ALMOST ON THE BRINK? - =91Iran: Will It Be Jaw-Jaw Or War-War?=92 -
=91Doubting The Evidence Against Iran=92 =96 =91Pentagon Targeted Iran For
Regime Change After 9/11=92
- o O o -
Iran: Will It Be Jaw-Jaw Or War-War?
By Pat Buchanan,
WorldNetDaily.Com.
6 may, 2008.
Is war with Iran inevitable, even imminent? Or is peace at hand?
=46rom the public diplomacy of the administration, either conclusion may
be reached.
Consider:
"West Offers Iran 'Refreshed' Deal," ran the headline in the May 3
Washington Times. The story described an offer to Iran, agreed to by
all five members of the Security Council =96 the United States, Britain,
France, Russia and China =96 of a sweetened grand bargain, if Tehran
will suspend its enrichment of uranium.
Blessing the offering in London was Condi Rice.
Details will not be made public, but the offer is said to include
Western aid to Iran for a civilian nuclear program, a light-water
reactor and a five-year stock of enriched uranium held for Iran by the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
America's contribution would be support for Iran's admission to the
World Trade Organization, a conference to discuss regional security in
the Gulf, a U.S. offer to sell Iran spare parts for its U.S.-built
civilian aircraft and a beginning of the lifting of three decades of
U.S. sanctions.
News of this offer, plus the relaxed mood in Washington, which is
utterly unlike the tense atmosphere prior to March 2003, suggests that
war with Iran is far from the mind of this city.
But to take the warnings and threats of the civilian and military
leaders of this administration at face value would lead one to
conclude the opposite =96 that war with Iran is indeed inevitable, and
probably soon. Consider:
Last month, Gen. David Petraeus was asked by Joe Lieberman, "Is it
fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups in Iraq are
responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and
thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?"
"It certainly is. ... That is correct," answered the general.
The next day, Petraeus testified, "Unchecked, the 'special groups'
pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic
Iraq."
Petraeus has since been promoted to command of all U.S. forces in the
region.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, known as an opponent of war on
Iran, followed Petraeus, accusing Tehran of being "hell-bent on
acquiring nuclear weapons." Last week, Gates was out front again.
"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women
inside Iraq."
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is now also
pounding the war drum. Iran's "irresponsible influence," its support
of terror and its pursuit of atomic weapons, he said last week, is
creating a "perfect nightmare" for the region. The Pentagon, said the
chairman, is planning for "potential military ... action" because of
Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence."
"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capacity,"
Mullen declared. A second U.S. carrier just entered the Persian Gulf.
CBS reports that a target list of U.S. military planners includes the
headquarters of the Quds Force and plants where Iran produces enhanced
IEDs and the rockets used against the Green Zone. The network also
reports that the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmal Khalilzad has chimed in:
"Iran and Syria must stop the flow of weapons and foreign fighters
into Iraq, and their malign interference in Iraq."
Iraqi Maj. Gen. Qasim Atta says 700 rockets and mortars have been
fired at Coalition forces and the Green Zone, and most of the
"Katyusha and Grad rockets and smart roadside bombs" were Iranian-
made. The U.S. military is preparing a dossier on Iran's role in the
Iraq war.
In the Landon Lecture at Kansas State, CIA Director Michael Hayden
declared, "It ... is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to
the highest level ... to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq."
That day, State designated Iran the "most significant" and "most
active" state sponsor of terror on earth.
=46rom the White House to State to the Pentagon to CIA, the Bush
administration is now singing from the same song sheet: Iran's Quds
Force, with the knowledge of President Ahmadinejad, is arming and
directing "special groups" to kill U.S. soldiers and prevent a U.S.
victory.
Is the White House rattling sabers to prod Iran into talks?
Perhaps. But the administration has also painted itself, and us, into
a corner with the war talk. And there are only three ways out.
The first is that Iran halts the attacks, ends its intervention and
negotiates on the six-nation offer. The second is that Iran rejects
the deal, refuses to stop the attacks and U.S. air strikes begin.
The third is that Bush is bluffing and goes home railing against an
axis-of-evil nation killing American soldiers, having done nothing.
With Israel, the Israeli lobby, the neocons and Dick Cheney insisting
on air strikes, and even Hillary Clinton talking about Iran being
"obliterated," the last course would seem the least probable.
We are likely headed either for negotiations with Iran or war, after
Bush returns from the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel's birth.
"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war," said Winston Churchill
in 1954, whose career often contradicted his wise counsel.
(Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination and the Reform Party's candidate in 2000. He is also a
founder and editor of The American Conservative. Now a political
analyst for MSNBC and a syndicated columnist, he served three
presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three
national TV shows, and is the author of seven books.)
SOURCE:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=3DPAGE.view&pageId=3D63480=
- o O o -
Pentagon Targeted Iran For Regime Change After 9/11
By Gareth Porter,
IPS,
5 May, 2008.
WASHINGTON, May 5 (IPS) - Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks,
former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official
military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by
force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four
other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted
extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas
Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.
Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking
the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force
was supported explicitly by the country's top military leaders.
Feith's book, "War and Decision", released last month, provides
excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W. Bush on
Sep. 30, 2001 calling for the administration to focus not on taking
down Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing
"new regimes" in a series of states by "aiding local peoples to rid
themselves of terrorists and to free themselves of regimes that
support terrorism."
In quoting from that document, Feith deletes the names of all of the
states to be targeted except Afghanistan, inserting the phrase "some
other states" in brackets. In a facsimile of a page from a related
Pentagon "campaign plan" document, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein
regimes are listed as "state regimes" against which "plans and
operations" might be mounted, but the names of four other states are
blacked out "for security reasons".
Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded the NATO bombing campaign in the
Kosovo War, recalls in his 2003 book "Winning Modern Wars" being told
by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states
that Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz wanted to
take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.
Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon. Feith reveals that
Rumsfeld's paper called for getting "Syria out of Lebanon" as a major
goal of U.S. policy.
When this writer asked Feith after a recent public appearance which
countries' names were deleted from the documents, he cited security
reasons for the deletion. But when he was asked which of the six
regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he
replied, "All of them."
Rumsfeld's paper was given to the White House only two weeks after
Bush had approved a U.S. military operation in Afghanistan directed
against bin Laden and the Taliban regime. Despite that decision,
Rumsfeld's proposal called explicitly for postponing indefinitely U.S.
airstrikes and the use of ground forces in support of the anti-Taliban
Northern Alliance in order to try to catch bin Laden.
Instead the Rumsfeld paper argued that the U.S. should target states
which had supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It
urged that the United States "[c]apitalize on our strong suit, which
is not finding a few hundred terrorists in caves in Afghanistan, but
in the vastness of our military and humanitarian resources, which can
strengthen the opposition forces in terrorist-supporting states."
Feith describes the policy outlined in the paper as consisting of
"military action against some of the state sponsors and pressure --
short of war -- against others".
The Rumsfeld plan represented a Pentagon consensus that included the
uniformed military leadership, according to Feith's account. He writes
that the process of drafting the paper involved consultations with the
outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton and
the incoming Chairman Gen. Richard Myers.
Myers helped revise the initial draft, Feith writes, and Gen. John P.
Abizaid, who was then director of the Joint Staff, enthusiastically
endorsed it in draft form. "This is an exceptionally important memo,"
wrote Abizaid, "which gives clear strategic vision." In a message
quoted by Feith, Abizaid recommended to Myers that "you support this
approach".
After the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Abizaid was
promoted to become chief of CENTCOM, with military responsibility for
the entire Middle East.
Neither Myers nor Abizaid, both of whom are now retired from the
military, responded to e-mails asking for their comments on Feith's
account of their role in the process of producing the Rumsfeld
strategy.
Rumsfeld's aides had also drafted a second version of the paper, as
instructions to all military commanders in the development of
"campaign plans against terrorism".
That instructions document was a joint effort by Feith's office and by
the Strategic Plans and Policy directorate of Abizaid's Joint Staff.
It followed the broad outlines of the paper for Bush, arguing that the
enemy was a "network" that included states that support terrorism and
that the Defence Department should seek to "convince or compel" those
states to cut their ties to terrorism.
The Pentagon guidance document called for military commanders to
assist other government agencies "as directed" to "encourage
populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their supporters
to overthrow that domination".
That language was adopted because the campaign planning document was
issued as "Strategic Guidance for the Defense Department" on Oct. 3,
2001 -- just three days after the Rumsfeld strategy paper had gone to
the president.
Bush had not approved the explicit aim of regime change in Iran, Syria
and four other countries proposed by Rumsfeld. Thus Rumsfeld adopted
the aggressive military plan targeting multiple regimes in the Middle
East for regime change even though it was not White House policy.
The Defence Department guidance document made it clear that U.S.
military aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties
to terrorism. The document said that the Defence Department would also
seek to isolate and weaken those states and to "disrupt, damage or
destroy" their military capacities -- not necessarily limited to WMD.
The document included as a "strategic objective" a requirement to
"prevent further attacks against the U.S. or U.S. interests". That
language, which extended the principle of preemption far beyond the
issue of WMD, was so broad as to justify plans to use force against
virtually any state that was not a client of the United States.
The military leadership's strong preference for focusing on states as
enemies rather than on the threat from al Qaeda after 9/11 continued a
pattern of behaviour going back to the Bill Clinton administration
(1993-2001).
After the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa by al Qaeda
operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael
Sheehan proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in
Afghanistan against bin Laden's sponsor, the Taliban regime. However,
senior U.S. military leaders "refused to consider it", according to a
2004 account by Richard H. Shultz, Jr., a military specialist at Tufts
University.
A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department counter-
terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes
characterised more than once by colleagues as a "small price to pay
for being a superpower".
(Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst.
The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance:
Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in
2006.)
SOURCE: http://ipsnews.net/text/news.asp?idnews=3D42241
- o O o -
Doubting The Evidence Against Iran
By Mark Kukis and Abigail Hauslohner,
Time magazine,
5 May, 2008
Baghdad - American circles in Baghdad and Washington are probably not
pleased with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's plan for a special
panel to investigate allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq. Many
U.S. officials are already convinced of the worst and, for years, U.S.
officials have aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran
is stoking Iraq's violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and
trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however,
remains unconvinced =97 with good reason.
"We want to find really good evidence and not evidence made on
speculations," Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government,
told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday. Last week an Iraqi government
delegation went to Tehran to discuss the allegations of Iranian
involvement in the Iraqi militias, the government said. Details of the
evidence presented in Tehran remains hazy, but at the same time
American officials in Baghdad and Washington have never offered a
convincing case publicly to support their allegations. [In the
meantime, Tehran announced that it would not hold a new round of talks
=97 the third of their kind with American representatives =97 regarding
security in Iraq unless the U.S. ceased its operations against Iraqi
Shi'ites. American forces have been working with the Iraqi Army
against Shi'ite militias in Baghdad's sprawling slum, Sadr City.]
Indeed, the U.S. allegations appear to be based on speculation,
spurred by the appearance about a year ago of a new breed of roadside
bomb in Iraq. Explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, proved
effective at piercing American armor by firing a concave copper disc
from a makeshift cannon, which transformed the slug midair into a
molten jet of super-heated metal. Accusations that Iran was shipping
the things into Iraq grew louder as U.S. casualties from the weapon
rose. But no concrete evidence has emerged in public that Iran was
behind the weapons. U.S. officials have revealed no captured shipments
of such devices and offered no other proof.
Instead, the Americans argued their case publicly with deductive
reasoning: the copper slugs used in EFPs had to be precisely tooled
with a heavy press in order to work properly, they said; no such heavy
presses were in operation in Iraq, according to the Americans,
therefore the slugs had to have been machined in Iran and moved into
Iraq. It is, however, not impossible that such heavy presses may well
be operating in Iraq. Three major cities in southern Iraq (Basra,
Karbala and Najaf) have gone without a significant U.S. military
presence for more than a year. These cities, which U.S. officials
believe form hubs for the flow of arms into Baghdad, may indeed have
such presses.
The U.S. has also alleged that Tehran was passing rockets to militia
elements in Iraq for use against American troops and, lately, the
Iraqi government living under American protection in the Green Zone.
Recovered materials from some of the rockets reveal Iranian markings,
American officials have said, without however producing convincing
physical evidence.
The third leg in the U.S. argument against Iran is the longstanding
assertion that the Qods Force, a paramilitary wing of the Iranian
army, trains Iraqi militants inside Iran and then supports their
guerrilla activity back in Iraq. The U.S. military has offered its
most convincing public argument on this point, revealing details in
July 2007 of the interrogation of an alleged Hizballah operative
captured in Basra. TIME also interviewed two Iraqi guerrilla fighters
who said they trained in Iran.
Taken altogether, the U.S. evidence offered publicly about Iran's
supposedly nefarious activities in Iraq is far from a slam-dunk case,
a fact Dabbagh was at pains to make when speaking to reporters in
Baghdad. "If it turns out there is hard evidence, the government will
deal with it," Dabbagh said.
The Americans in Iraq, for now, seem content to wait for the Iraqi
government to change its view on Iran, a country that al-Maliki and
other Iraqi leaders largely see as a friend rather than a foe. "It
looks like now that the government of Iraq wants to set up an official
process to discuss Iranian interference with the Iranians, between
official representatives of the Iraq government and the official
Iranian government and when they do that, they'll gather whatever
evidence they find and discuss that in dialogue with the Iranians,"
said Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, a U.S. military spokesman in
Baghdad. "We've made the case. Now I think it's proper for the Iraqi
government to make their case based on their interpretation of the
facts, and have a dialogue with the government of Iran."
SOURCE:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737543,00.html?xid=3D=
rss-world
(These news items are posted under =91Fair Use=92 provisions).
- o O o -
=91Is War With Iran Imminent?=92- Justin Raimondo
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3D12755
=91The Iraq War Morphs Into The Iranian War=92
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19839.htm
'Israel Preparing To Bomb Iran Nuclear Sites'
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=3D53558§ionid=3D351020104
'Joint Chiefs Chairman Says U.S. Preparing Military Options Against
Iran'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042501=
480_pf.html
=91FEMA To Help Run 8-Day Disaster And Terror Drill Covering U.S. (And
Canada Command) In May=92
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=3D8679
See Also:
'Was April 20th The Original Date Of The Planned U.S. 'Air Strike' On
Iran?' http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/IRANPLAN.HTM
'Is A U.S./Israeli Air Strike On Iran Drawing Steadily Closer?' (News
Updates) http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/IRANWAR.HTM
- o O o =96
'Bush Was Prepared To Go Nuclear: Afghanistan Was To Have Been A NWO
Object Lesson!=92 http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/NUCLEAR.HTM.
=91The Plan For Three World Wars=92
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/3WARS.HTM
Elitist Blueprint For World Government Revealed
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/050108_elitist_blueprint...
'Astounding Quotes From The Political And Financial Elite On The
Planned New World Order' http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/TRAGEDY.HTM
Archived =91New World Order Intelligence Update=92 Articles on the =91New
World Order=92
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/sect22.htm
The Elite=92s Secretive Plan For A =91North American Union=92
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/NAU1.HTM
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/NAU2.HTM
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/NAU3.HTM
'The 1935 U.S. War Plan For The Invasion Of Canada'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/USINVASN.HTM
'Canadian Troops To Police U.S. Cities During Martial Law;
U.S. Troops To Seize Strategic James Bay Hydro Plant If Quebec
Separates?'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/CANTROOP.HTM
'The Grand Canal - The Elite's Continent-Reshaping, Climate-Altering
Water-Diversion Plan Will Turn Canadian Water Into 'Liquid Gold' From
James Bay To Mexico!'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/grand.htm
The Elite=92s =93Newstates=92 Constitution For The Coming =91United States
O=
f
North America=92
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/NEWSTATE.HTM
For related reports, see:
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/quebec.htm
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/drum.htm
- o O o =96
Bankrupt U.S.A. Covets Iran=92s Oil=85.
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/MELTDWN1.HTM
'Sorting Through The Rubble In Post-Bubble America'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/MELTDOWN.HTM
'The Coming U.S. Economic and Financial Meltdown'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/MELTDWN2.HTM
'The U.S. Economic and Financial Meltdown Accelerates'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/MELTDWN3.HTM
'No End In Sight As U.S. Financial Crisis Deepens'
'Global Starvation - Coming Soon To Europe And North America, Too?'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/FOODLOSS.HTM
'The Coming Great Food Shortages In America' by Texe Marrs
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/TEXMARRS.HTM
=85And the likely response to an economic or financial crisis by =91El
Presidente=92 Bush?
George W. Bush: Constitution of the United States is just a "goddamned
piece of paper."
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8534.shtml
'General Tommy Franks Says U.S. Constitution May Not Survive, Sees
Possible Military Form Of Government In The United States'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/FRANKS.HTM
'Concentration Camps in America? Martial Law Civilian Detention
Centers?'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/CONCAMP.HTM
'Astonishing 1987 =91Miami Herald=92 News Report Reveals Existence Of A
'Secret Government', Plus Plans To Suspend Constitution, Impose
Martial Law, And Activate Civilian Detention Centers'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/CONCAMP2.HTM
U.S. Congressman: American Concentration Camps "On The Books=94
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/CONCAMP3.HTM
'More Preparations For U.S. Martial Law'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/MOREMART.HTM
(Must reading!)
'FEMA: America's Secret Government-In-Waiting'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/fema.htm
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/GEO443.HTM
'War Is A Racket' by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/BLACK-OP.HTM
'Chemtrails: Are They For Climate Control, Weather Modification,
'Black Ops' Or For Biological Warfare And Mass Vaccine Testing?'
- o O o -
Visit our invaluable archive of Articles on the New World Order
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/sect22.htm
You'll find a wide range of free online Classic History books (on
English history, American History, Canadian History, European History,
Napoleonic History, Russian History, German History, Greek and Roman
History), plus the books of Jane Austen, at
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.co=
m/freehist.htm
For free online Classic Travel Books,
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/freetrav.htm
For free online Classic Christian Books,
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/SERMONS
- o O o -
NUCLEAR TREASON AT THE TOP OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT?
These serious allegations, involving the alleged =91sale=92 of nuclear
secrets, reach right to the top of the U.S. government. The
prestigious London =91Sunday Times=92 first broke this blockbuster story
on 6th January, 2008 =96 it has been completely =91blacked out=92 by the
U.S. media and wire services!
For news headline and blogger article links on the recent sensational
=91U.S. Nuclear Treason And Betrayal=92 revelations of Sibel Edmonds, the
ex-FBI whistleblower who has been called =91The most-gagged woman in
America=92, go to http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/EDMONDS.HTM
=93If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this
case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal
trials=94 =96 Sibel Edmonds
|
