| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:32 am Post subject: |
| Ron Paul Speaks Out Against War With Iran:
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog/?p=87
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7354M1QmGYQ&fmt=18
Ron Paul Floor Speech on Iran & Foreign Policy
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog/?p=83
House Resolution Calls for Naval Blockade against Iran
America’s powerful pro-Israel lobby pressures the US Congress
by Andrew W Cheetham
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9377
Re: AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran for Israel
See Video:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-aipac-is-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/22br9u
Israeli Threat Spikes Our Oil Prices, We Pay More For This (click on the pic at the following URL to access the youtube video):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/israeli-threat-spikes-our-oil-prices-we.html
Here is a tiny URL of the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/5drqxl
Scott McClellan Questioned about Neocon Push for Iraq War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LktFfHciyqg&feature=PlayList&p=9B042828F94D1917&index=0&playnext=1
Here is a tiny URL for the above:
http://tinyurl.com/6qpcnx
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/scott-mcclellan-questioned-about-neocon.html
Here is the tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/6gzo4o
Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/06/22/stop-the-iran-war-resolution.php
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Asian stocks fall on fears over oil, US (Ron Paul's message validated yet again):
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, AP Business Writer1 hour, 10 minutes ago
Asian stock markets tumbled Friday after Wall Street plunged overnight and crude oil spiked above $140 a barrel for the first time, reigniting fears of a global economic slowdown.
Key stock indices in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea all shed more than 2 percent. Shanghai's benchmark plunged nearly 4.5 percent and India's was down 4.3 percent in early trade.
The losses came after U.S. stocks sank Thursday, with the Dow Jones industrial average declining more than 3 percent to its lowest level in almost two years.
Investors reacted nervously to a wave of dismal news about several sectors of the American economy, a vital export market for Asia. Analysts downgraded General Motors Corp., Citigroup and Merrill Lynch & Co., while disappointing forecast from Oracle Corp. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. forecasts rattled investors about the tech industry.
Worries about inflation grew after crude oil futures jumped above $140 Thursday after OPEC's president said prices could go past $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production.
"We've still got bad news on the credit crunch, we've got bad news about consumers," said Garry Evans, pan-Asian equity strategist with HSBC in Hong Kong. "The macro environment is not a good one and people are very risk averse."
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 2.2 percent to 13,515.12 midday Friday, on its way to what would be a seventh straight session of falls. The damage was wide spread across all sectors, with financials hit especially hard. Megabank Mitsubishi UFJ was down 3.1 percent.
The decline in Tokyo also came after a bevy of indicators showed that soaring oil and commodity prices were fanning inflation and causing consumers to hold back from spending.
India's Sensex was down 4.3 percent at 13,807 as investors worried about inflation that has risen to 13-year highs and that recent interest rate hikes would temper consumer spending.
"Sentiment is bearish. There are fears that crude will touch $180, this is a worry that cannot be stamped out easily," said Gul Tekchandani, a Mumbai-based investment adviser. "Few can stomach this volatility, plus there are weak global cues with the U.S. economy also down."
In Hong Kong, crude's new record took a toll even though oil eased somewhat to below $139 in Friday trade in Asia. The blue-chip Hang Seng Index was down 1.8 percent to 22,054.84.
Refiner China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, lost 4.2 percent, and airline Cathay Pacific was down 3.3 percent.
____
Associated Press writer Ramola Badam Talwar in Mumbai contributed to this report.
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Oil climbs to record above $141 in Asia
By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 9 minutes ago
Oil prices climbed to a record above $141 a barrel in Asian trading Friday as the dollar's protracted slump prompted investors to flock to oil as a hedge against inflation.
Prices were also lifted Thursday after OPEC's president said crude prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose as high as $141.71 a barrel before pulling back to $141.10, up $1.46 in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midafternoon in Singapore. The contract Thursday rose $5.09 to settle at a record $139.64.
The previous trading record for a front-month contract was $139.89, set on June 16.
On Thursday, the dollar slipped against key currencies as U.S. data showed sluggish economic growth and pointed to a struggling labor market. Oil is priced in dollars, and some investors buy oil contracts to protect the value of their assets against accelerating inflation when the dollar falls.
"The dollar movements caused the surge in oil pricing and the bullish trend remains intact," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "The oil market is subject to further spikes in the coming weeks."
On Friday, the dollar slipped to 106.42 yen from 106.91 yen Thursday; the euro was trading at $1.5738, down from $1.5751.
Crude futures were also driven higher after Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer. Khelil also said prices will decline later in the year, and aren't likely to reach $200 a barrel.
Khelil joined a long list of forecasters who have made bold oil price predictions this year. Each new forecast — such as Goldman Sachs' recent prediction that prices could rise as high as $200 — causes a jump in prices as speculative buyers are drawn into the market.
Meanwhile, the head of Libya's national oil company said the country may cut crude production because the oil market is well supplied, according to news reports.
Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut, said in a research note that Shokri Ghanem, the nation's top oil official, has declined to say when a decision would be made on whether to lower production, or give any indication of the size of the cut under consideration.
But analysts expressed skepticism over the comments out of Libya, saying the current level of oil prices provides an incentive for producers not to cut output.
"I doubt that any real effort in cutting output would be forthcoming, considering that pricing continues to hit new records," Shum said. "There's no economic reason to cut output at this time so it's just talk."
Oil prices have more than doubled over the past year on concerns about rising demand in fast-growing economies such as China and India, and supply disruptions in the Middle East and Nigeria.
Analysts have also attributed oil's rapid climb to speculative buying, with traders jumping into the market purely on the expectation that futures will continue to rise.
"Even though we have continued to see weakening demand in the U.S., other markets in the developing world still show growth," Shum said. "The tight market has empowered speculators to invest in oil and the oil market is subject to further spikes in the coming weeks."
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures rose 0.71 cent to $3.8905 a gallon while gasoline prices lost 0.68 cent to $3.5045 a gallon. Natural gas futures declined 1.7 cents to $13.231 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Brent crude futures rose 17 cents to $140 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject: |
| Just saw the following comment post by David Robertson (of Inverness, Scotland) at the following URL about Ron Paul's speech in the House of Representatives yesterday:
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog/?p=83#comments
NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Dear David,
Just saw the following post by you as such has been my same exact concern as well. See the following URLs when you can:
http://NOMOREWARFORISRAEL.BLOGSPOT.COM
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
David Robertson, Inverness, Scotland Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 5:45 am
The United States has about 10,000 nuclear warheads while Israel has an estimated 300. I have also read that Israel has the targeting codes for America’s nuclear arsenal which they acquired through espionage. In other words these allies, or any one of them acting alone, could “obliterate” Iran as Hillary Clinton promised she would do if Iran attacked Israel. She didn’t say what she would consider to be an “attack”. To me the much more profound threat to peace is Israel who continues to beat the war drums, to plan to bomb Iran and is promoting this current resolution to blockade Iran. Americans are being manipulated to act against their own best interests. Their blood and treasure has been used and is being used to build a world empire for an alien power. I have tried to post warnings in different ways on many blogs but have the definite impression that my words are falling on deaf ears. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 1:58 pm Post subject: |
| Iran says Gulf oil route at risk if attacked (Reuters)
By Zahra Hosseinian 2 hours, 35 minutes ago
The Revolutionary Guards said Iran would impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
Fear of an escalation in the standoff between the West and Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, have been one factor propping up sky-high oil prices. Crude hit a record level on international markets near $143 a barrel on Friday.
Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its disputed nuclear ambitions has risen since a report this month said Israel had practiced such a strike, prompting increasingly tough talk of retaliation, if pushed, from Tehran.
"Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy," Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari told Jam-e Jam newspaper in some of the toughest language Iran has used so far.
Analysts say Iran may not match the firepower of U.S. forces but could still cause havoc in the region using unconventional tactics, such as deploying small craft to attack ships, or using allies in the area to strike at U.S. or Israeli interests.
"Regarding the main route for exiting energy, Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz," Jafari said of the Gulf waterway through which about two-fifths of all globally traded oil passes.
Iranian officials have in the past sent mixed signals about whether Iran would use oil as a weapon. But such threats, when made, have sent jitters through the crude market for fear of disrupting supplies from big OPEC producers in the Gulf.
The Islamic Republic insists its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity. But the West and Israel fear Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs. Israel is believed to be the only Middle East state with nuclear arms.
Washington has said it wants diplomacy to end the nuclear row but has not ruled out military action should that fail.
'RIGHT TO RESPOND'
"If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region, definitely the scope (of the confrontation) will reach the oil issue," Jafari said.
The Revolutionary Guards are the ideologically driven wing of Iran's military with air, sea and land capabilities, and a separate command structure to regular units.
"After this action (of Iran imposing controls on the Gulf waterway), the oil price will rise very considerably and this is among the factors deterring the enemies," Jafari said.
He said any military action might "be able to delay Iran's nuclear activities but this delay will certainly be very short."
Jafari warned neighbors not to let their territory be used.
"If the attack takes place from the soil of another country ... the country attacked has the right to respond to the enemy's military action from where the operation started," he said.
Kuwait, the launchpad for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and Iraq itself, where U.S. troops are now stationed, have both said they would not let their land be used for a strike on Iran. The U.S. military has bases in other Gulf states and Afghanistan.
Jafari said U.S. forces were "more vulnerable than Israelis" because of their troops in the area. Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has in the past said Iran would target U.S. interests if attacked.
"Iran can in different ways harm American interests even far away," the Guards commander said.
Jafari suggested Iran's allies in the region, who include Lebanon's Shi'ite militia Hezbollah, could also retaliate. He referred to Iran's ties with those living in Lebanon's Shi'ite heartland of south Lebanon but did not refer to any group.
"Israelis know if they take military action against Iran ... the abilities of the Islamic and Shi'ite world, especially in the region, will deliver fatal blows," Jafari said, adding that Israel was in range of Iranian missiles.
He also hinted that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that receives Iranian funding and which has sent suicide bombers into Israel, might act. But, again, he did not name the group.
(Additional reporting by Hashem Kalantari, Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Charles Dick) | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:12 am Post subject: |
| U.S. escalating covert operations against Iran - report (Reuters) 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush's funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.
The article by reporter Seymour Hersh, from the magazine's July 7 and 14 issue, centers around a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which by U.S. law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.
"The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money."
Hersh has written previously about possible administration plans to go to war to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including an April 2006 article in the New Yorker that suggested regime change in Iran, whether by diplomatic or military means, was Bush's ultimate goal.
Funding for the covert escalation, for which Bush requested up to $400 million, was approved by congressional leaders, according to the article, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. U.S. Special Operations Forces have been conducting crossborder operations from southern Iraq since last year, the article said.
These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in Bush's war on terrorism, who may be captured or killed, according to the article.
But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which include the Central Intelligence Agency, have now been significantly expanded, the article said, citing current and former officials.
Many of these activities are not specified in the new finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature, it said.
Among groups inside Iran benefiting from U.S. support is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People's Resistance Movement, according to former CIA officer Robert Baer. Council on Foreign Relations analyst Vali Nasr described it to Hersh as a vicious organization suspected of links to al Qaeda.
The article said U.S. support for the dissident groups could prompt a violent crackdown by Iran, which could give the Bush administration a reason to intervene.
None of the Democratic leaders in Congress would comment on the finding, the article said. The White House, which has repeatedly denied preparing for military action against Iran, and the CIA also declined comment.
The United States is leading international efforts to rein in Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, although Washington concedes Iran has the right to develop nuclear power for civilian uses.
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June 28, 2008
America Is the Rogue Nation
by Charley Reese
One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran's nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete.
It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, "You naughty boys, you."
Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.
Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about 70 million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other words, its missiles and guns look down on the U.S. ships below it. And it has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around 2,200 kilometers).
More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach 3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than anything in our arsenal.
Iran's conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships and 10 amphibious ships.
It's been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran's forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I've heard is pretty snazzy.
So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote you to idiot.
Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly. Morons and idiots took us into an unjustified war against Iraq before we had finished the job in Afghanistan. Now we have troops tied down in both countries.
For some years now, I've worried that we seem to be more and more like Colonial England – arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity and underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw.
The British never dreamed that the "little yellow people" could come ashore by land and take Singapore from the rear or that they would sink the pride of the British fleet, but they did both.
I suppose no one in Washington can imagine the Iranians sinking one of our carriers in the Persian Gulf. How'd you like to be the president who has to tell the American people that we've lost a carrier for the first time since World War II?
Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don't know, but they will respond. In keeping with our present policy, our attack on Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing acts of aggression around the globe?
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=13061
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
http://NOMOREWARFORISRAEL.BLOGSPOT.COM | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: |
| Israel has a year to stop Iran bomb, warns ex-spy
By Carolynne Wheeler in Tel Aviv and Tim Shipman in Washington Last updated: 10:42 PM BST 28/06/2008
A former head of Mossad has warned that Israel has 12 months in which to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or risk coming under nuclear attack itself. He also hinted that Israel might have to act sooner if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election.
Shabtai Shavit, an influential adviser to the Israeli parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee, told The Sunday Telegraph that time was running out to prevent Iran's leaders getting the bomb.
Mr Shavit, who retired from the Israeli intelligence agency in 1996, warned that he had no doubt Iran intended to use a nuclear weapon once it had the capability, and that Israel must conduct itself accordingly.
"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," he said in an interview.
Mr Shavit, 69, who was deputy director of Mossad when Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, added: "As an intelligence officer working with the worst-case scenario, I can tell you we should be prepared. We should do whatever necessary on the defensive side, on the offensive side, on the public opinion side for the West, in case sanctions don't work. What's left is a military action."
The "worst-case scenario, he said, is that Iran may have a nuclear weapon within "somewhere around a year".
As speculation grew that Israel was contemplating its own air strikes, Iran's military said it might hit the Jewish state with missiles and stop Gulf oil exports if it came under attack. Israel "is completely within the range of the Islamic republic's missiles," said Mohammed Ali Jafari, head of the feared Revolutionary Guard. "Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime cannot confront it."
More than 40 per cent of all globally traded oil passes through the 35-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, putting tankers entering or leaving the Gulf at risk from Iranian mines, rockets and artillery, and Mr Jafari's comments were the clearest signal yet that Iran intends to use this leverage in the nuclear dispute.
Despite offering incentives, the West has failed to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium. Israeli officials believe the diplomatic process is useless and have been pressing President Bush to launch air strikes before he leaves office on January 20 next year.
They apparently fear that the chances of winning American approval for an air attack will be drastically reduced if the Democratic nominee wins the election. Mr Obama advocates talks with the regime in Tehran rather than military action.
That view was echoed by Mr Shavit, who said: "If [Republican candidate John] McCain gets elected, he could really easily make a decision to go for it. If it's Obama: no. My prediction is that he won't go for it, at least not in his first term in the White House."
He warned that while it would be preferable to have American support and participation in a strike on Iran, Israel will not be afraid to go it alone.
"When it comes to decisions that have to do with our national security and our own survival, at best we may update the Americans that we are intending or planning or going to do something. It's not a precondition, [getting] an American agreement," he said.
Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/2212934/Israel-has-a-year-to-stop-Iran-bomb%2C-warns-ex-spy.html | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:47 am Post subject: |
| http://countercurrents.org/glunts290608.htm
Iran In The Crosshairs: As Fears Of An Air Strike Increase, Little Opposition Is Heard
By Ira Glunts
29 June, 2008
Countercurrents.org
When the United States invaded Iraq in order to destroy a nonexistent nuclear threat there were national and world protests. Opposition to that war was loudly voiced by American politicians and world leaders, as well as in mass demonstrations across the globe. Despite the protests, the war proceeded as planned. Today it seems that it is generally agreed that the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation were catastrophic mistakes.
Now the same people that gave us Iraq and remain just about the only supporters of their own failed policy there, are signaling that it is necessary to destroy the Iranian nuclear threat. And again, one problem is that this threat may not exist. This time, however, the opponents of the threatened attack are surprisingly few, even as the signs of a coming air assault on Iran continue to increase. This lack of articulated opposition to military action against Iran, especially by members of the Democratic party and their supporters, increase the chances that the Bush/Cheney administration will widen the war in the Middle East either directly or by using Israel as a proxy.
"Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex," according to David Martin of CBS News. Martin quotes Michael Oren, a CBS analyst, who is an American-born Israeli and well-connected to his government's reliable sources, as stating, "[t]he Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize [sic]." While Israel pressures the Americans via diplomatic and military channels, the U.S. Congress will shortly give its overwhelming support to two identical non-binding resolutions which will demand that President Bush impose a military blockade on Iran.
H.Con Res. 362, the House version, and S.Res. 580, the Senate version, demand
…that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program…
These resolutions are a direct result of the efforts of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who shortly after their annual convention in early June, deployed 5000 activists to 500 separate meetings on Capitol Hill, using their vast influence to promote this anti-Iranian legislation among U.S. lawmakers.Both resolutions will have the wide bi-partisan support in both branches of Congress that AIPAC-sponsored bills invariably receive. Even if the idea of the blockade goes nowhere, the resolutions signal that the vast majority in Congress will either support or will not object to military action against Iran.
Rumors and threats of either an imminent U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran have been increasing during the past month. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli Army Radio quoted an unnamed senior member of President Bush's entourage as saying, during the President's visit to Israel, that Bush and Cheney were "of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for." The White House immediately denied the report. President Bush had just given a particularly bellicose speech to the Israeli Knesset where he bluntly pledged that the U.S. would prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Reminiscent of his "Axis of Evil" speech, the President listed Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda as enemies and spoke about a "battle of good and evil."
The Asia Times claimed that Bush plans an air attack in Iran before August. The source is an unnamed former assistant U.S. Secretary of State who is active in the foreign affairs community. The article goes on to say that Senators Diane Feinstein and Richard Lugar have been briefed about the planned attack. Both Senators denied receiving any briefing, but since the information is classified it would be impossible for them to verify the existence of such a plan without violating the law. According to the Asia Times, the target of attack would not be the Iranian nuclear installations but rather the Quds force, which are the elite forces of the Iranian army.
Time magazine in an article titled, "A Clamor for War," treats the possibility of an attack against Iran as worrisome and real. The piece says that many in the Congress think that the administration will "bomb Iran between November and January."Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a 90-minute meeting with President Bush in Washington at the beginning of June. It had been widely reported that Olmert would make the case for an American air attack against Iran. After their talk Prime Minister Olmert proclaimed, "we reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less [sic] question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American resoluteness to deal with the problem.
George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term in the White House."When Michael Gordon reported in the New York Times on June 20, that Israel had a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran which involved 100 fighter planes using NATO airspace off the coast of Greece, neither the U.S. nor Israel denied the report. Prior to that report Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Transportation Minister, who is in the inner defense cabinet, told the Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, that Israel would attack Iran since the sanctions are not working.
One thing is certain. There is a clear possibility of a strike against Iran in the near future. The CBS story claims that Israel is now telling the United States, either you do it or we will. Unfortunately, whoever does it is courting a major disaster. An attack on Iran could provoke a retaliation which could quickly widen into a third American war in the region. Vulnerable targets include Israel, shipping in the Gulf, and American troops in Iraq. The reasons for attacking Iran are clearly less about that country's nuclear threat and more about the neo-con project for American hegemony in the region, as well as what the current Israeli government perceives as its security interests.
It is all too reminiscent of the false reasons given for invading Iraq. Unfortunately, just as before the Iraq war, many American political opposition voices are reluctant to criticize an aggressive Iran initiative for fear of being labeled weak or unpatriotic.It is disappointing that the Democrats who came to power in 2006 by purporting to be antiwar, are proving yet again that just as they have been incapable of stopping the Bush/Cheney debacle in Iraq, they are equally ineffectual in opposing the looming next war, the one with Iran.
Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972, where he taught English and physical education in a small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. He lives in Madison, New York where he writes, works as a college librarian and operates a used and rare book business with his wife.
(Emphasis added - B.M.) | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:49 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/congress-to-bush-and-chen_b_109868.html
Congress to Bush and Cheney: Do What You Want in Iran
Posted June 29, 2008 | 08:56 PM (EST)
Seymour Hersh's "Preparing the Battlefield," in the July 7 New Yorker, will be discussed in the coming weeks by everyone interested in our foreign policy and the future of the American constitution. The complete failure of congressional oversight, to which the article points, is a larger subject that will be with us until the election and beyond. For if the vice president and his neoconservative advisers have their way -- and they remain, in spite of setbacks, the most active, energetic, and ambitious faction within the Bush administration -- the U.S. will be at war with Iran or on the way to war by January 2009. And if that is so, it will matter less than we think who is elected in November. The momentum will be there; the country will be committed.
In late 2007, after winning an election whose central issue was a more prudent and rational policy in the Middle East, congressional Democrats, obedient to the wishes of a Presidential Finding, signed away $400 million for secret operations against Iran. A more craven act of submission would be hard to imagine; and they did this in the glow of victory, in direct contradiction of their mandate. What were they signing for? Sabotage, assassination, covert support for political clients and "destabilization" generally are predictable parts of such a design; but the Democrats, in the months between their capitulation and Hersh's article, made no mention of dissatisfactions at having been cut off from oversight. The truth seems to be that in this area, as in so many others, only the Office of the Vice President oversees the Office of the President.
"The process is broken," one of Seymour Hersh's informants told him, "and this is dangerous stuff we're authorizing." Yet the Democrats in the "Gang of Eight" whom the president consults on classified programs -- Reid, Pelosi, Rockefeller, Reyes -- may prefer to have things broken. What they don't know, can't hurt them at the polls, or so they seem to believe. It is the same passive obedience that led the Democrats to close the debate early for the authorization of the Iraq war in 2002, so they could clear the decks for the election; to banish all use of the words Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, in late 2004, so they could clear the decks for the election; and to confine themselves to flawless platitudes about Iraq in 2008, so they can clear the decks for the election. The desertion of principle is exceeded only by the evasion of responsibility.
Still, what were they risking when they let the administration go ahead in Iran without accountability? The answer was given by Secretary of Defense Gates when he met with a group of Democrats late last year. Gates told the Democrats that if the U.S. made a preemptive strike against Iran, "We'll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America." Now, what Democrat, in 2007 or 2008, has spoken as if he heard that warning from the Secretary of Defense?
To the extent that we have sidestepped a war with Iran, the notable resistance has been mounted so far by persons within the armed forces like Admiral Mullen and Admiral Fallon -- the latter of whom (according Hersh's informant) got along fine with President Bush but crossed Vice President Cheney by wanting to know about the secret operations officially under his command. Had Fallon consulted the Democrats, they might have shown him how to hold onto his job by following their pattern of uninformed consent.
The stifling of free discussion within Congress about the American provocations in Iran, is both a cause and a symptom of the one-sidedness of the treatment of the issue in the mainstream media. It is handled as if Iran's nuclear research were the sole danger in the case; and as if it were a foregone conclusion that in this matter, the fears of some Israelis are bound to be closer to the truth than the National Intelligence Estimate of 2007.
Why has House Concurrent Resolution 362 -- a device promoted by AIPAC that commits its supporters to press for a naval blockade of Iran, which would be an act of war -- received so little public attention and debate? AIPAC has denied that a blockade is intended, but the language of its resolution leaves no doubt; it goes for "imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program." Nothing except a blockade could possibly accomplish the enumerated tasks of interdiction and inspection.
The whole purpose of such a resolution is to herd the Democratic Congress into the Office of the Vice President until the two spaces are indistinguishable. A vote for the resolution amounts to a vow of silence regarding anything the U.S. chooses to do against Iran. The vice president believed that he had war within his grasp when an incident almost erupted in January 2007 between Iranian patrol boats and American ships in the Strait of Hormuz. There were no cheers of relief in the OVP when the navy stayed calm and the fever went down. A few weeks later, Hersh reports, the vice president held a meeting. "The subject," said a former official of the administration, "was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington."
Vice President Cheney learned long ago that he can outplay the Democrats in the game of power, because he is willing to use power. The Democrats, by contrast, don't even want to be responsible for the power that they have. In early 2007, when most voters believed the result of the 2006 election signified a policy of withdrawal from Iraq, nobody was surer than Dick Cheney that a plan to withdraw would never be brought forward. If the Democrats were serious, Cheney said, they would vote against appropriations. He was right. They didn't have the nerve, and they did not mean to withdraw. Instead, they rewarded the administration, whose venality and recklessness were a matter of international embarrassment, with an exorbitant donation of public money to subsidize new acts of violence.
Thanks to Seymour Hersh's reporting, today they are under the glare of public exposure; and, unlike the vice president, they can hardly invoke a new-model interpretation of "inherent powers" or a "theory of the unitary executive" to screen them from public questioning. Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Harry Reid, Sylvestre Reyes, John Murtha, David Obey and all the bewildered and negligent Democrats (to say nothing of the Republicans, who claim nothing for themselves but a perfect dependency on the president) -- all may fairly be asked if they are happy with the Cheney-Bush secret operations in Iran. Are they even interested in knowing what the operations are? They did not care much about oversight, but now we are watching them.
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Professor Bromwich had an excellent article about the Mearsheimer/Walt book (www.israellobbybook.com) which also appeared at Huffingtonpost.com and is linked at the following URL as well:
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