The Coming U.S. Attack On Iran: Is April 20th The =91Strike Date=92? -
'British Fear U.S. Commander Is Beating The Drum For Iran Strikes' -
'The Building Blocks of War' - 'One Foot in the Grave: Iran Attack
Nearer, More Likely Than Most Suspect' - 'Iran: Danger and
Op****tunity' - 'Ritter Says White House Preparing For War In Iran' -
'Possibility of US Attack to Iran Real: Head of Urosevic Foundation' -
'Russia "Alarmed" As U.S. Readies April Nuclear Attack On Iran' -
'U.S. Attack on Iran: Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear
Hazards" After Cheney Visit ' - 'Russians, Saudis Expect U.S. Attack
On Iran' - 'Russian Iintelligence Sees U.S. Military Buildup On Iran
Border' - 'The U.S. Declaration of War On Iran' - 'Operation
Cassandra' - 'Bush's Middle East Peace Plan Includes Israeli attack On
Iran' (read the full stories below)
As you read the re****ts below, bear in mind that the next full moon
(often a key indication of a night attack by air) is on the 20th
April. That might well be the scheduled date for a U.S. air strike on
Iran, if these warnings are accurate=85
- o O o -
(For constantly-updated 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
- for updated economic and current events news, go to
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/freehist.htm
)
See Also: =91The Plan For Three World Wars=92
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/3WARS.HTM
'Astounding Quotes From The Political And Financial Elite On The
Planned New World Order'
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/TRAGEDY.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 re****ts, see:
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/quebec.htm
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/drum.htm
- o O o -
British Fear U.S. Commander Is Beating The Drum For Iran Strikes
By Damien McElroy,
Foreign Affairs Correspondent,
Daily Telegraph, UK,
5 April, 2008.
British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in
Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed
Baghdad government.
A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's
intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian
military facilities, according to a Whitehall *****sment. In closely
watched testimony in Wa****ngton next week, Gen Petraeus will state
that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed
attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.
General Petraeus: recent attacks on the green zone used Iranian-
provided, Iranian-made rockets
The outbreak of Iraq's worst violence in 18 months last week with
fighting in Basra and the daily bombardment of the Green Zone
diplomatic enclave, demonstrated that although the Sunni Muslim
insurgency is dramatically diminished, ****a forces remain in a strong
position to destabilise the country.
"Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on
the American effort in Iraq," a British official said. "Iran is waging
a war in Iraq. The idea that America can't fight a war on two fronts
is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves," he said.
"Petraeus has put emphasis on America having to fight the battle on
behalf of Iraq. In his re****t he can frame it in terms of our soldiers
killed and diplomats dead in attacks on the Green Zone."
Tension between Wa****ngton and Tehran is already high over Iran's
covert nuclear programme. The Bush administration has not ruled out
military strikes.
In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran,
Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leader****p. "The rockets
that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided, Iranian-
made rockets," he said. "All of this in complete violation of promises
made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian
leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."
The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the
Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week
triggered top-level warnings over Iran's strength in Iraq.
Gen Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will
answer questions from American political leaders at the US Congress on
Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to London to brief Gordon
Brown.
The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq
must have a double goal.
"The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war
against it in Iraq," wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan.
There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians
across the bitter divide on Iraq. "Iran is the bull in the china
shop," said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services
Committee. "In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the
****'ite groups, whether they be political or military."
Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=3D/news/2008/04/05/wi=
ran105.xml
- o O o -
The Building Blocks of War
By Chris Gelken,
American Chronicle,
April 5, 2008.
The Petraeus re****t could be the tipping point, but can we really
trust it?
Just how much is Iran involved in, or indeed responsible for, the
instability in Iraq? The answers to this question are often vague,
ambiguous and frequently tainted by self interest.
Last week General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq,
declared that the mortars and missiles fired on Baghdad=B4s fortified
Green Zone were of Iranian manufacture. He further asserted that they
were supplied by Iran, and fired by Iranian trained insurgents.
As for the provenance of the weapons, that is for a forensic
ballistics expert to decide. Regarding the rest, well, it depends on
who you trust, doesn=B4t it?
And next week, Petraeus is going to tell Congress that everything that
has gone wrong in Iraq is Iran=B4s fault.
By contrast, many Iraq watchers are of the opinion that the recent
Baghdad government assault on Basra and the subsequent nation-wide
surge in violence was inspired by Vice President Dick Cheney during
his recent visit to the region. Another of the building blocks,
apparently, in plans for military action against Tehran. The aim, they
say, was to destroy any sup****t base the Iranians may have among the
****a militias to prevent effective retaliation in the event of a wider
conflict.
Many of those same experts also point to Iran as being largely
responsible for brokering a ceasefire.
Obviously Iran has some influence in Iraq, but is it a positive or a
negative influence?
It would be ridiculous for anyone to suggest that there are no Iranian
manufactured weapons in Iraq. One cannot imagine the number of Iranian
weapons that were captured in the course of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War.
Weapons that were then stored in ammunition dumps that were
inexplicably left unguarded after the US-led invasion of 2003, and
subsequently looted.
But proving a link between the weapons used against the Green Zone and
the official sanctioning of their positioning in the hands of
insurgents by the Tehran government is rather tricky.
Having said that, one cannot say with absolute conviction that certain
Iranian government agencies are not turning a blind eye and allowing
modern weapons across what is a very long, ****ous and virtually
impossible to police border. But the question remains whether this is
official policy, are the responsible agencies acting under direct
orders from government leaders in Tehran?
On the other hand, was there nothing more than a discreet nod, a
surreptitious wink? Perhaps.
Or are the accusations entirely without basis in fact, a deliberate
attempt to justify an attack on Iran?
The fact is, no conclusive evidence has been presented to prove the
case either way. One can read reams of authoritative text on the
subject =96 both boldly asserting Iran=B4s interference, and equally
painting Tehran as a maligned victim. The fact is, everything is
possible, but exploring those alternatives is often inconvenient,
especially when the ultimate aim is to find an excuse to launch
military action against Tehran.
Accusing Iran of being responsible for the death of American troops in
Iran is not without a similar and chilling precedent in recent US
history.
There are still plenty of Irish-Americans reading this article who
remember stuffing their dollars into the Noraid collection tin knowing
full well they would be used to buy explosives and Armalites for the
boys back home in Ireland. Explosives and Armalites they used against
British civilians and British soldiers. Let us not be na=EFve.
Of course there are going to be Iranians who hold the same "noble"
convictions of their Irish-American counterparts. There are doubtless
Iranian officials who would turn a blind eye, as did their Boston
opposite numbers. And with no doubt whatsoever there will be criminal
elements who would be delighted to organize the purchase and
trans****tation of weapons across a border as leaky as the one between
the US and Mexico. Whether motivated by political conviction or a
handsome fee, it really makes little difference in the end.
While Wa****ngton could have acted a little more proactively to clamp
down on Noraid activities, none of this suggests that the White House
actively and officially sanctioned the murder of British civilians and
soldiers, does it? And if one can accept that premise, one also has to
accept the possibility that the Iranian weapons that have found their
way into Iraq did not necessarily get there with the blessing of the
Tehran government.
Perhaps, like Wa****ngton, Tehran is being deliberately ambivalent. And
really, you do not go to war with a country for being ambivalent.
There is another interesting aspect to the "Iranian" involvement in
Iraq that has not been adequately explored by the mainstream media. It
is worth taking note of the fact that many Sunni Iraqis commonly refer
to ****a Iraqis as Iranians. It is a religious, racial thing. They do
not consider the ****a Iraqis to be real Arabs, so they refer to them
as Iranians, who are Persian.
Given the general lack of understanding that Western countries have of
the Middle East, despite their decades of interference here, isn=B4t it
conceivable that the frequent re****ts if "Iranian" activity cited by
Sunni Awakening Councils who are now allied with the US military,
might in fact be mis-identifications? It could be widespread, or it
could have happened only occasionally. It could be deliberate, or it
could be an innocent mistake, but one with far reaching consequences.
There is a precedent. During the Balkan Wars, Muslim jihadists, or
just plain mercenaries, fought on the side of the Bosnian army. They
were commonly referred to as Afghans, when in fact most of them were
not. Actually, many of them were Saudi.
Some of these "Afghans" might now be in Iraq. There is ample
op****tunity for confusion, and ample op****tunity for deliberate
trouble making.
Iraq is a mess. Any semblance of law and order is but a distant memory
of the really old folks who can remember when the British ran the
place. Persecuted by Saddam Hussein, then bombed, starved and then
bombed again, occupied and abused, it is a land of op****tunity for the
unscrupulous and those wi****ng to settle a score.
Courtesy of the mayhem and mismanagement following the 2003 invasion,
Iraq is the perfect venue for those with a grudge to play out their
fantasies of revenge, or advance their geo-political ambitions.
But the point this article is trying to make, probably very badly, is
creating new scores to settle will not resolve anything.
The Petraeus re****t next week will possibly be one of the last
building blocks in Wa****ngton=B4s attempt to build a case for military
action against Tehran.
In one way or another, he will cite many of the things referred to in
this article, though obviously not in quite the same way. It will be
up to Congress and the American public to prevent what has already
been a disaster for the United States and this region, from becoming
something far, far worse.
Source: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/57631
- o O o -
One Foot in the Grave: Iran Attack Nearer, More Likely Than Most
Suspect
by Chris Floyd,
The Baltimore Chronicle,
Saturday, 22 March, 2008.
A very im****tant, very disturbing -- and almost entirely overlooked --
piece appeared on Juan Cole's Informed Comment site this week. It was
a guest column by William R. Polk, laying out, in copious and
convincing detail, the evidence indicating that the United States will
indeed launch a military strike against Iran, most probably before
George W. Bush leaves office.
However, even if Bush does hold off for some reason, the processes
that Polk describes will almost certainly lead the next president into
war with Iran, especially as the three remaining major candidates have
forcefully pledged to keep "all options, and I mean, all options on
the table" (Polk quotes Barack Obama's bellicose formulation). And
none of them are likely to have the political courage that Polk
rightly says would be necessary to climb down from the highly
aggressive posture that both parties have adopted toward Iran.
Polk is no radical firebrand; indeed, he comes toting heavy
Establishment lumber: White House service (under John Kennedy), top
academic and institutional posts, weighty books on history and
international affairs, etc. Yet he paints as stark a picture of the
situation as the most implacable dissident.
One development that has arisen after the article was posted gives
added credence to Polk's case. In recent days, both Bush and Dick
Cheney have revived the scaremongering threat of an Iranian nuclear
bomb that had seemed diffused by the NIE re****t earlier this year. Of
course, that re****t -- in which America's myriad intelligence
agencies declared their consensus view that Iran's nuclear weapons
program is moribund -- was itself a more subtle piece of
scaremongering. Because the re****t asserted -- without any credible
evidence -- that Iran HAD been building a nuke until 2003. While the
headlines focused on the overall conclusion, the Bush Administration
made hay with that latter assertion: "See, we told you Iran has been
building a nuclear weapon! We were right."
They weren't, of course, but this assertion was a propaganda weapon
just waiting to be picked up: and now it has. Bush and Cheney refer to
the NIE re****t as "proof" that Iran has been surreptitiously building
nuclear weapons in the recent past -- and therefore could be secretly
building them again right now. Cheney was very explicit about this
during his recent tour of Iraq and other stops in the Middle East -- a
trip that many have noted carries sinister echoes of a similar jaunt
he made around the region just before the invasion of Iraq. As AP
notes:
=93Vice President Dick Cheney retained his tough stance against Iran on
Wednesday and said the U.S. is uncertain if Tehran has restarted the
nuclear weaponization program that a U.S. intelligence re****t says it
halted in 2003...Critics of the Bush administration said the re****t
should dampen any campaign for a U.S. confrontation with Iran.
But Cheney that that while the NIE said Iran had a program to develop
a nuclear warhead, it remains unclear if it has resumed that activity.
"What it (the NIE) says is that they have definitely had in the past a
program to develop a nuclear warhead; that it would appear that they
stopped that weaponization process in 2003. We don't know whether or
not they've restarted," he said.=94
Bush too has been pu****ng this line, most recently in an interview
with a government-funded Farsi-language radio station piping White
House propaganda into Iran itself. As Dan Froomkin notes, Bush
repeated the lie he has often told, asserting that Iran has "declared
they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people." Iran has always
declared the opposite, of course. Bush also echoed Cheney's
provocative "mystficiation" about the current state of the alleged
Iranian weapons program. As Bush put it: "They've hidden programs in
the past and they may be hiding one now, who knows?"
As Polk points out, Bush has made pre-emptive war a cardinal tenet of
the official U.S. national security policy, declaring that America
"will not wait" for potential security threats to develop, but will
"confront challenges earlier and more comprehensively, before they are
allowed to mature...In all cases, we will seek to seize the initiative
and dictate the tempo, timing, and direction of military operations."
Under such a policy, uncertainty about a potential threat actually
becomes a spur to military action. Cheney has long been an evangelist
for the "one-percent solution;" i.e., if there is even a one percent
chance that some threat might prove true, you must act as if the
danger is 100 percent certain to occur. This paranoid lunacy -- or
shrewd marketing device to guarantee non-stop boodle from war
profiteering -- is now the official governing philosophy of America's
foreign policy.
You must read Polk's entire piece to get the full weight and impact of
the facts he marshals. But below are a few pertinent excerpts:
=93The article [a piece in US News and World Re****t outlining "six signs
that the U.S. may be headed for war in Iran"] curiously p***** over in
silence the much more impressive build-up of naval power in the
Persian Gulf. As of the last re****t I have seen, a major part of the
U.S. Navy is deployed in and around the Persian Gulf. The numbers are
stunning and include not only a vast array of weapons, including
nuclear weapons, cruise and other missiles and hundreds of aircraft
but also =93insertion=94 (invasion) forces and equipment. Even then, these
already deployed forces amount to only a fraction of the total that
could be brought to bear on Iran because aircraft, both bombers and
troop and equipment trans****ts, stationed far away in Central Asia,
the Indian Ocean, Europe and even in America can be quickly employed .
Of course, deploying forces along Iran=92s frontier does not necessarily
mean using them. At least that is what the Administration says.
However, as a historian and former participant in government, I
believe that having troops and weapons on the spot makes their use
more likely than not. Why is that?
It is because a massive build-up of forces inevitably creates the
=93climate=94 of war. Troops and the public, on both sides, come to accept
its inevitability. Standing down is difficult and can entail loss of
=93face.=94 Consequently, political leaders usually are carried forward by
the flow of events. Having taken steps 1, 2 and 3, they find taking
step number 4 logical, even necessary. In short, momentum rather than
policy begins to control action. As Barbara Tuchman showed in her
study of the origins of the First World War, The Guns of August, even
though none of the parties really wanted to go to war, none could stop
the process. It was the fact that President Kennedy had been reading
Tuchman=92s book just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, I believe, that
made him so intent on not being =93hijacked by events.=94 His restraint
was unusual. More common is a surrender to =93sequence=94 as was shown by
the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It would have taken a
major reversal of policy =96 and considerable political bravery -- to
halt either invasion once the massive build-up was in place. No such
effort was made then. Will it be now? I think the odds are against
it.=94
Later, viewing the attack in a larger context, Polk writes:
=93Thus, even short of a nuclear Armageddon, the =93Long War=94 advocated
by=
the Neoconservatives would spread misery, violence, starvation,
disease and death. The =93fabric=94 that holds societies together would be
shredded so that a chaos even Hobbes could not have imagined would
become common over much of the world. The worst affected would be the
poor nations but even rich societies would be corrupted and crippled.
Reacting over a generation or more to fear of terrorism and the
emotional =93blow-back=94 of war, they would lose faith in law, civil
liberties, indeed civil society in general. Strong men would come to
the fore proclaiming that survival justifies giving up the civic,
cultural and material good life. Step by step along the path of the
long war, we could fall into the nightmare George Orwell laid out in
his novel 1984.
If this is even a remote and unlikely danger, and I believe it is far
more than that, we would be foolish indeed not to try to find means to
avoid taking any steps =96 of which war with Iran would be not a step
but a leap -- toward it.=94
Again, the complex and detailed case Polk puts together should be read
in full. But its overall message about a catastrophic and murderous
war with Iran is unmistakable: the hour is much, much later than we
think.
(Chris Floyd has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years,
working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various
newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University.
Floyd co-founded the blog Empire Burlesque, and is also chief editor
of Atlantic Free Press. He can be reached at cfloyd72@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
Source: http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/032208Floyd.shtml
- o O o -
Iran: Danger and Op****tunity
By William R. Polk,
Guest Op-Ed,
www.juancole.com,.
Thursday, March 20, 2008.
Cassandra and Yogi Berra are an unlikely pair, but I hear both of
their voices today. Cassandra, like some of us, was cursed to be
always disbelieved as she correctly predicted the future while
baseballer Yogi Berra will be remembered for his penetrating insight
into the flow of history, =93This is like deja vu all over again."
It is through the unlikely medium of U.S. News and World Re****t that
Cassandra speaks. The March 12 issue gives us =936 signs the U.S. may be
headed for war in Iran.=94 The first tip the magazine highlights is the
firing of Admiral William Fallon. While Fallon is hardly a =93dove,=94 he
apparently =96 to judge by hints he gave in an interview with Thomas
Barnett published in the March issue of Esquire =96 had argued that an
attack on Iran made no military sense. If this really was his
judgment, he obviously was not the man to be =93CINC [Commander-in-
chief] Centcom.=94 That is, if the Bush administration really is intent
on an attack.
Among other straws U.S. News and World Re****t found in the wind
blowing out of Wa****ngton was the projected trip by Vice President
Dick Cheney to what the magazine correctly described as a =93logistics
hub for military operations in the Persian Gulf,=94 Oman, where the
Strait of Hormuz constitutes =93the vulnerable oil transit chokepoint
into and out of the Persian Gulf that Iran threatens to blockade in
the event of war.=94
Here is where Yogi Berra begins to come into the picture. As the U.S.
News and World Re****t notes, =93Back in March 2002, Cheney made a high-
profile Mideast trip to Saudi Arabia and other nations that officials
said at the time was about diplomacy toward Iraq and not war=85=94 It was,
as we now know, one of the concerted moves in the build-up to the
already-decided-upon plan to attack Iraq. Is Cheney=92s 2008 trip =93like
deja vu all over again?" That certainly is the inference drawn by U.S.
News and World Re****t.
Then, U.S. News and World Re****t introduces the Israeli card. It
re****ts the widely held belief that the Israeli air attack on Syria,
analyzed by Sy Hersh in one of his insightful pieces of investigative
re****ting on February 11, 2008 in The New Yorker, was not what it was
proclaimed to be, an attack on a presumed nuclear site, but a means to
force the Syrians to activate their anti-aircraft electronics =96 as
America used to do with the Russians =96 to detect gaps along what might
be a flight path from Israel toward Iran.
Why a flight path across Syria? Both because Turkey might not allow
the use of its airspace and because using Jordan=92s airspace, as Israel
did in its June 7, 1981 strike on the Iraqi nuclear facility at
Osiriq, might seriously weaken the Jordanian regime which Israel would
like to keep in place, at least for the time being.
Is a flight across Syria and Iraq to attack Iranian targets feasible?
The short answer is yes: the aircraft the United States has supplied
to Israel have the range and presumably could be refueled on their
return at a remote base among the 14 or so bases the U.S. has built
and maintains in Iraq.
U.S. News and World Re****t also drew attention to the stationing of a
guided missile destroyer off the Lebanese coast as another indication
of preparations for war. The article does not explain why but points
out that the destroyer has an anti-aircraft capability; so, the
inference is that it would shoot down any Syrian aircraft attempting
to hit Israel.
The article curiously p***** over in silence the much more impressive
build-up of naval power in the Persian Gulf. As of the last re****t I
have seen, a major part of the U.S. Navy is deployed in and around the
Persian Gulf. The numbers are stunning and include not only a vast
array of weapons, including nuclear weapons, cruise and other missiles
and hundreds of aircraft but also =93insertion=94 (invasion) forces and
equipment. Even then, these already deployed forces amount to only a
fraction of the total that could be brought to bear on Iran because
aircraft, both bombers and troop and equipment trans****ts, stationed
far away in Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, Europe and even in America
can be quickly employed .
Of course, deploying forces along Iran=92s frontier does not necessarily
mean using them. At least that is what the Administration says.
However, as a historian and former participant in government, I
believe that having troops and weapons on the spot makes their use
more likely than not. Why is that?
It is because a massive build-up of forces inevitably creates the
=93climate=94 of war. Troops and the public, on both sides, come to accept
its inevitability. Standing down is difficult and can entail loss of
=93face.=94 Consequently, political leaders usually are carried forward by
the flow of events. Having taken steps 1, 2 and 3, they find taking
step number 4 logical, even necessary. In short, momentum rather than
policy begins to control action. As Barbara Tuchman showed in her
study of the origins of the First World War, The Guns of August, even
though none of the parties really wanted to go to war, none could stop
the process. It was the fact that President Kennedy had been reading
Tuchman=92s book just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, I believe, that
made him so intent on not being =93hijacked by events.=94 His restraint
was unusual. More common is a surrender to =93sequence=94 as was shown by
the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It would have taken a
major reversal of policy =96 and considerable political bravery -- to
halt either invasion once the massive build-up was in place. No such
effort was made then. Will it be now? I think the odds are against it.
In fact, moves are being made, decisions are being taken and rationale
has been set out that point in the opposite direction. Consider just a
few of these in addition to what U.S. News and World Re****t
highlighted:
* The strategic rational for pre=EBmptive military action was set forth
in the 2005 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.
It proclaimed that =93America is a nation at war=85[and] will defeat
adversaries at the time, place, and in the manner of our choosing=85
[rather than employing] A reactive or defensive approach=85Therefore, we
must confront challenges earlier and more comprehensively, before they
are allowed to mature=85In all cases, we will seek to seize the
initiative and dictate the tempo, timing, and direction of military
operations.=94 In short, as Henry Kissinger pointed out in The
International Herald Tribune, April 14, 2006, it is an assertion of
the intention to engage in pre=EBmptive or =93first strike=94 warfare. So,
the process that began in Afghanistan and was then carried to Iraq and
(on a smaller scale) to Somalia points toward action against Iran.
* Why Iran? Iran is not the only target. American =93Special Ops=94 forces
are engaged in a number of countries, at last count about twenty. A
=93training=94 force (an echo of Vietnam) is being deployed in Pakistan to
help fight the Pathan hosts of the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin along
the frontier with Afghanistan and another is in India to help the
action against the Naxalite insurgents, but Iran is the major target.
* Among the reasons that the Bush administration has proclaimed are
that Iran is sup****ting terrorism by supplying arms, training and
encouragement both to anti-American insurgents in Iraq and to anti-
Israeli Hizbullah militants in Lebanon and that it is moving toward
the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Doubts have been expressed on both
of these contentions. Iran played a positive role in against the
Taliban (and against the drug trade) in Afghanistan and evidence on
Iraq is, at best, sketchy. On the nuclear issue, a National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) re****ted in November 2007 the consensus of
all the American intelligence agencies =93with high confidence=94 that
Iran is not actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
* Additionally, there is a psychological or political motivation.
President Bush proclaimed on January 29, 2002 that Iran was part of
the =93Axis of Evil.=94 He and others have conjured the memory of the
seizure of the American embassy and taking of our officers hostage and
have condemned the lamentable Iranian government record on civil
liberties and particularly on the treatment of women. With Iraq under
occupation and presumably incapable of mounting a credible threat
outside its own territory and with North Korea immune to attack (as it
already has nuclear weapons), Iran is the major perceived adversary
capable of doing what National Defense Strategy of the United States
of America termed =93adopting threatening capabilities, methods, and
ambitions=85[to] 1) limit our global freedom to act, 2) dominate key
regions, or 3) attempt to make prohibitive the costs of meeting
various U.S. international commitments.=94
Decoded and applied to Iran, the Strategy paper defines Iranian
actions as disrupting American objectives in the Middle East and has
the potential to dominate what is believed to be the largest still-
only-partially-developed pool of oil and gas in the world.
Thus, as defined by the National Defense Strategy of the United States
of America, Iran is an obvious target.
Apparently, President Bush=92s firing of Admiral Fallon was meant to
signal to the Iranians that =93all options remain on the table.=94 This is
the publically proclaimed policy of the Bush administration and has
also been adopted by the Democratic Party aspirants to the White
House, notably even by Barack Obama who recently said, =93all options,
and I mean all options, are on the table.=94
Leaving aside the issue of international law =96 which defines the
conditions under which military action is defense (and so is legal)
rather than aggression (and so is illegal) and which, having been
adopted by the United States government, is American law also -- is a
pre=EBmptive military strike against Iran feasible? Allegedly, Admiral
Fallon did not think so. I certainly do not either. The reasons are
both evident and unambiguous. They include the following:
* However they may feel about their government, Iranians are a proud
and nationalistic people who have suffered for generations from
meddling, espionage and invasions by the Russians, the British and the
Americans. They are even less likely than the Cubans (as the organizer
of the CIA Bay of Pigs task force, Richard Bissell, predicted) or the
Iraqis (as the Neoconservatives fantasized in 2003) to welcome foreign
intrusion. If attacked, they undoubtedly would fight.
* While the United States could almost certainly quickly destroy the
Iranian regular army, as it did the Iraqi regular army, the Iranians
are better prepared for a guerrilla war than were the Iraqis. They
have in being a force of at least 150 thousand dedicated and
appropriately armed members of the Pasdaran-i Inqilab (Revolutionary
National Guard) on land and at sea a numerous assortment of small,
maneuverable and lethal speedboats stationed all along the Persian
Gulf coast. Use of the boats would probably be suicidal but it would
be a miracle if they failed to inflict heavy casualties among the
American fleet. They almost certainly could interdict oil tankers.
* War is always unpredictable =96 except that it is always worse than
expected. No one thought that the First World War would last more than
a few months. The cost is also always unestimated. Before the American
invasion of Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thought it
would cost only about $50 billion; his deputy (and later president of
the world bank) Paul Wolfowitz thought it would cost nothing because
the Iraqis would pay for it; and when Larry Lindsay, the White House
economic adviser, predicted it might cost $200 billion, President Bush
fired him. Estimates now run between $2 and $6 trillion. To ****eld
this reality from the public, the Bush administration resorted to
massive borrowing abroad =96 U.S. Treasury obligations amounted to $2.7
trillion as of early this year and are now higher =96 and to a massive
increase -- up 70% during this Administration -- in national debt.
Almost no casualties were expected in Iraq; now American dead number
about 4,000 and a realistic figure for various categories of =93wounded=94
=96 officially put at about 20,000 =96 actually runs in the hundreds of
thousands. Just coping with the American wounded is expected to cost
half a trillion dollars.
But, Iraq is a small country while Iran is large, diverse and
populated by about three times as many people as Iraq. The costs,
human, material and monetary would certainly be a multiple of those
suffered in Iraq. It is not unlikely that war with Iran would
effectively =93break=94 the American volunteer army and bankrupt America.
* Given this unattractive scenario, military planners have re****tedly
emphasized their intent to use mainly or even solely =93surgical=94 air
strikes. But the fact that CENTCOM has positioned ****ps to =93insert=94
troops may be taken as a tacit admission by military planners that air
strikes alone would be unable to destroy either Iran=92s nuclear
facilities (which are believed to be widely scattered, often located
in heavily populated urban areas and/or in protected underground
locations) or to crush the nation=92s will to resist. Almost certainly,
military commanders would demand permission to follow up air strikes
with some form of =93boots on the ground.=94 Presumably and at least
initially these would likely be Special Forces, but, inevitably (I
would assert from my observation and study of past military
adventures) some of these forces, even if intended only for limited
action and quick withdrawal, will get caught and have to be rescued.
Thus, what is planned and begun as restricted action is extremely
unlikely to be containable.
=B7 Military action is also likely to result in various military,
paramilitary and economic and other responses by Iranians and others
outside of the immediate theater of combat. Consider the following:
1. The Iraqi government, although installed by the United States, is
predominantly culturally and religiously allied to Iran; in the shock
of an American invasion of Iran, it would almost certainly collapse or
intensify the struggle against American personnel in Iraq. Guerrilla
forces of Muqtada as-Sadr=92s =93Mahdi Army,=94 now observing a ceasefire,
would turn on the Americans;
2. What the Hizbullah forces in Lebanon could do other than firing
rockets is, to me at least, unclear, but a renewed round of savage
fighting with Israel would appear likely;
3. Those Middle Eastern governments allied with or thought to be
subservient to the United States (Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt)
might either be overthrown by their own military, have to fight civil
wars or, at least would become even more unpopular;
4. Elsewhere, Muslims of all sects would probably almost universally
turn against the United States so that much of Asia and Africa would
be convulsed and Americans and American interests would suffer; but
5. It is the economic consequences of an invasion that are, perhaps,
the most predictable and the most damaging to America. Iran produces
about 8% of the world=92s flow of energy and roughly 40% of the world=92s
energy is conveyed by tanker down the Persian Gulf. Iran=92s own
production =96 and possibly much of the Saudi production which is worked
by Saudis of ****a persuasion =96 would be drastically curtailed or even
halted, and as a result of naval action tankers are likely to be laid
up or sunk in the Gulf. With oil already at over $105/bbl, the price
is likely to soar with the predictable result of a major world
economic catastrophe. Just for the United States, every $1 rise in the
price of oil diminishes the national income by some $3 billion.
Such might be the results of a decision to attack Iran. But, what if
the current actions and pronouncements are just threats, intended only
to frighten the Iranians into doing what the United States wants?
* First, to be effective, threats must be credible. I imagine that the
Iranians must view our threats in something like the scale I have just
set out. If they have, I imagine that they will have concluded that
the United States government would have to be mad to attack Iran when
the costs of doing so are so evident and so large. In short, they
probably would have reached the same conclusion Admiral Fallon is said
to have reached.
* Second, it does not seem clear to me what the Iranians could do,
even if they wished to do so, to satisfy the United States=92 demands
unless Iran were occupied. Absent a large and intrusive American
presence, how could an Iranian government prove that it does not have
or at least seek nuclear weapons? Proving a negative has always been
logically impossible and any attempt to do so would certainly be
politically unsatisfactory to America and probably politically
impossible for Iran. This, we should remember, is roughly the
situation we (and the IAEA) reached in Iraq.
* Third, having received a credible threat to destroy their country,
the Iranians almost certainly would seek as rapidly as secretly
possible to acquire the only sure means to deter such an attack,
possession of a nuclear weapon. This also was the conclusion that
Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA reached. (Interview in the Argentinian
newspaper Clarin on November 29, 2007) Thus, a policy of threat that
falls short of actual attack must result in a long-term defeat even if
seemly producing a short-term victory for the United States.
Since we must assume that both the Iranian and American governments
will realize the logic of these points, I think we must conclude that
a policy of threat would slide almost inevitbly into conflict.
Moreover, war does not occur only by design. During the long years of
the Cold War, many of us worried over the danger of accidental war.
Dozens of incidents illustrated the danger =96 and at least some were
avoided more by luck than by cleverness. One in which I was involved
was averted during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As careful as we on the
Crisis Management Committee then were, we could see that an
unpredictable and even a rather trivial event could happen and could
have disastrous consequences. One I luckily caught was this: one of
our destroyers was positioned above a Soviet submarine, intent on
embarrassing it when the submarine surfaced. When I received notice of
the situation, my mind went back to the June 28, 1914 assassination of
Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo. I could imagine a
sailor throwing a bottle and his counterpart firing a pistol.
Accidents happen despite all attempts at control: most are immediately
contained as was the submarine incident in the Missile Crisis, but
luck cannot be guaranteed. War is a weapon with many triggers.
Of course, we must factor into our estimates the fact that some
Americans, notably the Neoconservatives who have set much of the
policy of the Bush administration, have actively espoused a war
policy. (See, for example, Norman Podhoretz=92s article =93Stopping Iran:
Why the Case for Mililtary Action Still Stands,=94 February Commentary.)
Their position has been encouraged and echoed by the current Israeli
government. Less known is the fact that the American and Israeli
=93hawks=94 have their counterparts in the Iranian government, as the
former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations admitted to me
privately. Consider their positions:
* The Neoconservatives began almost twenty years ago to advocate what
has come to be called =93the long war,=94 in the vortex of which the world
would be recast. One of them, the former CIA Director James Woolsey,
tried to be optimistic, saying he hoped this world-wide and
cataclysmic conflict would not last more than 40 years.
* Religious fundamentalists =96 Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus =96
share an eschatological vision. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that
each faith includes groups who actually yearn for apocalypse during
which time the world is destroyed to be reborn as a messiah or mahdi
appears. To the =93true believers,=94 hurrying toward the end of the world
is a race not toward horror but a fulfilling spiritual experience in
which it is only the enemies of the true faith who will suffer (as St.
John so graphically ****trays in The Revelation). In their version of
messianism, the ****is believe that the righteous will be delivered
from the tyranny of the corrupt, the ****is believe, and the earth will
be filled with justice and happiness.
Thus, one need not fear but actually should embrace actions that lead
toward =93the end.=94 We know this eschatology is the mind-set of
Christian fundamentalists; less well known is that it is also the mind-
set of ****a fundamentalists. What we think of as fatalism, is not just
acceptance of destiny but often is proactive. This may shape at least
some Iranian attitudes toward the terrible destruction that would come
from an American attack. My impression is that the Iranian ****a
fundamentalists, presumably including their mujtahid leader****p,
believe that the ensuing war would hasten the way toward the Last Day
when the Twelth Imam, The Mahdi, would reappear to cleanse the world
of evil.
* If the mujtahid leader****p, which is obviously deeply religious and
obviously incor****ates the central dogma of ****ism, holds these views
then a policy of threat or even of brutal military action will produce
effects different from those we thought shaped the attitude of the
Russian leader****p during the Cold War. Then, we shared with the
Russians a salutary vision of horror -- as set out, for example, in
Cormac McCarthy=92s recent novel, The Road. The absolute need to avoid
war was the ultimate brake on us because we knew that if we really
went to war millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of people would be
made refugees, wounded or incinerated. But, if one really believes in
the Last Day, then this brake is loosened. Thus, I think we should
factor into our calculations on American policy toward Iran, a
reaction very different from that we expected from the Russians.
* Moreover, even among secular Iranians (and others), I detect a
belief that while America would win battles it would lose the war,
that over time, Western society, seen as corrupt, materialistic and
selfish, would give way, exhaust itself or retreat to its home ground
while those who have no place to which to retreat are kept =93pure=94 by
their very poverty and are inspired by their faith or nationalism
cannot and will not surrender.
* Thus, even short of a nuclear Armageddon, the =93Long War=94 advocated
by the Neoconservatives would spread misery, violence, starvation,
disease and death. The =93fabric=94 that holds societies together would be
shredded so that a chaos even Hobbes could not have imagined would
become common over much of the world. The worst affected would be the
poor nations but even rich societies would be corrupted and crippled.
Reacting over a generation or more to fear of terrorism and the
emotional =93blow-back=94 of war, they would lose faith in law, civil
liberties, indeed civil society in general. Strong men would come to
the fore proclaiming that survival justifies giving up the civic,
cultural and material good life. Step by step along the path of the
long war, we could fall into the nightmare George Orwell laid out in
his novel 1984.
If this is even a remote and unlikely danger, and I believe it is far
more than that, we would be foolish indeed not to try to find means to
avoid taking any steps =96 of which war with Iran would be not a step
but a leap -- toward it. So what might those means be? I begin with
the nuclear issue:
Since obviously means should be tailored to the issue to be solved, we
must begin by asking why Iran would want nuclear weapons.
* If I were an Iranian, I would point to President Bush=92s formulation
of the =93Axis of Evil.=94 I would note that Iraq did not have nuclear
weapons and was virtually destroyed while North Korea which had them
and was left in peace. Having a nuclear weapon is the surest form of
defense in our dangerous world. There are, of course, other reasons
for becoming a nuclear power =96 access to advanced technology, national
prestige, cheap power, etc. =96 but the bottom line is national defense.
* It follows that threats must encourage the Iranian leader****p to
acquire a nuclear capacity. If I were an Iranian, that is what I would
certainly advocate. And, if America attacks Iran, even if it manages
to completely destroy all the production facilities and kill all the
technicians, as an Iranian I would do all in my power to beg, borrow
or steal a bomb. We can be sure that that would be the aim of any
future Iranian government. It was, after all, also the aim of the
government of the Shah, and had he lived a few more years the current
Iranian government would have inherited nuclear weapons. So, threats
and certainly any military action can only be ultimately self-
defeating even if tem****arily successful.
The second question we should address is what is the consequence of
Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon and what we should do about it. There
are, I suggest, four interlocking answers:
* first, from personal experience during the Cuban Missile Crisis and
from my study, I firmly believe that the existence of nuclear weapons
anywhere constitutes a danger to people everywhere. Thus, we should do
all we can to get all nations to phase them out with all deliberate
speed. For the first half century of the nuclear age, as McGeorge
Bundy describes it in Danger and Survival, we have been both prudent
and lucky, but we have little reason to think we can count on either
as former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara argues in
=93Apocalypse Soon=94 (Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005).
* Second, if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it will not be able to
use it or threaten to use it aggressively for fear of an almost
certain attack. This has been true of all the nuclear powers -- the
US, the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, Britain, France, North
Korea and Israel. While dangerous and costly, Mutually Assured
Destruction (MAD) has worked. Ironically, this ultimate weapon is
employable only as a deterrent. Therefore, I think that the near
hysteria evoked by the nuclear issue as applied to Iran is overblown
or as put forward by some even meretricious. But,
* Third, if Iran does acquire a weapon, it is likely that other
countries in the area would follow its (and Israel=92s) lead and move
toward acquisition. These might include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the
richer of the Gulf states and conceivably even Syria. Today,
acquisition is largely a matter of allocation of resources and in
changed cir***stances might be achieved without having to actually
make them.
* Fourth, it seems to me that this, I judge predictable, course of
events offers us a rare op****tunity to move toward nuclear sanity. We
must not forget that crises are also times of op****tunity. This could
be so crucial to our life on this planet that I will dilate on it:
1. The reason why states acquire nuclear weapons (as distinct from why
they seek to acquire nuclear technology) is fear of attack. The Soviet
Union did because of fear of us, China did largely out of fear of the
USSR, India and Pakistan did out of fear of one another, Israel did in
fear of the Arabs. However, as more and more states acquire weapons,
parity or balance is replaced by growing unpredictability. Arguably,
Israel, for example, gained security when it alone in the Middle East
had the bomb. But if, as I believe is inevitable, other states acquire
them, its security will be diminished and its danger increased.
Therefore, arguably, since it already has the strongest army and air
force in the area, it would be to Israel=92s interest to create a
nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. It is probably not possible to
force the Israelis into such a policy, if it is directly solely at
them, but overall considerations I have mentioned argue that the
United States should revert to the policy we espoused in the 1960s
which foresaw the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. The
Iranian crisis could thus be a catalyst in a move toward a safer
world.
2. Since threat or attack would lead to disaster, and since it is to
the fundamental interest of the United States to move toward peace, a
part of the solution to the Iranian =93crisis=94 should involve the
revocation of the 2005 National Defense Strategy of the United States
of America which causes other nations to fear us and which is more
likely to embroil us in wars than to enhance our national security.
Highlighting this issue, the Iranian crisis thus gives us an
op****tunity to readjust our goals and our means of action.
3. Included in our means of action is an awesome military force, which
we have painfully learned does not always and necessarily enhance our
security and well-being but can, itself, be a cause of danger and
impoverishment. This is the lesson of history: great powers seldom
fail on the battlefield but often lose sway by exhaustion or hubris.
Our military machine is grossly out of pro****tion both to our needs
and to what the world will peacefully tolerate. And some pieces of it,
particularly the legacy of Secretary Rumsfeld, the =93Special Operations
Command,=94 are a clear and present danger to us. As we recognize the
dangers inherent in the Iranian crisis, we can use the op****tunity for
a clear-headed re=EBvaluation of our real security needs and best means
to achieve them.
4. Involved also in the Iranian crisis is our conception of the world
order. As a piece of the settlement of the Iranian crisis, both we and
the Iranians have a chance to come to grips with reality: we cannot
remake other cultures and should not try to do so. The harder we
press, the more ugly the process becomes both for us and for them.
Specifically in Iran, our threats bring out the worst in the ruling
group. Once the pressure is removed, Iranians will have the breathing
room to reffirm their obvious desires for =93the good life.=94 Then a more
humane order will have a chance. That is the course of events we have
seen, for example, in Vietnam.
5. Also coming out of this crisis we have seen that the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has made a major contribution to our
security and well-being. It has served our purposes not by being our
rubber stamp but by being professional and independent. We should
learn from this experience. But, American administration after
administration has purposefully made the United Nations weak and has
deliberately picked weak men to lead it. We would be well advised to
use the process of solving the Iran crisis to reconsider how it and
other international institutions, such as the world court, could
enhance our national interest.
In conclusion, I believe that we are at one of those rare points in
history when great nations find themselves, as Shakespeare put it so
memorably at the changing of the tide:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries,
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
I hope and trust we will use the tide of the Iranian =93crisis=94 to lead
on to fortune rather than getting bound in shallows and miseries.
William R. Polk
March 18, 2008
William R. Polk was the member of the Policy Planning Council
responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia from
1961 to 1965 and then professor of history at the University of
Chicago where he founded the Middle Eastern Studies Center. He was
also president of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International
Affairs. His most recent book is Violent Politics: A History of
Insurgency, Terrorism & Guerrilla Warfare from the American Revolution
to Iraq (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
Source:
http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/iran-danger-and-op****tunity-polk-gue=
st.html
- o O o =96
Ritter Says White House Preparing For War In Iran
By Ed Barna,
Herald Correspondent,
Rutland Herald, VT,
April 4, 2008.
MIDDLEBURY =97 Scott Ritter, former head of weapons inspection in Iraq
who protested there were no weapons of mass destruction to justify an
invasion, believes the same is true for Iran.
But there is an 80 percent chance of war with Iran, he told about 200
people Wednesday at Middlebury College as part of a series of talks
facilitated by the Vermont Peace and Justice Center.
The pattern of preparations for such a conflict has been steadily
developing and involves Congress as well as the Bush-Cheney
administration, he said.
People ask him if he feels vindicated by the absence of WMDs in Iraq,
he said, but "there isn't any vindication in being right about this
one." A war with Iran would hasten the ongoing decline of American
standing in the world, and afterward Russia and China would be ready
to take advantage of the resulting power vacuum, he said.
Among the war clouds Ritter cited were:
Preemptive strikes against the two groups most likely to erupt if the
United States invaded Iran, Hezbollah (unsuccessfully attacked by
Israel) and Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army (unsuccessfully attacked in
Basra by Iraq's central government).
Ritter predicted a similarly disappointing showing if the American
forces attacked Iran, a country 2-1/2 times as large and populous as
Iraq that is much more unified culturally and did not have its army
destroyed in a previous war with the United States.
Recent visits to Middle Eastern allies by high officials, ostensibly
for other purposes, but really to prepare them for the effects of such
a war.
The appearance of the "miracle laptop," as Ritter called it, a
thousand pages of technical do***ents supposedly from a stolen Iranian
computer, which dubiously had just the sort of information the
administration needed to sup****t a hard-line stand on Iran.
Congressional supplementary funding for more "bunker-busting" bombs,
with a contract completion deadline of April.
Congressional supplementary funding for the extra bombers to carry
those bombs, with a contract completion date of April.
Cheney's order to send a third aircraft carrier battle group close to
the Persian Gulf, a necessary bolstering of forces for a war with
Iran.
Admiral William Fallon, the first admiral to be head of Central
Command, said that level of naval forces was unnecessary and blocked
the move. Ritter said that was "a heroic thing."
The main target of Ritter's criticisms was an American public that
couldn't pass a test on the Constitution and understands little of
international history and politics, and refuses to believe the life of
an Iraqi is worth as much as the life of an American.
He began his talk, not by trumpeting the danger of war, but by talking
about spring, and the birds that will soon have babies in their nests.
Mother birds will forage, come to the nests, see open mouths begging
for food, and puke into each one, he said.
Just so, Ritter said, people sit in front of their televisions every
night and wait to be stuffed with mushy phrases like "The surge has
been successful" and "Baghdad is 70 percent secure" and "We have
apparently won the war."
"The reality of Iraq is that it is a broken nation," Ritter said.
Groups like the Kurds and ****a are not unified groups, there is
already a civil war, and most of the opposition to our presence comes
from our being the invaders, he said.
"It is far too easy to look for people to blame," he said. For
instance, "we blame the media, but the media simply give us what we're
asking for."
Everyone needs to start understanding and caring about their
Constitutional rights, and everyone needs to start finding the facts
for themselves and taking strong individual stands, Ritter said. If
you do nothing but take in what the TV and newspapers tell you, "all
you're going to get in return is puke."
Source:
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=3D/20080404/N=
EWS04/804040381/1002/NEWS01
- o O o =96
Possibility of US Attack to Iran Real: Head of Urosevic Foundation
TREND News Agency,
2 April, 2008.
Azerbaijan, Baku, 2 April / corr . TrendNews D.Khatinoglu / Bringing
the U.S. military forces to battle preparedness in the Persian Gulf
once again testifies the supposition of outbreak of a new war in the
region. =93The USA=92s beginning a new war is real,=94 said the Chairman
of
the Urosevic Research Foundation of London, Piruz Mujtahidzade .
The Russian special services informed that the USA brings its army to
battle preparedness on the border of Iran, Iranian newspaper =91 Intihab
=92 re****ted referring to the ****tal of Information Clearing House. The
material says that Wa****ngton is preparing to attack Iran in the near
future, placing new military aircrafts and ****ps in the Persian Gulf.
=93The USA continues its plans of occupying the countries in the
region,=94 the Professor of Political Sciences of Tehran University,
Mujtahidzade , re****ted to TrendNews by Telephone from London on 2
April. According to him, the USA has tied up to crisis around Iraq,
and therefore, yet is not capable to begin a new war.
=93The tension in Iraq in the recent period resulted from Wa****ngton=92s
plans to attack Iran. The Mehdi Army was not involved in the disorders
in Iraq. The new confrontation was caused by the statement made by
Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al- Maliki , who due to the sup****t by
the USA called on the British peacekeepers to recede from their
positions in the controlled zone (Basra), provoking Mehdi Army to come
to show its advantage in the region, as well as organized disorders
and killed activists of Mehdi Army and tried to demonstrate it as
order of Iran to create disorder with hands of ****ite organization.
Such scenario is necessary to prove that as tough Iran interferes in
the situation in Iraq,=94 Mujtahidzade said.
According to the expert, the USA=92s attacking Iran or Syria will bring
to serious crisis both in the region and in the USA itself. =93Attacking
Iraq, the USA harmed its international image, as well as its military
forces weakened and serious problems appeared in its economy.
Beginning a new war, which is necessary to hide the mistakes being
made, will bring to deeper crisis,=94 the expert said.
Source:
http://news.trend.az/index.shtml?show=3Dnews&newsid=3D1167558&lang=
=3DEN
- o O o -
Russia "Alarmed" As U.S. Readies April Nuclear Attack On Iran
By Sorcha Faal,
Collective Bellaciao, France,
3 April 2008
Russian Foreign Ministry Officials are re****ted to be `alarmed` today
over a `presentation` made by the United States War Leaders to
President Putin at this weeks NATO summit in Romania and which details
the Americans plan to begin a nuclear attack against Irans atomic
facilities in the next two weeks.
Most disturbing of these re****ts, according to Foreign Ministry
Analysts, are the United States `offers and threats` towards Russia to
`remain neutral` in this conflict or face the combined weight of the
American and EU central banks deliberate collapsing of the Western
banking system, and US dollar, and which is estimated will cause the
loss of nearly $800 billion of Russian foreign reserves.
To the `offers` presented to President Putin for keeping Russia out of
this war, these re****ts continue, will be NATO`s rejection of Ukraine
and Georgia member****p into the Western Military Alliance and the
ending of the planned US Missile ****eld being planned for Poland and
the Czech Republic.
In what, sadly, p***** for diplomacy these days with the United
States, this `presentation` to President Putin is eerily reminiscent
of the offer made to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan prior to the US
invasion of their country after their rejection of the American offer,
and which French news sources re****ted was stated, "Either you accept
our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of
bombs."
To the likelihood of the US carrying out their brutal expansion of
their war against the Muslim peoples of the World with a nuclear
attack upon Iran there remains today little doubt as Saudi Arabia has
ordered their people to prepare for nuclear war, and as we can read as
re****ted by Iran`s Press TV News Service, and which says:
"Saudi Arabia is re****tedly preparing to counter any `radioactive
hazards` which may result from a US strike on Iran`s nuclear plants.
Popular government-guided Saudi newspaper Okaz recently re****ted that
the Saudi Shura Council approved of nuclear fallout preparation plans
only a day after US Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Kingdom`s
high ranking officials, including King Abdullah.
As a result of the Shura ruling, the Saudi government will start the
implementation of `national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and
radioactive hazards that may affect the Kingdom following expert
warnings of possible attacks on Iran`s Bushehr nuclear reactors`."
Israel is, likewise, said to be preparing for this new war, and as we
can read as re****ted by Israeli News Sources, and which state:
"Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized on Sunday evening the plans
for a national emergency drill, which is scheduled to take place in
two weeks time."
Russian Military Analysts, in these re****ts, further state that with a
US nuclear strike against Iran, Israel will, also, launch a
simultaneous against Syria, and as we can read, as re****ted by
Israel`s Ynet News Service, the Syrian Nation is preparing for:
"Syria is preparing for a comprehensive Israeli strike which will be
combined with an attack on Hizbullah, sources in Damascus have told
the London-based Arabic-language al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. The
sources, which refused to reveal their identity, re****ted that Syria
was closely monitoring the movement of Israeli forces along the
northern border.
The newspaper re****ted Wednesday that Damascus viewed the Israeli
media re****ts and statements made by senior Israel Defense Forces
officials as incitement and attempts to prepare the Israeli and global
public opinion for a war against Syria.
In addition to the military preparations, the sources said, Damascus
has raised its security alert level for fear that Israeli forces would
infiltrate its territories through one of its bordering countries,
mainly referring to Lebanon.
Over the past few weeks, the Syrians have stationed three armored
divisions, special forces and nine mechanized infantry divisions
opposite Lebanon`s western valley, as the Syrians estimate that a
ground Israeli invasion may take place in that area."
As the American people remain under the greatest threat in their
history to their freedom, and as Britain`s top economic experts are
stating that the US is now falling into a Great Depression, with the
most of their citizens receiving food aid in their entire history,
while at the same time their Military re****ts the spending of over
$1.6 trillion on new weapons for their wars, one cannot but shudder to
think of the grave consequences should their grab for total World
domination fails.
But, with all of the failed attempts by many Global powers in the past
to establish their rule over the entire World, and should the United
States fail in their nuclear attack against Iran, and with the added
backdrop of the growing crisis of our Earth being able to feed its own
people, even the most simplest of minds can see the folly of the
Americans desires.
This cannot, however, be said of the American people, and who continue
leading their `American Dream` lives while being led to their own
destruction along a road paved with celebrity trivialities and banal
stories of nothingness that p***** for news in their country.
Never has it been more true the age old saying, "For those who do not
learn history they are doomed to repeat it."
Source: http://nuclearno.com/text.asp?12725
- o O o -
U.S. Attack on Iran: Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear
Hazards" After Cheney Visit
by Chris Floyd,
Global Research,
March 31, 2008
Empire Burlesque
I. One Tick Closer to Midnight
Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia for high-level meetings
with the Saudi king and his ministers. On Saturday, it was revealed
that the Saudi Shura Council -- the elite group that implements the
decisions of the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing "national
plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may
affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on
Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors," one of the kingdom's leading
newspapers, Okaz, re****ts. The German-based dpa news service relayed
the paper's story.
Simple prudence -- or ominous timing? We noted here last week that an
American attack on Iran was far more likely -- and more imminent --
than most people suspect. We pointed to the mountain of evidence for
this case gathered by scholar William R. Polk, one of the top aides to
John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to other indicators
of impending war. The story by Okaz -- which would not have appeared
in the tightly controlled dictator****p without approval from the top
-- is yet another, very weighty piece of evidence laid in the scales
toward a new, horrendous conflict.
We don't know what the Saudis told Cheney in private -- or even more
to the point, what he told them. But the release of this story now,
just after his departure, would seem to be a clear indication that the
Saudis have good reason to fear a looming attack on Iran's nuclear
sites and are actively preparing for it.
II. A Nuclear Epiphany in Iran?
And they certainly should be bracing themselves. A U.S. attack on Iran
will come suddenly, and if it is indeed aimed at destroying Iran's
nuclear capabilities -- a "threat" being talked up again with new
urgency by both Cheney and Bush lately -- it has the potential for
unimaginable consequences. As we noted here in a previous piece:
Twelve hours. One circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one
course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural
measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden
interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the
infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world.
Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to
gear up and launch an unprovoked sneak attack =96 a Pearl Harbor in
reverse =96 against Iran, the Wa****ngton Post re****ts=85.And when this
attack comes =96 either as a stand-alone "knock-out blow" or else as the
precursor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion, like the earlier
aggression in Iraq =96 there will be no warning, no declaration of war,
no hearings, no public debate. The already issued orders governing the
operation put the decision solely in the hands of the president: he
picks up the phone, he says, "Go" =96 and in twelve hours' time, up to a
million Iranians could be dead.
This potential death toll is not pacifist hyperbole; it comes from a
National Academy of Sciences study sponsored by the Pentagon itself,
as The Progressive re****ts. (Although Bush's military brass like to
peddle the public lie that "we don't do body counts" of the enemy, in
reality, like all good businessmen they keep precise accounts of their
production outputs: i.e., corpses.) The Pentagon's NAS study
calibrated the kill-rate from "bunker-busting" tactical nukes used to
take out underground facilities =96 such as those which house much of
Iran's nuclear power program.
Another simulation by scientists, using Pentagon-devised software, was
even more specific, measuring the aftermath of a "limited" nuclear
attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan, the magazine
re****ts. This small expansion of the Pentagon franchise would result
in stellar production figures: three million people killed by
radiation in just two weeks, and 35 million people exposed to
dangerous levels of cancer-causing radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India. Bush has about 50 nuclear "earth-penetrating weapons" at
his disposal, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Nor is the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran mere "liberal paranoia."
Bush himself pointedly refused to take the nuclear option "off the
table" this week. But what's more, Bush has made the use of nuclear
weapons a centerpiece of his "National Security Strategy of the United
States," issued last month, The Progressive notes. While reaffirming
the criminal principle of "pre-emptive" attacks on perceived enemies
which may or may not be threatening America with weapons they may or
may not possess, Bush declared that "safe, credible and reliable
nuclear forces continue to play a critical role" in the "offensive
strike systems" that are now a key part of America's "deterrence."
In the depraved jargon of atomic warmongering, a "credible" nuclear
force is one that can and will be used in the course of ordinary
military operations. It is no longer to be regarded as a sacred taboo.
This has long been the dream of the Pentagon's "nuclear priesthood"
and its acolytes, going back to the days of Hiro****ma and Nagasaki.
For decades, a strong faction within the American power structure has
been afflicted with a perverted craving to unleash these weapons once
more. An almost ***ual frustration can be discerned in their laments
as time and again, in crisis after crisis, their counsels for "going
nuclear" were rejected =96 often at the very last moment. To justify
their aberrant desire, they have relentlessly demonized an ever-
changing array of "enemies," painting each one as an imminent,
overwhelming threat, led by "madmen" in thrall to pure evil,
impervious to reason, fit only for destruction. Evidence for the
"threat" is invariably exaggerated, manipulated, even manufactured;
this ritual cycle has been enacted over and over, leading to many wars
=96 but never to that ultimate, orgasmic release.
Now this paranoid sect has at last seized the commanding heights of
American power....
And they have found a most eager disciple in the peevish dullard
strutting in the Oval Office. Under their sinister tutelage, Bush has
eviscerated 40 years' worth of arms control treaties; officially
"normalized" the use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear
states; rewarded outlaw proliferators like India, Israel and Pakistan;
and is now destroying the last and most effective restraint on the
spread of nuclear weapons: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The treaty guarantees its signatories =96 such as Iran =96 the right to
establish nuclear power programs in exchange for rigorous
international inspections. But Bush has arbitrarily decided that Iran
=96 whose nuclear program undergone perhaps the most extensive
inspection process in history =96 must end its lawful activities. Why?
Because the country is led by "madmen" in thrall to pure evil,
impervious to reason, who one day may or may not threaten America with
weapons they may or may not have.
So the NPT is dead. As with the Geneva Conventions and the U.S.
Constitution, it now means only what Bush says it means. Force of
arms, not rule of law, is the new world order. The attack on Iran is
coming=85.
The nuclear sectarians have waited decades for this moment. Such a
chance may never come again. Will they let it pass, when with just a
word, in just twelve hours, they can see their god rising in a pillar
of fire over Persia?
(Chris Floyd is a frequent contributor to Global Research.)
Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=3Dva&aid=3D8494
- o O o -
Russians, Saudis Expect U.S. Attack On Iran
By Paul Craig Roberts,
VDARE.com,
March 30, 2008.
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United
Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on
Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If
there were a shred of integrity left in American political life,
perhaps a third act of ****d aggression--a third war crime under the
Nuremberg standard--by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited a
high-ranking security source: "The latest military intelligence data
point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and
ground operation against Iran."
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said
"that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on
Iran=92s military infrastructure in the near future."
The chief of Russia=92s general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last
November that Russia was beefing up its military in response to US
aggression, but that the Russian military is not "obliged to defend
the world from the evil Americans."
On March 29, OpEdNews cited a re****t by the Saudi Arabian newspaper
Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi
newspaper re****ted on March 22, the day following Cheney=92s visit with
the kingdom=92s rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing
"national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive
hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts=92 warnings of
possible attacks on Iran=92s Bushehr nuclear reactors."
And Admiral William "there will be no attack on Iran on my watch"
Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing
the way for Cheney=92s planned attack on Iran.
The Iranians don=92t seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US
nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group to the
Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response to
an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses to protect US
bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and
the American people have paved the way for Cheney=92s long-planned
attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the US
government=92s explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats=92
refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for
lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and
launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated
evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did
with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with
anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging
a "Polish attack" on a German radio station. On the night of August
31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish uniforms seized a radio
station in Germany. Hitler announced that "last night Polish troops
crossed the frontier and attacked Germany," a claim no more true than
the Bush Regime=92s claim that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction." Hitler=92s lie failed, because his invasion of Poland,
which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack,
had obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient
civilization. It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to
have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime=92s case against Iran is
based on the Bush Regime=92s desire to deny Iran its rights under the
treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly
re****ted that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear
weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus
and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the Iraqis
who are resisting the American occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons
that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles
to knock down US helicopter gun****ps and rocket-propelled grenades
that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not have these
weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery
shells. The insurgents are helpless against US air power and cannot
mass forces to take on the American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. The
civilian infrastructure is essentially destroyed--electricity, water
and sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted uranium is
everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops. There is no
economy, and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi
family has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence of the US
invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become displaced persons. A
developed country with a professional middle class has been destroyed
because of lies told by the President and Vice President of the US.
The Bush Regime=92s lies are echoed by a neoconservative media, and have
gone unchallenged by the opposition party and an indifferent American
public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest
village from the air. America=92s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars
against the civilian populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler=92s next horror and thus was
always unprepared, the Iranians despite all the evidence cannot
believe that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack Iran based
on nothing but lies about non-existent nuclear weapons.
Iran=92s only chance would be to strike before the US delivers the first
blow. Instead of using its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields
and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead of closing the Strait of
Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi ****=92ites and moving them to
insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial even as the
US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki move to eliminate Al Sadr=92s Iraqi
****=92ite militia in order to avoid supply disruptions and a ****=92ite
rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is im****tant to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war.
Having tamed, blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US media, and
US allies and puppets, Cheney might delight in the arrogance with
which he can now attack Iran free of any restraint or fabricated
provocation.
On the other hand, he might cover himself by orchestrating an "Iranian
provocation" to justify his attack as a response. But like Hitler=92s
planned attack against Poland, Cheney=92s attack on Iran has long been
in the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press re****ted that Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi "poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders" at the Arab summit
that day. Gadhafi told the Arab "leaders," many of whom are on the
American payroll, that their American masters would turn on them all,
just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a
proxy war against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Wa****ngton, Gadhafi reminded the
Arabs, "but they sold him out." Gadhafi told the American puppets,
"Your turn is next."
Gadhafi asked, "Where is the Arabs=92 dignity, their future, their very
existence?" If Arabs remain disunited, he predicted, "they will turn
themselves into protectorates. They will be marginalized and turn into
garbage dumps."
Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder at
will in the Middle East.
(Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during
President Reagan=92s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall
Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including
the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International
Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor
by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-
Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Wa****ngton;
Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet
Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny
of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice. Read Peter Brimelow=92s Forbes
Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of
prosecutorial misconduct)
=2E
Source: http://vdare.com/roberts/080330_iran.htm
- o O o -
Russian Iintelligence Sees U.S. Military Buildup On Iran Border
RIA-Novosti, Moscow,
27 March, 2008.
MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence
services are re****ting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near
Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S.
military preparations for both an air and ground operation against
Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not
yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.
He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against
Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its
knees at minimal cost."
He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the
first time in the past four years reached the level that existed
shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of
Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to
deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the
near future.
A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.
The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing
aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers,
eight sup****t ****ps and four nuclear submarines are heading for the
Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has
been deployed since December 2006.
The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.
Source: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html
- o O o -
The U.S. Declaration of War On Iran
By John McGlynn,
Information Clearing House,
28 March, 2008.
March 20, 2008, destined to be another day of infamy. On this date the
US officially declared war on Iran. But it's not going to be the kind
of war many have been expecting.
No, there was no dramatic televised announcement by President George
W. Bush from the White House oval office. In fact on this day, re****ts
the Wa****ngton Post, Bush spent some time communicating directly with
Iranians, telling them via Radio Farda (the US-financed broadcaster
that transmits to Iran in Farsi, Iran's native language) that their
government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy
people." But not to worry, he told his listeners in Farsi-translated
Bushspeak: Tehran would not get the bomb because the US would be
"firm."
Over at the US Congress, no war resolution was passed, no debate
transpired, no last-minute hearing on the Iran "threat" was held. The
Pentagon did not put its forces on red alert and cancel all leave. The
top story on the Pentagon's website (on March 20) was: "Bush Lauds
Military's Performance in Terror War," a feel-good piece about the
president's appearance on the US military's TV channel to praise "the
performance and courage of U.S. troops engaged in the global war on
terrorism." Bush discussed Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa but not Iran.
But make no mistake. As of Thursday, March 20 the US is at war with
Iran.
So who made it official?
A unit within the US Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes
Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which issued a March 20 advisory to the
world's financial institutions under the title: "Guidance to Financial
Institutions on the Continuing Money Laundering Threat Involving
Illicit Iranian Activity."
FinCEN, though part of the chain of command, is better known to
bankers and lawyers than to students of US foreign policy.
Nevertheless, when the history of this newly declared war is someday
written (assuming the war is allowed to proceed) FinCEN's role will be
as im****tant as that played by US Central Command (Centcom) in
directing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In its March 20 advisory FinCEN reminds the global banking community
that United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 1803 (passed on
March 3, 2008) "calls on member states to exercise vigilance over the
activities of financial institutions in their territories with all
banks domiciled in Iran, and their branches and subsidiaries abroad."
UNSC 1803 specifically mentions two Iranian state-owned banks: Bank
Melli and Bank Saderat. These two banks (plus their overseas branches
and certain subsidiaries), along with a third state-owned bank, Bank
Sepah, were also unilaterally sanctioned by the US in 2007 under anti-
proliferation and anti-terrorism presidential executive orders 13382
and 13224.
As of March 20, however, the US, speaking through FinCEN, is now
telling all banks around the world "to take into account the risk
arising from the deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT [anti-money laundering
and combating the financing of terrorism] regime, as well as all
applicable U.S. and international sanctions programs, with regard to
any possible transactions" with =96 and this is im****tant =96 not just the
above three banks but every remaining state-owned, private and special
government bank in Iran. In other words, FinCEN charges, all of Iran's
banks =96 including the central bank (also on FinCEN's list) =96 represent
a risk to the international financial system, no exceptions.
Confirmation is possible by comparing FinCEN's list of risky Iranian
banks with the listing of Iranian banks provided by Iran's central
bank.
The "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is im****tant because it provides
the rationale FinCEN will now use to deliver the ultimate death blow
to Iran's ability to participate in the international banking system.
The language is borrowed from Paris-based Financial Action Task Force
(FATF), a group of 32 countries and two territories set up by the G-7
in 1989 to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. As the
FinCEN advisory describes, in October 2007 the FATF stated "that
Iran's lack of a comprehensive anti-money laundering and combating the
financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime represents a significant
vulnerability in the international financial system. In response to
the FATF statement, Iran passed its first AML law in February 2008.
The FATF, however, reiterated its concern about continuing
deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT system in a statement on February 28,
2008."
Actually, the February 28 FATF statement does not comment on Iran's
new anti-money laundering law. The statement does say, however, that
the FATF has been working with Iran since the October 2007 FATF
statement was issued and "welcomes the commitment made by Iran to
improve its AML/CFT regime." Moreover, the February 28 statement, for
whatever reason, drops the "significant vulnerability" wording, opting
instead to reaffirm that financial authorities around the world should
"advise" their domestic banks to exercise "enhanced due diligence"
concerning Iran's AML/CFT "deficiencies." In linking its March 20
advisory to the recent FATF statements, apparently FinCEN cannot wait
for FATF or anyone else to evaluate the effectiveness of Iran's brand
new anti-financial crime laws.
Anyway, the "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is probably the main
wording FinCEN will use to justify application of one its most
powerful sanctions tools, a USA Patriot Act Section 311 designation
(see below).
Hammering away at Iran's state-owned banks is central to US efforts to
raise an international hue and cry. Through its state-owned banks,
FinCEN states, "the Government of Iran disguises its involvement in
proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive
practices specifically designed to evade detection." By managing to
get inserted the names of two state-owned banks in the most recent UN
Security Council resolution on Iran, the US can now ****tray the cream
of Iran's financial establishment (Bank Melli and Bank Saderat are
Iran's two largest banks) as directly integrated into alleged regime
involvement in a secret nuclear weaponization program and acts of
terrorism.
To inject further alarm, FinCEN accuses Iran's central bank of
"facilitating transactions for sanctioned Iranian banks" based on
evidence (which for various reasons appears true) gathered by Treasury
and other US agencies that the central bank has facilitated erasure of
the names of Iranian banks "from global transactions in order to make
it more difficult for intermediary financial institutions to determine
the true parties in the transaction." The central bank is also charged
with continuing to "provide financial services to Iranian
entities" (government agencies, business firms and individuals) named
in two earlier UN Security Council resolutions, 1737 and 1747. In
defense, Iran's central bank governor recently said: "The central bank
assists Iranian private and state-owned banks to do their commitments
regardless of the pressure on them" and charged the US with "financial
terrorism."
So what does all this bureaucratic financial rigmarole mean?
What it really means is that the US, again through FinCEN, has
declared two acts of war: one against Iran's banks and one against any
financial institution anywhere in the world that tries to do business
with an Iranian bank.
To understand how this works requires understanding what FinCEN does.
This means going back in history to September 2005, when the US
Treasury Department, based on the investigatory work of FinCEN,
sanctioned a small bank in Macau, which in turn got North Korea really
upset.
FinCEN's mission "is to safeguard the financial system from the abuses
of financial crime, including terrorist financing, money laundering,
and other illicit activity" (FinCEN website).
Under Section 311 of the USA Patriot Act the US Treasury Department,
acting through FinCEN, has been provided with "a range of options that
can be adapted to target specific money laundering and terrorist
financing concerns." Specifically, Section 311 contains six "special
measures" to significantly increase the powers of the Treasury (and
other US government agencies) to block alleged terrorist financing
activities. As explained by a Treasury official during April 2006
testimony before Congress, the most punitive measure requires:
"U.S. financial institutions to terminate correspondent relation****ps
with the designated entity. Such a defensive measure effectively cuts
that entity off from the U.S. financial system. It has a profound
effect, not only in insulating the U.S. financial system from abuse,
but also in notifying financial institutions and jurisdictions
globally of an illicit finance risk."
On September 20, 2005 FinCEN issued a finding under Section 311 that
Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a small bank in the Chinese territory of
Macau, was a "primary money laundering concern." BDA was alleged to
have knowingly allowed its North Korean clients to use the bank to
engage in deceptive financial practices and a variety of financial
crimes (such as money laundering of profits from drug trafficking and
counterfeit US $100 "supernotes").
By publicizing its allegations, FinCEN let the world know that BDA was
now at risk of having all "correspondent relation****ps" with US banks
severed, a disaster for any bank wanting to remain networked to the
largest financial market in the world. Frightened BDA customers
reacted by staging a run on the bank's assets.
In the interest of self-preservation, BDA was forced to act. After a
quick conference with Macau financial authorities the bank decided to
freeze North Korean funds on deposit.
It just so happened that the day before the FinCEN finding was made
public the US and North Korea, working through the Six-Party talks
process (also involving host China, Russia, South Korea and Japan),
had formally agreed on a new diplomatic roadmap that promised to lead
to a denuclearized and permanently peaceful Northeast Asia. But
because of Treasury's BDA sanctions, North Korea was now labeled an
international financial outlaw and the Six Party process stalled.
Other banks began severing their business ties with North Korea,
leaving the country more isolated than ever from global commerce and
finance. These other banks had no choice. Treasury repeatedly made
clear that any bank that continued to do business with North Korea was
another potential Patriot Act Section 311 target.
In anger, North Korea withdrew from the Six-Party process. It required
18 months of negotiations before a diplomatic and financial approach
was devised that left BDA blacklisted but allowed North Korea to
regain access to its frozen funds and rejoin Six Party negotiations.
Neither FinCEN nor anyone else at Treasury has ever publicly produced
any evidence in sup****t of the financial crime allegations against BDA
and North Korea (articles by this author on BDA, North Korea and
Treasury's lack of proof can be found at the Japan Focus website).
If Treasury was eventually forced to back off in the BDA case
(apparently because the Bush administration changed its policy
priorities), it had discovered that Patriot Act Section 311 could
really shake things up.
The "real impact" of the BDA-North Korea sanctions, as Treasury
undersecretary Stuart Levey told members of the American Bar
Association in early March 2008, was that "many private financial
institutions worldwide responded by terminating their business
relation****ps not only with [BDA], but with North Korean clients
altogether." Levey and his Treasury colleagues had come up with a way
to go beyond governments to use the global banking sector to privatize
banking sector sanctions against an entire country (this, by the way,
is presidential candidate John McCain's proposed strategy for dealing
with Iran as described in the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of the journal
Foreign Affairs ). This "key difference" in the "reaction by the
private sector" was an exciting revelation. Through a little
extraterritorial legal arm-twisting of the international banking
community the US was able to put "enormous pressure on the [North
Korean] regime =96 even the most reclusive government depends on access
to the international financial system," said Levey. Wa****ngton now had
"a great deal of leverage in its diplomacy over the nuclear issue with
North Korea." Turning to the present, Levey informed the gathering of
US lawyers that "we are currently in the midst of an effort to apply
these same lessons to the very real threat posed by Iran." However,
"Iran presents a more complex challenge than North Korea because of
its greater integration into the international financial community."
Stuart Levey
Over the past two years Levey and other Treasury officials have been
crisscrossing the globe to make it abundantly clear in meetings
(described by Treasury as op****tunities to "share information") with
banking and government officials in the world's key financial centers
that dealing with Iran is risky business. Levey frequently claims that
major European and Asia banks, once they hear the US pitch, freely
decided to cooperate with anti-Iran banking sanctions for reasons of
"good cor****ate citizen****p" and a "desire to protect their
institutions' reputations."
But these meetings include quite a bit of browbeating. This can be
deduced from some of Levey's public statements, such as his testimony
to Congress. On March 21, 2007 Levey told the Senate Committee on
Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that unilateral US financial
sanctions "warn people and businesses not to deal with the designated
target. And those who might still be tempted to work with targeted
high risk actors get the message loud and clear: if they do so, they
may be next." Also, the possibility of becoming a Patriot Act Section
311 sanctions victim (which means exclusion from the US market)
probably comes up at the meetings, as this part of his testimony
indirectly suggests: "Our list of targeted proliferators is
incor****ated into the compliance systems at major financial
institutions worldwide, who have little appetite for the business of
proliferation firms and who also need to be mindful of U.S. measures
given their ties to the U.S. financial system."
Re****tedly, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has also been involved in
high-level meetings around the world concerning Iran, which presumably
includes presentations on the arsenal of US financial sanctions. The
message he imparts is unknown, but hints of the likely content can be
found in public statements. Among Treasury officials Paulson has used
the most dramatic language by making the argument that not only is
Iran a danger to the international community but that this danger
permeates virtually all of Iranian society. In a June 14, 2007 speech
to the Council on Foreign Relations he first makes the point that
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a "paramilitary"
organization "directly involved in the planning and sup****t of
terrorist acts, as well as funding and training other terrorist
groups." Then he offers the alarming revelation that the IRGC "is so
deeply entrenched in Iran's economy and commercial enterprises, it is
increasingly likely that if you are doing business with Iran, you are
somehow doing business with the IRGC." With such language, Treasury
lays the groundwork for applying financial sanctions against the
entirety of Iran. All this makes clear that the growing coalition of
bankers against Iran the US likes to trumpet may not be such a willing
group.
Some indication of how unwilling can be found in the pages of Der
Spiegel (English edition). In July 2007 the German news magazine
re****ted that "anyone wi****ng to do business in the United States or
hoping to attract US investors had best tread softly when it comes to
Iran. Germany's Commerzbank stopped financing trade with Iran in US
dollars in January, after the Americans piled on the pressure." One
German banker interviewed said: "German financial institutions feel
the United States government has been engaging in 'downright
blackmail'." The magazine goes on to re****t: "Anti-terror officials
from the US Treasury are constantly showing up to demand they cut
their traditionally good relations with Iran. The underlying threat
from the men from Wa****ngton is that they wouldn't want to sup****t
terrorism, would they?"
Also, an April 2007 re****t from the UK's House of Lords Economic
Affairs Committee states that the Confederation of British Industry
indicated "strong concern" about Patriot Act provisions and other US
extra-territorial sanctions. The Committee recognized the need for
"vigorous action" in response to terrorist threats but also
"endorse[d] the condemnation by the EU of the extra-territorial
application of US sanctions legislation as a violation of
international law."
Thus the US will need help from European government leaders to
overcome resistance among major European financial institutions to US-
led financial sanctions. Such help has already come from German
Chancellor Angela Merkel. During her recent state visit to Israel,
Merkel told the Knesset that Iran was global enemy number one. "What
do we do when a majority says the greatest threat to the world comes
from Israel and not from Iran?" she asked. "Do we bow our heads? Do we
give up our efforts to combat the Iranian threat? However inconvenient
and uncomfortable the alternative is, we do not do that." Iran is
public enemy #1 in the world, and everyone =96 including the European
banking establishment it would seem =96 has to accept that.
To summarize to this point: (1) the March 20 advisory represents a US
declaration of war by sanctions on Iran and a sanctions threat to the
international banking community, (2) the US has various unilateral
financial sanctions measures at its command in the form of executive
orders and Patriot Act Section 311 and (3) the BDA-North Korea
sanctions were, at least in retrospect, a test run for Iran.
If the US succeeds, an international quarantine on Iran's banks would
disrupt Iran's financial linkages with the world by blocking its
ability to process cross-border payments for goods and services
ex****ted and im****ted. Without those linkages Iran is unlikely to be
able to engage in global trade and commerce. As 30% of Iran's GDP in
2005 was im****ts of goods and services and 20% was non-oil ex****ts
(World Bank and other data), a large chunk of Iran's economy would
shrivel up. The repercussions will be painful and extend well beyond
lost business and profits. For example, treating curable illnesses
will become difficult. According to an Iranian health ministry
official, Iran produces 95% of its own medicines but most
pharmaceutical-related raw materials are im****ted.
With a financial sanctions war declared, what happens next? There have
been some hints.
On February 25 the Wall Street Journal re****ted that Treasury was
considering sanctioning Iran's central bank (known as Bank Markazi).
"The central bank is the keystone of Iran's financial system and its
principal remaining lifeline to the international banking system,"
explains the Journal. "U.S. sanctions against it could have a severe
impact on Iranian trade if other nations in Europe and Asia choose to
go along with them." In anticipation of future events, the Journal
notes: "U.S. officials have begun trying to lay the groundwork for a
move against the central bank in public statements and meetings with
key allies."
So look for the following to happen in the coming weeks: FinCEN will
probably issue a Patriot Act Section 311 finding that Iran's central
bank is a "primary laundering concern." The "deficiencies in Iran's
AML/CFT" wording lifted from the FATF statement will be a key reason
for that finding. The finding may be accompanied by a formal decision
to cut off Iran's central bank from the US financial market, or such a
decision could come later. Of course, an actual or threatened cut-off
has no immediate financial implications for Iran since no Iranian-
flagged bank is doing business in the US, except possibly to allow
****pments from the US of humanitarian provisions of food and medicine,
which, if they exist, probably terminate with the March 20 FinCEN
announcement.
But a Section 311 designation of Iran's central bank would have a
powerful coercive effect on the world's banks. For any bank in Europe,
Asia or anywhere else that goes near the central bank once the 311
blacklist is on, it would be the kiss of death for that bank's
participation in the international banking community, as it was (and
remains today) for BDA. Not only would that bank be barred from the US
financial market, it would also be shunned by European and Japanese
financial markets, as government and private banking officials in
those markets are likely to cooperate with Wa****ngton's intensifying
sanctions campaign.
What about China, now one of the world's major financial centers (two
Chinese banks ranked among the top 25 in The Banker's 2007 survey of
world banks) and a major trading partner for Iran?
China and Japan "were the top two recipients of ex****ts from Iran,
together accounting for more than one-quarter of Iran's ex****ts in
2006," according to an analysis of International Monetary Fund (IMF)
trading statistics contained in a December 2007 US Government
Accountability Office (GAO) re****t on Wa****ngton's anti-Iran sanctions
regime. On the im****t side, the GAO found that in 2006 "Germany and
China were Iran's largest providers of im****ts, accounting for 23
percent of Iran's im****ts." Airtight global banking sanctions imposed
on Iran would presumably make the financial administration of this
trade next to impossible.
Will China bend to US sanctions wishes? Early signs suggest the answer
is yes.
In December 2007 ArabianBusiness.com re****ted that Chinese banks were
starting to decline to open letters of credit for Iranian traders.
Asadollah Asgaroladi, head of the Iran-China chamber of commerce, was
quoted as saying that China's banks did not explain the refusal but
"if this trend continues it will harm the two countries' economic
cooperation and trade exchange." In February, ArabianBusiness.com
found that China's cutbacks in its banking business with Iran was
affecting a joint automobile production arrangement.
Such disruptions in the Chinese-Iranian banking relation****p are
minor. Meanwhile, Beijing keeps insisting that peaceful diplomacy with
Iran is the best policy and that the only sanctions needed are those
mandated under the three UN Security Council resolutions already on
the books. Thus, to make China cooperate with Wa****ngton's unilateral
banking sanctions, the US and the EU, re****ts the Financial Times, are
apparently using a tag-team strategy.
On February 12 the FT told readers that "the US believes that tighter
EU sanctions will put pressure on other nations that do more business
with Iran - China for example - to curb their activities." Therefore,
explained an anonymous diplomat apparently from the US: "We will be
pu****ng the EU to go further than the Security Council," a move
intended, the diplomat said, to "gold plate" Security Council
requirements.
To explain this move the FT provided an example of "gold plating" from
2007, when the EU implemented UN Security Council resolutions 1737 and
1747 on Iran.
In similar language to the current text on Banks Saderat and Melli,
the UN had called for "vigilance and restraint" concerning the
movements of individuals linked to Iran's nuclear and missile
programmes and members of its Revolutionary Guard. But in implementing
the resolutions, the EU subjected all the named individuals to a
travel ban - a much tougher measure.
Reading between the lines, the intention behind "gold plating"
Security Council resolutions is to put pressure on China to bow to a
more aggressive US-EU sanctions program. In the case of the most
recent Security Council resolution on Iran, 1803, which put sanctions
on two Iranian banks, FinCEN rolled two "gold plating" actions into
one. It combined the Security Council's naming of the two banks with
the October and February FATF statements to justify its March 20
warning to the world that Iran's entire banking system is a danger.
Whether the EU will follow FinCEN's action, and how China will respond
to any of this, remains to be seen.
In short, the US has in effect declared war on Iran. No bombs need
fall as long as the US strategy relies solely on financial sanctions.
But if the US Section 311 designates Iran's central bank as a
financial criminal, the impact will be the financial equivalent to the
first bombs falling on Baghdad at the start of the US-UK invasion of
Iraq in March 2003.
In a 1996 publication written for the National Defense University,
Harlan Ullman and James Wade introduced a military doctrine for
"affecting the adversary's will to resist through imposing a regime of
Shock and Awe to achieve strategic aims and military objectives."
Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld made Shock and Awe famous
by invoking it as the US strategy in the attack on Iraq in March 2003
(though weeks later Ullman was claiming Rumsfeld was misapplying the
doctrine).
But Shock and Awe's authors (apparently with something like Vietnam or
the 1993-1994 Somalia fiasco in mind) also envisioned that "[i]n
certain cir***stances, the costs of having to resort to lethal force
may be too politically expensive in terms of local sup****t as well as
sup****t in the U.S. and internationally." Consequently, they wrote:
"Economic sanctions are likely to continue to be a preferable
political alternative or a necessary political prelude to an offensive
military step . . .In a world in which nonlethal sanctions are a
political imperative, we will continue to need the ability to shut
down all commerce into and out of any country from ****pping, air,
rail, and roads. We ought to be able to do this in a much more
thorough, decisive, and shocking way than we have in the past . . .
Weapons that shock and awe, stun and paralyze, but do not kill in
significant numbers may be the only ones that are politically
acceptable in the future."
It was only a matter of finding a sanctions strategy systematic enough
to make this more obscure ****tion of the Shock and Awe doctrine
operational. What Ullman and Wade could not have imagined was that
Wa****ngton's global planners would use extraterritorial legal powers
and its financial clout to coerce the global banking industry into
accepting US foreign policy diktat. North Korea was a test-run for the
new strategy of Shock and Awe financial sanctions. As Wa****ngton Post
columnist David Ignatius put it in February 2007, "[t]he new sanctions
are toxic because they effectively limit a country's access to the
global ATM. In that sense, they impose -- at last -- a real price on
countries such as North Korea and Iran."
What then will the impact be of this US-Iran banking standoff? For the
US, almost no impact at all. Treasury bureaucrats will spend some time
and a little taxpayer money making phone calls, checking computer
screens and paper trails to monitor global banking compliance with
sanctions. The cost of financially ostracizing Iran will be a bargain
for US taxpayers compared with the eventual $3 trillion cost of the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars estimated by Nobel prize-winning economist
Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard financial expert Linda Bilmes.
Iran, however, will become another Gaza or Iraq under the economic
sanctions of the 1990s, with devastating impact on economy and
society. That Iran's complete financial and economic destruction is
the goal of US policy was spelled out by the State Department the day
before the FinCEN announcement.
During a daily press meeting with re****ters on March 19, the State
Department's spokesperson was asked about a deal recently signed
between Switzerland and Iran to supply Iranian natural gas to Europe.
After condemning the deal, the spokesperson explained that the US is
opposed to any "investing in Iran, not only in its petroleum or
natural gas area but in any sector of its economy" and questioned
rhetorically the wisdom of doing business with Iranian "financial
institutions that are under UN sanctions or could become under
sanctions if it's found that they are assisting or aiding or abetting
Iran's nuclear program in any way." A clearer expression of US desires
is hardly possible.
(John McGlynn is an independent Tokyo-based economic and financial
analyst).
Source: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19630.htm
- o O o
-
Operation Cassandra
By William S. Lind,
Lew Rockwell.Com,
via Information Clearing House,
26 March, 2008.
Admiral Fallon's (forced?) resignation was the last warning we are
likely to get of an attack on Iran. It does not mean an attack is
certain, but the U.S. could not attack Iran so long as he was the
CENTCOM commander. That obstacle is now gone.
Vice President Cheney's Middle East tour is another indicator.
According to a re****t in The American Conservative, on his previous
trip Cheney told our allies, including the Saudis, that Bush would
attack Iran before the end of his term. If that re****t was correct,
then his current tour might have the purpose of telling them when it
is coming.
Why not just do that through the State Department? State may not be in
the loop, nor all of DOD for that matter. The State Department, OSD,
the intelligence agencies, the Army and the Marine Corps are all
opposed to war with Iran. Of the armed services, only the Air Force
re****tedly is in favor, seeking an op****tunity to show what air power
can do. As always, it neglects to inform the decision-makers what it
cannot do.
The purpose of this column is not to warn of an imminent assault on
Iran, though personally I think it is coming, and soon. Rather, it is
to warn of a possible consequence of such an attack. Let me state it
here, again, as plainly as I can: an American attack on Iran could
cost us the whole army we now have in Iraq.
Lots of people in Wa****ngton are pondering possible consequences of an
air and missile assault on Iran, but few if any have thought about
this one. The American military's endless "we=92re the greatest"
propaganda has convinced most people that the U.S. armed forces cannot
be beaten in the field. They are the last in a long line of armies
that could not be beaten, until they were.
Here's roughly how it might play out. In response to American air and
missile strikes on military targets inside Iran, Iran moves to cut the
supply lines coming up from the south through the Persian Gulf (can
anyone in the Pentagon guess why it's called that?) and Kuwait on
which most U.S. Army units in Iraq depend (the Marines get most of
their stuff through Jordan). It does so by hitting ****pping in the
Gulf, mining key choke points, and destroying the ****t facilities we
depend on, mostly through sabotage. It also hits oil production and
ex****t facilities in the Gulf region, as a decoy: we focus most of our
response on protecting the oil, not guarding our army=92s supply lines.
Simultaneously, Iran activates the ****ite militias to cut the roads
that lead from Kuwait to Baghdad. Both the Mahdi Army and the Badr
Brigades =96 the latter now supposedly our allies =96 enter the war
against us with their full strength. Ayatollah Sistani, an Iranian,
calls on all Iraqi ****ites to fight the Americans wherever they find
them. Instead of fighting the 20% of Iraq's population that is Sunni,
we find ourselves battling the 60% that is ****ite. Worse, the ****ites
logistics lie directly across those logistics lines coming up from
Kuwait.
U.S. Army forces in Iraq begin to run out of supplies, especially POL,
of which they consume a vast amount. Once they are largely immobilized
by lack of fuel, and the region gets some bad weather that keeps our
aircraft grounded or at least blind, Iran sends two to four regular
army armor and mech divisions across the border. Their objective is to
pocket American forces in and around Baghdad.
The U.S. military in Iraq is all spread out in penny packets fighting
insurgents. We have no field army there anymore. We cannot
reconcentrate because we're out of gas and ****ite guerrillas control
the roads. What units don't get overrun by Iranian armor or ****ite
militia end up in the Baghdad Kessel. General Petraeus calls President
Bush and repeals the famous words of Marshal I MacMahon at Sedan:
"Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerd=E9s." Bush
thinks he's overheard Petraeus ordering dinner =96 as, for Bush, he has.
U.S. Marines in Iraq, who are mostly in Anbar province, are the only
force we have left. Their lines of supply and retreat through Jordan
are intact. The local Sunnis want to join them in fighting the hated
Persians. What do they do at that point? Good question.
How probable is all this? I can't answer that. Unfortunately, the
people in Wa****ngton who should be able to answer it are not asking
it. They need to start doing so, now.
It is imperative that we have an up-to-date plan for dealing with this
contingency. That plan must not depend on air power to rescue our
army. Air power always promises more than it can deliver.
As I have warned before, every American ground unit in Iraq needs its
own plan to get itself out of the country using only its own resources
and whatever it can scrounge locally. Retreat to the north, through
Kurdistan into Turkey, will be the only alternative open to most U.S.
Army units, other than ending up in an Iranian POW camp.
Even if the probability of the above scenario is low, we still need to
take it with the utmost seriousness because the consequences would be
so vast. If the United States lost the army it has in Iraq, we would
never recover from the defeat. It would be another Adrianople, another
Manzikert, another Rocroi. Given the many other ways we now resemble
Imperial Spain, the last analogy may be the most telling.
I have said all this before, in previous columns and elsewhere. If I
sound like Cassandra on this point, remember that events ended up
proving her right.
March 26, 2008
(William Lind is an analyst based in Wa****ngton, DC.)
Copyright =A9 2008 William S. Lind
Source: |
