground station in Israel in 2008 and is looking to place another in an Arab country in the gulf region. The radars would provide a critical early warning of any launches from Iran, improving the odds of shooting down a missile. The missile defenses in Europe, Israel and the gulf are technically separate and in different stages of development. But they are all designed to plug into command-and-control systems operated by, or with, the U.S. military. The Israeli radar, for example, is operated by U.S. personnel and is already functional, feeding information to U.S. Navy ships operating in the Mediterranean. Taken together, these initiatives constitute an attempt to contain Iran and negate its growing ability to aim missiles -- perhaps one day armed with a nuclear warhead -- at targets throughout the Middle East and Europe, including U.S. forces stationed there. The concept of a missile shield began with former president Ronald Reagan, who first described his vision of a defense against a Soviet nuclear attack in his "Star Wars" speech in 1983. Its development accelerated during the George W. Bush administration, which saw missile defense as a way to deter emerging nuclear powers in Iran and North Korea. It has expanded further under President Obama, despite the skepticism he expressed during the 2008 campaign about the feasibility and affordability of Bush's plan for a shield in Europe. ad_icon In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush's approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020. The missile defense plan for Europe has factored into the Senate's debate over a new U.S.-Russia arms reduction treaty that would place fresh limits on the two countries' nuclear arsenals. Russia has strongly opposed the European shield, and some Republican lawmakers have charged that the treaty could constrain the project. Obama administration officials have dismissed the concerns. Ships add mobility Since last year, the Navy has been deploying Aegis-class destroyers and cruisers equipped with ballistic missile defense systems to patrol the Mediterranean Sea. The ships, featuring octagonal Spy-1 radars and arsenals of Standard Missile-3 interceptors, will form the backbone of Obama's shield in Europe. Unlike fixed ground-based interceptors, which were the mainstay of the Bush missile defense plan for Europe, Aegis ships are mobile and can easily move to areas considered most at risk of attack. Another advantage is that Aegis ships can still be used for other missions, such as hunting pirates or submarines, instead of waiting for a missile attack that may never materialize "It's very easily absorbed," Capt. Mark Young, commanding officer of the Vella Gulf, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser now deployed to the Mediterranean, said of his ship's new missile defense role. "We're very capable, and we'll find a way to advance the mission." "The system has to be able to operate to its utmost," Young said in an interview in the Vella Gulf wardroom as the ship left the East Coast. "We've told our junior guys, 'This is not just another Aegis ship. It's a BMD platform.' There's no margin for error." Navy commanders said they have just one or two Aegis ships patrolling the eastern Mediterranean at a time. Pentagon officials said those numbers could eventually triple, with three on deployment and three more as relief ships, depending on the perceived threat from Iran. The numbers may sound small, but lawmakers are concerned that the demand for Aegis ships worldwide could strain the Navy. In addition to Europe, the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and the U.S. Pacific Command require Aegis ships for ballistic missile defense against potential threats from Iran and North Korea. Only about half the Navy's Aegis fleet is available at any given time; after deployment at sea, ships generally spend an equivalent period at their home ports so their crews can prepare for the next mission. As a result, the Obama administration has plans to nearly double its number of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defenses, to 38 by 2015. Vice Adm. Henry B. Harris Jr., commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet, based in Naples, Italy, said an option would be to assign some Aegis ships to home ports in Europe instead of making them sail constantly back and forth to the United States. "It's certainly something that's on the table," Harris told reporters in June. Other Navy officials have floated the idea of flying in fresh crews so a ship could more or less deploy continuously, obviating the need for long breaks. Iranian 'salvo' threat U.S. military officials and analysts say it's easy to dream up a nightmare scenario over the future of Iran's nuclear program, which Western powers fear is aimed at the development of a nuclear weapon and which Iran insists is entirely peaceful. In an attempt to disable the program, Israel launches a pre-emptive attack. The Iranians retaliate with a wave of conventional missiles, not just against Israel, but also U.S. forces stationed in Europe and the Middle East. ad_icon "If Iran were actually to launch a missile attack on Europe, it wouldn't be just one or two missiles, or a handful," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said at a congressional hearing in June. "It would more likely be a salvo kind of attack, where you would be dealing potentially with scores or even hundreds of missiles." Such an attack could have "rapidly overwhelmed" the Bush missile defense shield for Europe, Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, director of the Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview. The Bush plan would have consisted of only 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and a large radar installation in the Czech Republic. It was designed to shoot down long-range or even intercontinental ballistic missiles fired by Iran against Europe or the United States. Subsequent U.S. intelligence assessments concluded that Iran's efforts to build a long-range missile were moving slowly. Today, military officials estimate it would take Iran until 2015 at the earliest, and only with the assistance of another country, to deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. Even then, military officials said, Iran would probably need much more time to build a reliable arsenal of ICBMs, which can be highly inaccurate in the early stages of development. In contrast, Iran already has a large inventory of missiles with a range of up to 1,200 miles -- putting southeastern Europe at risk. And it is pushing hard to reach other parts of the continent. In response, Obama announced in September that the Pentagon would scrap Bush's system for Europe and replace it with what he called a "phased, adaptive approach." The first phase officially becomes operational next year. Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with the high-power radar planned for southern Europe. In 2015, the next phase will begin. Romania has agreed to host a land-based Aegis combat system on its territory. In 2018, the system will expand further with another land-based Aegis system in Poland, as well as a new generation of SM-3 interceptors and additional sensors. The shield is scheduled to become complete by 2020, with the addition of even more advanced SM-3s. Until last year, the Pentagon had thought an arsenal of 147 SM-3s would be sufficient for its missile defenses worldwide. Now, the Obama administration is looking to nearly triple that number, to 436, by 2015. U.S. foots most of bill The Pentagon says the purpose of the European missile defense system is threefold: to protect Europe, to protect U.S. forces stationed there and to deter Iran from further development of its missile program. It "will help us more effectively defend the country, more effectively defend our forces in Europe, and with our allies more effectively defend both their forces and populations and ultimately their territory of Europe as the system expands," said James N. Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. ad_icon It is a good deal for Europe, which is largely getting the protection for free. NATO allies, however, may eventually plug their own, more limited missile defense systems into the overall shield. The Pentagon says countries that are providing territory for radar and ground interceptors will probably make financial contributions as negotiations are finalized. But otherwise, U.S. taxpayers will be footing the bill. U.S. defense officials said it is difficult to provide an overall estimate on what it will cost to build and operate the European shield, given that the Aegis ships and other components either already exist or were going to be built anyway by the U.S. military. The system will require an unspecified number of new SM-3 missiles, which cost between $10 million and $15 million apiece. In November, during a summit in Lisbon, NATO members will vote on whether to make territorial missile defense part of the alliance's overall mission. If that happens, allies will eventually connect their localized missile defense systems -- mainly Patriot missiles and other ground-based interceptors -- to the larger framework. The United States and NATO would also have to sort out a unified command-and-control system, which could take years, officials said. O'Reilly said combined defenses would feature the best of both worlds: an "upper layer" framework of SM-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors, operated by the United States, that could shoot down enemy missiles in space or the upper atmosphere; and a "lower layer" of Patriot batteries, operated by European allies, providing a second layer of defense closer to the ground. "If you have more than one opportunity to shoot at a missile," O'Reilly said, "you get very high levels of probability of success." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f9_1280629441 Abaddon666 U.S. nears key step in European defense shield against IRANIAN missiles U.S. nears key step in European defense shield against Iranian missiles Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:06:39 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=117_1280455540 Abaddon666 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:55:43 GMT Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah begins a tour of Jordan, Syria and Egypt in a bid to ease the tensions in Lebanon and discuss Arab unity. However, many analysts question the real intentions of King Abdullah's visit to the Arab countries. The following is a transcript of Press TV's interview with Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute of Gulf Affairs (IGA), regarding Saudi Arabia's past relations with Israel and its recent bombing of Northern Yemen. Press TV:According to a Saudi minister, King Abdullah quoted that he knows, "the problems facing the Arab world." He embarked on this visit to discuss ways to strengthen inner Arab relations and achieve Arab unity. Do you think that is the whole truth and will it be a successful visit? al-Ahmed:Well I think the kingdom is trying to consolidate its allies in the region, and is trying to organize the region for its own interest. Regarding Arab unity, I don't think this is a Saudi policy at all. Because we have seen what happened in Yemen, and that was not an issue of unity. The Saudis bombarded Northern Yemen and did more damage than Israel did to Gaza in terms of the amount of weapons and bombs used. So this is not an issue of unity this is an issue of Saudi Arabia trying to convince Syria to join in the pro-American bloc in the Middle East: mainly Egypt, Jordan and some other Persian Gulf States. So this is part of the overall effort on the Saudi government with the US to push against Iran and its allies in the region, and maybe try to prepare for some type of military action against Iran. I don't think it will come to that. But this is what the Saudis are hoping to do: to isolate Iran through putting pressure on Syria and Lebanon. Press TV: King Abdullah speaks of the peace process, "To establish a just and comprehensive peace in ensuring the legitimate rights of the Palestinians." Such things have been said for years by the Saudi leaders. I mean is the outcome expected to be any different this time around? al-Ahmed: I don't think a different outcome will happen and let's just remember in 2009 when the Gaza attack occurred. Saudi Arabia was in support of the Israeli attack on Gaza and they were not totally against it. We see this policy continuing to happen. Saudi Arabia wants Israel to pressure Palestinian groups like Hamas which it doesn't like. Saudi Arabia is on the side of Israel. And you have probably heard the story of the chief of the Mossad in Israel meeting with Saudi Arabia in secret. That is not the first time the Saudis and Israelis have met so there is some kind of coordination between the two sides. Press TV:I'd like to stay with what you just mentioned. There is word of Saudi Arabia allowing access for Israeli planes if Israel were to attack Iran and as you just mentioned the Israeli Mossad chief visited Saudi Arabia for talks. How probable is it that the relationship is growing and that King Abdullah's Arab unity tour was more about that than anything else. al-Ahmed: It was about that for sure. The Saudi government has always for the last 50 years put in mind the relationship with Israel. It was not really a hostile relation; it was a relation of convenience. In the last 20 years or so, they have had cooperative contacts. For example we know that the former Saudi ambassador to Washington had secret meetings and communications; not only in the last few years but it dates back over 20 years ago. So they have this relationship of convenience because we see that Saudi Arabia has not contributed to any effort that is against Israel in terms of a military attack. They have always avoided that but you see them very active in Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and other countries. You don't see them doing anything militarily against Israel because of their special relationship. It is a private relationship but it has been highlighted with the meeting between King Abdullah and Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, in 2008 in New York. So this is something that has been done on the highest levels of both governments. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136697 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=117_1280455540 Abaddon666 Saudi Arabia, Israel's secret relations ( IRAN ) Saudi Arabia, Israel's secret relations Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:04:01 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=025_1280455365 Abaddon666 Posted By Jamal Abdi Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 12:01 PM A game plan to draw the United States into a third war in the Middle East may be quietly unfolding before our eyes. Late last week, Republicans in the House or Representatives unveiled H.Res.1553, a resolution providing explicit support for an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. The measure, introduced by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert and forty-six of his colleagues, endorses Israel's use of "all means necessary" against Iran "including the use of military force". "We have got to act," Gohmert has said in regard to the measure. "We've got to get this done. We need to show our support for Israel. We need to quit playing games with this critical ally in such a difficult area." But Gohemert's resolution may be an unprecedented development--Congress has never endorsed pre-emptive military strikes by a foreign country. What's more, this is the minority party signaling to Israel that they can count on Republican support should the President object to Israeli strikes on Iran--as did George W. Bush in 2008. The resolution also explicitly endorses "any means necessary", a carte blanche for the use of nuclear bunker-busting bombs. The measure may be overtly political, coming just one week before the Congressional recess in which Members of Congress will return home to their districts to campaign and raise money for the upcoming midterm elections. Democrats and Republicans are in a foot race to demonstrate who can be toughest on Iran. But while Democrats continue to tout newly imposed "crippling" sanctions as evidence of their commitment to pressure, Republicans appear to be moving on to the next phase and are openly endorsing an Israeli strike. Gohmert even argued that instead of sanctions, Congress should have passed his resolution green-lighting military strikes on Iran. But by encouraging such an attack, supporters of war are effectively working to circumvent the President and his military leadership, who have warned in dire terms against military action in Iran, and instead goading a third country into launching the first strike. Once the bombing campaign has commenced, the authors of this resolution may believe, the US would have few choices but be dragged into war. In fact, this measure is no small part of a neoconservative agenda to go to war with Iran. The green light resolution is precisely what John Bolton called for two weeks ago in a Wall Street Journal piece that reads as a playbook for dragging the US into military conflict with Iran. Bolton lays out a game plan in which Congress can "reassure" Israel in order to make a military strike possible. He argued that with "visible congressional support in place", the President's concerns about an Israeli strike can be short-circuited. Some of the resolution's supporters, like Michelle Bachmann, face tough re-election bids this November and are looking for more red meat to throw the hawks that make up their base. Bachmann, who for years supported budget-busting foreign wars under George W. Bush, is now the leader of the deficit-obsessed Tea Party Caucus. The caucus has yet to produce a policy paper outlining a plan for a budget-neutral war with Iran. Others, such as Congressman Dan Burton--now the top Republican on the House Middle East Subcommittee--would hold important leadership positions to shape Iran policy were Republicans able to regain the majority this November. But by endorsing military strikes, supporters of H.Res.1553 are playing games with US national security and could provoke the US into a third war in the Middle East. By couching the resolution's endorsement of bombing Iran as an issue of Israel's right to self defense--an area that is sacrosanct for many in Congress--supporters of war are framing the question as one of support for Israel rather than the numerous other messy questions that one might want to answer before endorsing military strikes. Will this engulf the Middle East in a "destabilizing" (General Petraeus), "cataclysmic" (Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen) regional war? Will military strikes even stop Iran's nuclear program? Or will they merely set the program back, convince Iran to leave the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and guarantee that Iran aggressively pursues a nuclear deterrent? The resolution does not go into the murky details of how devastating a military strike on Iran would be to the US and Israel, not to mention the civilian death toll in Iran, the collapse of Iran's democratic opposition movement, and the consolidation of popular support by Iran's now-disputed government. It doesn't take into account the dire warnings from US military leadership who have consistently expressed serious concerns about any military options. But it does give House Republican supporters an opportunity to pretend that they are more concerned about national security and allow them to burnish faux pro-Israel credentials. In some districts, this will play quite well in November. There are serious consequences for this transparent ploy. A Congressional green light for military strikes is not just politics; it could significantly alter perceptions for those in Israel pressing for strikes and undercut efforts by the President and US military leadership to protect against such impulses. There is a reason Louie Gohmert is not President, Michelle Bachmann is not the Secretary of Defense, and that the Tea Party does not comprise the Joint Chiefs. But the scary thing is that this resolution, just by being introduced, may very well represent one step forward towards the US being dragged into a war with Iran. War with Iran will seem farfetched until it is a fait accompli. http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/29/the_republican_backdoor_to_war_with_iran http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=025_1280455365 Abaddon666 The Republican back door to war with IRAN The Republican back door to war with Iran