A Showdown Week on Three War Fronts • Iran, Syria, North Korea
Philippine LaRouche Society (PLS)
A Showdown Week on Three War Fronts • Iran, Syria, North Korea
[1]This week is shaping up as a crucial moment in Britain's drive for thermonuclear confrontation. On all three potential war fronts — Iran, Syria and North Korea — there are deadlines over the coming days that could provide the immediate opportunity for the British to get a full-blown shooting war going that ends in exchanges of thermonuclear weapons.
- Iran: Over the weekend, the British imperial press launched a wrecking campaign to sabotage or prevent the P5+1 talks from ever getting off the ground. As reported in the briefing over the past days, the British are putting forward, on behalf of Obama, a number of unconditional demands intended to stop the P5+1 talks from succeeding — including the demand that Iran must permanently shut down the enrichment facility at Fordo before the talks even start. Iranian Foreign Minister Salehi came out sharply this morning against any preconditions for the talks; and finally an agreement was reached to start the talks on Saturday, April 14th, in Istanbul, with the second round set for Baghdad. But the British intent is obvious.
That murderous intent was further on display in news coverage in the past 24 hours, confirming that it was Britain, along with Israel, that tried to sabotage the 2010 updated NIE that reasserted that Iran had stopped its weaponization program in 2003 and had not resumed it. A senior U.S. intelligence source emphasized that, after the disastrous experience with Iraq, the intelligence officers involved in the National Intelligence Estimates have learned the lesson and do not accept discrete "facts" on such sensitive issues as whether or not Iran is working on a nuclear bomb. On the basis of such discrete facts, both Britain and Israel insist that Iran has secretly resumed work on a nuclear bomb. The U.S. intelligence community firmly disagrees.
- Syria: Tuesday, April 10th, is the date that Syrian forces and heavy military equipment are supposed to be withdrawn from all the urban areas. Over the weekend, the Syrian government asked that the opposition sign a document confirming that they will agree to an immediate cease-fire once the forces and heavy arms are withdrawn. They refused immediately, because it would have been tantamount to recognizing the legitimate existence of the Assad government. There are reports of shelling across the Turkey-Syrian border in both directions, so far unconfirmed. But as of the recent Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul, there are reports of Turkish forces planning to conduct cross-border incursions to create a liberated zone inside Syrian territory. Such an action would be an act of war and could rapidly draw other NATO countries into the mess. Russian diplomacy is the key to war-avoidance at this late moment. The Russians are hosting Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem in Moscow today and tomorrow, and two delegations from the opposition are to arrive in Moscow soon. Any military action against Syria would likely draw in Iran and Lebanon immediately and spark a larger regional war, easily spreading to Russia and China. Russian warships are now holding manuevers in the Eastern Mediterranean after a port call at Tartous, Syria. U.S. Navy vessels are heavily deployed in the Mediterranean and in the Persian Gulf, and the largest joint Air Force manuevers in years are now underway near Bahrain.
- As promised, North Korea has allowed foreign observers into the site where a rocket launch is scheduled for some time later this week, perhaps on Thursday, April 12th. The observers confirm a rocket with a satellite at the launch site — not an ICBM. But U.S., Japanese, South Korean, and European security services are claiming that the solid fuel being used in the rocket was produced in Iran, as part of the Iranian-North Korean collaboration on advanced missile design. Japan and South Korea, along with the U.S. Navy, has deployed anti-ballistic missile systems to potentially shoot down any debris from the North Korean rocket launch. This is a very fragile situation, which could easily lead to more military incidents between the North and the South, drawing in China, the U.S., and Japan immediately.
All of these nominally "separate" situations are tied together, in much the same way that the complex series of alliances and conflicts led to World War I on the basis of what was nominally a limited incident — the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
This is a situation that requires tremendous patience and solid diplomacy. But we have a trigger-happy British-run U.S. President who has done everything possible to wreck relations with Moscow and Beijing at a moment when the slightest incident could trigger thermonuclear World War III. Is there any doubt that the only durable war prevention is Obama's removal from office now?
Links:
[1] http://larouchepac.com/node/22303
