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Deconstructing the election to Iran’s Majlis

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | February 24, 2020

Iran’s parliamentary election on Friday took place in extraordinary circumstances. The pandemic fear over coronavirus significantly impacted the voter turnout, which is estimated to be around 42% (as compared to 62% in the 2016 election to the Majlis). A dozen people have died so far in Iran and a few dozen diagnosed with the virus outbreak. There are conflicting reports. Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Armenia have closed their border with Iran.

The election presages a robust comeback by the conservative faction known as the Principalists. In the 2016 election, the reformists, conservatives and independents won 41%, 29% and 28% of the vote respectively. But this time around, the reformists have been marginalised and the Principalists will dominate the 290-member Majlis with a commanding majority. The Principalists won all 30 seats from Tehran, which is traditionally a key battleground.

There are many underlying factors behind the popular discontent that the election results reflect — in particular, the anger at the 2015 nuclear deal’s failure to bring jobs and social improvements (as promised by President Hassan Rouhani), corruption, mounting social inequality, inflation and poverty rates, water shortages, spiralling cost of living and high unemployment. Strikes and protests among teachers and the working class became frequent in the recent years.

The US sanctions have devastated social conditions, driving up inflation and poverty rates. A report last year by the Iranian parliament’s research office acknowledged that some 57 million of Iran’s 80 million population would live in poverty.

Having established control over the Majlis, the Principalists will most certainly make a determined bid to capture the presidency in the August 2021 election when Rouhani completes the second term in office and must step down as stipulated by the constitution. A politically surcharged climate will prevail in the coming 18-month period.

Rouhani’s capacity to manoeuvre will be severely restricted and as a weakened president, he will have to depend on cooperation of the Principalists, which may not be forthcoming.

One peculiarity of the struggle is that it is also a reflection of differences over foreign policies, especially the standoff with the US. Broadly, the Principalists are hardliners in regard of Iran’s relations with the West, while the reformists have keenly (but vainly) sought Iran’s integration into the world economy by improving the country’s relations with the West.

Thus, the “big picture” is that the Trump administration’s maximum pressure approach has pushed Iran to the right. The assassination of the iconic IRGC general Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack in January set in motion long-term shifts in Iran’s domestic politics.

Soleimani’s killing prompted the regime to resort to extreme measures to disqualify a broad swathe of moderate and centrist candidates from running in the parliamentary elections.

If Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal dealt a mortal blow to Rouhani’s prestige and created a mass perception that the US is an undependable interlocutor with whom constructive engagement is simply not feasible, the killing of Soleimani has totally discredited Rouhani’s approach towards the US, which eschewed confrontation and placed the accent on diplomacy.

Put differently, the regime is circling the wagons, as it were, sensing an existential threat to the Velayat-e faqih — or guardianship of the Islamic jurist — which is the Shia Islamist system of governance since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, built on the rule of the clergy over the state.

Several western analysts had warned that the Trump administration’s policies would inevitably discredit the reformists and shift Iran’s political calculus toward the right, with negative consequences for regional security. But such warnings fell on deaf ears.

It almost seems now as if the hardliners in the Trump administration preferred to have the Principalists at the helm of affairs in Tehran. Indeed, no sooner than the conservative surge in the Majlis election appeared, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has floated an inflammatory idea, during a visit to Saudi Arabia this week, that in the coming months, he and Trump will make a major decision about whether to petition the UN to invoke what is known as “snapback” on a set of international sanctions on Iran that were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear accord.

Such a move has been rumoured for some time but this is the first acknowledgement by the Trump administration. The idea is to “to deal a deathblow to the nuclear deal” and to provoke Tehran to react.

Tehran has already warned that any move to reimpose blanket UN sanctions on Iran will compel it to expel the IAEA inspectors and resume its pre-2015 nuclear programme. Iran may even quit the NPT (as North Korea did.)

In sum, as two well-known American experts Julia Masterson and Samuel M. Hickey wrote recently in an essay in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled The US has a backup plan to kill the Iran nuclear deal. It could spark a crisis at the UN :

“A snapping back of UN sanctions on Iran could also lead Iran to kick out international nuclear inspectors, resume additional nuclear activities, and threaten a regional war involving great powers, historic adversaries, and non-state actors across the Middle East. In short, it would manufacture a crisis that the world can ill afford.”

A reconciliation with the West seems all but out of the question for the foreseeable future. The ascendance of the conservatives will likely see Iran’s withdrawal from previous commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal. Free of international control, Tehran can redefine its stance as it wishes.

A concerted effort by Tehran to broaden and deepen relations with China and Russia can be expected. Iran will rely on China and Russia for investment and technology transfers in line with the pivot to “resistance economy”, dispensing with imported goods.

February 25, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Clinton: Destroy Syria for Israel

The New Observer | May 22, 2016

A newly-released Hilary Clinton email confirmed that the Obama administration has deliberately provoked the civil war in Syria as the “best way to help Israel.”

In an indication of her murderous and psychopathic nature, Clinton also wrote that it was the “right thing” to personally threaten Bashar Assad’s family with death.

In the email, released by Wikileaks, then Secretary of State Clinton says that the “best way to help Israel” is to “use force” in Syria to overthrow the government.

The document was one of many unclassified by the US Department of State under case number F-2014-20439, Doc No. C05794498, following the uproar over Clinton’s private email server kept at her house while she served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Although the Wikileaks transcript dates the email as December 31, 2000, this is an error on their part, as the contents of the email (in particular the reference to May 2012 talks between Iran and the west over its nuclear program in Istanbul) show that the email was in fact sent on December 31, 2012.

The email makes it clear that it has been US policy from the very beginning to violently overthrow the Syrian government—and specifically to do this because it is in Israel’s interests.

“The best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad,” Clinton forthrightly starts off by saying.

Even though all US intelligence reports had long dismissed Iran’s “atom bomb” program as a hoax (a conclusion supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency), Clinton continues to use these lies to “justify” destroying Syria in the name of Israel.

She specifically links Iran’s mythical atom bomb program to Syria because, she says, Iran’s “atom bomb” program threatens Israel’s “monopoly” on nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

If Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, Clinton asserts, this would allow Syria (and other “adversaries of Israel” such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) to “go nuclear as well,” all of which would threaten Israel’s interests.

Therefore, Clinton, says, Syria has to be destroyed.

Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. What Israeli military leaders really worry about — but cannot talk about — is losing their nuclear monopoly.

An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today.

If Iran were to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapons state, Tehran would find it much easier to call on its allies in Syria and Hezbollah to strike Israel, knowing that its nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent to Israel responding against Iran itself.

It is, Clinton continues, the “strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria” that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security.

This would not come about through a “direct attack,” Clinton admits, because “in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel” this has never occurred, but through its alleged “proxies.”

The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel’s leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests.

Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly.

Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted.

Clinton goes on to assert that directly threatening Bashar Assad “and his family” with violence is the “right thing” to do:

In short, the White House can ease the tension that has developed with Israel over Iran by doing the right thing in Syria.

With his life and his family at risk, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s mind.

The email proves—as if any more proof was needed—that the US government has been the main sponsor of the growth of terrorism in the Middle East, and all in order to “protect” Israel.

It is also a sobering thought to consider that the “refugee” crisis which currently threatens to destroy Europe, was directly sparked off by this US government action as well, insofar as there are any genuine refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria.

In addition, over 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has spread to Iraq—all thanks to Clinton and the Obama administration backing the “rebels” and stoking the fires of war in Syria.

The real and disturbing possibility that a psychopath like Clinton—whose policy has inflicted death and misery upon millions of people—could become the next president of America is the most deeply shocking thought of all.

Clinton’s public assertion that, if elected president, she would “take the relationship with Israel to the next level,” would definitively mark her, and Israel, as the enemy of not just some Arab states in the Middle East, but of all peace-loving people on earth.

February 24, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Explaining Syria

It’s everyone’s fault except the U.S. and Israel

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • February 18, 2020

The first week in February was memorable for the failed impeachment of President Donald Trump, the “re-elect me” State of the Union address and the marketing of a new line of underwear by Kim Kardashian. Given all of the excitement, it was easy to miss a special State Department press briefing by Ambassador James Jeffrey held on February 5th regarding the current situation in Syria.

Jeffrey is the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement and the Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL. Jeffrey has had a distinguished career in government service, attaining senior level State Department positions under both Democratic and Republican presidents. He has served as U.S. Ambassador to both Turkey and Iraq. He is, generally speaking, a hardliner politically, closely aligned with Israel and regarding Iran as a hostile destabilizing force in the Middle East region. He was between 2013 and 2018 Philip Solondz distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank that is a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He is currently a WINEP “Outside Author” and go-to “expert.”

Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, academic dean at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, describe WINEP as “part of the core” of the Israel Lobby in the U.S. They examined the group on pages 175-6 in their groundbreaking book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy and concluded as follows:

“Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims that it provides a ‘balanced and realistic’ perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case. In fact, WINEP is funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda … Many of its personnel are genuine scholars or experienced former officials, but they are hardly neutral observers on most Middle East issues and there is little diversity of views within WINEP’s ranks.”

In early 2018 Jeffrey co-authored a WINEP special report on Syria which urged “…the Trump administration [to] couple a no-fly/no-drive zone and a small residual ground presence in the northeast with intensified sanctions against the Assad regime’s Iranian patron. In doing so, Washington can support local efforts to stabilize the area, encourage Gulf partners to ‘put skin in the game, drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran, and help Israel avoid all-out war.”

Note the focus on Iran and Russia as threats and the referral to Assad and his government as a “regime.” And the U.S. presence is to “help Israel.” So we have Ambassador James Jeffrey leading the charge on Syria, from an Israeli perspective that is no doubt compatible with the White House view, which explains why he has become Special Representative for Syria Engagement.

Jeffrey set the tone for his term of office shortly after being appointed by President Trump back in August 2018 when he argued that the Syrian terrorists were “. . . not terrorists, but people fighting a civil war against a brutal dictator.” Jeffrey, who must have somehow missed a lot of the head chopping and rape going on, subsequently traveled to the Middle East and stopped off in Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It has been suggested that Jeffrey received his marching orders during the visit.

Two months later James Jeffrey declared that he would like to see Russia maintain a “permissive approach” to allow the Israelis to attack Iranian targets inside Syria. Regarding Iran’s possible future role in Syria he observed that “Iranians are part of the problem not part of the solution.”

What Jeffrey meant was that because Israel had been “allowed” to carry out hundreds of air attacks in Syria ostensibly directed against Iran-linked targets, the practice should be permitted to continue. Israel had suspended nearly all of its airstrikes in the wake of the shoot down of a Russian aircraft in September 2018, an incident which was caused by a deliberate Israeli maneuver that brought down the plane even though the missile that struck the aircraft was fired by Syria. Fifteen Russian servicemen were killed. Israel reportedly was deliberately using the Russian plane to mask the presence of its own attacking aircraft.

Russia responded to the incident by deploying advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Syria, which can cover most of the more heavily developed areas of the country. Jeffrey was unhappy with that decision, saying “We are concerned very much about the S-300 system being deployed to Syria. The issue is at the detail level. Who will control it? what role will it play?” And he defended his own patently absurd urging that Russia, Syria’s ally, permit Israel to continue its air attacks by saying “We understand the existential interest and we support Israel” because the Israeli government has an “existential interest in blocking Iran from deploying long-range power projection systems such as surface-to-surface missiles.”

Later in November 2018 James Jeffrey was at it again, declaring that U.S. troops will not leave Syria before guaranteeing the “enduring defeated” of ISIS, but he perversely put the onus on Syria and Iran, saying that “We also think that you cannot have an enduring defeat of ISIS until you have fundamental change in the Syrian regime and fundamental change in Iran’s role in Syria, which contributed greatly to the rise of ISIS in the first place in 2013, 2014.”

As virtually no one but Jeffrey and the Israeli government actually believes that Damascus and Tehran were responsible for creating ISIS, the ambassador elaborated, blaming President Bashar al-Assad for the cycle of violence in Syria that, he claimed, allowed the development of the terrorist group in both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

He said “The Syrian regime produced ISIS. The elements of ISIS in the hundreds, probably, saw an opportunity in the total breakdown of civil society and of the upsurge of violence as the population rose up against the Assad regime, and the Assad regime, rather than try to negotiate or try to find any kind of solution, unleashed massive violence against its own population.”

Jeffrey’s formula is just another recycling of the myth that the Syrian opposition consisted of good folks who wanted to establish democracy in the country. In reality, it incorporated terrorist elements right from the beginning and groups like ISIS and the al-Qaeda affiliates rapidly assumed control of the violence. That Jeffrey should be so ignorant or blinded by his own presumptions to be unaware of that is astonishing. It is also interesting to note that he makes no mention of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, kneejerk support for Israel and the unrelenting pressure on Syria starting with the Syrian Accountability Act of 2003 and continuing with embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. Most observers believe that those actions were major contributors to the rise of ISIS.

Jeffrey’s unflinching embrace of the Israeli and hardline Washington assessment of the Syrian crisis comes as no surprise given his pedigree, but in the same interview where he pounded Iran and Syria he asserted oddly that “We’re not about regime change. We’re about a change in the behavior of a government and of a state.”

Some of James Jeffrey’s comments at last week’s press conference are similarly illuminating. Much of what he said concerned the mechanics of relationships with the Russians and Turks, but he also discussed some core issues relating to Washington’s perspective on the conflict. Many of his comments were very similar to what he said when he was appointed in 2018.

Jeffrey expressed concern over the thousands of al-Nusra terrorists holed up in besieged Idlib province, saying “We’re very, very worried about this. First of all, the significance of Idlib – that’s where we’ve had chemical weapons attacks in the past… And we’re seeing not just the Russians but the Iranians and Hizballah actively involved in supporting the Syrian offensive… You see the problems right now in Idlib. This is a dangerous conflict. It needs to be brought to an end. Russia needs to change its policies.”

He elaborated, “We’re not asking for regime change per se, we’re not asking for the Russians to leave, we’re asking…Syria to behave as a normal, decent country that doesn’t force half its population to flee, doesn’t use chemical weapons dozens of times against its own civilians, doesn’t drop barrel bombs, doesn’t create a refugee crisis that almost toppled governments in Europe, does not allow terrorists such as HTS and particularly Daesh/ISIS emerge and flourish in much of Syria. Those are the things that that regime has done, and the international community cannot accept that.”

Well, one has to conclude that James Jeffrey is possibly completely delusional. The core issue that the United States is in Syria illegally as a proxy for Israel and Saudi Arabia is not touched on, nor the criminal role in “protecting the oil fields” and stealing their production, which he mentions but does not explain. Nor the issue of the legitimate Syrian government seeking to recover its territory against groups that most everyone admits to be terrorists.

Virtually every bit of “evidence” that Jeffrey cites is either false or inflated, to include the claim of use of chemical weapons and the responsibility for the refugees. As for who actually created the terrorists, that honor goes to the United States, which accomplished that when it invaded Iraq and destroyed its government before following up by undermining Syria. And, by the way, someone should point out to Jeffrey that Russia and Iran are in Syria as allies of its legitimate government.

Ambassador James Jeffrey maintains that “Russia needs to change its policies.” That is not correct. It is the United States that must change its policies by getting out of Syria and Iraq for starters while also stopping the deference to feckless “allies” Israel and Saudi Arabia that has produced a debilitating cold war against both Iran and Russia. Another good first step to make the U.S. a “normal, decent country” would be to get rid of the advice of people like James Jeffrey.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

February 18, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘No shred of evidence’: Iran demands US presents proof of Saudi oil attacks claim after UN report release

RT | February 16, 2020

Tehran slammed the US for using a recent UN report to peddle its Saudi oil attack claims, accusing Washington of “clutching at every straw” to back up the allegations, while the report itself is based on shaky hypotheses.

“Just hours after the attack on Saudi oil facilities on 14 September 2019, the U.S. baselessly attributed it to Iran, but has failed so far to present any shred of evidence. Now, it clutches at every straw to seemingly prove its allegation,” the Iranian mission to the UN stated on Saturday, responding to the US mission doubling down on the White House’s claim that Iran was behind the 14 September twin attacks on Saudi oil giant Aramco facilities in Abqaiq and Khureys.

The attacks that briefly disrupted operations of Abqaiq oil plant – the largest oil processing facility in the world – were claimed by the Houthi rebels, embroiled in a 5-year-long war with the ousted President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi backed by the Saudi-led coalition. However, immediately after the attacks took place, the US pointed finger at Teheran, not waiting for any fact-finding mission to be sent to the sites.

Commenting on the recently released UN Yemen panel report, which concluded that Houthi forces were “unlikely” responsible for the bombing since the operation was too “complex” and the “estimated” range of weaponry the militants supposedly possess would not have allowed for such launches from the rebel-held territory, the US mission recycled its allegations framing the report’s findings as a foregone conclusion.

“Iran attacked Saudi Arabian oil facilities on September 14, 2019. It was an attack not only against a sovereign state but against the global economy as well,” the note bluntly states.

Firing back, Tehran pointed out that “nothing in that report validates the US allegation, which has already been rejected by Iran.”

The report does not name Iran as the culprit in the strikes. Moreover, the experts admitted that they did not have a chance to see the debris of the weapons that allegedly hit the facilities first-hand at the scenes as they had been partially cleaned up by Riyadh by the time they arrived.

“It should be noted that the Panel did not see any debris of the weapon systems on-site in Abqaiq and Khureys, as those had already been transported to Riyadh at the time of the visits on 20 and 21 September 2019,” the report states.

In addition to that, the experts furher acknowledged that while they believe that this particular attack was not carried out by Houthis, “other attacks using the same weapons do seem to have been launched from Yemen.”

The panel did not rule out either that Houthis could have been indeed behind the twin strike, noting that “in theory, the attacks could have also been launched by Houthi forces either from within Saudi Arabia, from the territory of other countries, or even from sea or airborne launch platforms,” but called this scenario “highly unlikely.”

The Iranian mission said that the US note “represents another disinformation campaign against Iran,” arguing that it’s the US massive build-up, undertaken under the pretext of the “Iranian threat,” together with Washington’s “military adventurism” and “the unprecedented flow of sophisticated American weaponry” to the region that has become the “main source of instability and insecurity” in the Middle East.

February 16, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: Saudi airstrike on Yemenis, near downed jet, war crime

Press TV – February 16, 2020

Iran has denounced the international community’s silence on Saudi airstrikes, the latest of which killed at least 31 civilians in Yemen’s al-Jawf province Friday, calling it a war crime.

“The international community’s silence on these war crimes has emboldened their perpetrators to kill more civilians,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in Tehran on Sunday.

The United Nations office in Yemen said preliminary field reports indicated that “as many as 31 civilians were killed and 12 others injured in strikes that hit al-Hayjah area” in al-Jawf province.

The health ministry in al-Jawf province said women and children were among those killed, Yemen’s al-Masirah TV reported. They were attacked as they gathered near the wreckage of a Saudi warplane shot down on Friday evening.

Mousavi strongly condemned “the criminal attack by the Saudi-led coalition forces and offered commiserations to the bereaved families and the oppressed Yemeni people,” IRNA news agency reported.

“Over the past several years, we have repeatedly witnessed that whenever Saudi-led coalition forces or their allies suffer humiliating defeats in the battlefield, they react by cowardly slaughtering women, children and civilians with American weapons,” Mousavi said.

“Yesterday’s crime in Jawf province is just one example among dozens of their war crimes,” he added.

Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency quoted military spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki Saturday as saying that the tornado warplane belonging to the kingdom’s air force had been shot down over the province of Jawf on Friday.

Yemeni forces said they shot down the warplane with an advanced surface-to-air missile.

Saudi warplanes later targeted people who had gathered near the wreckage of the jet. Officials said aid workers could not reach the site of the attack due to continuous flights by Saudi warplanes over the area.

“As usual, when the most brutal US-Saudi aggression receives painful strikes in the military confrontation fields, it replies with great folly by targeting civilians,” spokesman for Yemeni armed forces Yahya Sare’e said on Saturday.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Lise Grande also denounced the “terrible strikes” in al-Jawf province.

“So many people are being killed in Yemen – it’s a tragedy and it’s unjustified. Under international humanitarian law parties which resort to force are obligated to protect civilians,” she said.

“Five years into this conflict and belligerents are still failing to uphold this responsibility. It’s shocking,” she added.

International aid group Save the Children also condemned the Saudi airstrikes, saying they showed the Yemen conflict was “not slowing down.”

“This latest attack must be urgently and independently investigated, and perpetrators held to account,” said Xavier Joubert, the group’s country director in Yemen.

“Those who continue to sell arms to the warring parties must realize that by supplying weapons for this war, they contribute to making atrocities like today’s all too common.”

Saudi Arabia and a coalition of its vassal states launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall a Riyadh-backed former regime and crush a popular Houthi movement opposed to the kingdom’s meddling in their country.

The Saudi military aggression, coupled with a naval blockade, has killed up to 100,000 people and injured many more. It has plunged Yemen into what the UN says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The UN says an estimated 24 million Yemeni people – close to 80 percent of the population – need assistance and protection.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday stressed that the humanitarian catastrophe and violation of human rights and international laws in Yemen must end.

February 16, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel sets up new Iran command for action against Iran: Report

Press TV – February 14, 2020

The Israeli military has set up a new “Iran command” amid Tel Aviv’s anti-Tehran confrontational rhetoric, according to Israeli media.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the multiyear “momentum plan” was presented by Israeli chief of staff lieutenant general Aviv Kochavi to all military commanders on Thursday.

The plan, despite awaiting an official approval by the Israeli cabinet, has been endorsed by military affairs minister Naftali Bennett and presented to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The new “Iran command” will be led by a major general and will seek to “bolster” the “attack capabilities” and “intelligence gathering on the Islamic Republic”, including by means of cyber and satellite operations.

The plan will also set up a new “rapid-maneuvering” infantry division to “penetrate enemy territory”.

Among other provisions in the plan, Israel will seek to double the number of its precision weapons and further increase the number of its missile interceptor systems across the occupied territories.

According to the report, the creation of an “Iran command” comes as the Israeli military is worried that its opponents are gradually growing stronger, with the “gap” between them “closing quickly”.

Tel Aviv has adopted an open policy of provocative military action against Iran and certain regional states allied with Tehran.

Following the defeat of foreign-backed terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, Israel has stepped up its military aggression against the two countries in fear of an emerging Iran-led alliance against terrorism and foreign occupation forces.

On Saturday, Bennett said that Tel Aviv and Washington had divided up the fight “against Iran” in Syria and Iraq respectively.

In October, Kochavi said that despite knowing that its enemies are not interested in war, the Israeli military has “increased its pace of preparations” for confrontation.

‘Searching for an excuse to level Tel Aviv’

Iran’s support, provided chiefly under the command of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, had had a major role in empowering Syria and Iraq to fight against foreign-backed terrorists and foreign occupation in their countries.

Anti-terror commander, Lt. Gen. Soleimani was assassinated by US forces in early January while on an official visit to Iraq at Baghdad International Airport.

According to recent remarks by Major General Mohsen Rezaei, a top IRGC general and the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, Israel had a direct role in the assassination by informing Washington of Soleimani’s flight to Baghdad International Airport.

“We were searching for the Americans to give us an excuse to hit Tel Aviv just as we hit Ain al-Assad,” Rezaei said. “We would have leveled Tel Aviv no doubt,” he added.

Speaking on Thursday, Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Major General Hossein Salami responded to Bennett’s remarks about dividing roles with the US against Iran.

“We tell them that you are making a mistake, as always,” he said, adding that “if you make the slightest error, we will hit both of you”.

“We have told them repeatedly; do not rely on the United States, they may not able to help you,” he said. “If you want a reliable plan, look towards the sea as it is your final resting place,” he added.

The IRGC chief made the remarks during a ceremony marking the 40th day since the assassination of General Soleimani.

During the ceremony, Salami said that Soleimani’s efforts had greatly emboldened Palestinian resistance against Israel.

“When he entered the battlefield against the Zionists, the Palestinians were fighting with stones, but due to Soleimani’s efforts, Gaza, the West Bank and north of Palestine have become fields of fire against the Zionists,” Salami said.

“They have consequently concealed themselves behind walls; Soleimani put the Zionists in prison,” he added.

Salami added that Soleimani had defeated Washington’s plans for a “new Middle East”, noting that due to the general’s efforts, a multi-national force has emerged in the region to resist US and Israeli plans.

“General Soleimani generated so much power that if the Zionists only listen slightly next to the their borders, they can hear the languages of Pakistanis, Iranians, Hijazis, Lebanese…,” he said.

The IRGC chief lauded Soleimani’s legacy of defending “the downtrodden, wherever they were”, adding that the “deserts knew him more than the streets”.

“The Hindu Kush ranges, the Bamiyan and Panjshir valleys in Afghanistan knew him better than the Afghans,” Salami added.

Salami concluded his remarks saying that “the final and ultimate slap will continue until the last American soldier leaves the Muslims land” despite Iran’s military retaliation against Washington following the assassination of Soleimani.

Iran fired a volley of ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad airbase and another US-occupied outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan on January 8, a few days following the assassination.

Despite the Trump administration initially denying any casualties, the Pentagon has since gradually revealed that at least over 100 US soldiers have suffered from “brain injuries” in the operation.

Speaking on Thursday, IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said that Washington has sought to conceal the number of its killed soldiers by using the term “brain injury” to describe casualties.

Sharif added that the assassination of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – who was the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units – “marked the beginning of the end of US presence in the region” and that it will lead to the liberation of Jerusalem al-Quds.

February 14, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Last Week’s Cyberattack Against Iran Originated in the US – Iranian Civil Defence Chief

Sputnik – February 14, 2020

The United States government reportedly carried out a number of cyberattacks targeting Iran’s internet infrastructure over the past year, in response to Tehran’s shootdown of a US drone over Iranian airspace in the Hormuz Strait, and other actions in the Middle East which Washington has blamed on the Islamic Republic.

Iran foiled a ‘large-scale’ attack on the country’s cyber infrastructure on February 8, with the denial of service (DDOS) attack believed to have been launched by the US, Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, chief of Iran’s Civil Defence Organization, has said.

“It’s very difficult and time-consuming to trace the source of a cyberattack. The Telecommunication Infrastructure Company is currently studying and looking for the source of the recent cyberattack against the country… but our analysis is that the US was the origin,” Jalali said, his comments cited by Press TV.

“The Americans’ cyberattack has been foiled by our cyber defence unit,” the commander said, but warned that the attack may be just a test ahead of larger planned attacks.

The February 8 DDoS attack caused widespread internet outages across Iran. Deputy Information and Communications Technology Minister Hamid Fattah said Sunday that the attack targeted communications infrastructure, and called it “the biggest attack” of its kind in Iran’s history. The disruption was said to have continued for about an hour before being dealt with by Iran’s DEJFA ‘Digital Fortress’ system.

“Since Americans failed to give a military response to our recent shoot-down of their unmanned aerial vehicle in Iranian waters as well as our missile attack on the [al-Asad Airbase in Iraq], they are responding to our country through continued economic pressure and cyberattacks,” Jalali suggested.

According to Jalali, the US attack failed to cause any damage.

He noted that last week’s attacks were further cause for Iran to accelerate its efforts to complete the construction of a National Information Network (NIN) in case further attacks are impending. The national infrastructure project, to which the Iranian government has already committed the equivalent of about $200 million, foresees the creation of a secure and stable communications internet network serving as a backup national intranet, providing information services, government e-services and other crucial data to citizens.

Last year, Iran’s Information and Communications Technology Ministry reported that the country had thwarted some 33 million cyberattacks against sensitive sites last year. In November, Jalali accused the US of declaring a cyberwar against Iran.

February 14, 2020 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

Gen. Soleimani assassinated to sabotage Iran’s talks with Saudis, UAE following Israeli briefing: NYT

Press TV – February 14, 2020

Washington ordered the assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani to sabotage de-escalation talks between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates following a report by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, according to the New York Times.

The paper reported on Thursday that General Soleimani had been arranging talks in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in order to de-escalate tensions with Tehran.

The Times wrote that the talks happened after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are central to the Trump administration’s so-called regional alliance seeking to pressure Iran, began to question the efficiency of Washington’s anti-Iran campaign.

According to the report, one such meeting took place last September in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates where a plane carrying “senior Iranian officials” landed for talks.

News of the meeting, which reached Washington only after it was notified by reports from American spy agencies, “set off alarms inside the White House”, according to the report.

The report added that a similar mediation attempt, also arranged by Gen. Soleimani, was underway between Tehran and Riyadh using Iraqi and Pakistani intermediaries.

The report wrote that the developments had greatly concerned Israel, which had been trying to push the Trump administration to exert more pressure on Tehran.

According to the Times, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Mossad chief Yossi Cohen on October during a trip to Israel where he was briefed on Iran’s attempted de-escalation talks with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Cohen warned Pompeo that Tehran was effectively on the verge of achieving its “primary goal” of breaking up the so-called “anti-Iran” alliance.

A few months later in early January, General Soleimani was assassinated by Washington’s order while on a formal visit to Baghdad.

According to former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, General Soleimani was due to formally meet the Iraqi premier during the trip and was carrying Tehran’s response to a message from Riyadh regarding the de-escalation talks.

Following the attack, the Trump Administration claimed that the assassination had taken place after a reported rocket attack on a US base in Iraq killed a “US civilian contractor” and that Gen. Soleimani was an “imminent threat” to US citizens.

Many US political figures have rejected the claims and have questioned why the Trump administration has failed to provide any evidence backing its actions.

The New York Times’ Thursday report, however, reveals that entirely different considerations, such as Israel’s push to undermine Iran’s attempts at peace with its regional neighbors, were behind the assassination.

‘Months of miscalculations’

According to the report, the assassination marks yet another miscalculation by the Trump administration which has failed to bend Iran through its “maximum pressure” campaign.

Following its unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the US imposed unilateral sanctions against Tehran in a bid to goad Tehran to accept new terms dictated by Washington.

The Times, however, reported that a recent analysis conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shows that the sanctions have had little effect in fulfilling Washington’s goals.

The US has also sought to pressure Iran militarily by deploying troops to the region and creating a regional anti-Iran alliance in the region as part of if its anti-Iran campaign.

Washington called for the formation of a naval coalition in the region following a string of suspicious attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

Iran has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the incidents appear to be false flag operations meant to frame the Islamic Republic and push US interests.

Citing instances such as the major Yemeni attack on Saudi oil facilities last September and Iran’s downing of a US Global Hawk spy craft in June, the New York Times report said stepped-up US military presence also failed to achieve its objectives.

Witnessing the Trump administration’s faltering policy in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were convinced to open direct talks with Tehran, the report noted.

February 14, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

More Lies on Iran: The White House Just Can’t Help Itself as New Facts Emerge

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 13, 2020

Admittedly the news cycle in the United States seldom runs longer than twenty-four hours, but that should not serve as an excuse when a major story that contradicts what the Trump Administration has been claiming appears and suddenly dies. The public that actually follows the news might recall a little more than one month ago the United States assassinated a senior Iranian official named Qassem Soleimani. Openly killing someone in the government of a country with which one is not at war is, to say the least, unusual, particularly when the crime is carried out in yet another country with which both the perpetrator and the victim have friendly relations. The justification provided by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking for the administration, was that Soleimani was in Iraq planning an “imminent” mass killing of Americans, for which no additional evidence was provided at that time or since.

It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about and may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the U.S. government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of “imminent threat” being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn’t really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die.

The incident that started the killing cycle that eventually included Soleimani consisted of a December 27th attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in which four American soldiers and two Iraqis were wounded while one U.S. contractor, an Iraqi-born translator, was killed. The United States immediately blamed Iran, claiming that it had been carried out by an Iranian supported Shi’ite militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. It provided no evidence for that claim and retaliated by striking a Kata’ib base, killing 25 Iraqis who were in the field fighting the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The militiamen had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army and this disproportionate response led to riots outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were also blamed on Iran by the U.S. There then followed the assassinations of Soleimani and nine senior Iraqi militia officers. Iran retaliated when it fired missiles at American forces, injuring more than one hundred soldiers, and then mistakenly shot down a passenger jet, killing an additional 176 people. As a consequence due to the killing by the U.S. of 34 Iraqis in the two incidents, the Iraqi Parliament also voted to expel all American troops.

It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata’ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata’ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi’a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS.

This new development was reported in the New York Times in an article that was headlined “Was U.S. Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events.” In spite of the sensational nature of the report it generally was ignored in television news and in other mainstream media outlets, letting the Trump administration get away with yet another big lie, one that could easily have led to a war with Iran.

Iraqi investigators found and identified the abandoned white Kia pickup with an improvised Katyusha rocket launcher in the vehicle’s bed that was used to stage the attack. It was discovered down a desert road within range of the K-1 joint Iraqi-American base that was hit by at least ten missiles in December, most of which struck the American area.

There is no direct evidence tying the attack to any particular party and the improvised Kia truck is used by all sides in the regional fighting, but the Iraqi officials point to the undisputed fact that it was the Islamic State that had carried out three separate attacks near the base over the 10 days preceding December 27th. And there are reports that IS has been increasingly active in Kirkuk Province during the past year, carrying out near daily attacks with improvised roadside bombs and ambushes using small arms. There had, in fact, been reports from Iraqi intelligence that were shared with the American command warning that there might be an IS attack on K-1 itself, which is an Iraqi air base in that is shared with U.S. forces.

The intelligence on the attack has been shared with American investigators, who have also examined the pick-up truck. The Times reports that the U.S. command in Iraq continue to insist that the attack was carried out by Kata’ib based on information, including claimed communications intercepts, that it refuses to make public. The U.S. forces may not have shared the intelligence they have with the Iraqis due to concerns that it would be leaked to Iran, but senior Iraqi military officers are nevertheless perplexed by the reticence to confide in an ally.

If the Iraqi investigation of the facts around the December attack on K-1 is reliable, the Donald Trump administration’s reckless actions in Iraq in late December and early January cannot be justified. Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one. To be sure, the Trump administration has lied about developments in the Middle East so many times that it can no longer be trusted. Unfortunately, demanding any accountability from the Trump team would require a Congress that is willing to shoulder its responsibility for truth in government backed up by a media that is willing to take on an administration that regularly punishes anyone or any entity that dares to challenge it. That is the unfortunate reality in America today.

February 13, 2020 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Democrats Ignore Trump’s Real Violations

By Ron Paul | February 10, 2020

This week the latest Democratic Party attempt to remove President Trump from office – impeachment over Trump allegedly holding up an arms deal to Ukraine – flopped. Just like “Russiagate” and the Mueller investigation, and a number of other attempts to overturn the 2016 election.

We’ve had three years of accusations and investigations with untold millions of dollars spent in a never-ending Democratic Party effort to remove President Trump from office.

Why do the Democrats keep swinging and missing at Trump? They can’t make a good case for abuse of power because they don’t really oppose Trump’s most egregious abuses of power. Congress, with a few exceptions, strongly supports the President flouting the Constitution when it comes to overseas aggression and shoveling more money into the military-industrial complex.

In April, 2018, President Trump fired 100 Tomahawk missiles into Syria allegedly as punishment for a Syrian government chemical attack in Douma. Though the US was not under imminent threat of attack from Syria, Trump didn’t wait for a Congressional declaration of war on Syria or even an authorization for a missile strike. In fact, he didn’t even wait for an investigation of the event to find out what actually happened! He just decided to send a hundred missiles – at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars – into Syria.

We are now finding out from whistleblowers on the UN team that investigated the alleged attack that the report blaming the Syrian government was falsified and that the whole “attack” was nothing but a false flag operation.

Is such unauthorized aggression against a country with which we are not at war not worth investigating as a potential “high crime” or “misdemeanor”?

Last month, President Trump authorized the assassination of a top Iranian General, Qassim Soleimani, and a top Iraqi military officer inside Iraqi territory while Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission. Trump and his Administration tried to claim that the attack was essential because of an “imminent threat” of a Soleimani attack on US troops in the region.

We found out shortly afterward that they lied about the “imminent threat.” The assassination was not “urgent” – it was planned back in June. Trump then claimed it didn’t matter whether there was an imminent threat: Soleimani was a bad guy so he deserved to be assassinated.

But the attack was an act of war on Iran without Congressional declaration or authorization for war. Is that not perhaps a “high crime” or “misdemeanor”?

We are finding out that, contrary to Trump claims, Soleimani was not even behind the December attack on US troops in Iraq. New evidence suggests it was actually an ISIS operation attempting to goad the US into moving against Iraq’s Shia militias.

Fantasies about Trump being an agent of Putin or trying to get Ukraine to help him win the election are presented as urgent reasons Trump must be removed from office. Real-life violations of the Constitution and reckless militarism that may get us embroiled in another Middle East war are shrugged off as “business as usual” by both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Democrats won’t move against Trump for what may be real “high crimes” and “misdemeanors” because they support his overseas aggression. They just wish they were the ones pulling the trigger.

Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.

February 12, 2020 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

No military aspect to Iran’s satellite carriers: Defense minister

Press TV – February 12, 2020

Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami says Iran’s satellite carriers have nothing to do with its military activities and lie completely outside the country’s defensive practices.

“The satellite carriers have nothing to do with the subject of missiles, and constitute a completely non-defensive and non-military issue,” Hatami said following a government meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

According to the defense chief, a satellite might be used for defense-related purposes, but the carriers are totally non-defensive in nature.

On Sunday, the Iranian Space Agency said the country had launched its domestically-made Zafar satellite using a Simorgh satellite carrier, but that the missile had fallen short of reaching the designated orbit.

The agency added that the data from the launch would be used to optimize future launch attempts.

As with every country that has experimented with satellites, the Iranian nation likewise has a vested right to avail itself of the technology, he added, noting that the country would, therefore, strongly pursue its relevant plans in this regard.

The Iranian defense minister was apparently reacting to claims made by France and the US about Tehran’s space program following the launch.

Reacting to the launch on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of trying to improve its ballistic missile skills through the satellite launch and vowed to exert more pressure.

A day earlier, France also criticized the launch and suggested that it was inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which “calls upon” Iran not to undertake any activity related to missiles “designed to be capable of” delivering nuclear weapons.”

Commenting on Iran’s missile activities, Hatami noted that the defense program was in complete accord with international regulations that prohibit the development of projectiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“Nothing of the kind exists in the Islamic Republic,” Hatami said. “All of our missiles, which we take pride in and which constitute an important factor of Iran’s defense and military power, are made with conventional warheads.”

“The projectiles are high in precision, something that the Americans came in proper touch with at Ain al-Assad [Airbase],” he said.

The US airbase, which is located in Iraq’s western Anbar Province, and another American outpost in the Arab country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region came under retaliatory ballistic missile strikes by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) last month.

The strikes were prompted by the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and a number of others in a set of drone strikes targeting Baghdad’s civilian airport.

“We do not need anything beyond this. Our missiles are precision-guided and fitted with conventional warheads,” Hatami added.

The Islamic Republic, he added, was likely to launch its Zafar (Triumph)-2 Satellite in the beginning of the next year on board Simorq (Phoenix) Satellite Carrier.

The official said the country considered the vehicle and satellite technology to be one of the subject matters of its research activities.

He said the Islamic Republic would pursue the research “until it reaches a stable stage,” and the country attains the ability to “do this in the form of a sustained practice.”

February 12, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Iran stresses right to enhance space technology, rejects France ‘meddlesome’ claims

Press TV – February 11, 2020

Iran has dismissed France’s “meddlesome” claim about its space program following a recent satellite launch, saying the Islamic Republic reserves the right to make scientific progress.

Tehran on Sunday launched its domestically-made Zafar (Triumph) satellite using a Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier, but the missile fell short of reaching the designated orbit.

The satellite launch came on the same day that Iran unveiled a new missile, ‘Ra’d-500 (Lightning-500),’ which is equipped with a composite engine block as well as the new generation of propellant for missiles and satellite carriers.

The French Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned Iran for trying to put a satellite in space and unveiling the new ballistic missile, urging Tehran to abide by international obligations on its controversial missile program.

“In keeping with its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran cannot engage in activities, including launches, connected to ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons,” said the French statement, claiming that Tehran’s ballistic missile program “hurts regional stability and affects European security.”

Rejecting the “meddlesome” statement on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran has “an inherent right to develop science and technology.”

“Iran’s defensive missile program has also nothing to do with Resolution 2231 because Iranian missiles have not been designed to carry nuclear weapons,” the official said.

Resolution 2231 endorsed a nuclear deal inked in 2015 between Tehran and six world states — the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China.

The US, however, abandoned the deal in May 2018 in defiance of the resolution, throwing the future of the agreement in doubt.

The European parties initially vowed to keep the deal alive but failed to fulfill their contractual obligations under intense US pressure, prompting Tehran to begin suspending the implementation of parts of its nuclear commitments on a stage-by-stage basis a year later.

Iran says its counter-measures are reversible if the European signatories take meaningful action to save the deal.

February 11, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

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