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Code-Panic: A Controlled Opposition Spectacle

By Gilad Atzmon | January 12, 2020

Ariel Gold is the national co-director of CODEPINK, an American female  “grassroots peace and social justice movement” that claims to  work “to end U.S.-funded wars and occupations.” Ariel claims to support the Palestinians and oppose Israel. She has published  articles in Jewish progressive outlets such as the Forward, Tikkun Magazine and Mondoweiss.

On January 3rd, just a few hours after the world became aware of the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by an American drone attack,  Ariel, the so called ‘Jewish dissenter’ rushed to post the following tweet:

“Loving reminder to folks rightfully horrified the US attack on Iran: please don’t frame this as being as being done to please Israel. This is Donald Trump and his band of US war hawks, period. To suggest Jews are pulling the strings is nothing short of antisemitism.”

The Jewish progressive activist basically insisted that any such criticism of  Israel was ‘antisemitism.’ She was also naive to prematurely vindicate the Jewish State of involvement in the unlawful assassination: a crime that may lead to unpredictable and lethal consequences in the near future.

Today’s news reports that Israel was deeply involved in the targeted assassination of the Iranian general. The Times of Israel’s headline this morning reads:

“Israeli intel helped US carry out strike that killed Iran’s Soleimani.” The article states that “Information provided by Jewish state confirmed that Quds Force leader was at Baghdad airport before missile strike, NBC News reports.”

Amongst my sins is the argument I have made for almost two decades: for the solidarity and peace movements to be genuine, functional and effective they must be emancipated from the grip of the so called Jewish progressives. As things stand at the moment, solidarity with the oppressed is restricted by the sensitivities of the oppressor.

January 12, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pompeo: I Lied About Soleimani ‘Imminent Attacks’

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | January 10, 2020

Trump’s neoconservative Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is a man unafraid to admit to being a liar. In fact he seems to revel in his ability to lie to the American people.

Remember just a week ago when Pompeo told us that the US absolutely HAD to send in a drone to assassinate Iran’s top general, Qassim Soleimani, while he was in Iraq on a peace mission because he was planning “imminent attacks” on US personnel and interests in the Middle East.

These claims were crafted to blunt any criticism of the blatantly illegal act of killing a top military officer of a country with which you are not at war in a third country (which forbade the attack on its soil) with which you are allied. Americans raising concerns about the murder of Soleimani were to be made to look unpatriotic if they objected: “you mean you WANT Americans die??”

That’s how propaganda works.

Then when the smoke clears, you laugh it all off and admit it was all a lie. As Pompeo did last night.

Speaking on the Laura Ingraham program, Mike Pompeo admitted that the neocon idea of “imminent ” and the normal idea of “imminent ” are two very different things.

“We don’t know precisely when and we don’t know precisely where (the attacks might take place), but it was real,” he told Ingraham.

But if you don’t know when and don’t know where (and presumably don’t know how), on what basis did Pompeo and the Trump Administration sell the idea that he had to be killed immediately lest untold numbers of Americans be killed?

And how can we believe Pompeo that Soleimani was behind the initial rocket attacks on an Iraqi base housing US troops, that a US contractor was killed by Soleimani’s forces at that base, and that Soleimani was behind the “attacks” (vandalism) on the US embassy in Baghdad?

In other words, if the central justification for the murder of Soleimani is an admitted lie, who in his right mind would believe the official version of the antecedents to the murder?

While proudly lying day and night, Pompeo professes to be a great Christian – at the same time he pushed Trump to murder the architect of the anti-ISIS counterinsurgency (Soleimani) that saved hundreds of thousands of Syrian Christian lives.

Something smells sulfurous about Pompeo…

Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.

January 10, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Baghdad revived deal to buy Russian S-300 following US strikes – Iraq’s Security & Defense Committee chairman

RT | January 9, 2020

Baghdad has reached out to Moscow again after it suffered American bombings on its soil, a high-ranked lawmaker revealed, saying the resumed deal focuses on the time-tested S-300 air defense systems.

The US attacks on Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi, prompted the Iraqi government “to resume negotiations regarding the S-300 deal,” Mohammad Ridha, chairman of Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, told Sputnik on Thursday.

The US military have launched the air strikes against the PMU units in late December, blaming them for an attack that killed an American civilian contractor. The Shia militia force, backed by Iran, later said it lost 25 fighters.

It started a vicious chain of events, beginning with fiery anti-American demonstrations near the US Embassy in Baghdad. Though no one from the US diplomatic staff was hurt, the Pentagon responded with brute force, killing a top Iranian general, who they said masterminded the unrest, and ratcheting up tensions around Iran.

Now, Ridha said he’s unaware of the stage the talks are currently in, but mentioned the deal was greenlighted by Iraqi leadership. In his view, the prospective purchase won’t sit well with the Americans: “We await US opposition on this issue.”

Washington has piled enormous pressure on nations that have bought Russian-made air defense systems, or considering buying them. Turkey has been targeted with an array of US penalties for procuring the S-400, while India, another prospective operator of the system, faces similar ramifications.

January 9, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

A Window for Peace

By Craig Murray | January 8, 2020

There is this morning a chink of light to avoid yet more devastation in the Middle East. Iran’s missile strikes last night were calibrated to satisfy honour while avoiding damage that would trigger automatically the next round. The missiles appear to have been fitted out with very light warhead payloads indeed – their purpose was to look good in the dark going up into the night sky. There is every reason to believe the apparent lack of US casualties was deliberate.

Even more important was the Iraqi statement that “proportionate measures” had been “taken and concluded” and they did not seek “further escalation”.

I agree their response was proportionate and I would say that I regard the Iranian action so far, unlike the assassination of Soleimani by the US, legal in international law.

The entire world should congratulate Iran for its maturity in handling the illegal assassination of its General, who was on a peace mission, travelling as a civilian on a commercial flight, carrying a mediation message the US had been instrumental in instigating. If as seems possible the US actively manipulated the diplomatic process to assassinate someone on a diplomatic mission and traveling on a diplomatic passport, that is a dreadful outrage which will come back to haunt them. Life insurance rates for US diplomats no doubt just went up.

It is also worth noting the 2.8% rise in the Lockheed share price in the 24 hours immediately before the Soleimani assassination, outperforming the Dow about three times. That would bear investigation. Arms manufacturers and oil stocks have soared this last few days – and remember that nowadays the vast bulk of financial transactions are bets on the margins of movement, so vast fortunes will have been made out of all this.

The UK has been, as ever, complicit in US crimes. Our laughing called “defence” industry – when were its products last used in self-defence and not colonial adventure? – is tied in to and dependent on the US military machine. The current build-up of US troops and hardware in the Gulf has Mildenhall as a major staging post. We do not have to do this. Whether officially or on a pretext, French airspace was closed to the US military build-up and the Americans have had to fly from the UK, skirting France, around the Atlantic.

In a huge Boris Johnson slap in the face to international law, extra US bombers to attack Iran have been flown into Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands. You will recall that is where the UK committed genocide against the population in the 1970s to clear the way for the US military base. Last year, the UK lost a hearing before the International Court of Justice and was subsequently instructed by the UN to decolonise the islands and give them back to Mauritius by last November. The UK simply persisted in its illegal occupation and now is threatening the use of the islands as the base for yet another illegal and destabilising war.

That the UK is a permanent member of the UN security council is a disgrace which surely cannot endure much longer. What the current crisis has shown us is that under Johnson the UK has no future except as a still more compliant servant of whoever occupies the White House.

Wars are easy to start but hard to stop. Trump appears to have calmed, but we cannot rule out a stupid “last word” attack bu the USA. It is to be hoped that Iran now concentrates on using the immense political leverage it has gained to get western troops out of Iraq, which would be a tremendous result for all of us after 17 years. But we cannot rule out hotter heads in the Iranian government insisting on further attacks, or attacks from regional forces whose Tehran authorisation is uncertain. On either side this could yet blow up badly.

I am a sucker for hope, and the best outcome would be for the US and Iran to start talking directly again, and a deal to be made from this break in the logjam that is wider than, and Trump can portray as better than, “Obama’s” nuclear deal and would enable the lifting of sanctions. I am sure Trump will be tempted by the chance to go for this kind of diplomatic coup under the political cover provided him by Soleimani’s assassination. But the US is now so tied in to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and thus tied in to irrational hostility to Iran, that this must be extremely unlikely.

For those of us in Scotland, this is still more reason why Independence must be early. We cannot be tied in to a rogue state. As we march for Independence on Saturday, the potential for war in Iran gives the sharpest reminder why we must leave the UK and form our own, peaceful, law-abiding state.

January 8, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey, Russia, Iran officials discuss latest developments in region

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu [Wikipedia]

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu [Wikipedia]
MEMO | January 7, 2020

Senior officials from Turkey, Russia and Iran discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa region yesterday.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said the country’s Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu discussed the developments in the Middle East and Libya during a telephone conversation with the head of the Turkish intelligence organisation, Hakan Fidan. The two officials also discussed joint actions to reduce tensions in the region.

The statement added that Shoygu also spoke to Iranian Chief of Staff, Mohammad Bagheri, during which they discussed steps to reduce tensions in the region following Friday’s assassination of Iran’s Commander of the Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in a US drone attack near Baghdad airport.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated following Soleimani’s assassination, while, Tehran announced that it would respond “harshly” to the assassination.

January 7, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Iranian MPs declare all of US military ‘terrorist entity’ after General Soleimani killing

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division wait for Middle East deployment © Global Look Press / Timothy L. Hale / Source: ZUMAPRESS.com
RT | January 7, 2020

The US Armed Forces are now regarded as a terrorist organization under an urgent motion by Iranian lawmakers, who earlier branded the assassination of the Quds Force commander “state-sponsored terrorism,” state media report.

Iranian MPs adopted a bill on Tuesday calling “personnel of the Pentagon, all affiliated companies, institutions, agents and commanders” members of a “terrorist entity,” local media reported.

The bill amends and expands previous legislation which gave a similar designation to US Central Command (CENTCOM). Initiated in April of last year, it was a tit-for-tat response to Washington’s blacklisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The latest designation, however, comes as tensions between Washington and Tehran reach boiling point, following the US’ assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Friday. Tehran has vowed to avenge Soleimani’s death, a promise that in turn led to US President Donald Trump threatening to strike 52 “very high level” Iranian cultural and state targets should Iran hit any American interests.

The Iranian government has reportedly been considering 13 “revenge scenarios” in retaliation for Soleimani’s killing. The semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani as saying that “even if there is consensus on the weakest scenario, carrying it out can be a historic nightmare for the Americans.”

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Immoral Injury

By Kiask | Ken’s Blog | January 6, 2020

I recently attended a panel entitled “Coming Home: Dialogues on the Moral, Psychological, and Spiritual Impacts of War”. The event was about the invisible scars many veterans bear long after he or she experienced the horrors of war. How the scars were inflicted and how the afflicted recover from them is something those, like me, who have never been in combat can hardly understand.

One of the panelists at the event related the experience of a fighter pilot who on a bombing run was unable to see clearly what he had hit. Viewing his cockpit screen footage later, he saw that a carport had been totally demolished by his bomb. Amidst the rubble were four small bicycles. For years afterwards the pilot had a recurring nightmare in which he enters a bombed-out building and picks up a dead child from among the rubble. As he hugs the child to him, he sees that the back of the child’s head has been blown off. Simultaneously, the face of the child morphs into that of his own son.

Such anguished memories are sometimes referred to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), sometimes as “moral injury”. There’s a difference. PTSD is a mental disorder which makes it difficult for a vet to reintegrate himself back into civilian life. Moral injury is a “soul in anguish, not a psychological disorder”, as one psychiatrist puts it. It’s been defined as “an injury to an individual’s moral conscience and values resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression”. If a veteran survives the wound to his morality, he may not only successfully get on with his life but make an especially valuable contribution to his country.

A second panelist at the event, a lady fighter pilot, came back from her tour in Iraq uninjured either traumatically or morally. Without a twinge of conscience, she gushed about how good it felt to drop a bomb on a car filled with ISIS terrorists, knowing she had killed the personification of evil. She felt no more empathy for the those she had killed than do our drone pilots, raining down death from thousands of miles away, who refer to the victims of their bombs as “bugsplat”.

I was tempted to try to inflict a little moral injury on the gung-ho Top Gunness, so cocksure she was of the rectitude of her “good kill”, but I decided that wouldn’t be very nice. If I weren’t such a nice guy, I would have pointed out to her that the United States has a long history of working with Islamic extremists to counter governments we don’t approve of, the most overt case being our support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In more recent times, our attitude vis-à-vis the Islamic State (ISIS) has been disturbingly ambiguous. The thousands of foreign fighters who poured into Syria to join ISIS came through the territory of our NATO ally, Turkey—apparently with that country’s blessing… and, by extension, our own. Our good friend Qatar is generally credited with being a major financial backer of ISIS. Would we tolerate such behavior from a faux country like Qatar with a measly 300,000 citizens and an American military base within a stone’s throw of the Emir’s palace if we didn’t approve of their generosity?

So long as ISIS directed its attacks against the Syrian government, we had no problem with it. Only when it diverted its attention to trying to take over Iraq did we decide it needed to be reined in. Even then, a number of times we bombed Syrian or Iraqi forces engaged in battle with ISIS—all a big mistake, of course. Someone less kind than myself might have suggested to “Miss Crack-shot USA” that those grisly videos of masked evildoers beheading some hapless victim, which so enraged her as to free her from any soul-searching about exterminating some noisome bugs, owed more to American stage managers than to some mullah’s fiery rhetoric.

I suspect growing up just down the road from the Air Force Academy, then attending the Naval Academy, made the pilot immune to my contrarian point of view, but not every veteran is so lucky. Killing a fellow human being without guilt qualms is not normal. That’s why many soldiers—even in the heat of battle—never fire their weapon. It’s also why the army, I’ve been told, came up with the rapid-fire M16: you don’t aim it at anyone in particular, you just start blazing away.

According to one expert, moral injury occurs when “(i) there has been a betrayal of what is morally right, (ii) by someone who holds legitimate authority and (iii) in a high-stakes situation.” Sending those who trust you into battle on the basis of lies (e.g., Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; staged gas attacks in Syria) is a gross betrayal of their trust. Many returning from the war which gave us the term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the Vietnam War, concluded that’s what happened. That’s why they founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).

I can only imagine what pangs of guilt must haunt the slumber of those who feel they’ve been lied to. Killing in a justified cause is hard enough to reconcile with our deep-seated aversion to the taking of human life; without legitimate justification, it becomes simply murder. How decent, good-hearted, feeling ex-soldiers deal with this “immoral injury”, as I call it, is a mystery to me. Maybe that’s why many Vietnam vets don’t like to talk about their experiences. No one likes to admit to having been duped, even if they were only eighteen years old at the time and most of their older and supposedly wiser compatriots let themselves be duped as well.

I hope those trying to help troubled veterans do not seek to have them forget their shame, anger, and disgust over being betrayed by those in power. Having been injured themselves, the vets can instruct those of us who have never paid the price on the techniques employed by unscrupulous leaders to get us into illegitimate, aggressive wars. That’s the special contribution I mentioned earlier that veterans can make to our country. Many members of the VVAW are doing just that today.

Whatever methods are being used to “cure” those suffering from immoral injury, they have not been completely successful. Last year, the number of attempted and successful suicides amongst marines—active and former—hit an all-time high: 354. Professor Lawrence Wilkerson of William & Mary—who in a former life was Col. Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Colin Powell when he was Secretary of State—offers this explanation: “GIs have killed or helped to kill more than 400,000 human beings in these wars [Afghanistan, Iraq]. Killing at that level affects people. It particularly affects people when they are unable to explain the reason for the killing…. The U.S. government has told these young men and women that they are killing these people for freedom’s sake, for democracy, for women’s rights, for justice, to protect Americans, and for all manner of reasons that these troops know are just so much hogwash…. These GIs know that, on account of many of these lies, they are killing people, wounding people, destroying their homes, bombing their towns and villages, and generally wreaking havoc for ‘God and country’. They know this is a lie. But what are they to do about it? Some of them kill themselves.”
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The next time you see someone in uniform and are inclined to express your thanks, keep in mind what Col. Wilkerson has to say about this: “[T]he 99 percent of America with no skin in the game of war makes sure to say quite frequently ‘thank you for your service’ to any of these GIs encountered at airports, in restaurants, on the street, or elsewhere. From my own experience talking with serving troops and veterans—including a triple-amputee at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center— nothing galls them more. They see the 99 percent assuaging their guilt with a few meaningless words that don’t do a thing to alleviate the GIs’ concerns. In fact, such triteness deepens those concerns.”

January 7, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Journalist: Trump ‘Could Lose’ US Presidential Election Due to Iran Affair

Sputnik – January 7, 2020

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Donald Trump have reportedly discussed recent developments in Iran in the aftermath of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s assassination. Journalist Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh expressed his opinion on the situation.

Sputnik: Has the US made a mistake by killing General Soleimani?

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh: The United States has actually made a very grave mistake and they have left Iran with no other choice but to retaliate. The attack was a military one and Iran’s will need to be a military one as well, so Iran needs to react because if not; it would lead to the establishment of such a balance of power, that the US can attack and Iran just remains silent and it’s not something that anyone would accept.

The most vital thing for Iran is their security and the country needs to retaliate in order to deter the US from undertaking further attacks, otherwise, the United States would consider it a sign of weakness from Iran and that would lead to the possibility of full-fledged war against Iran, with the United States attacking Iran.

The only choice that the US has left for Iran is a retaliation of at least the same size that has happened to General Soleimani. Millions of people poured to the streets commemorating him this morning, because he was one of the most popular military leaders in Iran.

Sputnik: Should the EU defy US foreign policy for the sake of preserving peace in the Middle East?

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh: Most of the statements coming from Europe so far have been awful I’m afraid to say. They were actually somehow supporting the US and demanding that Iran should de-escalate the situation and saying that it was Iran who made the US carry out an act of war, but diplomacy is never going to work like that.

The problem is that the Europeans have turned into puppet regimes of the US, particularly the UK and France, and they are now calling for de-escalation from Iran, when the Americans have carried out an act of war, they have carried out an attack against international law and they are threatening Iran with further attacks.

If there are going to be further attacks and retaliation from Iran, followed by a response from the United States, then it will create a full-scale war, which would at least engulf the region, if not the whole world and the consequences for sure would be harsh and destructive first to the American allies in the region and then to Europeans.

By supporting the US and by remaining silent against the violations of international law by the US,  they are actually sort of abetting the American crimes and they will ultimately suffer more than the US from any consequences that might happen.

Sputnik: How will the Iran affair impact the upcoming US Presidential election?

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh: Donald Trump could lose the US Presidential election, just like Jimmy Carter did, due to the Iran situation. The gamble he took was a very big mistake and his administration thinks there is going to be a response from Iran and that if there was a war, that it might be something that unites Americans and would guarantee a second term.

The miscalculation that they have made is that Iran is not Iraq or even Vietnam. Iran is for sure more powerful and more established than those countries and if there is any war, Iran would absolutely be the winner because of the power that it has in the region and because of the experiences that they have had over the years.

This miscalculation will be very dangerous for President Trump and I expect that he will actually lose the next US election if he wants to continue aggression in the Middle East and responding to Iranian retaliation.

January 7, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Is the Chairman of the JCS freaking out (answer: he should and he is!)

The Saker | January 6, 2020

 

 

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

General Soleimani ‘martyr of Quds’: Hamas chief Haniyeh

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh addresses a massive crowd of mourners during a funeral procession for General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran January 6, 2020. (Photo by Leader.ir)
Press TV – January 6, 2020

General Qassem Soleimani is a “martyr of Quds” for he devoted his life to supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle against Israel and his assassination by the United States is in many ways similar to crimes committed by the Israeli regime, says Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was assassinated in a US strike in Baghdad on Friday, alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s pro-government Hashd al-Sha’abi forces.

A huge sea of mourners, streaming from all the adjoining streets, descended on the iconic Engelab Square in central Tehran early Monday morning and rallied to Azadi Tower in the capital’s west as they chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei led the prayers over the general’s coffin and the remains of his companions at Tehran University, his voice cracking several times with emotion which caused the massive crowd to weep.

Speaking at the funeral procession in Tehran on Monday, Haniyeh condemned the US strike, which was personally authorized by President Donald Trump.

“We have come to Iran to condole with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian government and nation,” Haniyeh said.

“He [Gen. Soleimani] was the commander of the IRGC Quds Force and he is a martyr of Quds,” the Hamas official said.

Haniyeh also sent condolences to General Soleimani’s family and described him as one of the “flag-bearers of resistance against Zionist and American plots.”

Haniyeh said he was in Iran “to express our true and sincere feelings about a dear brother and a martyred commander – a commander who made many sacrifices for Palestine and the resistance until he achieved the position he has today.”

‘A crime similar to Zionist atrocities in Palestine’

Haniyeh said this “brutal crime” by the Americans is representative of the “criminal mentality” that is at work in the occupied Palestinian lands.

“The criminal mentality that led to Commander Soleimani’s assassination and martyrdom is the same mentality that drives the minds of the Zionist regime’s thugs, the same mentality and policy that assassinates and kills Palestinians every day,” he said.

He said Hamas owes its current prowess to General Soleimani’s wisdom. The Palestinian resistance, he said, won’t back away from combating Israel and the fight will continue “until we purge all enemies from the noble Quds.”

New Quds Force chief pledges vengeance

Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, who was named the new Quds commander by the Leader on Friday, said in a statement that Iran will no doubt avenge the assassination.

“Steps will be definitely taken” to avenge General Soleimani’s blood, which Qaani said has set in motion a series of steps that will lead to America’s expulsion from the region.

US ‘elimination’ from region only acceptable retribution

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Division, echoed the remarks and said the only possible revenge for General Soleimani’s blood would be the total “elimination” of America from the region.

Launching a few missiles, destroying a base or even Trump’s death will not sufficiently avenge the blood of such a martyr, General Hajizadeh asserted, adding “the oppressed nations of the region will have to be rid of America’s evil.”

January 6, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Middle East Strategic “Balance” Shredded

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 6, 2020

President Trump was understood to not want a Mid-East war that might blight his rosy re-election prospects (so long as the US stock market stays inflated, and the economy doesn’t tank). Pat Buchanan, the three-times US Presidential candidate, warned Trump that if there is a potential landmine on Trump’s road to reelection, it may be found in the Middle and Near East: “Not infrequently, foreign policy has proven decisive in presidential years”. Plus Iran was not seeking any major confrontation; Hizbullah wasn’t; Iraq wasn’t; and the Israeli Security Establishment wasn’t.

In fact, the strategic balance – though sorely tested – had been hanging together. Just to be clear: Iran and Israel both had been keeping – just – within the parameters of unspoken ‘red lines’ – despite the inflated rhetoric. And both were practicing ‘strategic patience’. So the strategic balance seemed more or less sustainable: until its upending with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and the head of the PMU, Al-Muhandis, ordered by Trump.

Israel has not – despite its lurid language – been landing strategic blows on Iran in Syria. It has not been killing Iranians there (apart from seven killed at T4 airport in eastern Syria last year). It did not target the head of the Iranian air force, some ten days ago, as some reports have suggested (he was not even in Iraq at the time). Most of the Israeli air attacks have been on depots in the early hours, when no personnel were present. It has been a campaign more of a regular, small slicing away at Iranian logistics. It was not strategic damage.

And Iran, after sending clear ‘messages’ to Gulf States of its willingness to inflict pain on parties to its economic siege, plainly had been calibrating this push-back carefully; Iran still had its eye to global diplomacy (to wit: the joint Iranian naval exercises with Russia and China in the Persian Gulf) – whilst countering politically, America’s ‘new’ tactic of inciting ‘colour’ protests across Lebanon and Iraq (and trying to bust Syria financially, by stealing its energy revenues).

Here is the point: The US was no longer content with mere sanctions on Iran. It has been covertly escalating across the board: orchestrating protests in Iraq, in Lebanon, and in Iran itself; mounting a major cyber offensive on Iran; and a ‘messaging’ operation aimed at turning genuine popular frustration with regional mis-governance and corruption, into a weapon aimed at weakening revolutionary Iran.

The US was having some success with turning protest messaging against Iran – until, that is – its killing and wounding of so many Iraqi security force members last week (Ketaib Hizbullah is a part of Iraq’s armed forces).

Escalation of maximum-pressure was one thing (Iran was confident of weathering that); but assassinating such a senior official on his state duties, was quite something else. We have not observed a state assassinating a most senior official of another state before.

And the manner of its doing, was unprecedented too. Soleimani was officially visiting Iraq. He arrived openly as a VIP guest from Syria, and was met on the tarmac by an equally senior Iraqi official, Al-Muhandis, who was assassinated also, (together with seven others). It was all open. General Soleimani regularly used his mobile phone as he argued that as a senior state official, if he were to be assassinated by another state, it would only be as an act of war.

This act, performed at the international airport of Baghdad, constitutes not just the sundering of red lines, but a humiliation inflicted on Iraq – its government and people. It will upend Iraq’s strategic positioning. The erstwhile Iraqi attempt at balancing between Washington and Iran will be swept away by Trump’s hubristic trampling on the country’s sovereignty. It may well mark the beginning of the end of the US presence in Iraq (and therefore Syria, too), and ultimately, of America’s footprint in the Middle East.

Trump may earn easy plaudits now for his “We’re America, Bitch!”, as one senior White House official defined the Trump foreign policy doctrine; but the doubts – and unforeseen consequences soon may come home to roost.

Why did he do it? If no one really wanted ‘war’, why did Trump escalate and smash up all the crockery? He has had an easy run (so far) towards re-election, so why play the always unpredictable ‘wild card’ of a yet another Mid-East conflict?

Was it that he wanted to show ‘no Benghazi’; no US embassy siege ‘on my watch’ – unlike Obama’s handling of that situation? Was he persuaded that these assassinations would play well to his constituency (Israeli and Evangelical)? Or was he offered this option baldly by the Netanyahu faction in Washington? Maybe.

Some in Israel are worried about a three or four front war reaching Israel. Senior Israeli officials recently have been speculating about the likelihood of regional conflict occurring within the coming months. Israel’s PM however, is fighting for his political life, and has requested immunity from prosecution on three indictments – pleading that this was his legal right, and that it was needed for him to “continue to lead Israel” for the sake of its future. Effectively, Netanyahu has nothing to lose from escalating tensions with Iran — but much to gain.

Opposition Israeli political and military leaders have warned that the PM needs ‘war’ with Iran — effectively to underscore the country’s ‘need’ for his continued leadership. And for technical reasons in the Israeli parliament, his plea is unlikely to be settled before the March general elections. Netanyahu thus may still have some time to wind up the case for his continued tenure of the premiership.

One prime factor in the Israeli caution towards Iran rests not so much on the waywardness of Netanyahu, but on the inconstancy of President Trump: Can it be guaranteed that the US will back Israel unreservedly — were it to again to become enmeshed in a Mid-East war? The Israeli and Gulf answer seemingly is ‘no’. The import of this assessment is significant. Trump now is seen by some in Israel – and by some insiders in Washington – as a threat to Israel’s future security vis à vis Iran. Was Trump aware of this? Was this act a gamble to guarantee no slippage in that vital constituency in the lead up to the US elections? We do not know.

So we arrive at three final questions: How far will Iran absorb this new escalation? Will Iran confine its retaliation to within Iraq? Or will the US cross another ‘red line’ by striking inside Iran itself, in any subsequent tit for tat?

Is it deliberate (or is it political autism) that makes Secretary Pompeo term all the Iraqi Hash’d a-Sha’abi forces – whether or not part of official Iraqi forces – as “Iran-led”? The term seems to be used as a laissez-passer to attack all the many Hash’d a-Sha’abi units on the grounds that, being “Iran-linked”, they therefore count as ‘terrorist forces’. This formulation gives rise to the false sequitur that all other Iraqis would somehow approve of the killings. This would be laughable, if it were not so serious. The Hash’d forces led the war against ISIS and are esteemed by the vast majority of Iraqis. And Soleimani was on the ground at the front line, with those Iraqi forces.

These forces are not Iranian ‘proxies’. They are Iraqi nationalists who share a common Shi’a identity with their co-religionists in Iran, and across the region. They share a common zeitgeist, they see politics similarly, but they are no puppets (we write from direct experience).

But what this formulation does do is to invite a widening conflict: Many Iraqis will be outraged by the US attacks on fellow Iraqis and will revenge them. Pompeo (falsely) will then blame Iran. Is that Pompeo’s purpose: casus belli?

But where is the off-ramp? Iran will respond… Is this affair simply set to escalate from limited military exchanges … and from thence, to escalate until what? We understand that this was not addressed in Washington before the President’s decision was made. There are no real US channels of communication (other than low level) with Iran; nor is there a plan for the next days. Nor an obvious exit. Is Trump relying on gut instinct again?

January 6, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran holds all the cards in coming Middle East conflict with US – unless Trump is ready to drop a tactical NUKE

By Scott Ritter | RT | January 6, 2020

Iran has promised retaliation for the assassination of Qassem Suleimani. Donald Trump said this will lead to a disproportionate response from the US. One side can deliver on its threats, the other can’t, unless it goes nuclear.

Iran means business

“Our reaction,” Iranian general Hossein Dehghan said at the weekend, “will be wise, well considered and, in time, with decisive deterrent effect.”

Dehghan also noted that Iran was not seeking a wider confrontation with the US.

“It was America that has started the war. Therefore, they should accept appropriate reactions to their actions. The only thing that can end this period of war is for the Americans to receive a blow that is equal to the blow they have inflicted.”

Dehghan is no run-of-the-mill former Iranian general officer, but was one of the major decision makers within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the Iran-Iraq War, and later went on to command the IRGC Air Force, before eventually being appointed Iran’s minister of defense. After stepping down from that position, Dehghan became a special advisor to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei.

His words must be viewed as representing those of Khamenei himself.

Iran’s three likely targets

A closer assessment of Dehghan’s statement, when considered in the context of the vote by the Iraqi Parliament this Sunday to remove all foreign troops from Iraq, provides clarity as to what the US and the Middle East can expect from Tehran.

First and foremost, the response will not be carried out by proxy.

The attack will be military in nature. Assaults on the oil and gas infrastructure of America’s Gulf Arab allies, similar in nature to the drone attacks on Saudi oil production facilities last May, are not in the works. The same holds true for shipping transiting the strategic Strait of Hormuz, as well as US diplomatic facilities in the region.

Likewise, Iran must respect the will of the Iraqi Parliament regarding the operation of foreign troops on its soil, which means that the response will most probably not be conducted against US military forces currently stationed in Iraq.

This does not mean US troops and facilities in Iraq will be immune to attack; Khaitab Hezbollah, the Iraqi militia whose leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed in the same attack that took Qassem Suleimani’s life, have pledged their own retaliatory attacks separate from those promised by Iran.

There are a host of viable US military targets in the Persian Gulf region that are of high enough stature as to qualify as “an equal blow” in the eyes of Tehran.

Three come to mind; the concentration of US forces based in Kuwait, the headquarters of the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, and the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Of these three, only one, Al Udeid Air Base, has a direct connection to the Suleimani assassination; the drones that fired the missiles that killed Suleimani were operated from there. Al Udeid is host to critical US command and control facilities, as well as the bulk of the American combat aircraft operating in the region. It is well within the range of Iranian ballistic missiles and armed drones, which could be expected to operate in concert with one another to defeat air defenses and then saturate the base with precision strikes which could destroy hundreds of millions of dollars of aircraft and equipment, and potentially kill and wound hundreds of US service members.

Trump’s all tweets, no capacity

President Trump has promised that the US will not tolerate any attack against its personnel or facilities. “If they do anything,” he told reporters, referring to Iran, “there will be major retaliation.”

Earlier, Trump had tweeted a very explicit warning, telling Iran that he had already designated some 52 sites inside Iran, “some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” for destruction. “[T]hose targets,” Trump declared, “and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!”

Trump’s threat, however, rings hollow. First, his tweet constitutes de facto evidence of a war crime (Section 5.16.2 of the US Department of Defense Law of War Manual prohibits threats to destroy cultural objects for the express purpose of deterring enemy operations), and as such would likely not be implemented by US military commanders for whom niceties such as the law of war, which forbids the execution of an unlawful order, are serious business.

Of more relevance, however, is the fact that Trump has been down this road before, when he threatened massive military retaliation against Iran for shooting down an unarmed drone over the Strait of Hormuz last May. At that time, he was informed by his military commanders that the US lacked the military wherewithal to counter what was expected to be a full-spectrum response by Iran if the US were to attack targets inside Iran.

In short, Iran was able to inflict massive harm on US and allied targets in the Middle East region, and there was nothing the US could do to prevent this outcome.

Little has changed since May that would alter the military balance of power between the US and Iran. If Iran were to strike a US facility such as the Al Udeid Air Base, and Trump were to order a response, then Iran would most likely unleash the totality of its military capability, and those of its regional proxies, to devastate the military and economic capabilities of those targeted. These strikes would most likely include oil production facilities in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, in addition to US military facilities and diplomatic missions.

Seen in this light, Trump’s threats of retaliation appear to be little more than words that cannot be backed up by reality.

Pushing the red button for Fordow

However, there was a second significant development in the region on Sunday, in addition to the vote by the Iraqi Parliament to cut ties with the US military.

The Iranian government announced that it was ending all restrictions on the enrichment of uranium, in effect nullifying the Iran nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action, or JCPOA), which the US withdrew from in May 2018. While Iran has stated that these measures were reversible if the US returned to the agreement, the newly unconstrained enrichment capability puts Iran well inside the one year “breakout” window (i.e. the time needed by Iran to produce enough fissile material for a single nuclear device) of one year that underpinned the prime purpose of the JCPOA.

In doing so, Iran has inadvertently opened itself up to a preemptive nuclear attack by the US.

The centrifuges that could be used by Iran to produce enriched uranium capable of being used in a fissile device are housed in a hardened underground facility located near the town of Fordow. No conventional munition currently in the US arsenal can destroy Fordow.

Only a modified B-61 nuclear bomb can do the job.

Trump has hinted that any future war with Iran would not be a drawn-out affair. And while the law of war might curtail his commanders from executing any retaliation that includes cultural sites, it does not prohibit the US from using a nuclear weapon against a known nuclear facility deemed to pose a threat to national security.

This is the worst-case scenario of any tit-for-tat retaliation between Iran and the US, and it is not as far-fetched as one might believe.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

January 6, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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