| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:59 am Post subject: War with Iran is imminent (for Israel, of course!) |
| General Jim David (whose name appears on the cover of former Republican Congressman Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' book about the power/influence of the pro-Israel lobby - AIPAC and similar - on the US political system and media) wrote the following:
BGJDAVID wrote:
Bush wants to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq
Not only does Bush want to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq, but maybe the most dangerous thing that he is doing is sending an armed U.S. carrier to the gulf. In his speech last night he tried to prepare the American people for the next attack on Iran and Syria by trying to blame the two countries for its role in arming the insurgents in Iraq, without any evidence of these accusations. It was obvious that Bush was preparing the American people for justification to attack Iran and Syria. The most logical and diplomatic course would be to sit down and talk with Iran and Syria before jumping to these conclusions that would only threaten America's security as was determined in the Baker study. This is not the choice that Bush seems to be taking as his Jewish advisors, the Jewish lobby, and Israel's demands are to use force not diplomacy. As was evident immediately after the Baker study was released to the public, suggesting the U.S. should talk with Iran and Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immediatly protested any talks, and I'm sure this protest was sent immediately to the White House. After all, what better way is there to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat than for America to use its blood and money to fight Israel's war. The American people have been duped before and as long as we keep supporting Israel we will be duped again. Here we go with the tail wagging the dog. I have never seen a president who puts the security of Israel above the security of America as we see with President Bush and his Administration. And just like Ariel Sharon once said, "Don't worry about America--We, control America." As long as President Bush is in office, I'm afraid he's right.
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[The following URL is very concerning as it looks as if we may be at war with Iran as well before long:
Bush's tough tactics are a 'declaration of war' on Iran
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/12/bush-s-tough-tactics-are-a-declaration-of-war-on-iran.php
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War with Iran is imminent (for Israel, of course!):
Posted: January 8, 2007
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53669
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi (who is a known propagandist for the neocons):
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In addition to moving additional military forces into the region, President Bush is putting into place a new political and military command team, all in preparation for an expanded war in the Middle East.
We have already noted that the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) aircraft carrier battle group is heading to the Persian Gulf to join the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) aircraft carrier battle group currently on station there.
Additionally, the USS Boxer (LHD 4) amphibious assault ship, the flagship of the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group, is on station in the Persian Gulf. On January 4, 2007, the USS Bataan (LHD 5), the command ship of the Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group, departed from Norfolk, Va., headed for forward deployment. Typically, we would expect the USS Bataan to replace the USS Boxer in normal rotation. Even if that is the destination of the USS Bataan, we would have two amphibious strike forces in the Gulf as the rotation is completed.
(Column continues below)
Along with each carrier attack group comes a fleet of 12 ships, including two guided missile-cruisers, generally Ticonderoga-class, two guided missile destroyers, generally Arleigh Burke-class, and an attack submarine that is usually Los Angeles-class.
U.S. Admiral William J. Fallon, head of U.S. Pacific Command is taking over as the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, following the retirement of Gen. John Abizaid. The transition of command from the Army to the Navy should be noted, especially with this much naval power concentrating in the Gulf. We should also note that Admiral Fallon has command experience in the 1991 Gulf War, where he commanded the Carrier Air Wing Eight on the USS Theodore Roosevelt during Operation Desert Storm. In 1995, he was the Commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet battle force supporting NATO's Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia. He is considered one of the Navy's top commanders in combined forces operations and an expert in amphibious landings.
Quietly, the Bush administration is changing the entire command structure in the Middle East. The U.S. top commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey is being replaced by Gen. David Petraeus. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Gen.Petraeus commanded the famed 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), leading the ''Screaming Eagles'' in combat. Following that, he commanded the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq, assuming responsibility for training Iraqi forces. Petraeus is on record supporting a five-brigade expansion of U.S. forces in Iraq, in direct contrast to Gen. Casey, who expressed skepticism that increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq would help stabilize the country. The political deck shuffling also reflects a Bush administration decision to expand the war in the Middle East.
Immediately following the Republican Party electoral defeat in Nov. 2006, Bush announced that Robert Gates would be nominated to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. In 1987, Gates withdrew his nomination to become Director of the CIA because of a controversy that had developed concerning his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
Credentials in the Iran-Contra affair seem right now to be a plus in the White House. John Negroponte is being moved from Director of National Intelligence to being the top deputy at the State Department to Condoleezza Rice. During Iran-Contra, Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras, where he encouraged the expansion of U.S. military and intelligence presence in Central America. Replacing Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence is Admiral Mike McConnell, who served as the intelligence officer of the Joint Chiefs during Operation Desert Storm.
Maybe the best way to understand the Iraq Study Group (ISG) is that it was only Round One, George H. W. Bush's attempt to get his old team together to convince his son to abandon Iraq. The ISG included both James Baker III, Reagan's chief of staff who advised that Iran-Contra could well be illegal and might lead to impeachment, as well as Edwin Meese, who as Reagan's attorney general lead what amounted to a whitewash internal investigation of Iran-Contra. Baker typically represents the Council on Foreign Relations line on the Middle East – protect the oil, use military sparingly, and abandon Israel to Arab oil interests whenever possible. With this approach having been rejected by George W. Bush, the next alternative, Round Two, was for George H. W. Bush to bring in key hawks from the Iran-Contra days, to implement his son's expansion of the war.
Much of the plan for an Iraq surge in force seems to originate from Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, whose report, ''A Plan for Success in Iraq,'' has been joined by retired Gen. Jack Keane. Kagan is a military historian who has taught at West Point. Gen. Keane was a career Army paratrooper (featured in Tom Clancy's book, ''Airborne''), who rose to being vice chief of staff of the Army.
Notably, one AEI expert on Iran who is not being consulted by the Bush administration is Michael Ledeen, whose Iran-Contra credentials are also quite strong. Ledeen has continuously argued that we could produce peaceful change in Iran, if only the Bush administration would define regime-change as our policy in Iran and the State Department would release the millions Congress has allocated to support non-governmental organizations around the world who would work toward the regime-change objective.
If President Bush were truly to follow Ronald Reagan's example with the ex-Soviet Union, he would support Michael Ledeen's objectives, while stepping up military pressure in the region. I continue to press for implementing Michael Ledeen's strategy of creating Ukraine-like peaceful change from within Iran, although truthfully I fear the window for that happening may have passed.
President Bush may feel he has no alternative but to push military options in the Middle East. Following the Iraq Study Group's advice and staging a military withdrawal from Iraq could well support a Democratic effort in Congress to investigate the Iraq War as a prelude to impeachment. We should also note that Harriet Miers has resigned as White House counsel, setting the stage for Bush to bring in a lawyer with heavy duty Washington credentials in fending off hostile investigations.
Also somewhat cornered right now is Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister. Olmert, like Bush, is experiencing a level of low public opinion that typically precedes removal from office. Olmert has consistently lost public favor by following the White House ''roadmap to peace,'' which has involved an old James Baker plan calling for Israel to cede territory to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. Condi Rice, a James Baker protégé, has gotten nowhere following this plan for two years, only to see Hamas control the Palestinian Authority and launch rockets back on Israel from the newly-returned Gaza Strip. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a strong opponent of the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran, and the Likud Party would welcome a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset and a call for new elections.
Ahmadinejad himself is the third leader in this drama who may well be on a short leash. Having just lost a round of local elections throughout Iran, Ahmadinejad finds himself facing once again student protests in the street. Ahmadinejad has pursued nuclear weapons and funding terrorist groups including Hezbollah and now also Hamas, rather than keeping his campaign promise to return oil wealth to the people of Iran. The Iranian parliament has moved up the date for the presidential election by one year. Now, with Supreme Leader Khamanei dying of cancer, there may soon be a fight in the Assembly of Experts to see if former president Rafsanjani can wrest control away from Ahmadinejad and his spiritual leader Ayatollah Hasbah-Yazdi, a chief adherent of the belief that the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, will soon come out of the well from centuries-long occlusion to lead Shi'ite Islam in worldwide triumph.
The one wild card that would change the equation would be an aggressive move by Iran. Should Iran launch a cruise missile at a U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf, we will have war right now. Should an Iranian missile sink a U.S. carrier, the U.S. population would experience another 9/11 moment. At that point, a massive U.S.-led military strike on Iran would become inevitable. Would President Bush provoke Iran to make just such a move? A pre-emptive strike on Iran would never be approved by a Democratic Congress, but U.S. massive retaliation for a serious act of war by Iran would be a totally different matter.
Truthfully, we are already at war with Iran. My concern stems from the realization that the internal politics in Iran may be such that Ahmadinejad cannot allow a massive U.S. military build-up in the region without making some kind of a response. With Iraq's borders as open as is our southern border with Mexico, Iran has now sent into Iraq a sufficient number of terrorists and arms to create a real civil war. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, which featured so prominent in the Shi'ite rejoicing that reduced Saddam's hanging to a partisan event, is an Iran-funded creation. Ahmadinejad cannot afford to see a strengthened U.S. military destroy Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army.
If a broader war breaks out in Iraq, Olmert will certainly face pressure to send the Israel military into the Gaza after Hamas and into Lebanon after Hezbollah. If that happens, it will only be a matter of time before Israel and the U.S. have no choice but to invade Syria. The Iraq war could quickly spin into a regional war, with Israel waiting on the sidelines ready to launch an air and missile strike on Iran that could include tactical nuclear weapons.
With Russia ready to deliver the $1 billion TOR M-1 surface-to-air missile defense system to Iran, military leaders are unwilling to wait too long to attack Iran. Now that Russia and China have invited Iran to join their Shanghai Cooperation Pact, will Russia and China sit by idly should the U.S. look like we are winning a wider regional war in the Middle East? If we get more deeply involved in Iraq, China may have their moment to go after Taiwan once and for all. A broader regional war could easily lead into a third world war, much as World Wars I and II began.
Odds are that we will not enter 2008 with all three of these leaders – Bush, Olmert, and Ahmadinejad – as heads of state. If President Bush does go the military route in the Middle East, he will bet his presidency on that decision.
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Related special offer:
"Showdown with Nuclear Iran"
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Ledeen was all for war as Bamford conveyed in his letter answering Ledeen's response to his 'Iran: The Next War' article which is linked via the following URL:
Iran: The Next War (for Israel):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/07/28/iran-the-next-war-for-israel.php
AIPAC and NeoCon Policy
on bombing Iran for Israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rf16XjbOUs
AIPAC Trying to Get US to Attack Iran for Israel :
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Pat Buchanan: Who is Planning Our Next War?:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/09/pat-buchanan-who-is-planning-our-next-war.php
Crime of the Century: Are Bush & Cheney Planning Early Attack on Iran?:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/12/25/crime-of-the-century-are-bush-cheney-planning-iran-att.php
Saw Bush's speech earlier tonight as it only seems to be getting worse:
Looks like Bush is warhawking after Iran and Syria right in accordance with the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda of the Jewish JINSA/PNAC Neocons up at AEI (read pages 261-269/321 of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book via the following URL for more on the 'A Clean Break'):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
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Joseph A. Palermo
Bio
01.11.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/bush-issues-fatwa-against_b_38369.html?view=print
Bush Issues Fatwa Against Iran
READ MORE: George W. Bush, Iran, Persian Gulf, Jim Baker, Syria, Tehran, Karen Hughes
I truly believed that President George W. Bush was at least going to announce that Condi Rice was going on a shoe-buying tour of Tehran and Damascus, and I was also fully confident such a "diplomatic" trip would have been just another Karen Hughes-type PR campaign. If Bush were a sane person he would have taken the simple Karl Rovian step of an opening of negotiations, heeded that one tiny piece of the Baker-Hamilton study, and taken a little wind out of the war opposition's sails.
(The mainstream media would have given him great press for it.)
Instead, Bush issued a fatwa against Iran and Syria. He is sending in an armed-to-the-teeth carrier group into the Persian Gulf and he is escalating the war in Iraq. Bush is pursuing Richard Nixon's Cambodia strategy: escalate and expand the war and try to "win" it. He'll probably ratchet up the air war too just as Nixon did.
The net-roots organization, the "World Can't Wait" (worldcantwait.org), which has been calling for Bush's removal from office for years, just got a shot in the arm with Bush's bellicose and insane speech tonight. Bush must be removed from office before he ignites a global catastrophe.
If Bush sparks a "Gulf of Tonkin incident" in the Persian Gulf, and gets us into a shooting war with Iran, or launches air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, he could easily create the conditions for the outbreak of a regional war, or even something we might call World War III.
Bush's speech tonight showed that he is a Neo-Con, right-wing Christian fundamentalist. He has not a clue about what is going on in Baghdad. He spoke of "neighborhoods" being secured and U.S. "check points" being set up. He talked of an attempt to block arms and other supplies coming from Iran. He will follow not one of his "Uncle Jim" Baker's suggestions; he's still rebelling against his daddy. Bush was speaking about Al-Maliki as if he is really going to move against the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr. A thousands times, Bush showed in this speech tonight that he is completely out of touch with reality. Bush has drunk the Kool-Aid, there is no turning back. His messianic fantasies about the Middle East were on display for the all world to see.
Kudos to Keith Olberman for latching on to Bush's statements about the U.S. stance toward Iran and Syria; that was the most important revelation of the speech tonight: Bush appears to be threatening a regional war. Arianna Huffington deserves our gratitude for a clear and forceful performance on Joe Scarborough's show. And even Chris Matthews did an adequate job following Olberman's lead on the Iran and Syria issue. The Democrats in Congress must stop this madness before Bush leads the United States and the world into an even bigger bloodbath in the Middle East, one that could make Baghdad look like -- to quote neo-con Kenneth Adelman -- a "cake walk."
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Bush's Rush to Armageddon
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/010807.html
By Robert Parry
January 8, 2007
George W. Bush has purged senior military and intelligence officials who were obstacles to a wider war in the Middle East, broadening his options for both escalating the conflict inside Iraq and expanding the fighting to Iran and Syria with Israel’s help.
On Jan. 4, Bush ousted the top two commanders in the Middle East, Generals John Abizaid and George Casey, who had opposed a military escalation in Iraq, and removed Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who had stood by intelligence estimates downplaying the near-term threat from Iran’s nuclear program.
Most Washington observers have treated Bush’s shake-up as either routine or part of his desire for a new team to handle his planned “surge” of U.S. troops in Iraq. But intelligence sources say the personnel changes also fit with a scenario for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and seeking violent regime change in Syria.
Bush appointed Admiral William Fallon as the new chief of Central Command for the Middle East despite the fact that Fallon, a former Navy fighter pilot and currently head of the Pacific Command, will oversee two ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The choice of Fallon makes more sense if Bush foresees a bigger role for two aircraft carrier groups now poised off Iran’s coastline, such as support for possible Israeli air strikes against Iran’s nuclear targets or as a deterrent against any overt Iranian retaliation.
Though not considered a Middle East expert, Fallon has moved in neoconservative circles, for instance, attending a 2001 awards ceremony at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a think tank dedicated to explaining “the link between American defense policy and the security of Israel.”
Bush’s personnel changes also come as Israel is reported stepping up preparations for air strikes, possibly including tactical nuclear bombs, to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, such as the reactor at Natanz, south of Tehran, where enriched uranium is produced.
The Sunday Times of London reported on Jan. 7 that two Israeli air squadrons are training for the mission and “if things go according to plan, a pilot will first launch a conventional laser-guided bomb to blow a shaft down through the layers of hardened concrete [at Natanz]. Other pilots will then be ready to drop low-yield one kiloton nuclear weapons into the hole.”
The Sunday Times wrote that Israel also would hit two other facilities – at Isfahan and Arak – with conventional bombs. But the possible use of a nuclear bomb at Natanz would represent the first nuclear attack since the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II six decades ago.
While some observers believe Israel may be leaking details of its plans as a way to frighten Iran into accepting international controls on its nuclear program, other sources indicate that Israel and the Bush administration are seriously preparing for this wider Middle Eastern war.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb an “existential threat” to Israel.
After the Sunday Times article appeared, an Israeli government spokesman denied that Israel has drawn up secret plans to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. For its part, Iran claims it only wants a nuclear program for producing energy.
Negroponte’s Heresy
Whatever Iran’s intent, Negroponte has said U.S. intelligence does not believe Iran could produce a nuclear weapon until next decade.
Negroponte’s assessment in April 2006 infuriated neoconservative hardliners who wanted a worst-case scenario on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, much as they pressed for an alarmist view on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Unlike former CIA Director George Tenet, who bent to Bush’s political needs on Iraq, Negroponte stood behind the position of intelligence analysts who cited Iran’s limited progress in refining uranium.
“Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade,” Negroponte said in an interview with NBC News. Expressing a similarly tempered view in a speech at the National Press Club, Negroponte said, “I think it’s important that this issue be kept in perspective.”
Some neocons complained that Negroponte was betraying the President.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr., a leading figure in the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, called for Negroponte’s firing because of the Iran assessment and his “abysmal personnel decisions” in hiring senior intelligence analysts who were skeptics about Bush’s Iraqi WMD claims.
In an article for Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times, Gaffney attacked Negroponte for giving top analytical jobs to Thomas Fingar, who had served as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, and Kenneth Brill, who was U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which debunked some of the U.S. and British claims about Iraq seeking uranium ore from Africa.
Fingar’s Office of Intelligence and Research had led the dissent against the Iraq WMD case, especially over what turned out to be Bush’s false claims that Iraq was developing a nuclear bomb.
“Given this background, is it any wonder that Messrs. Negroponte, Fingar and Brill … gave us the spectacle of absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons?” wrote Gaffney, who was a senior Pentagon official during the Reagan administration.
Gaffney also accused Negroponte of giving promotions to “government officials in sensitive positions who actively subvert the President’s policies,” an apparent reference to Fingar and Brill. The neocons have long resented U.S. intelligence assessments that conflict with their policy prescriptions. [See Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege.]
In his personnel shakeup, Bush shifted Negroponte from his Cabinet-level position as DNI to a sub-Cabinet post as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. To replace Negroponte, Bush nominated Navy retired Vice Admiral John McConnell, who is viewed by intelligence professionals as a low-profile technocrat, not a strong independent figure.
A Freer Hand
Negroponte’s departure should give Bush a freer hand if he decides to support attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Bush’s neocon advisers fear that if Bush doesn’t act decisively in his remaining two years in office, his successor may lack the political will to launch a preemptive strike against Iran.
Bush reportedly has been weighing his military options for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities since early 2006. But he has encountered resistance from the top U.S. military brass, much as he has with his plans to escalate U.S. troop levels in Iraq.
As investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in The New Yorker, a number of senior U.S. military officers were troubled by administration war planners who believed “bunker-busting” tactical nuclear weapons, known as B61-11s, were the only way to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities buried deep underground.
A former senior intelligence official told Hersh that the White House refused to remove the nuclear option from the plans despite objections from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Whenever anybody tries to get it out, they’re shouted down,” the ex-official said. [New Yorker, April 17, 2006]
By late April 2006, however, the Joint Chiefs finally got the White House to agree that using nuclear weapons to destroy Iran’s uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, less than 200 miles south of Tehran, was politically unacceptable, Hersh reported.
“Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning,” one former senior intelligence official said. [New Yorker, July 10, 2006]
But one way to get around the opposition of the Joint Chiefs would be to delegate the bombing operation to the Israelis. Given Israel’s powerful lobbying operation in Washington and its strong ties to leading Democrats, an Israeli-led attack might be more politically palatable with the Congress.
Attacks on Iran and Syria also would fit with Bush’s desire to counter the growing Shiite influence across the Middle East, which was given an unintended boost by Bush’s ouster of the Sunni-dominated government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The original neocon plan for the Iraq invasion was to use Iraq as a base to force regime change in Syria and Iran, thus dealing strong blows to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
This regional transformation supposedly would have protected Israel’s northern border and strengthened Israel’s hand in dictating final peace terms to the Palestinians. But the U.S. invasion of Iraq backfired, descending into a sectarian civil war with Iraq’s pro-Iranian Shiite majority gaining the upper hand.
In effect, by ousting Saddam Hussein, Bush had eliminated the principal buffer who had been holding the line against the radical Shiites in Iran since 1979. By tipping the strategic balance to the Shiites, Bush also unnerved the Sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia.
A Nightmare
By 2006, the dream of a U.S.-orchestrated transformation of the Middle East had turned into a nightmare of rising Shiite radicalism. To address this unanticipated development, Bush began pondering how best to throttle Shiite expansionism.
In summer 2006, Washington Post foreign policy analyst Robin Wright wrote that U.S. officials told her that “for the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East.” [Washington Post, July 16, 2006]
Bush’s advisers also blamed the governments of Syria and Iran for supporting anti-U.S. fighters in Iraq.
Yet lacking the military and political capacity to expand the conflict beyond Iraq, the Bush administration turned to Israel and its new Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. By summer 2006, Israeli sources were describing Bush’s interest in finding a pretext to take Syria and Iran down a notch.
That opening came when border tensions with Hamas in Gaza and with Hezbollah in Lebanon led to the capture of three Israeli soldiers and a rapid Israeli escalation of the conflict into an air-and-ground campaign against Lebanon.
Bush and his neoconservative advisers saw the Israeli-Lebanese conflict as an opening to expand the fighting into Syria and achieve the long-sought “regime change” in Damascus, Israeli sources said.
One Israeli source told me that Bush’s interest in spreading the war to Syria was considered “nuts” by some senior Israeli officials, although Prime Minister Olmert generally shared Bush’s hard-line strategy against Islamic militants. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush Wants Wider War.”]
In an article on July 30, 2006. the Jerusalem Post also hinted at Bush’s suggestion of a wider war into Syria. “Defense officials told the Post … that they were receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria,” the newspaper reported.
In August 2006, the Inter-Press Service added more details, reporting that the message was passed to Israel by Bush’s deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, who had been a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.
“In a meeting with a very senior Israeli official, Abrams indicated that Washington would have no objection if Israel chose to extend the war beyond to its other northern neighbor, leaving the interlocutor in no doubt that the intended target was Syria,” a source told the Inter-Press Service.
In December 2006, Meyray Wurmser, a leading U.S. neoconservative whose spouse is a Middle East adviser to Vice President Cheney, confirmed that neocons inside and outside the Bush administration had hoped Israel would attack Syria as a means of undermining the insurgents in Iraq.
“If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended,” Wurmser said in an interview with Yitzhak Benhorin of the Ynet Web site. “A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hezbollah. … If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran that it would have weakened it and (changed) the strategic map in the Middle East.”
But the Israeli summer offensives in Gaza and Lebanon fell short of Olmert’s objectives, instead generating international condemnation of Tel Aviv for the large numbers of civilian casualties from Israel’s bombing raids.
Wounded Leaders
Now, as two politically wounded leaders, Bush and Olmert share an interest in trying to salvage some success out of their military setbacks. So, they are looking at possible moves that are much more dramatic than minor adjustments to the status quo.
Democrats and some Republicans are questioning why Bush wants to send 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq and offer Iraqis some jobs programs, when similar tactics have been tried unsuccessfully in the past.
Indeed, one source familiar with high-level thinking in Washington and Tel Aviv said an unstated reason for Bush’s troop “surge” is to bolster the defenses of Baghdad’s Green Zone if a possible Israeli attack on Iran prompts an uprising among Iraqi Shiites.
The two U.S. aircraft carrier strike forces off Iran’s coast could provide further deterrence against Iranian retaliation. But the conflict would almost certainly spread anyway.
Likely Hezbollah missile strikes against Israel would offer another pretext for Israel to invade Syria and finally oust Hezbollah’s allies in Damascus, as the U.S. neocons had hope would happen in summer 2006, the source said.
In the neoconservative vision, this wider war would offer perhaps a last chance at achieving the regional transformation that has been at the heart of Bush’s strategy of “democratizing” the Middle East through violence if necessary.
However, few Middle East experts believe that Bush really would want the results of truly democratic elections in the region because Islamic militants would almost surely win resoundingly amid the anti-Americanism that has grown even more intense since the hanging of Saddam Hussein in late December.
An Israeli assault on Iran could put the region’s remaining pro-American dictators in jeopardy, too. In Pakistan, for instance, Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaeda have been gaining strength and might try to overthrow Gen. Pervez Musharraf, conceivably giving Islamic terrorists control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
For some U.S. foreign policy experts, this potential for disaster from a U.S.-backed Israeli air strike on Iran is so terrifying that they ultimately don’t believe Bush and Olmert would dare implement such the plan.
But Bush’s actions in the past two months – reaffirming his determination to achieve “victory” in Iraq – suggest that he wants nothing of the “graceful exit” that might come from a de-escalation of the war.
Losing Faith
Bush has dug in his heels even as some senior administration officials have lost faith in his strategy.
On Nov. 6, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent Bush a memo suggesting a “major adjustment” in Iraq War policy that would include “an accelerated drawdown of U.S. bases” from 55 to five by July 2007 with remaining U.S. forces only committed to Iraqi areas that request them.
“Unless they [the local Iraqi governments] cooperate fully, U.S. forces would leave their province,” Rumsfeld wrote.
Proposing an option similar to a plan enunciated by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, Rumsfeld suggested that the commanders “withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions – cities, patrolling, etc. – and move U.S. forces to a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to be available when Iraqi security forces need assistance.”
And in what could be read as an implicit criticism of Bush’s lofty rhetoric about transforming Iraq and the Middle East, Rumsfeld said the administration should “recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) – go minimalist.” [NYT, Dec. 3, 2006]
On Nov. 8, two days after the memo and one day after American voters elected Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Bush fired Rumsfeld. The firing was widely interpreted as a sign that Bush was ready to moderate his position on Iraq, but the evidence now suggests that Bush got rid of Rumsfeld for going wobbly on the war.
On Dec. 6, when longtime Bush family counselor James Baker issued a report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group urging a drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq, Bush wasted little time in slapping it down.
Instead, Bush talked about waging a long war against Islamic “radicals and extremists,” an escalation from his original post-9/11 goal of defeating “terrorists with global reach.”
At his news conference on Dec. 20, Bush cast this wider struggle against Islamists as a test of American manhood and perseverance by demonstrating to the enemy that “they can’t run us out of the Middle East, that they can’t intimidate America.”
Bush suggested, too, that painful decisions lay ahead in the New Year.
“I’m not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like in Iraq, except that it’s going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices, because the enemy is merciless and violent,” Bush said.
Rather than scale back his neoconservative dream of transforming the Middle East, Bush argued for an expanded U.S. military to wage this long war.
“We must make sure that our military has the capability to stay in the fight for a long period of time,” Bush said. “I’m not predicting any particular theater, but I am predicting that it’s going to take a while for the ideology of liberty to finally triumph over the ideology of hate. …
“We’re in the beginning of a conflict between competing ideologies – a conflict that will determine whether or not your children can live in a peace. A failure in the Middle East, for example, or failure in Iraq, or isolationism, will condemn a generation of young Americans to permanent threat from overseas.”
Escalation
Since then, Bush has floated the idea of a troop “surge” and replaced commanders who disagreed with him. Bush also removed U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, a Sunni Muslim generally considered a voice for moderation in U.S. policy who privately objected to Bush’s decision to press ahead with the hanging of Saddam Hussein.
There are even indications of tension between Bush and Cheney, who like his old friend Rumsfeld, appears to have grown disillusioned with the war.
In a little-noticed comment on Jan. 4, Sen. Joseph Biden, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Cheney and Rumsfeld “are really smart guys who made a very, very, very, very bad bet, and it blew up in their faces. Now, what do they do with it? I think they have concluded they can’t fix it, so how do you keep it stitched together without it completely unraveling?” [Washington Post, Jan. 5, 2007]
But Bush does not appear to share that goal of limiting the damage. Instead, he is looking for ways to “double-down” his gamble in Iraq by joining with Olmert – and possibly outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair – in expanding the conflict.
Since the Nov. 7 congressional elections, the three leaders have conducted a round-robin of meetings that on the surface seem to have little purpose. Olmert met privately with Bush on Nov. 13; Blair visited the White House on Dec. 7; and Blair conferred with Olmert in Israel on Dec. 18.
Sources say the three leaders are frantically seeking options for turning around their political fortunes as they face harsh judgments from history for their bloody and risky adventures in the Middle East.
But there is also a clock ticking. Blair, who now stands to go down in the annals of British history as “Bush’s poodle,” is nearing the end of his tenure, having agreed under pressure from his Labour Party to step down in spring 2007.
So, if the Bush-Blair-Olmert triumvirate has any hope of accomplishing the neoconservative remaking of the Middle East, time is running out. Something dramatic must happen soon.
That something looks like it may include a rush to Armageddon.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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January 8, 2007
Is Bush's War Winding Down or Heating Up?
The Coming Attack on Iran
by Paul Craig Roberts
Most Americans believe that Bush’s Iraqi misadventure is over. The occupation has lost the support of the electorate, the Congress, the generals and the troops. The Democrats are sitting back waiting for Bush to come to terms with reality. They don’t want to be accused of losing the war by forcing Bush out of Iraq. There are no more troops to commit, and when the "surge" fails, Bush will have no recourse but to withdraw. A little longer, everyone figures, and the senseless killing will be over.
Recent news reports indicate that this conclusion could be an even bigger miscalculation than the original invasion.
On January 7 the London Timesreported that it has learned from "several Israeli military sources" that "Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the report.
The Times reports that "Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack."
In other news reports Israeli General Oded Tira is quoted as follows: "President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure."
General Tira gives the Israel Lobby the following tasks: (1) "turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they support immediate action by Bush against Iran," (2) exert influence on European countries so that "Bush will not be isolated in the international arena again," and (3) "clandestinely cooperate with Saudi Arabia so that it also persuades the US to strike Iran."
Israel’s part, General Tira says, is to "prepare an independent military strike by coordinating flights in Iraqi airspace with the US. We should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the use of air bases in its territory and also enlist the support of the Azeri minority in Iran."
British commentators report that "the British media appears to be softening us up for an attack on Iran." Robert Fox writing in The First Post says, "Suddenly the smell of Britons being prepared for an attack on Iran is all pervasive."
On January 7 the Jerusalem Postreported that Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told the Israeli newspaper that "Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable" and that "the use of force against Teheran remained an option." The Post notes that "Hoyer is considered close to the Jewish community and many Israeli supporters have hailed his elevation in the House." Hoyer was the Israel Lobby’s first victory over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who preferred Rep. John Murtha for the post. Murtha was the first important Democrat to call for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
On November 20 the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, reported that President Bush said he would understand if Israel chose to attack Iran.
Bush showed that he was in Israel’s pocket when he blocked the world’s attempt to stop Israel’s bombing of Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Many commentators believe that the failure of the neoconservatives’ "cakewalk war" has destroyed their influence. This is a mistaken conclusion. The neoconservatives are long time allies of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party and are part of the Israel Lobby in the US. The Israel Lobby represents the views of only a minority of American Jews but nevertheless essentially owns both political parties and most of the US media. As the neoconservatives are an important part of this powerful lobby, they remain extremely influential.
The Lobby works to increase the neoconservatives’ influence. To appreciate the Lobby’s influence, try to find columnists in the major print media and TV commentators who are not apologists for Israel, who do not favor attacking Iran, and who support withdrawing from Iraq. Recently, Bill "One-Note" Kristol, a rabid propagandist for war against Muslims, was given a column in Time magazine. Why would Time think its readers want to read a war propagandist? Could the reason be that the Israel Lobby arranged for Time to receive lucrative advertising contracts in exchange for a column for Kristol?
Neoconservatives have called for World War IV against Islam. In Commentary magazine Norman Podhoretz called for the cultural genocide of Islamic peoples. The war is already opened on four fronts: Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iran.
The Bush administration has used its Ethiopian proxies to overthrow the Somali Muslims who overthrew the warlords who drove the US from Somalia. The US Navy and US intelligence are actively engaged with the Ethiopian troops in efforts to hunt down and capture or kill the Somali Muslims. US Embassy spokesman Robert Kerr in Nairobi said that the US has the right to pursue Somalia’s Islamists as part of the war on terror.
For at least a year the Bush administration has been fomenting and financing terrorist groups within Iran. Seymour Hersh and former CIA officials have exposed the Bush administration’s support of ethnic minority groups within Iran that are on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Last April US Representative Dennis Kucinich wrote a detailed letter to President Bush about US interference in Iran’s internal affairs. He received no reply.
The Israeli/neoconservative plan, of which Bush may be a part or simply be a manipulated element, is to provoke a crisis with Iran in which the US Congress will have to support Israel. Both the Israeli government and the American neoconservatives are fanatical. It is a mistake to believe that either will be guided by reason or any appreciation of the potentially catastrophic consequences of an attack on Iran.
US aircraft carriers sitting off Iran’s coast are sitting ducks for Iran’s Russian missiles. The neoconservatives would welcome another "new Pearl Harbor."
The US media is totally unreliable. It cannot go against Israel, and it will wrap itself in the flag just as it did for the invasion of Iraq. The American public has been deceived (again) and believes that Iran is on the verge of possessing nuclear armaments to be used to wipe Israel off the map. The fact that Americans are such saps for propaganda makes effective opposition to the neoconservatives’ plan for WWIV practically impossible.
Large percentages of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attack. Recent polls show that 32% still believe that Iraq gave substantial support to al-Qaeda, and 18% believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attack. WXIA-TV in Atlanta posted viewers comments about Hussein’s execution on its web site. Atlantan Janet Wesselhoft was confident that Saddam Hussein is "the one who started terrorism in this country, he needs to be put to rest."
Even the London Times is in the grip of Israeli propaganda. In its report of Israel’s plan to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, the Times says that Iranian president "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared that ‘Israel must be wiped off the map.’" It has been shown by a number of credible experts that this quote is a made-up concoction taken completely out of context. Ahmadinejad said no such thing.
In a world ruled by propaganda, lies become truths. The power of the Israel Lobby is so great that it has turned former President Jimmy Carter, probably the most decent man ever to occupy the Oval Office and certainly the president who did the most in behalf of peace in the Middle East, into an anti-semite, an enemy of Israel. The American media, from its "conservative" end to its "liberal" end did its best to turn Carter into a pariah for telling a few truths about Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
If truth be known, there is nothing to stop the Israeli/neoconservative cabal from widening the war in the Middle East.
As I previously reported, the neoconservatives believe that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran would force Muslims to realize that they have no recourse but to submit to the Israeli/US will. The use of nuclear weapons is being rationalized as necessary to destroy Iran’s underground facilities, but the real purpose is to terrorize Islam and to bring it to heel.
Until the US finds the courage to acquire a Middle East policy of its own, Americans will continue to reap the evil sowed by the Israel Lobby.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10286
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January 3, 2007
Keane/Kagan Plan Means More Bloodshed
by Paul Craig Roberts
On Jan. 2, the BBC reported a leak from a "senior administration source" that President George W. Bush is going to give a speech, whose "central theme will be sacrifice," announcing an increase in U.S. troops in Iraq for security purposes. Speculation abounds whether the leak is designed to block Bush's insane policy with protests or to soften its controversial edge when announced. The BBC reports that "already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland."
Bush's proposal, if he makes it, is the work of retired army general Jack Keane and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute. AEI is the second most important Israeli lobby in Washington after AIPAC.
Keane and Kagan profess to believe that 30,000 more U.S. troops can bring security to Iraq. Keane and Kagan argue that more U.S. troops would permit the U.S. military to retain control of an area after they had cleared it of insurgents. They ignore that Iraq has progressed from insurgency into civil war. There can be no Iraqi army independent of the sectarian conflict. The military problem for the Americans is no longer a small insurgency drawn from a minority of the population, but sectarian strife involving all of Iraq. Today the only choice for U.S. forces is to ally with one side or the other in the civil war or to depart Iraq.
Knowledgeable people regard the Keane/Kagan plan as a proposal designed to continue for a while longer the blood profits of the U.S. military-industrial complex and to advance Israel's interests by spreading Sunni-Shi'ite conflict throughout the Middle East.
The neoconservatives' original plan was to give Israel hegemony in the Middle East by using the U.S. military to overthrow Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The failure of U.S. forces to subdue Iraq has led to a new neoconservative plan to give Israel supremacy by spreading sectarian conflict among Muslims throughout the region. No Arab state would be stable, and Israel could proceed with its seizure of Palestine.
If Bush adopts the Keane/Kagan "plan," he should be impeached for putting two special interests – the military-industrial complex and Israeli Zionist settlers – ahead of America's interests and the interests of peace in the Middle East. The crimes of the Bush regime already stand at a horrendous level. There is no support for the Keane/Kagan "plan" in the American political establishment, among Middle East experts and the American public, or within the Bush administration itself.
The American electorate, or stolen elections, have put in the presidency an ignorant and moronic person who is guided not by sense and reason but by an enormous ego that can admit no mistake. In the name of a concocted "war on terror," the American public has permitted Bush an endless stream of mistakes. These mistakes are destroying any prospect for peace in the Middle East, committing America to endless and pointless conflict, destroying America's soft power while demonstrating the limits of its military power, creating a domestic police state, and endangering the U.S. dollar. There is no imaginable gain from the Middle Eastern conflict that Bush has initiated that could possibly offset these costs to Americans.
The U.S. electorate attempted to rein in Bush in the November election by giving Democrats control of Congress. But Bush refuses to listen to the electorate as he prepares, instead, to mire America deeper in an illegitimate conflict that does not serve America's interests.
President George W. Bush is destroying America. Will Congress stop him?
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10256
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January 9, 2007
The Surge: Political Cover or Escalation?
by Paul Craig Roberts
The new year began on the hopeful note that Bush’s illegal war in Iraq would soon be ended. The repudiation of Bush and the Republicans in the November congressional election, the Iraq Study Group’s unanimous conclusion that the US needs to remove its troops from the sectarian strife Bush set in motion by invading Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld’s removal as defense secretary and his replacement by Iraqi Study Group member Robert Gates, the thumbs down given by America’s top military commanders to the neoconservatives’ plan to send more US troops to Iraq, and new polls of the US military that reveal that only a minority supports Bush’s Iraq policy, thus giving new meaning to "support the troops," are all indications that Americans have shed the stupor that has given carte blanche to George W. Bush.
When word leaked that Bush was inclined toward the "surge option" of committing more troops by keeping existing troops deployed in Iraq after their replacements had arrived, NBC News reported that an administration official "admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one." It is a clear sign of exasperation with Bush when an administration official admits that Bush is willing to sacrifice American troops and Iraqi civilians in order to protect his own delusions.
The American establishment, concerned by Bush’s egregious mismanagement, moved to take control of Iraq policy away from him. However, recent news reports and analysis suggest that Bush has turned his back to the American establishment and his military advisers and is throwing in his lot with the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. This will further isolate Bush and make him more vulnerable to impeachment.
In the January 5 issue of CounterPunch John Walsh gives a good description of the struggle between the American establishment and the neocons.
Peter Spiegel, the Pentagon correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reported on January 4 that the neocons have used the failure of the administration’s policy in Iraq to convince Bush to launch an aggressive counterinsurgency requiring the buildup of troop levels by extending deployments beyond the agreed terms.
Raed Jarrar suggests that the Shi’ite militias, such as the one led by Sadr, are the intended targets of the "surge option." There seems no surer way to escalate the conflict in Iraq than to attack the Shi’ite militias. For longer than the US fought Germany in WWII, 150,000 US troops in Iraq have been thwarted by a small insurgency drawn from Iraq’s minority population of Sunnis. It hardly seems feasible that 30,000 additional US troops, demoralized by extended deployment, can succeed in a surge against the Shi’ite militias when 150,000 US troops cannot succeed against the minority Sunnis.
The reason the US has not been driven out of Iraq is that the majority Shi’ites have not been part of the insurgency. The Shi’ites are attacking the Sunnis, who are forced to fight a two-front war against US troops and Shi’ite militias and death squads.The US owes its presence in Iraq, just as the colonial powers always owed their presence in the Middle East, to the disunity of Arabs. Western domination of the Muslim world succeeded by not picking a fight with all of the disunited Arabs at the same time.
Attacking the Shi’ite militias while fighting a Sunni insurgency would violate this rule. If Bush ignores US military commanders and expert opinion and accepts the surge option advanced by the delusional neocon allies of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, US troops will be engulfed in general insurgency. This is why General John Abizaid resigned on January 5. He wants no part of the Republican Party’s sacrifice of US soldiers to sectarian conflict.
In recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, Republican Senator John McCain, who believes in the efficacy of violence and not in diplomacy, pressed General Abizaid to request more US troops to be sent to Iraq. General Abizaid replied as follows:
"Senator McCain, I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the core commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no."
Bush is like Hitler. He blames defeats on his military commanders, not on his own insane policy. Like Hitler, he protects himself from reality with delusion. In his last hours, Hitler was ordering non-existent German armies to drive the Russians from Berlin.
By manipulating Bush and provoking a military crisis in which the US stands to lose its army in Iraq, the neoconservatives hope to revive the implementation of their plan for US conquest of the Middle East. They believe they can use fear, "honor," and the aversion of macho Americans to ignoble defeat to expand the conflict in response to military disaster. The neocons believe that the loss of an American army would be met with the electorate’s demand for revenge. The barriers to the draft would fall, as would the barriers to the use of nuclear weapons.
Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz set out the plan for Middle East conquest several years ago in Commentary magazine. It is a plan for Muslim genocide. In place of physical extermination of Muslims, Podhoretz advocates their cultural destruction by deracination. Islam is to be torn out by the roots and reduced to a purely formal shell devoid of any real beliefs.
Podhoretz disguises the neoconservative attack against diversity with contrived arguments, but its real purpose is to use the US military to subdue Arabs and to create space for Israel to expand.
Not enough Americans are aware that this is what the "war on terror" is all about.
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10284
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January 15, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative
[b]
Osirak Redux?
An Israeli strike on Iran would pin the U.S. down in Iraq and resuscitate the neocons.[/b | |  | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
