George Bush's Samson Option
By Stephen Lendman
03/09/07 "ICH" -- -- The Samson Option is terminology used to
explain Israel's intention to use its nuclear arsenal as an
ultimate defense strategy if its leaders feel threatened enough
to think they have no alternative. It comes from the biblical
Samson said to have used his great strength to bring down the
pillars of a Philistine temple, downing its roof and killing
himself and thousands of Philistine tormentors. It's a strategy
saying if you try killing me, we'll all die together, or put
another way, we'll all go together when we go. Richard Wagner
had his apocalyptic version in the last of his four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen - Gotterdammerung, or Twilight of the
Gods based on Norse mythology referring to a prophesied war of
the Gods resulting in the end of the world.
The Bush Doctrine isn't that extreme, and it's not the intent of
this essay to suggest its unintended consequences may turn out
that way even though the threat it may is real if they start
firing off enough nukes like they're king-sized hand grenades.
The Doctrine refers to the administration's foreign policy first
aired by George Bush in his commencement speech to the West
Point graduating class in June, 2002. It was later formalized in
The National Security Strategy of September, 2002 and updated in
more extreme form in early 2006 that makes for scary reading not
recommended at bedtime. It mentions Iran in it 16 times stating:
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than
from Iran" while failing to acknowledge what Pogo said about us
on an Earth Day poster in 1970 and in a 1972 book titled - "We
Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us."
The updated NSS details an "imperial grand strategy" with new
language more belligerent than the original version that was
intended to be a declaration of preemptive or preventive war
against any country or force the administration claims threatens
our national security. It followed from our Nuclear Policy
Review of December, 2001 claiming a unilateral right to declare
and wage future wars using first strike nuclear weapons that in
enough numbers potentially can destroy all planetary life, save
maybe some resilient roaches and bacteria. In still other
national security documents, the administration intends being
ready by maintaining total control over all land, surface and
sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and
information systems with enough overwhelming power to defeat any
potential challengers using all weapons in the arsenal,
including those nukes masquerading as king-sized grenades.
The doctrine got its baptism in Afghganistan right after the
9/11 attacks and before the 2002 NSS was released. It then
played out in real time "shock and awe" force (without nukes) in
Iraq that seemed to work like a charm until it didn't. That
brings us to today and an administration feeling cornered by
failure and needing to change the subject and get a victory in
the face of major defeat or at least buy enough time to run out
the clock on its tenure so a new administration can take over
and deal with the mess left over. It'll be king-sized if the
audible war drums now beating are for real.
Enter Iran to play dual roles for the Bush administration plus
the same one always center stage when strategic resources are at
stake. It's the designated target to pull George Bush's Middle
East fat out of the fire and fulfill our 28 year commitment to
regime change in the country since its 1979 revolution ousted
Shah Reza Pahlavi whom we installed to replace democratically
elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 in the CIA's
first-ever go at regime change. Those events began and ended the
same way - violently, but if George Bush proceeds as he's now
threatening, they'll seem like tempest-in-teapot prologues to
the main event ahead looking like full scale war large enough to
engulf the whole region and entire Muslim world with it.
CIA's assessment is blunt. If the US attacks Iran, Southern Shia
Iraq will light up like a candle and explode uncontrollably
throughout the country. CIA ought to know and likely concluded
big trouble won't just be in Iraq, Shia Islam and the Middle
East. It may show up anywhere including a neighborhood near you
but not to express reconciliation and friendship.
Washington's other motive is no mystery to anyone knowing why we
attacked and now occupy Iraq. It had nothing to do with
nonexistent weapons and everything to do with removing a leader
unwilling to accept our imperial management rules whose country
happens to have the fourth largest and easily accessible proven
oil reserves in the world we want to control. The joke goes -
how did our oil end up under his sand. The same is true for Iran
and has since 1979. The country's leaders reject our rules, and
it too has easily accessible oil reserves that are the world's
third largest behind Saudi Arabia and Canada
(including the country's heavy reserves). Further, both
countries have vast untapped more of them adding to their allure
and Washington's determination to control them alone to have
veto power over who gets access.
If the US attacks Iran, all bets are off on what's to come. The
echoes of Waterloo could turn George Bush's Middle East
adventurism into his inadvertent Samson option by expanding the
Iraq conflict to a regional one with impossible to predict
consequences that won't be good for Western interests and
especially US ones. It will inflame the region and produce a
tsunami of Shia rage and solidarity enough to inflame and unite
the whole Muslim world in fierce opposition to America, its
culture and people. It may irrevocably transform the region
making it unwelcome for decades or longer to anything Western
that only arrives for what it can take and doesn't take no for
an answer.
It's backlash may also affect the administration and its party
as unintended fallout from an ill-conceived adventure gone sour
and beyond repair. And it may have further unintended
consequences as well - the painful blowback kind from angry
people striking back in catastrophic payback ways far harsher
than ever before. It could be a dirty bomb or two detonated in
one more US cities or a nuclear reactor core meltdown from
sabotage or attack releasing lethal radiation in amounts great
enough to make downwind areas from it forever uninhabitable.
Imagine a nightmarish vision of New York or Chicago (surrounded
by 11 aging nuclear power plants) as ghost towns, their
structures intact but unfit to be occupied.
There is a macabre bright side, however, once past the onslaught
if it comes and its aftermath. In six years, the Bush
administration achieved the near-impossible. It made the US a
pariah state alienating the whole Muslim world and vast numbers
more everywhere including growing numbers at home with George
Bush's approval rating at numbers approaching the lowest ever
for a US president. Its policies of permanent war on the world,
repression at home, entrenched corruption, worship of wealth and
privilege, and indifference to human needs and the people he was
elected to serve already destroyed any notion the country is a
model democratic state or that Bush and his neocon fanatics
should be governing it. Their imperial arrogance accelerated the
country's fading global hegemony well advanced since the 1970s
and likely irreversible. They buried the nation's influence and
dominance in Iraq's smoldering sands and Afghanistan's rubble
that are now both graveyards for US ambitions in those regions
and beyond.
Attacking Iran will just make things far worse. It would be a
fanatical "hail Mary" act of insanity that by one definition is
repeating the same mistakes, expecting different results. It has
no more chance of success than our misadventures in Iraq and
Afghanistan. And if nuclear weapons are used, including
so-called low-yield ones, it will be an appalling crime against
humanity and catastrophic event potentially affecting millions
in the region by radiation poisoning alone. If it happens, it
will irreversibly weaken US influence and credibility everywhere
accelerating our decline even faster toward second-class status
and loss of world leadership already hanging by a thread. It
could also be a potentially lethal blow to the benefits of
"Western civilization" always arriving through the barrel of a
gun and thuggish heel of a colonizer's boot with the US having
the biggest barrels and largest shoe sizes.
Key US players know the risks and want our losses cut before
it's too late to act. They want an end to war, not more of it in
a strategically vital world region too important to lose while
fearing it's likely too late. The National Intelligence Estimate
supports them believing the war in Iraq is unwinnable,
transforming the country into a pro-American state impossible,
and the president's notion of victory illusory. George Bush
ignores its assessment and presses on.
Reports by Seymour Hersh and others now say the administration
wants to weaken the Bashir Assad-led Syrian government's
alliance with Iran and further undermine Hezbollah's influence
in Lebanon and the region by funding Sunni extremist groups with
known ties to al-Queda in what's called a "redirection program."
It's the brainchild of Dick Cheney/Elliott Abrams (of
Iran-Contra notoriety)/Zalmay Khalilzad/Condi Rice/Saudi Prince
Bandar bin Sultan/Israeli elements & Co. with CIA's hands are
all over it covertly beyond Congress' reach. It includes a
larger effort, with Saudi help, to fund and unleash Sunni
extremist elements against Tehran at the same time Washington is
preparing to include Iran and Syria in regional discussions on
the situation in Iraq. It proves again duplicity and shameless
hypocrisy are never in short supply in Washington. They're only
topped by the neocon leadership's crazed strategy to make a
hopeless Middle East debacle catastrophic.
The Concocted Myth of Iran's Threat
The ancient Persian empire became Iran on March 21,
1935. From that time till now, Iran obeyed international law,
never occupied a foreign territory, and never threatened or
attacked another state beyond occasional border skirmishes over
unsettled disputes of the kinds other nations engage in that are
far short of all out wars. It only had full-scale conflict
defensively after Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion
in September, 1980 backed, equipped and financially aided by
Washington that included supplying chemical and biological
weapon precursors and crucial intelligence on Iranian field
positions and force strength.
The conflict became known as the Iran-Iraq war. It lasted till
August, 1988 over which time a million or more people died,
countless numbers more were wounded and displaced, with America
all the while inciting both sides to keep up the killing. It
hoped to destroy both countries and then move in to pick up the
pieces like it's been trying to do since in the Middle East and
elsewhere with growing difficulty as not everyone likes our
rules and some are even bold enough to renounce them.
Iran became a major US adversary after its 1979 revolution
established the Islamic Republic in February, 1980. Since then,
the two countries have had no diplomatic ties and relations
between them have been frosty and uncertain at best with
Washington only interested in normalization on its usual one-way
dictated terms. They're the same kinds offered other developing
states - we're "boss," surrender your sovereignty to ours, and
accede to neoliberal market-based rules made in Washington that
aren't negotiable. Iran refuses so it's public enemy number one
topping the US target queue for regime change. Rule by extremist
mullahs and reactors aren't the problems. They're just pretexts
like all the phony intelligence about Iran destabilizing Iraq
discussed below.
Despite a hopeless quagmire in Iraq, the Bush administration
seems focused on further escalation notwithstanding the danger,
near-impossible chance of success, and mounting opposition and
anger to its agenda in the homeland. It's coming from the public
on Iraq and even the Congress with some there getting twitchy
enough to voice concern, though still far short of acting as
they can and should with too many there twitching to fight, not
quit. It's also heard in the highest ranks of power from both
parties first circulated in the Jim Baker-led Iraq Study Group
that reported its rumor-leaked findings December 6. It
represented a clear rejection of Bush administration Iraq
policies gone sour, a proposed rescue plan and effort to save
his family name, and a scheme to restore US Middle East
dominance, fast slipping away, and near past the point of no
return by now from which there's likely none.
Despite its clout, its recommendations went unheeded, especially
regarding engaging Iran and Syria to help bail Bush's Middle
East fat out of its self-made fire. And nothing's changed in the
wake of Washington's agreeing to include those countries'
officials in initial and follow-up discussions on Iraq's
security along with members of the Arab League, Organization of
Islamic Unity, G 8 countries, and five permanent members of the
Security Council.
The decision represents no softening of the US's position, and
the administration likely will use the talks to repeat unproved
claims Iranian elements support anti-American forces in Iraq,
continue refusing broader diplomatic discussions unless Tehran
stops enriching uranium which it won't nor should it be forced
to or be punished for, and keep negotiating the way it always
does - making ultimatums and accepting no compromise, meaning
nothing will be resolved and tensions will only be further
heightened. And if anyone doubts that's how things will unfold,
the New York Times was front and center spelling it out. It
reported any US discussions involving Iran and Syria won't be
"from a position of weakness (so the administration intends)
ratcheting up the confrontational talk (to show) the United
States was in more of a driver's seat" and not planning to
negotiate in good faith. No surprise.
The Bush administration's rejectionism has even deeper roots
going back at least to a 2003 "grand bargain" offer from Iran -
unreported, of course, in the corporate media. It was approved
by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former President
Mohammad Khatami and former Foreign Foreign Minister Kamal
Kharrazi. Former Bush National Security Council official Flynt
Leverett revealed it calling it a "serious proposal (he knew
from multiple sources) went all the way up to former Secretary
of State Colin Powell (who) 'couldn't sell it at the White
House.' " It was part of a six year Bush administration pattern
of rejecting all Iranian overtures with responses of ultimatums,
threats and Washington-style bullying all framed to send the
same message. Washington wants nothing less than regime change
and may go to war for it.
Fast forward to today and the largely unreported testimony of
former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
February 1. He highlighted it in an op ed piece in the Los
Angeles Times February 11 calling "The war in Iraq....a historic
strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false
assumptions.... undermining America's global legitimacy (and)
tarnishing America's moral credentials. (It's) driven by
Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying
regional instability." It's too bad he ignored the most damning
fact of all - the Iraq and Afghan wars are both acts of illegal
aggression the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme
international crime" and Nazis convicted of it were hanged.
Don't expect a hint of that from a spear-carrying member of the
empire in good standing.
Brzezinski did say the conflict is ominous for the national
interest, and if the country stays bogged down in Iraq it's on
track for a "likely head-on conflict with Iran and much of the
Islamic world." He believes if it happens it will mean a
"spreading and deepening (protracted) quagmire lasting 20 years
or more and eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan
and Pakistan (causing) pervasive popular antagonism" and
plunging the US into growing political isolation. He stated a
"plausible scenario (for war with Iran) might be "some
provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act (real or otherwise)
blamed on Iran."
Brzezinski represents powerful interests using him as their
influential spokesman. They want an end to policies gone sour
they see harming "the national interest" meaning their own. He
and they want "a significant change in direction" with a
strategy to "end the occupation of Iraq" with a serious US
commitment to "shape a regional security dialogue that includes
all Iraq's neighbors including Iran and Syria and other major
Muslim countries like Egypt and Pakistan." He's calling for an
unambiguous "determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short
period of time," and believes the US should "activate a credible
and energetic effort (to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
without which) nationalist and fundamentalist passions (will
eventually doom) any Arab regime (perceived supporting) US
regional hegemony." Brzezinski sounded alarmist about the Bush
administration's hostile intentions toward Iran, and his
implications are clear. Washington's agenda is ominous and
threatening the national interest. He denounced the scheme and
pressed Congress to engage Iran, not attack it. His message so
far is unheeded.
Brzezinski's influential voice was joined by Russian President
Vladimir Putin's addressing the international security
conference in Munich February
10. He stunned listeners with his harsh frankness accusing the
US of endangering the world pursuing policies aimed at making it
"one single master (in a) unipolar world." He went on saying "It
has nothing in common with democracy (and the people) teaching
us democracy (but) don't want to learn it themselves." He
continued that US policy "overstepped its national borders in
every way....in the economic, political and cultural policies it
imposes on other nations."
He claimed the US is responsible for "a greater and greater
disdain for the principles of international law (and) no one can
feel that international law is like a stone wall that will
protect them." He also accused the US of stimulating "an arms
race (in an environment where) peace is not so reliable." He
added "Unilateral actions have not resolved conflicts but have
made them worse," and force should only be used when authorized
as international law requires by the UN Security Council. He
sounded an alarm gone unheard in the West that "Today we are
witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military
force.... that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent
conflicts (and) Finding a political settlement....becomes
impossible." He further warned about the use of "space (or) high
tech weapons" with implications of a new cold war, nuclear arms
race and frightening possibility of devastating nuclear war that
was unthinkable before the age of George Bush.
The Dominant Media React
As President of a major world power, Putin's comments went out
to the world getting broad coverage, if only for a day or so,
while Brzezinski's were largely and shamelessly ignored by the
corrupted corporate media still carrying the administration's
water and trumpeting its phony claims like verifiable gospel. It
happened on February 11 in the New York Times as reported by
correspondent James Glanz. His column breathed the scantiest
hints of skepticism that smacked of the same kind of Judith
Miller-type journalism about WMDs helping take the country to
war with Iraq in 2003. He said the US military showed "their
first public evidence of the contentious assertion that Iran
supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most
lethal weapons in the war....used to kill more than 170
Americans in the past three years" with only hints about its
reliability or the source presenting it having none.
He cited senior defense officials in Baghdad February
11 displaying "an array of mortar shells and rocket-propelled
grenades with visible serial numbers
(claimed to be directly linked) to Iranian arms factories."
Without credible proof, they said "Iranian leaders had
authorized smuggling those weapons into Iraq for use against
Americans (basing their judgment) on general intelligence
assessments (of the same kind used to justify attacking Iraq,
meaning phony ones.) The specious Times report reeked of
innuendos for what it lacked in hard proof about lethal weapons.
They could have come from any source, manufactured anywhere,
including by Pentagon contractors easily able to duplicate
anything scattered around the country and on Iraqi streets for
years after the Iranian conflict and now used by resistance
fighters or anyone else who has them.
Typical Times saber rattling was at it again after Bush's inept
February 14 news conference trumpeting his claim Iran was
sending weapons to Iraq to undermine security and kill Americans
while never looking more pathetic and awkward doing it. In
"Times talk," reporters Stolberg and Santora stated "Mr. Bush's
remarks amounted to his most specific accusation to date that
Iran was undermining security in Iraq....(and he) dismissed as
'preposterous' the contention by some skeptics that the United
States was drawing unwarranted conclusions about Iran's role."
They barely questioned the president's nonsensical claim he's
certain "the (paramilitary) Quds Force, a part of the
government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D's that have
harmed our troops" that has as much credibility as those WMDs we
had to fear along with that "mushroom shaped cloud" we couldn't
afford to wait to see before acting.
Facts On the Ground Trump the Propaganda
Revealed facts on the ground in Iraq belie all Pentagon and
administration phony assertions along with their shameless daily
echoing on the Times front pages. The military couldn't even get
its evidence straight in presenting an 81mm mortar shell Iran
doesn't make, and the ones shown the media had fake markings in
English for a Farsi-speaking country. It's also inconceivable
Shia Iran would be fighting Iraq's Shia government it's allied
with and aids. The US has been fighting an anti-Iranian Sunni
resistance largely in al-Anbar province and the most violent
parts of Baghdad. It stretches credibility to imagine Iran is
arming its enemy that denounces Iraq's dominant Shia puppet
government as a US pawn.
That hardly deters Washington claiming further solid evidence
Iranian agents are involved in what the State Department calls
"networks" (meaning Iranians) working with individuals and
groups in Iraq sent there by the Iranian government without a
shred of evidence to prove it. Even General Peter Pace, US Joint
Chiefs of Staff Chairman, dismisses the claim as unproved and
further said during a February trip to the Pacific region there
is "zero" chance of a US war with Iran.
He may be echoing the kind of sentiment the London Times
reported February 25 that "highly placed defence and
intelligence sources (say) Some of America's most senior
commanders are prepared to resign (in protest) if the White
House orders a military strike against Iran." The paper calls
this type of high-level internal dissent unprecedented
signifying great distaste and misgivings in the Pentagon for an
attack on Iran. That's a sentiment even its Joint Chiefs
Chairman may share as well as the six retired generals
(and likely others) who publicly denounced the Pentagon's
handling of the Iraq war last spring and the administration's
incompetence overall.
Nonetheless, preparations for war go on that veteran journalist
Seymour Hersh again wrote about in late February in the New
Yorker magazine. According to Hersh's informed sources: "The
Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing
attack on Iran....at the direction of the President. (It
includes) a contingency plan...that can be implemented
(in) 24 hours....The Iran planning group (is assigned) to
identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or
aiding militants in Iraq (on top of its previous focus to
destroy) Iran's nuclear facilities and possible regime change."
Hersh's report supplements others, like one from BBC, saying the
US military is planning an all out "shock and awe" blitzkrieg on
the country's nuclear facilities, military and infrastructure
that may come in the spring that's now just days away.
A clear sign of that possibility is the huge naval buildup in
the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean with two heavily equipped and
armed carrier groups in theater and a reported third en route
either to replace one there or add to it. The combined task
force in place is a formidable assemblage of 50 or more warships
with nuclear weapons, hundreds of planes and contingents of
Marines and Navy personnel.
The buildup is part of former Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's plan for preemptive nuclear war specifically
targeting Iran and North Korea. Earlier, Dick Cheney originated
the idea when he served as GHW Bush's Defense Secretary in the
early 1990s. Rumsfeld picked up the scheme in 2004 as authorized
by the 2002 National Security Strategy proclaiming an official
doctrine of preemptive or preventive war for the first time.
From it he approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert
Order" for military readiness against hostile countries that
included the nuclear option. He drew on CONPLAN
(contingency/concept plan)
8022 completed in November 2003 detailing a plan to preemptively
strike targets anywhere in the world judged a national security
threat including hardened structures using tactical so-called
low-yield nuclear bunker busters with Iran the apparent first
target of choice. The Omaha-based US Strategic Command
(StratCom) would run any operation if undertaken as it's the
command center for the country's nuclear deterrent and overseas
the military's nuclear arsenal.
All military branches have ready battle plans to implement
against Iran under the name TIRANNT for Theater Iran Near Term.
If an attack order comes, it can be launched from the assembled
Naval task force in the region and/or by long-range US-based
bombers and other warplanes and missiles strategically based in
locations like Diego Garcia and elsewhere within striking
distance of Iranian targets. It will be able to assault Iran
round the clock for weeks against a claimed number of 1500
nuclear-related sites located at 18 main locations in the
country. Also designated are thousands of strategic military and
civilian targets including vital infrastructure, industrial
sites, air, naval and ground force bases, missile facilities and
always command-and-control centers with possible help from
Israeli warplanes that might, in fact, initiate an attack with
US forces then joining in to support their regional partner.
That kind of devious scheme could persuade Congress to go along
never wanting to offend the Israeli Lobby that's been spoiling
for a fight with Iran for years and now may get it horrifically
with unimaginable consequences. They'll affect Israel and the US
alike as well as spillover to unstable countries in the region
like the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese and may be
unsettling enough to unseat sitting rulers and governments
replacing them with the kinds of fundamentalist regimes not
likely to welcome US presence or influence in the region and
intending to do something about it.
The Bush Roadmap to War with Iran
Reports circulated as early as last year and in 2005 that the
Bush administration signed off on a "shock and awe" attack
against Iran to destroy its perfectly legal commercial nuclear
program that may involve using so-called "mini-nuke robust earth
penetrator bunker-buster" weapons that won't be "mini" in their
catastrophic effects if indeed used. These are powerful
dangerous weapons. They can be made to any desired potency,
would likely be from one-third to two-thirds as powerful as the
Hiroshima bomb that destroyed an entire city, but could have far
greater explosive capability that potentially will be
catastrophic to the area struck and well beyond by radiation
contamination alone.
Pentagon false and misleading reports about them claim they're
"safe for civilians" because they penetrate the earth and
explode underground. Test results prove otherwise showing when
released from 40,000 feet a B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator
burrowed about 20 feet in the soil for a pre-explosion depth
able to produce intense fallout over the area struck that's
unremediable and would result in enough permanent surface
contamination to be unsafe for human habitation. Nonetheless,
weapons able to cause a nuclear holocaust are cleared for use
real time along with conventional ones if a "shock and awe"
attack is ordered against Iran or any other nation on the false
and misleading pretext of protecting the national security only
threatened by a rogue leadership at home willing to risk
catastrophic mass destruction in pursuit of its insane and
unachieveable imperial aims.
Not surprisingly, we have an eager partner in Israel straining
at the leash to fulfill its long-term agenda to attack Iran
alone (possible but doubtful) or along with its US ally that
keeps getting reinforced by bellicose statements by its high
officials like the one reported February 13 by ultra-right wing
Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He commented in a
radio interview that if necessary "We will have to face the
Iranians alone, because Israel cannot remain with its arms
folded, waiting for Iran to develop non-conventional (nuclear)
weapons." Officials like Lieberman, current Israeli prime
minister Ehud Olmert and former prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu are dangerous men on the far right allied with others
in government and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) all dripping
war talk that must be taken seriously from a nation dedicated to
conflict and never shy about striking the first all out
aggressive blow.
The same theme comes from a report published February
11 that vice-president Cheney's national security advisor, John
Hannah (who replaced Lewis Libby just convicted of obstruction
of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI), speaking for the Bush
administration, considers 2007 "the year of Iran" saying a US
attack is a real possibility. Hannah played a key role in the
run-up to the Iraq war having written the first draft of Colin
Powell's infamous pre-war speech to the Security Council citing
bogus evidence. He also played a lead role putting out phony
pre-war intelligence from Iraqi exiles. Now he's at the seat of
power and must be taken seriously, especially since his boss
barely disguises his aggressive posturing for war against the
Iranian state he's wanted for 15 years or more.
They're both part of the high-level propaganda messaging similar
to the lead-up to the Iraq war. It's aim is instill fear to make
the administration's case that Iran poses serious threat enough
to justify military action against it. It follows UN Resolutions
1696 in July demanding Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August
31, which it didn't, and 1737 in December imposing limited
sanctions on Iran for not abiding by what the Security Council
demanded in July. A second deadline passed putting the Iranian
matter back in the Security Council to consider new sanctions be
imposed and ratcheting things closer to a US attack as further
events unfold.
And so the beat goes on with US oil reserves being stockpiled,
Iranian diplomats apprehended in Iraq, the Pentagon and Israeli
forces scheming together, the US military buildup in the Gulf
and Eastern Mediterranean continuing, US ground forces moved to
the Iran-Iraq border, Patriot missiles strategically installed
in Israel and neighboring Arab states, a "surge" of up to
50,000 additional troops planned, and a change of commanders on
the ground in Iraq made replacing less hawkish ones with others
supporting the Bush war strategy.
They're part of the new Pentagon team under Defense Secretary
Robert Gates who told the Senate Armed Services Committee the
military needs to prepare for large-scale operations against
countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran that
reaffirms the administration's commitment to its "long war" Dick
Cheney said won't end in our lifetime, but may end up shortening
it. Clearly Iran is the next planned target, the dominant media
echoes the threat, and Congress is just a talking-shop like
always posturing as the gathering storm in the Gulf intensifies.
Published reports, citing credible sources, point to an attack
on Iran by April by an administration on total expanded war
footing with the president spoiling for a fight by goading Iran
to react in response to his order to "seek out and destroy"
(supposed) Iranian "networks" in Iraq. Bush minced no words in a
radio interview saying "If Iran escalates its military action in
Iraq (even though there's none)....we will respond firmly."
Other officials joined the jingoistic chorus accusing Iran of
involvement in sectarian violence practically signaling an
upcoming attack that easily could follow a manufactured pretext
if Iran fails to provide one on its own which it won't. It's
never hard to do, and the infamous trumped up Gulf of Tonkin one
in August, 1964 shows how easy it is to fool the public and get
Congress to go along.
Iran could save us the trouble by responding to US provocations
going on now for months by illegally flying unmanned aerial
surveillance drones across its airspace and secretly placing
special forces reconnaissance teams on the ground "to collect
targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government
ethnic minority groups" according to an earlier report by
Seymour Hersh. So far, Iran hasn't taken the bait even though it
knows what's happening and reportedly downed one or more
intruding aircraft it has every legal right to do but is
treading dangerously against an adversary looking for any
pretext to pounce. It's leaders also knew what Washington was up
to after being made a charter member of Bush's "Axis of Evil."
In that status, it's blamed for the administration's failure in
Iraq with false claims of arming the resistance and inciting
violence.
War on Iran may, in fact, have already started, and two bombings
in Southeastern Iranian Zahedan bordering Pakistan and
Afghanistan the week of February 12 may have been one of its
volleys. Arrests were made and a video seized according to
provincial police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari. From
it he claims the "rebels (have an) attachment to opposition
groups and some countries' intelligence services such as America
and Britain." An unnamed Iranian official also told the Islamic
Republic News Agency one of those arrested confessed he was
trained by English speakers, and the attack was part of US plans
to provoke internal unrest.
While none of this conclusively proves US involvement, there's
no secret Washington wants regime change, is actively stirring
up internal ethnic and political opposition toward it, and
reportedly is working with exiled Iranian leaders including the
Mujahideen el-Khalq (MEK) Iranian opposition guerrilla cult the
US State Department lists as a terrorist organization, but not
apparently when it's on our side.
Full-scale war on Iran may just be a concocted terrorist attack
away from starting the "shock and awe." There's no secret what's
planned and none whatever that doing it will be another
unprovoked, unwarranted act of preemptive illegal aggression
only the US and Israel support. It's also no secret Iran is no
pushover. It's no match for US and/or Israeli power, but it's
got powerful weapons one writer says are "unstoppable" like
Russian-built SS-N-22 Sunburn Missiles and more advanced
SS-NX-26 Yakhont anti-ship ones designed to sink a US carrier
that's a formidable weapon of war but not invulnerable. Iran
also has Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems and NATO-made
Exocet and Chinese Silkworm anti-ship missiles that pack a punch
and can sink our ships when launced from land, surface ships or
submarines along with 300 or more warplanes, and a large ground
force estimated at around 350,000.
US engaging Iran may now hinge on resolving the Washington power
struggle between Bush administration neocons and more practical
trilateralist types in the camp of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jim
Baker, and other powerful Washington figures including the
president's father. It's also up to Congress to decide which
side it's on and whether it will act or watch from the sidelines
and risk nuclear war and its fallout. It may not be long finding
out how events will unfold. Just the kind and level of
rhetorical noise will tell who's winning with congressional
inaction and media complicity so far giving the hawks a big
advantage. Haven't we seen this script before, and isn't the
likely ending clear, except this time the stakes are far greater
and so is the risk to everyone on both sides.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and tune in
online to hear The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on
The Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.Click here
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