Category Archives: War on Iran

CIA, Espionage, Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Iranian Nuclear issue, American Nuclear Issue, Conventional Strategic Issue…..

    

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“Intercepted communications of Iranian officials discussing their nuclear program raised concerns that the country’s leaders had decided to revive efforts to develop a weapon, intelligence officials said. That, along with a stream of other information, set off an intensive review and delayed publication of the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified report reflecting the consensus of analysts from 16 agencies. But in the end, they deemed the intercepts and other evidence unpersuasive, and they stuck to their longstanding conclusion……… As a result, officials caution that they cannot offer certainty. “I’d say that I have about 75 percent confidence in the assessment that they haven’t restarted the program,”…………….”

““There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe there was no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. The latest assessments by U.S. spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program …….….”


Which deserves a resounding: WTF?
This seems to confirm my long-held suspicions: the noise about Iran has little to do with a nuclear program. It has a lot to do with broader Middle East balance of power. It has to do with pressure from the Israeli/American right-wing (and perhaps the Saudi princes). It is part of a struggle for influence in the Middle East.
The Israelis want Iranian influence in Lebanon and Syria reduced, but without the risk of an Islamist Salafi resurgence (in Syria) that would actively reopen the Golan file. Syria is a focus target, with the potential of a complete break with Iran and an alliance with the Saudis and their  right-wing March 14 proxies in Lebanon. Lebanon can be partly affected, but it would be unrealistic for it to have a complete break with Iran and join the Saudi camp (the demographics are against it).

The Saudi princes want to consolidate their hegemony over the Gulf GCC states and to dominate the Arabs of the eastern Mediterranean. A tough, nay impossible, job. In the process, they want Iranian infrastructure and military power destroyed by the Americans and Israelis. That would open the door for their money to move into the vacuum in Syria and perhaps regain influence in Lebanon. The Saudi princes want to play the same role they tried in the 1980s, when they armed and financed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and urged the West to do the same. We all know what Saddam did in 1990 right after the West pulled his nuts out of the fire.

Everybody in America is making ‘appropriate’ noises about the “nuclear” issue; even Obama is being pushed to it by both his right-wing opponents and by Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Especially so with the Republican candidates vying to outdo each other in Likud-orchestrated crazy rhetoric, rhetoric that seems to embarrass some past and current Israeli officials (not Netanyahu and Lieberman).
Cheers
mhg


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AIPAC, Iran, Pakistan, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Iran and Pakistan and the Vanished Arabists of America………..

    

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“Pakistani officials confirmed Wednesday that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had withdrawn from plans to head a consortium that would finance the $1.6-billion Pakistani portion of the cross-border pipeline, apparently over concern that the bank could be excluded from the U.S. economy.
The move suggests that even Chinese companies, which have staunchly resisted U.S. and European efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear program, are beginning to bend to the sanctions on Tehran. China’s unwillingness to fully cooperate had been one of the greatest challenges to the international effort to put economic pressure on Iran. China’s decision is a setback for the Pakistani government, which fears that dire energy shortages could lead to civil unrest as well as economic strain. Pakistani officials said they would press ahead with the project, which would deliver more than 750 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from Iran’s South Pars field. They said they would find replacement financing.………….”

The United States administration has been trying to derail this gas pipeline project for some time now. Pressure on the Pakistanis and offers of a more expensive pipeline did not work, and the Chinese for a while seemed impervious to pressure as well. Blocking this pipeline will harm Pakistan much more than Iran, especially beyond the short term. That country is facing a deepening energy crisis and the vast Iranian gas fields are the closest and most efficient source for it. Iran has the largest reserves of natural gas in the world outside Russia, and it has no shortage of clients, especially beyond the short term.
The Obama administration’s State Department is now firmly under the control of the Likud-niks; which means that administration foreign policy itself is under Likudnik control. The old Arabists are long gone from the corridors of power, replaced by Likud-niks. The term “Arabist” itself is now probably a suspect nearly derogatory term at Foggy Bottom and in Washington; in the U.S. Congress “Arabists” can get stoned these days.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Middle East Nuclear, United Nations International Organizations, War on Iran

Building the Case for War: One More Questionable Brick………….

 

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“A U.S. non-proliferation expert said on Tuesday he has identified a building at the Parchin military site in Iran suspected of containing, currently or previously, a high-explosive test chamber the U.N. nuclear watchdog wants to visit. David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, said he studied commercial satellite imagery and found a building located on a relatively small and isolated compound at Parchin that fit a description in the November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report. The building has its own perimeter security wall or fencing and there is a berm between the building and a neighboring building, Albright said in a report. The compound is located more than four kilometers away from high-explosive related facilities at Parchin which the IAEA visited in 2005, Albright’s report said………..”
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Gulf states, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Persian Gulf, War on Iran

Nuclear Persian Gulf: Abu Dhabi Mon amour, Bushehr Mon Amour, Fukushima Mon Amour ………..

 

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“The capital is the “gold standard” on which other countries should model their quest for nuclear power, an international nuclear energy industry expert said this week. The oil-rich UAE has been forward-looking in its pursuit of nuclear power and has employed a “logical, well thought-out approach” to building the country’s first four nuclear reactors, said Dr Dale Klein, the former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the associate director of The Energy Institute at the University of Texas. Central to any new nuclear power programme is transparency, a technique that Dr Klein said the UAE has used to build both international and local trust. “The United Arab Emirates has been very good at explaining to the public what nuclear means, why it’s important for the country, and what steps it’s taking,” Dr Klein said. “It’s very important that people understand how nuclear power plants work and why they’re being built.” Dr Klein’s comments came on Tuesday as part of a lecture delivered at the majlis of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.……….”


Cute of Mr. Klein to say that “as part of a lecture delivered at the majlis of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.” Neighborly, mighty nuclear neighborly. Yet there are no nuclear reactors in the UAE, not yet.
Besides, didn’t the Gulf GCC ministers raise a concern (well, they raised a stink) about the dangers posed by Iran’s Bushehr plant right on the Persian-American Gulf? That was during one of their powwows just a few months ago, I believe. That was just before they decided that nuclear plants are kosher again, provided they are designed, built, managed, operated, and wtf else by foreign “experts” of the Western faith for our very own potentates.
Sorry about the new name of the Gulf, it should be amended to Persian-American-Nuclear Gulf. The United Nations should revisit its old resolution of some forty years ago asserting “Persian Gulf” as the official name. It should now issue a new resolution renaming the Gulf with this new name. It has a nice ring to it, très moderne, Persian-American-Nuclear Gulf
Cheers
mhg


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Middle East Focus-Arabia Deserta

AIPAC, Iran, Israel, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Brainwashing America: the Eternal Bogeyman under the Bed, of AIPAC and 9/11………..

 

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“The United States has been down this squalid road before, in regard to Iraq, and it doesn’t end well for America. Obama was made to trek to AIPAC (which should have to register as the agent of a foreign state) because it is a very effective lobby and raises money for political campaigns, as well as raising money to punish politicians that do not toe its line on knee jerk support of Israeli policy. We saw this with Iraq, and now it is the same with Iran. A weak, ramshackle, ineffectual bogeyman is set up, like Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Americans are kept talking about the “threat” emanating from that country. It isn’t a real threat. It is manufactured by the Israeli intelligence agencies and promoted by their cells in the US. With regard to Iraq, we were told that it had among the more powerful armies in the world, that it possessed frightening weapons of mass destruction, that it was a threat to Europe and the United States. None of these things was true………….”

The Communist bogeyman may have been real, but he wasn’t under every American bed, certainly not under Joe McCarthy’s bed, nor under J. Edgar Hoover’s allegedly mysterious bed.
The Ba’athist Iraqi bogeyman was an ally of the Reagan administration and a bosom buddy of his eventual victims on the Persian-American Gulf. He wouldn’t have survived the war with Iran without GCC money and Western weapons, including the WMD which he used liberally against the Iraqi Kurds and the Iranians. Saddam turned from Western ally into Western bogeyman as soon as his war with Iran was over, as soon as his usefulness expired late in 1988. With the amiable Mr. Gorbachev in the Kremlin, it was time for Saddam to resume his natural role of the favorite bogeyman.
In recent decades America has always ‘needed’ a foreign bogeyman during elections cycles. The problem is that election cycles never end these days. The next American election cycle starts as soon as those elected are sworn in. This election cycle we are seeing now started in January 2009 and continued right through 2010. It will probably pause briefly between next November and January. So there is a perpetual need for a permanent supply of national bogeymen.
It is the turn of the Iranians again, highly and insistently recommended by the unregistered Israeli government lobbyists of AIPAC. They get some help from the neighborhood; the medieval tribal Saudi despots have made a tacit common cause with the Israelis and their allies.
Yesterday on CNN Rep. Peter King of New York (Gauleiter of hearings on local Islamic terrorism last year) kept mentioning that Obama should coordinate with and or talk to the Israelis and the Saudis. Now when was the last time you heard a New York congressman mention the Saudi princes both favorably and in the same breath as Israel?
Now, back to September 11: I wonder when will they finally tie the Iranians to that terrorist act. Miracles do happen when people go stupid: they tied Saddam to it in the minds of millions, didn’t they? Like I said, miracles do happen when people……..
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Cocky Mr. Netanyahu Goes to Washington, Blackmails Mr. Obama…………

 

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“Two years ago, Barack Obama reportedly left Benjamin Netanyahu to kick his heels in a White House anteroom, a snub delivered to show the president’s irritation over Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank. In May, the Israeli prime minister struck back, publicly scolding his purse-lipped host for the borders he proposed of a future Palestinian state. When the two men meet in Washington on Monday, Mr Obama will find his guest once more at his most combative. But this time, perhaps as never before, it is the Israeli who has the upper hand. Exuding confidence, Mr Netanyahu effectively brings with him an ultimatum, demanding that unless the president makes a firm pledge to use US military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb, Israel may well take matters into its own hands within months. The threat is not an idle one. According to sources close to the Israeli security establishment, military planners have concluded that never before has the timing for a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities been so auspicious………….”

“Obama has been too harsh with Netanyahu…. He has hurt Netanyahu’s feelings…… Obama has done to Netanyahu what……….. “ Rep. Peter King (GOP Gauleiter -New York)

“Obama has disrespected Netanyahu………“ Mitt Romney, on the verge of tears.

It says: “Never before has the timing for a unilateral military strike been so auspicious.”
I say: “Auspicious my eye.”
The Likud and its right-wing surrogates are worried that Obama will get re-elected next November and that he will rightly forget the nonsense about a “military option”. They know now is their best chance to get him entangled in a war against Iran, a war that probably has little to do with nuclear weapons but has much to do with two things: (1) eliminating the only regional power that can compete with Israel. Most Arabs also see it as an attempt to deal with the last Middle East country that is not toeing the Western line; (2) Pushing the Palestinian issue way back the list of priorities, as has happened, while expanding illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu’s hand is now strong because of the election cycle in the United States. The Republican Party has effectively become a local branch of the worst elements of the Likud coalition and it is keeping Obama in line. 

Watch the body language today when they appear together on television, and see who is in “control”.

Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Iran, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Iranian Elections, Ahmadinejad’s Loss, Western Blockade…….

 

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“Pro-reform political activist Elahe Rastgou told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday that former president Mohammad Khatami voted in the March 2 parliamentary election to tell the foreign-based opposition that the pro-reform camp will continue its political activities within the framework of the Islamic system. Rastgou said, “With participation in the election, we wanted to prove to everyone that the reformist current is still alive and is doing political activities within the framework of the system of the Islamic Republic.”………..” Mehr News (Iran)

Many reformers in Iran were disappointed that former reformist president Khatami voted in these elections. The opposition, the true reformists in Iran, had been squeezed and demoralized since 2009. Many of their candidates, had they decided to try running, would probably have been disqualified by the regime. Their supporters saw no reason to vote, nobody acceptable, from their point of view, to vote for. This showed in the turnout in the large cities, especially Tehran, where early voter turnout was reportedly about 52%.

It was a battle between the partisans of the president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They have different visions of the future of Iran, although both seem uncompromising vis-a-vis the West on the nuclear issue, as is the real opposition inside Iran. The more conservative party, the Khamenei side, seems to have one against the less conservative party, the Ahmadinejad side. Even the president’s sister lost her election bid. Ahmadinejad will most likely be replaced by someone more conservative after his term expires in 2013. But it is not a foregone conclusion: Iranian politics, even now, are quite complex. In the elections of 2005 the favorite candidate of the clergy lost to Ahmadinejad. In 2009 Ahmadinejad was widely reported to be the favorite candidate of Khamenei, yet within months there was a power struggle between the two sides.
The tighter Western blockade are as likely to weaken the opposition further as they are to weaken the regime. But the blockade will be tightened because the Obama administration is squeezed between the Israeli regime and their American extreme right wing lobbyists. Between them, they’ve got the Obama administration in a tight vise by the cojones.
Cheers
mhg


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Terrorism, War on Iran

Another Iranian Terrorist Plot in Canada, Will UNSC Act?…………

 

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“At least three people were killed Sunday when a passenger train derailed near Toronto, Canadian officials said. All three people were employees of Via Rail Canada, Michelle Lamarche, a spokeswoman for the railway, said, calling it a “very sad day for Via.” At least 45 passengers were injured, three severely, according to John Marginson, chief operating officer of Via………….”

The UN Security Council will no doubt eagerly meet on this, if the Canadian government requests it. Or if requested by Saudi Arabia the United States. At least three Canadians killed is a serious matter, especially if the there are Westerners of the ‘white’ species. The Security Council also met quickly last week and condemned the attacks on Israelis in India and Thailand, attacks that did not kill anyone. The Security Council somehow forgot to vote to condemn the attacks on Iranian academics who are being killed by bombs on the streets of Tehran. Must have been just a lapse on the part of Ban-Ki Moon, especially now that I understand he is not running for another term.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Iran, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

From Baghdad to Tehran: Deception, Fear-Mongering, Murky Waters……

 

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“Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies. ……..At the center of the debate is the murky question of the ultimate ambitions of the leaders in Tehran………..”

It is possible that the Iranians don’t like Western “experts” poking around in their facilities: after all, when was the last time the French or British allowed some Iranian inspectors to poke around in their facilities?
So there is no evidence, no smoking gun, that the mullahs are building a bomb. No Dick Cheney to swear that Saddam had a beer with Bin Laden as they plotted 9/11. Only a judge (George Daniels) in New York or was it DC who seems to believe that Ali Khamenei plotted 9/11 with Bin Laden over a pitcher of Mojito (Islamic no-mojo style). But it all helps in the West Bank, as the settlements keep expanding and the prospect of two states dims into a distant future.
Odd how Western officials and media, especially in the USA, assaulted the IAEA under Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei when they cast doubts about Bush and Cheney and WMD in Iraq, yet they hang onto every word of it about Iran. So what has changed other than the new man doing their bidding?
Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, Saudi Arabia, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Khamenei on Nuclear Sinning in Iran and other Places……….

 

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“As U.S. and Israeli officials talk publicly about the prospect of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, one fact is often overlooked: U.S. intelligence agencies don’t believe Iran is actively trying to build an atomic bomb. A highly classified U.S. intelligence assessment circulated to policymakers early last year largely affirms that view, originally made in 2007. Both reports, known as national intelligence estimates, conclude that Tehran halted efforts to develop and build a nuclear warhead in 2003. The most recent report, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, indicates that Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build a weapon, but that it has not sought to do so………. An IAEA report in November cited “serious concerns” about “possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” but did not reach hard conclusions. Another IAEA report is imminent. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted Wednesday that Tehran had no intention of producing nuclear weapons. In remarks broadcast on state television, he said that “owning a nuclear weapon is a big sin.”……….”

Ayatollah Khamenei just called nuclear countries sinners. Which confirms what I have been writing here, and what others have written: that they may acquire the technology but they will not actually produce a nuclear bomb. The mullahs don’t like sinning, I think. That is not to say there are no sections of the diverse Iranian regime that would like to sin, to develop nuclear weapons. In the end it is Ali Khamenei who is supposed to have the final say, provided that he knows exactly what is going on. I mean he can be calling nuclear weapons a sin, but some branch of his government may be tempted to try a bit of sinning (the flesh is weak after all). All this is contrary to all the whining by Israeli officials and Saudi princes, egging the United States toward another futile war in our region.
(The Israelis don’t really want a war, they just want to divert attention away from the West bank and their expanding settlements. The Saudi princes and their Salafi proxies, on the other hand, would love a war fought by Americans, or any other ‘heathens’, on their behalf).
Cheers
mhg


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