Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

The Wake-Up May Be Too Late

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | June 27, 2012

Is it possible that Americans are finally waking up to the dangers resulting from Washington’s involvement in Israel’s foreign policy? In the New York Times on June 24th there was an astonishing feature opinion piece by Professor Misha Glenny writing from London about “A Weapon We Can’t Control.” The editorial slammed the “decision by the United States and Israel to develop and then deploy the Stuxnet computer worm against an Iranian nuclear facility,” describing the development as a “significant and dangerous turning point in the gradual militarization of the internet.” Glenny warned that to use such a devastating weapon in peacetime will “very likely lead to the spread of similar and still more powerful offensive cyberweaponry across the Internet,” also noting that “virus developers generally lose control of their inventions, which will inevitably seek out and attack the networks of innocent parties.”

Glenny also mentioned the second generation Flame virus, developed jointly by Israel and the US, and which has now spread to computers throughout the Middle East.

On the same day in the same issue of the Times, Jimmy Carter chimed in with an op-ed, “A Cruel and Unusual Record,” which asserted that “Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended.” Carter did not mention Israel or name President Obama, but the decade long transition of the United States into a nation that believes itself to be above the law, following the Israeli example, would have been all too clear for the reader.

One day before the editorial and op-ed’s appearance, there was also another emperor’s new clothes moment at the Times. Regular columnist Nicholas Kristof had just completed a trip across Iran with his family in tow. And guess what? He found in “Not-So-Crazy in Tehran” that Iran was a “complex country,” not a police state, has a “vigorous parliament and news media,” and most university students are women who later obtain important jobs after graduation. Kristof’s advice? “Let’s not bluster…or operate on caricatures. And let’s not choose bombs over sanctions…”

I would add that it is about time that people in the United States begin to realize that unlimited support of Israel has turned US foreign policy into the poison that is bidding to destroy the republic.

Alas, over the same weekend that the Times was possibly coming to its senses, Mitt Romney was meeting in Park City Utah with his large donors. At a breakout session to discuss his support of Israel he revealed that he speaks regularly with Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to get advice on the Middle East. Unseemly does not begin to describe such an arrangement, as Oren is not exactly a disinterested party re the advice he is giving. Oh, and Bill Kristol and Michael Chertoff also spoke to the pro-Israel group.

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues.

Related articles

June 27, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Al-Qaeda a tool for West’s political/military adventures

Habilian Foundation | 23 June 2012

In an interview with Habilian Foundation (families of Iranian terror victims), Mark Glenn, co-founder of the Idaho-based Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, discussed the al-Qaeda’s role at the hands of the West and the US’s double standards on fighting against terrorism. What follows is the full transcript of the interview, which has also been published in Persian-language Rah Nama monthly magazine.

Habilian: How do you see al-Qaeda after the death of Bin Laden?

Glenn: well, the assumption is that ‘Al Qaeda’ is what it’s described being by Israel, America and the West. Millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost their lives in the various wars of aggression inflicted by America and other western countries, and yet we come to find out that these same western countries killing innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan are arming, training and funding Al Qaeda militants in places such as Libya and Syria.

So my answer is that—given the West and Israel’s propensity for lying and manufacturing certain situations in order to justify some pre-arranged political/military adventure, we don’t really know what Al Qaeda is, other than a very convenient enemy when America needs to go to war against someone.

Habilian: Is al-Qaeda still a terrorist group posing a threat to different western countries namely American people?

Glenn: A very good question. Well, the math for such a statement-that Al Qaeda poses a threat to America–certainly does not add up. The attacks of 9/11 were almost 11 years ago and yet in that time period there have been NO attacks on America, despite her being a very easy target. After all, we are told that Al Qaeda wants to see America destroyed. Where are the daily attacks then? America’s borders are very porous. Access to explosives, firearms and every other destructive device in America is very easy. And yet, in the almost 4,000 days that have passed since 9/11, there have been no attacks of any kind. What this suggests is that either Al Qaeda is not very dangerous or else is not very smart.

Habilian: What do you think of its interference in Iraq and Syria? Isn’t the Ayman al-Zawahiri’s leadership in al-Qaeda in line with the US warmongering policies in the Middle East?

Glenn: Yes, a very good point, and again I think it speaks to the fact that ‘Al Qaeda’, whatever that is, is basically a tool that is used by America, the West and Israel whenever they need to push-start a pre-arranged political/military adventure somewhere. It is similar in some respects to a man who has a business where he repairs dents in cars and has on his payroll someone who goes out in the dark of night and puts dents in cars as a means of generating business.

Habilian: How would you evaluate the US-Taliban bilateral talks? Isn’t it a kind of retreat?

Glenn: at this point I don’t know exactly how to evaluate these talks, other than that they are an indicator that the US finds itself in very messy business in Afghanistan, which was visible from a mile away before the war even began. But then, the entire fiasco in the Middle East as pertains the West is very much like a Greek tragedy where the hubris and arrogance of the main protagonist leads directly to his own downfall, something which the government of Iran through the person of her president, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejhad has said on many occasions.

Habilian: What is your estimation of the Obama Administration’s policies towards the issue of fighting terrorism?

Glenn: The US is not and never has been interested in ‘fighting terrorism’. If it were, they would immediately cut off all funding and support for the world’s largest terrorist organization, meaning the Jewish state. Obama’s role as elected (selected) President is to hunt down and destroy Israel’s enemies, but neither he nor any other elected official in the US can say this openly, so they mask their true intent by calling resistance to Israel’s brutality and aggression ‘terrorism’.

Israel was the beginning of terrorism in the 20th century and remains so in the 21st. If the people of the world want a return to peace and prosperity, they must begin by attacking the problem at its source, which is the Jewish state and its various tentacles spread around the world.

June 25, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi regime to pay salaries of armed rebels in Syria: Report

Press TV – June 23, 2012

The Saudi regime will pay the salaries of members of the terrorist Free Syrian Army amid ongoing attacks carried out by armed groups inside Syria, a report says.

According to a June 22 report published by the UK newspaper Guardian, Saudi authorities will pay the armed rebels to encourage “mass defections from the military and… pressure” the Damascus government.

The plan has been discussed between officials from Riyadh and Washington, as well as representatives from a number of other Arab states.

US Senator Joe Lieberman also brought up the issue of the salaries during talks with Saudi officials in a recent trip to the kingdom.

According to Lieberman’s spokesperson, the US senator “called for the US to provide robust and comprehensive support” to the armed rebels.

Lieberman “specifically called for the US to work with… partners to provide” the rebels with “weapons, training, tactical intelligence, secure communications and other forms of support.”

Meanwhile, armed groups continue conducting attacks in Syria. The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said terrorists killed 25 civilians in the northern province of Aleppo on June 22.

The Guardian also stated that Turkey has allowed the “establishment of a 22-member command center in Istanbul which is coordinating supply lines” for the rebels inside Syria.

The report was published a day after the New York Times quoted some US and Arab intelligence officials as saying that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar pay for the transport of weaponry for the armed gangs in Syria.

On February 24, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said during a meeting of the so-called “Friends of Syria” group in Tunisia that supplying weapons to Syrian rebels is “an excellent idea.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on March 4 that the “international community’s message might be conveyed to the Syrian administration via certain methods including the arming of the (so-called) Syrian National Council (SNC).”

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree on Saturday, forming a new government under Prime Minister Riad Farid Hijab, the former agriculture minister who was appointed the Syrian premier on June 6.

The move was part of the reforms promised by the Syrian president.

Assad said on June 3 that the country is “facing a war from abroad,” adding that attempts are being made to “weaken Syria, [and] breach its sovereignty.”

“Standing up against the conspiracy is not easy, but we will overcome the obstacles,” he stated.

Related articles

June 23, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

On Threats to Israel and Canada

By Kim Petersen | Dissident Voice | June 23rd, 2012

There are people who insist that Israel is an overseas battleship for the United States. What about the relationship between Israel and Canada?

Documents have come to light, through a Queen’s University researcher using the federal access-to-information law, that say Canadian defence minister Peter MacKay told Israel’s top military commander, major-general Gabi Ashkenazi, while in the Middle East, that “a threat to Israel is a threat to Canada.”1

It is nothing new. Mackay’s boss, prime minister Stephen Harper previously stated, “Those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada.”2

First, who is the primary threat in the Middle East? Is Lebanon attacking Israel or is it Israel attacking Lebanon? Is Syria attacking Israel or is it Israel attacking Syria? Is Gaza attacking Israel or is it Israel attacking Gaza? Did Iraq attack Israel or did Israel attack Iraq? Has Iran ever attacked Israel, or is it just Israel that has attacked Iran?

It appears the threat is an Israeli attack on nearby countries, not another Middle Eastern country attacking Israel.

If an attack on Israel is an attack on Canada, then what is an attack by Israel? If Canada is so aligned with Israel, does it then consider that it is in an attack posture along with Israel?

Or is there a semblance of fairness to Canadian foreign policy under the Conservative Party government?3 Would Canada declare that a threat against another Middle Eastern country from Israel is a threat to Canada? Does Canada wish to be a peace-loving country (hardly credible nowadays after its role in the imperialist debacle against Iraq and in war-torn Afghanistan) or will it condone threats and violence by Israel against neighbors?

When talking about threats, is it not important to consider what might be prompting a threat? Would occupation of another state’s territory not be provocative? Is anyone occupying Israeli territory? (Just what is Israeli territory anyway?) How about vice versa? Israel is in longstanding occupation of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. So just who is the threat and who is engaged in provocative behavior?

Former prime minister, Paul Martin, said: “Israel’s values are Canada’s values — shared values — democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights.”4

If Israel’s values are Canada’s values, on democracy is this expressed by Canada’s freezing aid to Palestine after Hamas won the 2006 election? On the rule of law, is this expressed by Israel’s violation of numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions and the 2005 International Court of Justice decision that the apartheid wall must be dismantled from within the West Bank and compensation paid to Palestinians? On the protection of human rights can this exist within an apartheid regime; can it exist under occupation?5

So what exactly are these shared values between Canada and Israel?

Does Canada value becoming an undeclared nuclear power? Will Canada therefore withdraw from the NPT and develop its own nuclear weapons arsenal in line with Israeli values?

Should Canada not then support Iran’s nuclear research since they only do what Israel has done, and even less, and even Canada does nuclear research and sends its uranium to nuclear-armed states?

How does Canada avoid charges of hypocrisy? How does Canada elude charges of bias?

Harper had defended Israel by saying: “But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.”

Is there not a moral obligation to take a stand against apartheid, to take a stand against occupation, to take a stand against serial violations of international law, to take a stand against human rights abuses, and to take a stand against warring?

Are Israeli’s values not a threat to any nation state professing respect for human rights and justice?

  1. See Murray Brewster, “Threat to Israel is threat to Canada, MacKay tells Israeli military commander,” The Province, 19 June 2012.
  2. See “Fault Lines – Canada-Israel: The other special relationship,” Al Jazeera.
  3. It does not really matter in Canada’s current political landscape because Canada’s New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party are more-or-less equally obsequious to Israel.
  4. Press Release, “Canadian prime Minister Paul Martin Addresses Delegates at Opening of United Jewish Communities 2005 General Assembly,” UJC.
  5. Visit, for example, the website of B’Tselem — the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories for a glimpse at Israeli activists acknowledge as Israel’s abuse of human rights.

Kim Petersen can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.

Related articles

June 23, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel lobby-created anti-Iran astroturf group employs Gene Sharp methods

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 22, 2012

In an article entitled “Israel Lobby Creates Anti-Iran Astroturf Group,” Richard Silverstein describes the “double life” of Iran180:

On the one hand it attempts to be a serious human rights organization. But it has a Jekyll/Hyde identity as a rough-and-tumble agitprop street theater group featuring giant puppets acting the part of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and various other Middle Eastern tyrants like Bashar Assad and Muammar Gadhafi.

None of this would be out of bounds… until you examine the product of Iran180′s street theater. In 2011, it hosted a float at San Francisco’s Gay Pride parade in which Ahmadinejad was sodomized by a nuclear missile. During the same event, Ahmadinejad fellated said missile. Last year, during UN demonstrations coinciding with the Iranian leader’s UN General Assembly speech, the group featured a gay Jewish wedding between Ahmadinejad and Assad in which they stood under a chuppah and broke a wedding glass. In another scene, the lovebirds take a drive in a horse-drawn carriage and one strokes the naked belly of the other.

If Iran180′s “street theater” sounds like something out of Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, it may not be a coincidence that its single staff member, Chris DeVito, holds a Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The chairman of the Fletcher School is Peter Ackerman, a student of Sharp’s nonviolent warfare who funded his regime-changing work for two decades. Ackerman, chairman of the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, has been plotting regime change in Iran and Syria at least since 2005. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed entitled “Say You Want a Revolution,” Ackerman and Michael Ledeen wrote:

Freedom-loving people know what we want to see in Beirut, Damascus and Tehran: the central square bursting with citizens demanding an end to tyranny, massive strikes shutting down the national economy, the disintegration of security forces charged with maintaining order, and the consequent departure of the tyrants and the beginnings of a popularly elected government.

Related articles

June 22, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dystopia revisited

By Paul Balles | Voice of Palestine | June 1, 2012

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. –George Orwell, 1984

Many people have been shocked by the distortion, propaganda and downright lies appearing in the Western media over events in the Middle East.

But for someone living in the Middle East for 30 or 40 years, the lies are nothing new. The distorted conflicts fly furiously through the corrupt Western media.

When asked “What is the most effective military weapon the Israelis have?” The answer has to be “The control of the Western media.”

The domination of the media was decreed at the Zionist conference of 1897.

Gilad Atzmon, anti-Zionist and ex-Israeli Jew, describes it as the “Zionised Western media.”

The effect of this control dictates to the sluggish Western population which countries they may like and which they must hate.

Seventy-year-old Benjamin Freedman, an American anti-Zionist Jew, declared in a speech presented in 1961, “The Zionists rule these United States as though they were absolute monarchs of this country.”

Freedman declared that in 1916, when Britain was seriously considering a peace offered by Germans, on the basis of a status quo ante, the Zionists seized an opportunity to inform the British War Cabinet that they could still win the war.

They used the same techniques to brainwash the British War Cabinet that they have perfected in the media.

“We will guarantee to bring the United States into this war as your ally. The price you must pay is Palestine after you have won the war and defeated Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey.” Britain made that promise in October 1916.

Freedman revealed at that time the United States was totally pro-German; the newspapers…all the mass communication media was controlled by Jews who were pro-German.

When the Zionists saw the possibility of getting Palestine, everything changed overnight. Suddenly the Germans were no good. They were villains shooting Red Cross nurses and cutting off babies hands. They were Huns.

An insider during this time, and a few years before, Freedman described American President Woodrow Wilson “as incompetent when it came to determining what was going on as a newborn baby.” The same tactics were used in the media. The American people were duped into joining WWI as they were in going into Iraq.

What is notably absent from the information presentation is reportage of Israeli weaknesses and atrocities.

While US networks are virulent in presenting human tragedy, be it through crime, sickness, weather or other catastrophes, there is scant if any media exposure to human suffering caused by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Neglected veterans suffer the cause of divorces, children who have lost parents or parents unable to perform normally.

The American people appear perfectly content about being ruled by the Zionists. They call it their freedom, which they say other countries envy.

Aside from the US media in general, Zionism has permeated Christian churches and the education system.

This brain-washing has gone on for 100 years and is too deeply embedded for Americans to break out and become responsible and even-handed, especially in dealing with the Middle East.

To revisit George Orwell and 1984, it may not be too late to recognize the lies, their source and how they control us:

“…and if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”

If the future portrayed by Orwell is avoidable, the rest of the world must break from Western media control of radio, TV, films and newspapers.

******

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years – first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant. Dr. Balles is a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS

Related articles

June 21, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

How the Obama Administration Is Stalling Its Way to War with Iran

Deep-Sixing the China Option

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | TomDispatch | June 19, 2012

Since talks with Iran over its nuclear development started up again in April, U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Tehran will not be allowed to “play for time” in the negotiations.  In fact, it is the Obama administration that is playing for time.

Some suggest that President Obama is trying to use diplomacy to manage the nuclear issue and forestall an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear targets through the U.S. presidential election.  In reality, his administration is “buying time” for a more pernicious agenda: time for covert action to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear program; time for sanctions to set the stage for regime change in Iran; and time for the United States, its European and Sunni Arab partners, and Turkey to weaken the Islamic Republic by overthrowing the Assad government in Syria.

Vice President Biden’s national security adviser, Antony J. Blinken, hinted at this in February, explaining that the administration’s Iran policy is aimed at “buying time and continuing to move this problem into the future, and if you can do that — strange things can happen in the interim.”  Former Pentagon official Michèle Flournoy — now out of government and advising Obama’s reelection campaign — told an Israeli audience this month that, in the administration’s view, it is also important to go through the diplomatic motions before attacking Iran so as not to “undermine the legitimacy of the action.”

New York Times’ journalist David Sanger recently reported that, “from his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons” — even though he knew this “could enable other countries, terrorists, or hackers to justify” cyberattacks against the United States.  Israel — which U.S. intelligence officials say is sponsoring assassinations of Iranian scientists and other terrorist attacks in Iran — has been intimately involved in the program.

Classified State Department cables published by WikiLeaks show that, from the beginning of the Obama presidency, he and his team saw diplomacy primarily as a tool to build international support for tougher sanctions, including severe restrictions on Iranian oil exports.  And what is the aim of such sanctions?  Earlier this year, administration officials told the Washington Post that their purpose was to turn the Iranian people against their government.  If this persuades Tehran to accept U.S. demands to curtail its nuclear activities, fine; if the anger were to result in the Islamic Republic’s overthrow, many in the administration would welcome that.

Since shortly after unrest broke out in Syria, the Obama team has been calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, expressing outrage over what they routinely describe as the deaths of thousands of innocent people at the hands of Syrian security forces.  But, for morethana year, they have been focused on another aspect of the Syrian situation, calculating that Assad’s fall or removal would be a sharp blow to Tehran’s regional position — and might even spark the Islamic Republic’s demise.  That’s the real impetus behind Washington’s decision to provide “non-lethal” support to Syrian rebels attacking government forces, while refusing to back proposals for mediating the country’s internal conflicts which might save lives, but do not stipulate Assad’s departure upfront.

Meeting with Iranian oppositionists last month, State Department officials aptly summarized Obama’s Iran policy priorities this way: the “nuclear program, its impact on the security of Israel, and avenues for regime change.”  With such goals, how could his team do anything but play for time in the nuclear talks?  Two former State Department officials who worked on Iran in the early months of Obama’s presidency are onrecord confirming that the administration “never believed that diplomacy could succeed” — and was “never serious” about it either.

How Not to Talk to Iran

Simply demanding that Iran halt its nuclear activities and ratcheting up pressure when it does not comply will not, however, achieve anything for America’s position in the Middle East.  Western powers have been trying to talk Iran out of its civil nuclear program for nearly 10 years.  At no point has Tehran been willing to surrender its sovereign right to indigenous fuel cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment.

Sanctions and military threats have only reinforced its determination.  Despite all the pressure exerted by Washington and Tel Aviv, the number of centrifuges operating in Iran has risen over the past five years from less than 1,000 to more than 9,000.  Yet Tehran has repeatedly offered, in return for recognition of its right to enrich, to accept more intrusive monitoring of — and, perhaps, negotiated limits on — its nuclear activities.

Greater transparency for recognition of rights: this is the only possible basis for a deal between Washington and Tehran.  It is precisely the approach that Iran has advanced in the current series of talks.  Rejecting it only guarantees diplomatic failure — and the further erosion of America’s standing, regionally and globally.

George W. Bush’s administration refused to accept safeguarded enrichment in Iran.  Indeed, it refused to talk at all until Tehran stopped its enrichment program altogether.  This only encouraged Iran’s nuclear development, while pollsshow that, by defying American diktats, Tehran has actually won support among regional publics for its nuclear stance.

Some highly partisan analysts claim that, in contrast to Bush, Obama was indeed ready from early in his presidency to accept the principle and reality of safeguarded enrichment in Iran.  And when his administration failed at every turn to act in a manner consistent with a willingness to accept safeguarded enrichment, the same analysts attributed this to congressional and Israeli pressure.

In truth, Obama and his team have never seriously considered enrichment acceptable.  Instead, the president himself decided, early in his tenure, to launch unprecedented cyberattacks against Iran’s main, internationally monitored enrichment facility.  His team has resisted a more realistic approach not because a deal incorporating safeguarded enrichment would be bad for American security (it wouldn’t), but because accepting it would compel a more thoroughgoing reappraisal of the U.S. posture toward the Islamic Republic and, more broadly, of America’s faltering strategy of dominating the Middle East.

The China Option

Acknowledging Iran’s right to enrich would require acknowledging the Islamic Republic as a legitimate entity with legitimate national interests, a rising regional power not likely to subordinate its foreign policy to Washington (as, for example, U.S. administrations regularly expected of Egypt under Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak).  It would mean coming to terms with the Islamic Republic in much the same way that the United States came to terms with the People’s Republic of China — another rising, independent power — in the early 1970s.

America’s Iran policy remains stuck in a delusion similar to the one that warped its China policy for two decades after China’s revolutionaries took power in 1949 — that Washington could somehow isolate, strangle, and ultimately bring down a political order created through mass mobilization and dedicated to restoring national independence after a long period of Western domination.  It didn’t work in the Chinese case and it’s not likely to in Iran either.

In one of the most consequential initiatives in American diplomatic history, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger finally accepted this reality and aligned Washington’s China policy with reality.  Unfortunately, Washington’s Iran policy has not had its Nixonian moment yet, and so successive U.S. administrations — including Obama’s — persist in folly.

The fact is: Obama could have had a nuclear deal in May 2010, when Brazil and Turkey brokered an agreement for Iran to send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for new fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.  The accord met all the conditions spelled out in letters from Obama to then-Brazilian President Lula and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan — but Obama rejected it, because it recognized Iran’s right to enrich.  (That this was the main reason was affirmed by Dennis Ross, the architect of Obama’s Iran policy, earlier this year.)  The Obama team has declined to reconsider its position since 2010 and, as a result, it is on its way to another diplomatic failure.

As Middle Eastern governments become somewhat more representative of their peoples’ concerns and preferences, they are also — as in Egypt and Iraq — becoming less inclined toward strategic deference to the United States.  This challenges Washington to do something at which it is badly out of practice: pursue genuine diplomacy with important regional states, based on real give and take and mutual accommodation of core interests.  Above all, reversing America’s decline requires rapprochement with the Islamic Republic (just as reviving its position in the early 1970s required rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China).

Instead, three and a half years after George W. Bush left office, his successor continues to insist that Iran surrender to Washington’s diktats or face attack.  By doing so, Obama is locking America into a path that is increasingly likely to result in yet another U.S.-initiated war in the Middle East during the first years of the next presidential term.  And the damage that war against Iran will inflict on America’s strategic position could make the Iraq debacle look trivial by comparison.

~

Flynt Leverett is professor of international affairs at Penn State. Hillary Mann Leverett is senior professorial lecturer at American University. Together, they write the Race for Iran blog.  Their new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Needs to Come to Terms With the Islamic Republic of Iran (Metropolitan Books), will be published in January 2013.

Copyright 2012 Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

June 20, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Taliban praise India for not acting as US lapdog

Rehmat’s World | June 18, 2012

To great surprise to New Delhi, Pakistan-supported anti-US Afghan Taliban leaders have praised India for resisting US-NATO calls for greater involvement in Afghanistan.

There had been no assurance for the Americans, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters on Sunday. “It shows that India understands the facts,” he said.

Regional analysts believe India, Pakistan and the Taliban are asserting their independence from the American world order.

Last month, Hillary Clinton visited India in the hope of persuading the country to halt oil imports from the Islamic Republic or face sanctions itself. She was told by Indian officials that India needs to look after its own national interests rather than bow to US interests in the region. Last week, Barack Obama exempted India along with Turkey and Japan from the Zionists’ list of countries to be sanctioned for not following Israel’s anti-Iran agenda.

Early this month, US secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, made a 3-day stop in India on his way to Afghanistan. In New Delhi, he urged Indian leaders to take a more active military role in Afghanistan. During his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India national security adviser, Shiv Shankar and Indian Defense Minister A.K. Anthony – Panetta did not find them willing to have a military conflict with Pakistan by fighting against pro-Pakistan Taliban. India is America’s valued customer. In the past eleven years, India has bought around $8.5 billion worth of defense equipment from the United States.

Zionist Jewish professor Joel Brinkley (Stanford University) lamented in the San Francisco Chronicle (June 17, 2012) that after spending $1 billion and more than 3,000 lives lost during the last ten years – the victors in Afghanistan are China, India and Iran. … Full article

Related articles

June 18, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unilateral sanctions on Iran to hurt Russia-US ties: Russian official

Xinhua – June 17, 2012

MOSCOW – Potential U.S.sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program will “deal a blow” to Russian-U.S. relations, a senior Russian official said Sunday, presuming a hard-line stance before the long-waited meeting of the heads of the two states.

Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told reporters that U.S. sanctions on Iran would “run against international law and affect third countries.”

Moscow could not accept if Russian firms and banks become potential victims of such unilateral actions from the U.S., Ushakov warned.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama are to meet on the sidelines of the upcoming Group of 20 summit Monday in the Mexican city of Los Cabos.

The two leaders had agreed by phone in early May that they would meet for one and a half hours during the summit, Ushakov said, which would be the first since Putin returned to the top seat.

Putin’s absence from the Group of Eight summit last month in the United States and Obama’s no-show decision at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Russia’s Vladivostok in September augured a possible cool-down of the already soured Russia-U.S. relations amidst Putin’s tough words concerning the U.S.-led missile defense system in Europe.

A new round of talks between Iran and the six major world powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — is due on Monday in Moscow, a month after the last round of “six plus one” talks was held in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

June 17, 2012 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Senators urge Obama to stop talks with Iran, reveal Zionist influence

Press TV – June 16, 2012

Forty-four US Republican and Democrat senators have written a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to stop talks with the Islamic Republic altogether unless Iran “agrees to take immediate steps to curb its uranium enrichment activity.”

“Steps it [Iran] must take immediately are shutting down of the Fordow [nuclear] facility, freezing enrichment above five percent, and shipping all uranium enriched above five percent out of the country,” the letter published on Saturday added.

The US senators’ letter is verbatim echo of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks in an address he made to the Civil Services Commission in Jerusalem (al-Quds) on May 21, just two days before the P5+1 sit down in Baghdad for talks with Iran.

Netanyahu said in his speech that “Israel would only be satisfied if Iran halted all uranium enrichment and shipped its stockpiles out of the country.”

He added that Tehran must also close its underground Fordow nuclear facility at the city of Qom, south of the capital Tehran.

“This is the only way it will be possible to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear bomb…. This is Israel’s position. It has not changed, and it will not change,” Netanyahu emphasized.

Referring to a third round of talks between Iran and the P 5+1– the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany –, scheduled for Moscow on June 18 and 19, the senators wrote, “Were Iran to agree to and verifiably implement these steps, this would demonstrate a level of commitment by Iran to the process and could justify continued discussions beyond the meeting in Moscow.”

“On the other hand, if the sessions in Moscow produce no substantive agreement, we urge you to reevaluate the utility of further talks at this time and instead focus on significantly increasing the pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and making clear that a credible military option exist,” they added.

The senators also threatened that “the window for diplomacy is closing” on Iran.

Iranian officials have frequently said the country would never give up its inalienable right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including by mastering the full cycle of nuclear fuel and all its components such as enriching uranium to levels allowed for by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

On Friday, June 15, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili once more emphasized that Tehran expects its right to nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment, be recognized during the upcoming talks with the P5+1 in Moscow as that right is clearly defined by the NPT.

He added that Iran’s nuclear activities are entirely under the control of the IAEA and the Islamic Republic is conducting its nuclear energy program in full compliance with the NPT.

~

Link for Letter

Signed by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), James Risch (R-ID), Ron Wyden (D-OR), David Vitter (R-LA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Mark Pryor (D-AR), John Cornyn (R-TX), Robert Casey Jr. (D-PA), John Boozman (R-AR), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Scott Brown (R-MA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Hoeven (R-ND), Jeff Merkeley (D-OR), Daniel Coats (R-IN), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Patrick Toomey (R-PA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mike Lee (R-UT), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Rob Portman (R-OH), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Dean Heller (R-NV), Jon Tester (D-MT), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Carl Levin (D-MI), and Mark Begich (D-AK).

Related articles

June 16, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

How the Israel lobby’s anti-Beijing startup now aids Syria’s rebels

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 15, 2012

In an article entitled “Hillary’s Little Startup: How the U.S. Is Using Technology to Aid Syria’s Rebels,” TIME Magazine reports that the Obama Administration has been providing media-technology training and support to Syrian dissidents by way of proxies such as the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and Freedom House. The title is a little misleading though. As the article reveals, it wasn’t Hillary Clinton that started it:

The program actually began four years ago with a different target: China. In 2008, Michael Horowitz, a longtime religious-liberty advocate, went to his friend Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, and suggested setting aside funds to help Falun Gong, a religious group that Beijing has labeled a dangerous cult. The money was supposed to help the dissidents distribute software to jump China’s massive firewall and organize online as well as communicate freely with the outside world. Wolf succeeded in appropriating $15 million. But U.S. diplomats feared the move would derail relations with Beijing, and little money was spent. Then the 2009–10 Iranian protests and last year’s Arab Spring made Internet freedom a much more fashionable term in Washington. Congress soon forked over an additional $57 million to State to spend in the next three years. The money is split among three areas: education and training; anonymization, which masks users’ identities, usually through encryption; and circumvention technology, which allows users to overcome government censors so that their work—and that of repressive regimes—can be seen worldwide.

The destabilization program’s originators are hardly disappointed to see it now targeting one of Israel’s enemies. Michael Horowitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a neoconservative think tank with close ties to the Israeli right, from whence he mobilizes evangelical Christians on behalf of interventionist causes. His friend in Congress, Frank Wolf, can be also be relied upon to advance the Jewish state’s interests, such as he did when he helped block the appointment of Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council, while denying that the lobby had anything to do with it.

As the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army continues to plunge Syria into chaos, the Israelis are no doubt pleased with the results of Horowitz and Wolf’s little startup.

June 14, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel lobby celebrates Treasury’s successful use of “financial tools” to support Arab Spring

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 14, 2012

In his introduction to “Finding a Balance: U.S. Security Interests and the Arab Awakening,” the recently published fifth volume (.pdf) of The Washington Institute’s counterterrorism lecture series, editor Matthew Levitt writes:

Together, these lectures provide a window into both the struggle against extremism and the challenges and opportunities presented by the Arab Spring during the Obama administration’s third and fourth years in office. From finding new counterterrorism partners to keeping al-Qaeda and other illiberal forces at bay as new regimes take root, Washington and its allies must continue showing the flexibility and creativity that produced the State Department’s CSCC and facilitated the Treasury Department’s spectacular success at using financial tools to support democratic transition in the Middle East (emphasis added). After all, events in the region are still unfolding, and the outcome remains to be seen. Even as Washington and its allies contend with an evolving but still potent terrorist threat—including the rise of homegrown violent extremism—they have much more work to do in aiding the forces of democracy and liberalism in the Middle East. Although al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been remarkably absent from the Arab Spring to date, violent or nonviolent Islamist extremists could still hijack the revolutions orchestrated by liberal Arab youths and turn them to their own purpose. Preventing this will require timely analysis and creative thinking of the kind presented in this volume.

As Daniel L. Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, remarked in his lecture, “Treasury’s Response to the Arab Spring,” Levitt, the director of WINEP’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department, “played an integral role in the development of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.”

Those who still believe that the Arab Spring poses a threat to Israel need to consider this question: Why is the think tank AIPAC built so enthusiastic about the “spectacular success” of the lobby’s Treasury Department creation “at using financial tools to support democratic transition in the Middle East”?

Related articles

June 14, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »