Washington, D.C., June 25, 2008: “Much ‘leaked’ disinformation about a ‘possible Israeli attack on Iran.’ Of course this silly business, which ranks with the constant fear crap peddled by desperate Republicans, is supposed to terrify Iran and, hopefully, energize Bush into doing the dirty deed himself. Unfortunately for the Israelis, a number of their new former Russian citizens were SVR (read 'KGB' here) sleeper agents and believe me, anything of a secret nature passing from the United States to Israel ends up in Moscow the same day. The Russians have more than one agent in place in Tel Aviv operating so if one gets caught, another is still active. Perhaps the Russians could find some loose-mouthed fool, 'hire' them as a 'special agent,' fill them with disinformation, send them to Israel and, if they get into their intelligence, tip off the Mossad that they are a Russian spy and let them pour our all the misleading and, hopefully, destructive, disinformation.. Mumbling McCain suggested we send a battleship to the Persian Gulf! My God, he should really take his medications! The Russians have surface-to-surface missiles well-emplaced (and hidden from satellites) in the Iranian mountains that would make short shrift of any large ship in such a confined area, and besides, there are no battleships in commission. If the U.S. Navy were used against Iran, they would have to stand off in the Indian Ocean to launch their aircraft. I often wonder why the resistance Muslims in Iraq don't put a limpet mine under one of the huge oil tankers that dock off of Basra. If it went off halfway down the Gulf towards the Straits of  Hormuz, the result would be a huge oil spill that no one would care about but it would also frighten off the London-based insurance companies and they would stop insuring the huge and very expensive tankers. No insurance company would insure and no ship owner would dare risk his enormous investment. Ergo, no Iraqi oil. Besides, there is now a movement afoot in Congress to put aside the Bush-ordered no-bid contracts by major oil companies on Iraqi oil. The worm turns but very slowly.”  

Smoke and Mirrors  

The Iran Attack Fraud

June 24, 2008

by Brian Harring         

          Last week a story ran on the wire and was picked up by the news channels as well revealing an Israeli air training mission in the Med that was theoretically preparation for a strike on Iran. Because the training mission occurred early in June, it was strange that it would find its way to American media out of the blue, unless it was a trial balloon to gauge the public’s interest in something besides gasoline prices and who is dancing with the stars.

It is probable that somebody was testing American reaction to the possibility of Israel trying to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. Predictably, Americans were too busy whining about gasoline prices and besides, anything that Israel does is OK with the mainstream media. It is interesting to note that all the talking heads who come out of the beltway to explain the wisdom and morality of Israeli air actions (in this case, the training involved some 100 F-100 fighter aircraft as supplied to Israel as part of the annual $5 billion given to Israel in perpetuity) are all obviously Israelis or fellow travelers. No critical discussion is ever allowed, and very few outlets mention that the United States delivered to Israel some time ago an unspecified quantity of bunker buster bombs.

As background the reader should be reminded of two previous Israeli attacks on her neighbors. The first pre-emptive strike by Israel came on 7 June 1981 when Israeli combat aircraft flew through Saudi airspace skirting the Jordanian border and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osiraq north of Baghdad. Though the attack generated diplomatic protests from the United States, behind the scenes it was considered a necessary restraint upon Saddam Hussein’s ambitions.

On 10 September 2007, approximately five Israeli combat aircraft destroyed a site in Syria near the Turkish border that was alleged to be a nuclear development site. Details are still scarce concerning this assault. The attack did not provoke international response although the American press was generally encouraging of such behavior, claiming that the North Koreans were involved in building that particular site.

The Israelis now have the logistics for an Iranian mission, but the American public again does not connect the dots. Such a mission requires in-air refueling that would have to be supplied by American KC-97s. Second, because the Saudis and  Kuwaitis would definitely not allow overflight, the mission would have to overfly Iraq. Now, that's convenient and practical, even though the United States will deny participation.

As for the possible participation of the United States in an Iran attack before the November election as suggested by U.S. diplomat John Bolton, a supporter of Israel, the defense site Global Security.0rg reports the following: “Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States, possibly supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters staging from al Udeid in Qatar or some other location in theater, the two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted. Bushehr would likely be the target of such strikes, and the suspected nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak will likely be targets of an air attack.” Recent articles in The Jerusalem Post, however, report that Israel is prepared to act unilaterally.

Now, it is to everyone's advantage to keep Iran from developing nuclear warheads, but it is an embarrassment for the United States to allow its delinquent little brother to conduct a proxy attack that would require some material assistance from the Americans and would result in a minor diplomatic hand slap from the United States. The effect of the bomb damage to Iran and its hardened underground uranium enrichment sites,  may pale beneath the fallout that may ensue.

OK, what haven't the talking heads considered? Right. Nobody even mentioned how Russia might respond to such a provocation. Are they that myopic, or do the Israelis believe that the Americans will keep the Russians at home. The Russians would not be accepting of an Israeli attack on Iran no matter how much they prefer Iran to remain pre-nuclear, but Russia is not an ally of Israel and relationships between the United States and Russia are frosty at best right now.

Finally, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran,  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would not shrink from retalation beyond spurring his surrogates in Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza to launch more primitive rockets at Israeli hillsides. The Iranians are looking for the opportunity launch a war, and an Israel Iran attack might be just the instigation Ahmadinejad needs to ignite the powder keg. The only question is whether Iran has the hardware to cause great damage to Israel. Will Israel’s hard-core lobby in Washington (AIPAC) then finally draw the United States into further conflict on its behalf. They certainly hope so.

The whole thing smells like week-old gefilte fish.

Israel ‘Will Attack Iran’ Before New US President Sworn In, John Bolton Predicts

John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush’s successor is sworn in

June 24, 2008

by Toby Harnden in Washington

The Telegraph/UK

 

The Arab world would be “pleased” by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.”It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there’ll be public denunciations but no action,” he said

 

Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.

 

“It’s clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility,” he said. “I don’t think it’s serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don’t think it’s in the cards.”

 

Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The “optimal window” for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.

 

“The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .

 

“They’re also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there’s no telling what impact it could have on the election.”

 

But waiting for either Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, or his Republican opponent John McCain to be installed in the White House could preclude military action happening for the next four years or at least delay it.

 

“An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy,” said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush’s ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006.

 

“With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran’s side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development.”

 

The Iran policy of Mr McCain, whom Mr Bolton supports, was “much more realistic than the Bush administration’s stance”.

 

Mr Obama has said he will open high-level talks with Iran “without preconditions” while Mr McCain views attacking Iran as a lesser evil than allowing Iran to become a nuclear power.

 

William Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative, told Fox News on Sunday that an Obama victory could prompt Mr Bush to launch attacks against Iran. “If the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out,” he said.

 

Last week, Israeli jets carried out a long-range exercise over the Mediterranean that American intelligence officials concluded was practice for air strikes against Iran. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said this was an act of “psychological warfare” that would be futile.

 

“They do not have the capacity to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran. They [Israel] have a number of domestic crises and they want to extrapolate it to cover others. Sometimes they come up with these empty slogans.”

 

He added that Tehran would deliver a “devastating” response to any attack.

 

On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, said military action against Iran would turn the Middle East into a “fireball” and accelerate Iran’s nuclear programme.

 

Mr Bolton, however, dismissed such sentiments as scaremongering. “The key point would be for the Israelis to break Iran’s control over the nuclear fuel cycle and that could be accomplished for example by destroying the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan or the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

 

“That doesn’t end the problem but it buys time during which a more permanent solution might be found…. How long? That would be hard to say. Depends on the extent of the destruction.”

 

John Bolton: Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and previously Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton is also a Senior Advisor to President Bush. Prior to this position, Bolton was Senior Vice President of the think tank, AEI. In October 2002, Bolton accused Syria of having a nuclear program so an attack Syria could be justified after a subjugation of Iraq. President Bush has appointed Bolton, an extremely opinionated and abrasive individual, to the post of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. His appointment was the subject of strong controversy and as of this writing, Bolton has not been officially appointed. Yale graduate. A prime architect of Bush's Iraq policy, Bolton served Bush Sr. and Reagan in the state department, justice department and USAid His appointment as U.N Ambassador  was intended to counter the dovish Colin Powell. Bolton also led ex-Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld's charge to destabilize Powell's multilateralism. Bolton is part of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Project for the New American Century and is a vice-president at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also one of Bush's chad-counters during the Florida count. Bolton has long advocated Taiwan getting a UN seat -- he's been on the payroll of the Taiwanese government. The US unilateralist is a regular contributor to William Kristol's extreme right-wing Weekly Standard and had vilified UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Bolton was an opponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a cheerleader for the Star Wars Defense System. He has hinted at targeting Cuba in the war on terror. His financial interests include oil and arms firms and JP Morgan Chase., It is said that Bolton believes in the inevitability of Armageddon. Like Woolsey, Bolton is said to believe we are in the midst of world war four which he estimates could take 40 years to finish. Despite very strong and persuasive evidence to the contrary they believe Iraq was involved in September 11. With Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Khalilzad, Bennet, Woolsey, Perle and Kristol, Bolton co-signed a letter in 1998 urging President Bill Clinton to take military action in Iraq