On Dec 1, 1:49 pm, "I, Enemy Combatant" <antisem...@battlefield.usa>
wrote:
> "Drunk or sober - Jews start all the wars."
> --Mel Gibson
>
> Leaked cable reveals US-Israeli strategy for regime change in Iranhttp://
www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=122732> By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
> Monday, November 29th, 2010 -- 1:39 pm
>
> According to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, in August 2007
> the head of Israel's intelligence agency urged US Under Secretary of
> State for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, to join with Israel in
> carrying out a five-part strategy to implement regime change in Iran.
>
> Mossad Director Meir Dagan acknowledged at the meeting that the
> American analysis of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program was
> different from Israel's, but he insisted that the threat from Iran was
> "obvious" and stated that Israel was willing to take action
> unilaterally.
>
> The classified diplomatic cable outlining the meeting is part of a
> large cache of documents leaked to the whistleblower website
> Wikileaks, and released to the public on Sunday via several
> international newspapers, including The Guardian and The New York
> Times.
>
> Dagan began the meeting by thanking the US for its support of Israel,
> as well as for a recent $30 billion aid package.
>
> The Mossad chief then conceded that US analysis of Iran's alleged
> nuclear capabilities differed from Israel's, but remarked that such
> differences were essentially irrelevant and that if need be Israel
> would take action alone.
>
> "The threat is obvious, even if we have a different timetable," he
> said. "If we want to postpone their acquisition of a nuclear
> capability, then we have to invest time and effort ourselves."
>
> Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military
> intelligence officer and the Central Intelligence Agency, who served
> for eighteen years in Turkey, believes Dagan's comment that Israel
> will have to "invest time and effort ourselves in dealing with Iran
> was, in essence, a veiled threat.
>
> "It is essentially setting up a situation in which the threat of
> Israel acting alone becomes a wedge issue to force the US to do
> something so that it will be able to manage the situation rather than
> respond to Israeli initiatives," Giraldi told Raw Story on Sunday. "It
> pushes Washington into planning a military strike to force the
> Israelis to stand down on their own plans."
>
> The differences between how each nation viewed the Iranian nuclear
> program were not discussed by either the US or Israeli officials in
> the cable.
>
> R. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. envoy at the meeting -- who is now the
> Sultan of Oman Professor of the Practice of International Relations at
> Harvard University s Kennedy School of Government did not respond to
> requests for comment.
>
> The Israeli embassy also did not respond to request for comment.
>
> The Five Pillars of Israeli Strategy
>
> According to the cable, Dagan continued the meeting by enumerating
> Israel's "five pillar" strategy on Iran, which he urged that the US
> and Israel both implement:
>
> 1. Political Approach
> 2. Covert Measures
> 3. Counterprolifiration
> 4. Sanctions
> 5. Force Regime Change
>
> Each of the so-called pillars is briefly summarized in the cable.
>
> The political approach advocated by Dagan involved continued pressure
> from the United Nations Security Council to force Iran to abandon its
> nuclear ambitions.
>
> The covert pillar of the Israeli strategy was not discussed by Dagan
> or other Israeli envoys, nor does the classified cable elaborate on
> the particulars.
>
> The counterproliferation part of the Israeli plans emphasize that Iran
> must be prevented from obtaining nuclear "know-how and technology."
>
> Dagan noted that the economic sanctions pillar of the strategy was
> already working, citing the failure of three Iranian banks.
>
> Finally, Dagan suggested that the U.S and Israel should both help
> "force regime change" in Iran by proxy, "possibly with the support of
> student democracy movements, and ethnic groups (e.g., Azeris, Kurds,
> Baluchs) opposed to the ruling regime."
>
> It is unclear from the cable just exactly what "support" of "ethnic
> groups" meant or whether Dagan offered any suggestions.
>
> Robert Baer -- a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who spent
> his career stationed in the Middle East, including in Iraqi Kurdistan
> and on whom the Academy Award winning movie Syriana is based --
> interprets Dagan's suggestion as a violent one.
>
> When asked what he thought forced regime change meant in this context
> with respect to support for the Azeris, Kurds, and Baluchs, Baer told
> Raw Story, "it means give them money so they can set off bombs - the
> Mad Max approach."
>
> Dagan suggested that all five pillars be enacted simultaneously,
> including regime change, implying there was no need to allow time for
> the other pillars to work, including economic sanctions and political
> pressure. This would have put the U.S in a difficult position, given
> its history in Iran.
>
> Events leading up to and after the meeting
>
> According to published sources, both the United States and Israel have
> been active in attempts to spy on Iran's nuclear program and
> destabilize its government since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and
> those efforts intensified as concern over Iran's nuclear program
> mounted in late 2005.
>
> Seymour Hersh wrote for the New Yorker In April 2006 that the previous
> December, Mossad Director Dagan had told the Knesset, "Iran is one to
> two years away, at the latest, from having enriched uranium. From that
> point, the completion of their nuclear weapon is simply a technical
> matter."
>
> Over the next few months, Under Secretary Burns was active in
> diplomatic approaches to dealing with Iran. By the end of January
> 2006, he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had convinced Russia
> and China to vote for the International Atomic Energy Agency to report
> Iran to the Security Council.
>
> But in March, the Bush administration decided against direct talks
> with the Iranians and the State Department announced "that a newly
> established Office of Iranian Affairs within the department would
> focus on introducing democracy in Iran." Burns, Rice, and Elizabeth
> Cheney --daughter of then Vice President Dick Cheney -- were all said
> to be behind the new policy.
>
> A few weeks later, Hersh noted that "the Bush Administration, while
> publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a
> nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and
> intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and
> former American military and intelligence officials said that Air
> Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of
> American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to
> collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government
> ethnic-minority groups."
>
> Those clandestine efforts continued over the next year, amid
> widespread reports that the CIA was behind "a wave of unrest in ethnic
> minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination
> campaigns against soldiers and government officials."
>
> In the spring of 2007, there were signs of an apparent softening of
> policy towards Iran, including the disbanding of Liz Cheney's Iran
> Syria Policy and Operations Group, which had been seen as "plotting
> covert actions that could escalate into a military conflict with Iran
> or Syria."
>
> Any softening, however, was short-lived. On July 21, 2007, Burns and
> Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams met with
> representatives of Iranian ethnic groups in the US to discuss (pdf)
> Iran's nuclear policies. And in August, Burns joined the Israeli
> foreign minister in Jerusalem to sign a new military aid package
> amounting to $30 billion over ten years -- an increase of 25% from
> previous levels.
>
> That was the immediate background for Burns' meeting with Dagan, as
> described in the newly-released cable.
>
> Within a few months, the Bush administration had decided to intensify
> its covert actions against Iran.
>
> According to Hersh, in late 2007, "Congress agreed to a request from
> President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against
> Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and
> congressional sources. These operations, for which the President
> sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a
> Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize
> the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve
> support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other
> dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence
> about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program."
>
> This is precisely the approach Dagan and Burns discussed at August
> 2007 meeting, as described in the leaked cable.
>
> ---
> Larisa Alexandrovna is Raw Story's managing editor for investigative
> news. Contact her at
lar...@rawstory.com. Muriel Kane is Raw Story's
> research director.
>
> Edited by Stephen C. Webster.
Kirkuk to Haifa Pipeline: Reason for the War?
In 2003, Bush invaded Iraq, partly to topple Saddam Hussein, partly to
revive the pipeline to Haifa
The Observer
By Steven Scheer
LONDON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he
expected an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel to be reopened in the
near future after being closed when Israel became a state in 1948.
"It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa," the
port city in northern Israel, Netanyahu told a group of British
investors, declining to give a timetable.
"It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and
Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean."
Netanyahu later told Reuters the government was in the early stages of
looking into the possibility of reopening the pipeline, which during
the British Mandate sent oil from Mosul to Haifa via Jordan.
Shalom:
"It's not a pipe-dream," Netanyahu said.
Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the US guaranteed all
Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. This MoU is quietly
renewed every five years. It commits US taxpayers to maintain a
strategic US reserve for Israel, equivalent to $3 billion in 2002
dollars. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from
restrictions on oil exports from the US. Moreover, the US government
agreed to divert oil from the US, even in case of oil shortages in the
US. The US government also guaranteed delivery of oil in US tankers if
commercial shippers become unable or unwilling to carry oil from the
US to Israel.
SEE
Israel-United States Memorandum of Understanding
(September 1, 1975)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/mou1975.html
Israel can wrench lot of oil from the region if the pipeline were used
again and Kurds were willing to sell the oil. It would also make Kurds
dependent on Israelis for oil revenues and thus give a greater
leverage to Israelis over Kurds of the region...
We are All Jews Now
Aidel gepotchket - Delicately brought up
Consider the present crisis in America and the rise of anti-
Americanism worldwide. "The US has become a Jewish state in more ways
than one. It has the same security checks, the same holocaust museums,
the same poverty for many and riches for a few as Israel
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles4/Jones_Palestine.htm
Azoy gait es! - That's how it goes!