BFF “Chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Hassan Firouzabadi warned on Wednesday that any possible attack on Syria will put an end to the existence of the United States and the Zionist regime.
“If the Westerners break up the resistance front against the occupying Zionist regime, all Muslims will rise up, and in that case there will remain no U.S. and no Zionist regime,” he said.
They are talking about the use of Libya’s model for Syria to frighten and weaken the position of the Syrian government, but in fact they are not capable of implementing such a plan for Syria, he said.
On the developments in the Middle East and North Africa, he said that the Zionist regime is the real loser of the Islamic awaking in the region.…..”
About his threat of “no USA and no Zionist regime“: somehow I don’t buy it.Besides, it is very un-General-like and rude. Even Patton would not use such terms.Patton used worse, but not in public, and he was a realist, not a panderer.
I got news for this strange Iranian general. This Arab ‘awakening’ did not start as an Islamic awakening. Many Islamists went AWOL, stayed home, or sided with the regimes initially. They joined toward the end, and I suspect some of them, nay many of them, especially the Salafis, are on the side of the Arab Counterrevolution led by Saudi Arabia and others. Yet he is right in the sense that Islamists will gain much, perhaps more than the secular young people who started the uprisings.Unfortunately. Cheers
mhg
“Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned. The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government. In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships…………”
Having liked Iraq (2003 and WMD and W and all that) the (new) British regime is doing it again. They are now being more ‘royal’ than the American king. Maybe there have been promises by the petroleum potentates of my Gulf, promises to pay the costs of war, promises to buy more useless weapons. Most oligarchies of the Persian-American Gulf would like nothing better than for the West and Israel to attack the mullahs in Iran. They would like a Saddam II (or is it III), except this will not be a retake of previous wars. There will be no UN resolution authorizing aggression against a member state that has not attacked anyone. The geriatric polygamous al-Saud absolute tribal monarchy would likes nothing better than for the West to destroy Iran (the head of the snake), making them by default the new Western “viceroy” in charge of the region.
Yet a war against Iran will have ominous consequences for some Gulf states. The danger will not be from the Iranians, it will come from the Saudis who have always been expansionist at the expense of the smaller GCC states. They have taken territory from almost all the Gulf states and Yemen. After all, the Iranians are safely on the other side, they must cross the Persian-American Gulf and plow through all the Western navies to reach the Arab side, the GCC states. As the invasion of Bahrain proved, all the Saudis need do is drive their tanks across the border. Only Bahrain can feel safe from Saudi tanks: the tanks are already in Manama. Cheers
mhg
“Israelis are almost evenly split on whether Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, with 41 percent supporting such a strike and 39 percent opposed, a new Haaretz-Dialog poll has found. The remaining 20 percent said they were undecided…………The poll follows a spate of media reports in recent days about efforts by Netanyahu and Barak to muster a majority for such a strike in the forum of eight senior ministers. These reports coincided with several major military tests and drills………”
“Israel conducts a rare ballistic missile test; the Israel Air Force reports a successful exercise in Sardinia, far from home; Iran’s chief of staff says the “likelihood is low” of an Israeli attack, but threatens that his country would respond forcefully. British sources tell The Guardian of preparations for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites coordinated with the United States; Britain’s chief of staff makes a secret visit to Israel……….” Haarez
“A disagreement within the government over whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities has sparked a political catfight between two members of the “octet” forum of eight senior ministers: Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Associates of Ya’alon charge that Barak is behind the recent spate of media reports about the octet’s deliberations on Iran, while Barak’s associates charge that Ya’alon’s judgment is becoming unbalanced…………..” Haaretz
Ain’t that sweet: Israelis are split on whether or not to attack Iran, a country that has never attacked them. Sitting on occupied Palestinian territory in “Judea and Samaria”, annexing territory against international law, and debating whether to attack a country that is a thousand miles (and a few yards) away. One that has never attacked them or anyone else in a few hundred years. Or maybe it is a red herring related to the expanding settlements and UNESCO and diversions. Not only that: the cabinet is openly discussing if and when and how to launch a futile attack on Iran. If the Iranians were to publicly discuss if and when and how to attack Israeli installations, the UN would expel them and the West would attack them, armed with a UN resolution. Meanwhile the West is filling my Gulf with warships carrying more soldiers than there are people in….. Abu Dhabi. Cheers
mhg
“The New York Times newspaper reports the United States is
negotiating with Kuwait to allow American combat troops to be based in
the Persian Gulf area after completing the announced withdrawal from
Iraq by the end of this year. The Times says the United States is also considering sending more warships through international waters in the region. The size of the potential standby force has not been determined.
There was no immediate confirmation of the Times report, which was based on interviews with unnamed military officials and diplomats.
U.S. military plans in the region have been under discussion for months, but the Times said the talks became more urgent when President Barack Obama announced that the last American troops would leave Iraq by the end of December……….“
Several of the GCC states will no doubt be happy to host more U.S. forces. Kuwait especially was traumatized by the Iraqi invasion under the Ba’athist regime and feels more secure with American forces nearby. Yet it is not clear why the huge new buildup in the Persian-American Gulf. It is highly unlikely, with American and other Western fleets congesting the Gulf, that any “foreign” forces will invade. The only candidate, Iran, has never invaded its neighbors in modern times, but was invaded by Iraq (1980) and by the Soviet-British forces during World War II. Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain last March by invitation from its ruling elites.
What many Arabs, outside the pro-Saudi Wahhabi GCC faux-liberals of my Gulf and their Salafi allies, speculate is that the West is preparing a military attack against Iran. The pro-Saudi Wahhabi faux-liberals of my Gulf and their Salafi allies hope fervently that this is true, that the West plans to start yet another war in our region. If the mullahs refuse to come to war, then by golly the West shall bring the war to the mullahs.
Cheers
mhg
“While much of the world’s attention focuses on Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran has made considerable progress on another security front in recent years — steadily increasing the reach and lethality of its naval forces. The goal by 2025, if all goes as the country has planned, is to have a navy that can deploy anywhere within a strategic triangle from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea to the Strait of Malacca. Should such plans materialize — and Iran is making steady progress — Tehran would redraw the strategic calculus of an already volatile region. The Persian Gulf is home to some of the world’s most valuable supply lines, routes that are vital to the global energy supply. In the last few years, Iran has invested heavily in a domestic defense industry that now has the ability to produce large-scale warships, submarines, and missiles. Since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Iran has largely pursued a strategy of deterrence……………”
The title of this piece in Foreign Affairs is an example of true Western smug arrogance: “Iran’s Navy Threatens the Security of the Persian Gulf”. Something is not kosher about this analysis. The Iranian navy in the “Persian” Gulf, in its own backyard, is considered a danger to peace. Foreign Western navies cluttering my Gulf, thousands of miles (or kilometers) from their home territory, are considered normal, elements to stability. Yet all the major wars of our region in the past four decades were either started or instigated by the West and its regional allies. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) was started by Saddam’s invasion of his neighbor, and encouraged by the West and some Arab potentates on the Persian-American Gulf. The Persian Gulf War (1990-91) was started by Saddam of Iraq, armed to the teeth by the West and his Arab allies (his former Arab allies and suppliers whom he turned against). The invasion of Iraq (2003) was engineered by Saddam’s former Western allies and supported by his former Arab allies. If the Iranian navy is a danger to the Persian Gulf, is the U.S. navy a danger to the Gulf of Mexico? Is the French navy a danger to the Mediterranean?
I hate to repeat the mantra of the Iranian theocrats, but this type of “analysis” reeks of Western arrogance, of a smug sense of entitlement to enter others’ backyards and own them. Cheers
mhg
“While much of the world’s attention focuses on Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran has made considerable progress on another security front in recent years — steadily increasing the reach and lethality of its naval forces. The goal by 2025, if all goes as the country has planned, is to have a navy that can deploy anywhere within a strategic triangle from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea to the Strait of Malacca. Should such plans materialize — and Iran is making steady progress — Tehran would redraw the strategic calculus of an already volatile region. The Persian Gulf is home to some of the world’s most valuable supply lines, routes that are vital to the global energy supply. In the last few years, Iran has invested heavily in a domestic defense industry that now has the ability to produce large-scale warships, submarines, and missiles. Since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Iran has largely pursued a strategy of deterrence……………”
The title of this piece in Foreign Affairs is an example of true Western smug arrogance: “Iran’s Navy Threatens the Security of the Persian Gulf”. Something is not kosher about this analysis. The Iranian navy in the “Persian” Gulf, in its own backyard, is considered a danger to peace. Foreign Western navies cluttering my Gulf, thousands of miles (or kilometers) from their home territory, are considered normal, elements to stability. Yet all the major wars of our region in the past four decades were either started or instigated by the West and its regional allies. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) was started by Saddam’s invasion of his neighbor, and encouraged by the West and some Arab potentates on the Persian-American Gulf. The Persian Gulf War (1990-91) was started by Saddam of Iraq, armed to the teeth by the West and his Arab allies (his former Arab allies and suppliers whom he turned against). The invasion of Iraq (2003) was engineered by Saddam’s former Western allies and supported by his former Arab allies.
If the Iranian navy is a danger to the Persian Gulf, is the U.S. navy a danger to the Gulf of Mexico? Is the French navy a danger to the Mediterranean?
I hate to repeat the mantra of the Iranian theocrats, but this type of “analysis” reeks of Western arrogance, of a smug sense of entitlement to enter others’ backyards and own them Cheers
mhg
“Like the United States, they voiced particular alarm at Iran’s decision to move higher-grade uranium enrichment to an underground bunker — heightening their suspicions of its aims. “The absence of a plausible economic or commercial rationale for so many of the nuclear activities now being carried out in Iran, and the growing body of evidence of a military dimension to these activities give grounds for grave concern about Iran’s intentions,” British Ambassador Simon Smith said on behalf of London, Berlin and Paris. Davies said current IAEA monitoring of Iranian nuclear sites might provide some warning should Iran decide to “break out” and use its enriched uranium stockpile to develop nuclear bomb capability, but “that will come too late.”…………..”
Now it is: the plausibility, stupid! So, I had to go back to the earlier case: remember Iraq and Saddam and the smoking gun and the famous mushroom cloud? Here are some memorable quotes from the halcyon days of 2002-2003:
“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” –National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (2002)
“It’s a slam-dunk case!” –CIA Director George Tenet, discussing WMD and the case for war during a meeting in the Oval Office, Dec. 21, 2002
“We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” –Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (2003)
“We know he’s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” –Vice President Dick Cheney(2003)
WEF?—-> “I think the burden is on those people who think he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are.” –White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, July 9, 2003
“British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” –President Bush, 2003
“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly exhorted the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching military strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables….” Reuters (2010)
“The release of the BPC report in late June, and the Post op-ed today, coincide roughly with a revealing and important diatribe from the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al-Otaiba, who said this week that the UAE wouldn’t be unhappy at all if the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear program. “I think it’s a cost-benefit analysis,” said Otaiba, the representative of a notorious kleptocracy in Abu Dhabi…..” The Nation
Yada, yada, yada. Which in itself does not mean that the Iranians are not interested in nuclear weapons. It does mean, however, that Western intelligence can be totally stupid and can totally fuck up just a they did in Iraq. It does mean that some Iranian exile groups can also be self-serving in pushing the “nuclear bomb” issue, given that their intelligence sources are unreliable at best. There is a lot of fog around the Iranian nuclear program, some of it created deliberately by the Iranian regime itself and some of it, I suspect, by Western governments and their intelligence sources. Some of this fog is a result of ignorance and some of it is deliberate, on both sides. Cheers
mhg
My BFF Iranian mediareport that Israeli jet fighters have conducted drills at an American military base in Iraq in preparation for an attack on Iran. Press TV quotes a source close to prominent Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sader’s group that a considerable number of Israeli warplanes were seen at the al-Asad base in Iraq. The aircraft reportedly included F-15, F-16, F-18, F-22, and KC-10 jet fighters. The warplanes allegedly carried out their week-long exercises at night. The drills were reportedly aimed at preparing to strike Iran’s air defense systems, disrupt Iran’s radars and attack targets deep inside Iran. Iraqi officials had not been notified of the exercises, which were conducted in collaboration with the US military. The United States operates several bases in Iraq whose future status is not clear yet and the Baghdad government is not involved in any of the military deployments taking place there.
I personally doubt all this: not only will it be futile, but it may divert attention back to the Palestine-Israeli issue and those ever expanding settlements. Yet it is tempting to dismiss all this as Iraqi rumors feeding Iranian paranoia. But one must remember: it is often at times when all seem to be quite that such attacks occur. From Operation Barbarossa to Pearl Harbor to the Ozirak attack to September 11, this has been the pattern (not always, but often). Meanwhile, the Israelis are being their characteristic selves about this issue, the Iranians worry, and the rulers of Saudi Arabia are probably praying again (for such an attack to happen). I was going to add the shaikhs of UAE and Bahrain, but then I remembered that they don’t count anymore. Cheers
mhg
Rattlesnake Ridge 
BFF