Crafting WW III - So What About Iran?
news.omega
**
(excerpt)
*Bush's Agenda In Iran* <http://www.alternet.org/audits/64221/>
*Report - Russia Evacuates Entire Bushehr Staff *
<http://rense.com/general78/rep.htm>
*Crafting WWIII*
**
*Shifting Targets - Bush's Plans For Iran*
<http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh>
*Iran Parliament Calls US Army, CIA Terrorist Groups *
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/30/content_6819164.htm>
*New Iran Documentary - A Must See*
<http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=554201962695917482>* - Vid*
**
*Winners & Losers In The War With Iran*
<http://rense.com/general78/winners.htm>
*The Iran War Is On The Front Burner *
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MIR20070928&articleId=6927>
*B-52 Nukes Headed For Iran - USAF, Intel Refused *
<http://www.oregontruthalliance.org/?q=node/245>
**
**
*US, NATO and Israel Deploy Nukes directed against Iran
*
**http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20070927&articleId=6918
** **
**/*
*/ <http://rense.com/Datapages/ishell.htm>
*So What About Iran?*
<http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1191034415/>
*Uri Avnery's Column *
29/09/07
A RESPECTED American paper posted a scoop this week: Vice-President Dick
Cheney, the King of Hawks, has thought up a Machiavellian scheme for an
attack on Iran. Its main point: Israel will start by bombing an Iranian
nuclear installation, Iran will respond by launching missiles at Israel,
and this will serve as a pretext for an American attack on Iran.
Far-fetched? Not really. It is rather like what happened in 1956. Then
France, Israel and Britain secretly planned to attack Egypt in order to
topple Gamal Abd-al-Nasser ("regime change" in today's lingo.)
It was agreed that Israeli paratroops would be dropped near the Suez
Canal, and that the resulting conflict would serve as a pretext for the
French and British to occupy the canal area in order to "secure" the
waterway. This plan was implemented (and failed miserably).
What would happen to us if we agreed to Cheney's plan? Our pilots would
risk their lives to bomb the heavily defended Iranian installations.
Then, Iranian missiles would rain down on our cities. Hundreds, perhaps
thousands would be killed. All this in order to supply the Americans
with a pretext to go to war.
Would the pretext have stood up? In other words, is the US obliged to
enter a war on our side, even when that war is caused by us? In theory,
the answer is yes. The current agreements between the US and Israel say
that America has to come to Israel's aid in any war - whoever started it.
Is there any substance to this leak? Hard to know. But it strengthens
the suspicion that an attack on Iran is more imminent than people imagine.
DO BUSH, Cheney & Co. indeed intend to attack Iran?
I don't know, but my suspicion that they might is getting stronger.
Why? Because George Bush is nearing the end of his term of office. If it
ends the way things look now, he will be remembered as a very bad - if
not the worst -
president in the annals of the republic. His term started with the Twin
Towers catastrophe, which reflected no great credit on the intelligence
agencies, and would come to a close with the grievous Iraq fiasco.
There is only one year left to do something impressive and save his name
in the history books. In such situations, leaders tend to look for
military adventures. Taking into account the man's demonstrated
character traits, the war option suddenly seems quite frightening.
True, the American army is pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even
people like Bush and Cheney could not dream, at this time, of invading a
country four times larger than Iraq, with three times the population.
But, quite possibly the war-mongers are whispering in Bush's ear: What
are you worrying about? No need for an invasion. Enough to bomb Iran, as
we bombed Serbia and Afghanistan. We shall use the smartest bombs and
the most sophisticated missiles against the two thousand or so targets,
in order to destroy not only the Iranian nuclear sites but also their
military installations and government offices. "We shall bomb them back
into the stone age," as an American general once said about Vietnam, or
"turn their clock back 20 years," as the Israeli Air Force general Dan
Halutz said about Lebanon.
That's a tempting idea. The US will only use its mighty Air Force,
missiles of all kinds and the powerful aircraft-carriers, which are
already deployed in the Persian/Arabian Gulf. All these can be sent into
action at any time on short notice. For a failed president approaching
the end of his term, the idea of an easy, short war must have an immense
attraction. And this president has already shown how hard it is for him
to resist temptations of this kind.
WOULD THIS indeed be such an easy operation, a "piece of cake" in
American parlance?
I doubt it.
Even "smart" bombs kill people. The Iranians are a proud, resolute and
highly motivated people. They point out that for two thousand years they
have never attacked another country, but during the eight years of the
Iran-Iraq war they have amply proved their determination to defend their
own when attacked.
Their first reaction to an American attack would be to close the Straits
of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf. That would choke off a large part
of the world's oil supply and cause an unprecedented world-wide economic
crisis.
To open the straits (if this is at all possible), the US army would have
to capture and hold large areas of Iranian territory.
The short and easy war would turn into a long and hard war. What does
that mean for us in Israel?
There can be little doubt that if attacked, Iran will respond as it has
promised:
by bombarding us with the rockets it is preparing for this precise purpose.
That will not endanger Israel's existence, but it will not be pleasant
either.
If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the
American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now
with the Iraqi adventure),
some will surely put the blame on Israel. It is no secret that the
Pro-Israel lobby and its allies - the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the
Christian Zionists - are pushing America into this war, just as they
pushed it into Iraq.
For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant
losses - not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.
IF PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not exist, the Israeli government
would have had to invent him.
He has got almost everything one could wish for in an enemy. He has a
big mouth. He is a braggart. He enjoys causing scandals. He is a
Holocaust denier. He prophesies that Israel will "vanish from the map"
(though he did not say, as falsely reported, the he would wipe Israel
off the map.)
This week, the pro-Israel lobby organized big demonstrations against his
visit to New York. They were a huge success -
for Ahmadinejad. He has realized his dream of becoming the center of
world attention. He has been given the opportunity to voice his
arguments against Israel -- some outrageous, some valid - before a
world-wide audience.
But Ahmadinejad is not Iran. True, he has won popular elections, but
Iran is like the orthodox parties in Israel: it is not their politicians
who count, but their rabbis. The Shiite religious leadership makes the
decisions and commands the armed forces, and this body is neither
boastful nor vociferous not scandal-mongering. It exercises a lot of
caution.
If Iran was really so eager to obtain a nuclear bomb, it would have
acted in utmost silence and kept as low a profile as possible (as Israel
did). The swaggering of Ahmadinejad would hurt this effort more than any
enemy of Iran could.
It is highly unpleasant to think about a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands
(and, indeed, in any hands.) I hope it can be avoided by offering
inducements and/or imposing sanctions. But even if this does not
succeed, it would not be the end of the world, nor the end of Israel. In
this area, more than in any other, Israel's deterrent power is immense.
Even Ahmadinejad will not risk an exchange of queens - the destruction
of Iran for the destruction of Israel.
NAPOLEON SAID that to understand a country's policy, one has only to
look at the map.
If we do this, we shall see that there is no objective reason for war
between Israel and Iran. On the contrary, for a long time it was
believed in Jerusalem that the two countries were natural allies.
David Ben-Gurion advocated an "alliance of the periphery". He was
convinced that the entire Arab world is the natural enemy of Israel, and
that, therefore, allies should be sought on the fringes of the Arab world -
Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Chad etc. (He also looked for allies inside the
Arab world - communities that are not Sunni-Arab, such as the Maronites,
the Copts, the Kurds, the Shiites and others.)
At the time of the Shah, very close connections existed between Iran and
Israel, some positive, some negative, some outright sinister. The Shah
helped to build a pipeline from Eilat to Askelon, in order to transport
Iranian oil to the Mediterranean, bypassing the Suez Canal. The Israel
internal secret service (Shabak) trained its notorious Iranian
counterpart (Savak). Israelis and Iranians acted together in Iraqi
Kurdistan, helping the Kurds against their Sunni-Arab oppressors.
The Khomeini revolution did not, in the beginning, put an end to this
alliance, it only drove it underground. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel
supplied Iran with arms, on the assumption that anyone fighting Arabs is
our friend. At the same time, the Americans supplied arms to Saddam
Hussein -
one of the rare instances of a clear divergence between Washington and
Jerusalem. This was bridged in the Iran-Contra Affair, when the
Americans helped Israel to sell arms to the Ayatollahs.
Today, an ideological struggle is raging between the two countries, but
it is mainly fought out on the rhetorical and demagogical level. I dare
to say that Ahmadinejad doesn't give a fig for the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, he only uses it to make friends in the Arab world. If I were a
Palestinian, I would not rely on it. Sooner or later, geography will
tell and Israeli-Iranian relations will return to what they were -
hopefully on a far more positive basis.
ONE THING I am ready to predict with confidence: whoever pushes for war
against Iran will come to regret it.
Some adventures are easy to get into but hard to get out of.
The last one to find this out was Saddam Hussein. He thought that it
would be a cakewalk -
after all, Khomeini had killed off most of the officers, and especially
the pilots, of the Shah's military. He believed that one quick Iraqi
blow would be enough to bring about the collapse of Iran. He had eight
long years of war to regret it.
omega
On Oct 4, 6:34 pm, "news.omega" <news.om...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> *Nuke Attack On Iran Imminent?*
> **
> (excerpt)
>
> *Bush's Agenda In Iran* <http://www.alternet.org/audits/64221/>
>
> *Report - Russia Evacuates Entire Bushehr Staff *
> <http://rense.com/general78/rep.htm>
>
> *Crafting WWIII*
> **
> *Shifting Targets - Bush's Plans For Iran*
> <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh>
>
> *Iran Parliament Calls US Army, CIA Terrorist Groups *
> <http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/30/content_6819164.htm>
>
> *New Iran Documentary - A Must See*
> <http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=554201962695917482>* - Vid*
> **
> *Winners & Losers In The War With Iran*
> <http://rense.com/general78/winners.htm>
>
> *The Iran War Is On The Front Burner *
> <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MIR20...>
>
> *B-52 Nukes Headed For Iran - USAF, Intel Refused *
> <http://www.oregontruthalliance.org/?q=node/245>
>
> **
> **
>
> *US, NATO and Israel Deploy Nukes directed against Iran
>
> *
> **http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20...