The Skripals Will Most Likely Never be Allowed to Talk
The Saker • Unz Review • May 11, 2018
There have been major developments this week, all of them bad, including Putin re-nominating Medvedev as his Prime Minister, and Bibi Netanyahu invited to Moscow to the Victory Day Parade in spite of him bombing Syria, a Russian ally, just on the eve of his visit. Once in Moscow, Netanyahu compared Iran to, what else, Nazi Germany. How original and profound indeed! Then he proceeded to order the bombing of Syria for a second time, while still in Moscow. But then, what can we expect from a self-worshiping narcissist who finds it appropriate to serve food to the Japanese Prime Minister in a specially made shoe? The man is clearly batshit crazy (which in no way makes him less evil or dangerous). But it is the Russian reaction which is so totally disgusting: nothing, absolutely nothing. Unlike others, I have clearly said that it is not the Russian responsibility to “protect” Syria (or Iran) from the Israelis. But there is no doubt in my mind that Netanyahu has just publicly thumbed his nose at Putin and that Putin took it. For all my respect for Putin, this time he allowed Netanyahu to treat him just like Trump treated Macron. Except that in the case of Putin, he was so treated in his own capital. That makes it even worse.
[Interestingly, while whining about “Nazi Iran” Netanyahu did say something truly profound and true. He said “an important history lesson: when a murderous ideology emerges, one has to push back against it before it is too late”. That is indeed exactly what most people across the world feel about Israel and its Zionist ideology but, alas, their voice is completely ignored by those who rule over them. So yes, it sure looks to me like it is becoming “too late” and that the consequences for our collective cowardice – most of us are absolutely terrified from speaking the plain truth about our Zionist overlords – will cost us all a terrible price.]
Then, of course, there is Donald Trump pulling out of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in spite of Iran’s full compliance and in spite of the fact that the US does not have the authority to unilaterally withdraw from this multilateral agreement. But being the megalomaniac that he is, and not to mention the spineless lackey of the Israel Lobby, Trump ignored all that and thereby created further tensions between the US and the rest of the world whom the US will now blackmail and bully to try to force it to support the US in its rabid subservience to Israel. As for the Israelis, their “sophisticated” “strategy” is primitive to the extreme: first get Trump to create maximal tensions with Iran, then attack the Iranians in Syria as visibly and arrogantly as possible, bait the Iranians into a retaliation, then bellow “OI VEY!!!” with your loudest voice, mention the Holocaust once or twice, toss in a “6 million people” figure, and get the US to attack Syria.
How anybody can respect, never mind admire, the Israelis is simply beyond comprehension. I sure can’t think of a more contemptible, nasty, psychopathic gang of megalomanical thugs (and cowards) than the Israelis. Can you?
Nonetheless, it appears undeniable that the Zionists have enough power to simultaneously force not one, but two (supposed) superpowers to cave into their demands. Not only that, they have the power to do that while also putting these two superpowers on a collision course against each other. At the very least, this shows two things: the United States has completely lost its sovereignty and is now an Israeli protectorate. As for Russia, well, she is doing comparatively better, but the full re-sovereignization the Russian people have voted for when they gave their overwhelming support to Putin will not happen. A comment I read on a Russian chat put it: “Путин кинул народ – мы не за Медведева голосовали” or “Putin betrayed the people – we did not vote for Medvedev”. I am not sure that “betrayed the people” is fair, but the fact that he has disappointed a lot of people is, I think, simply undeniable.
It is still way too early to reach any conclusions at this point, and there are still way too many unknown variables, but I will admit that I am very worried and that for the first time in 4 years I am having major doubts about a fundamental policy decision by Putin. I sure hope that I am wrong. We will find out relatively soon. I just hope that this will not be in the form of a major war.
In the meantime, I want to refocus on the Skripal case. There is one outright bizarre thing which I initially dismissed, but which really is becoming disturbing: the fact that the Brits are apparently holding Sergei and Iulia Skripal incommunicado. In other words, they have been kidnapped.
There was this one single telephone call between Iulia Skripal and her sister, Victoria, in which Iulia said that she was okay (she was clearly trying to reassure Victoria) but it was clear that she could not speak freely. Furthermore, when Victoria mentioned that she would want to visit Iulia, the latter reply ‘nobody will give you a visa’. After that – full silence. The Russian consulate has been making countless requests to have a visit, but all that the Brits have done since is have Scotland Yard post a letter which was evidently not written by Iulia and which said “I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can. At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but, if I change my mind I know how to contact them”. What friends?! What family?! Nonsense!
Her sister tried to contact her many times through various channels, including official ones, and then in total despair, she posted the following message on Facebook:
“My darling sister, Yulia! You are not communicating with us, and we don’t know anything about you and Sergey Victorivich. I know that I have no right to interfere in your affairs without asking your permission, but I worry too much. I worry about you and your dad. I also worry about Nuar. [Nuar is Yulia Skrial’s dog, whom she left to stay at a kennel center, while she was traveling to the UK.] He is now at the dog hotel, and they want to get paid. We have to decide something what to do with him. I am ready to take him and to take care of him until you come back home. Besides Nuar, I am concerned about your apartment and your car. Nothing has been decided about their safety and maintenance. We can help with all that, but I need your power of attorney in my or my sister Lena’s name. If you think that all of these is important, draw up a power of attorney form in a Russian consulate in any country. If you won’t do that, we will understand and won’t interfere in your affairs.
Vika“
No reply ever came.
I just entered the following query into Google: “Skripal”. April 10th has an entry saying that she was released from the hospital. That is the most recent one I have found. I looked on Wikipedia, the same thing, there is nothing at all.
I have to admit that when I first heard the Russian complaints I figured that this was no big deal. I thought “the Brits told the Skripals that Putin tried to poison them, they are probably afraid, and possibly still sick from whatever it is which made them sick, but the Brits would never outright kidnap two foreign citizens, and most definitely not in such a public way”.
I am not so sure anymore.
First, let’s get the obvious one out of the way: the fear for the security of the Skripals. That is utter nonsense. The Brits can organize a meeting between а Russian diplomat in the UK at a highly protected UK facility, with tanks, SAS Teams on the standby, helicopters in the air, bombers, etc. That Russian diplomat could speak to them through bullet-proof glass and a phone. And, since the Russians are all so dangerous, he can be searched for weapons. All which the Skripals need to do is to tell him/her “thank you, your services are not needed”. Conversation over. But the Brits refuse even that.
But let’s say that the Skripals are so totally terrified of the evil Russians, that they categorically refuse. Even by video-conference. It would be traumatic for them, right? Okay.
What about a press conference then?
Even more disturbing is that, at least to my knowledge, nobody in the western corporate media is asking for an interview with them. Snowden can safely speak from Russia and address even large conferences, but the Skripals can’t speak to anybody at all?
But here is the worst part of this: it has been two months already since the Skripals are held in total secrecy by the UK authorities. Two months, that is 60 days. Ask any specialist on interrogation or any psychologist what kind of effect 60 days of “specialized treatment” can do to a person.
I am not dismissing the Russian statements about “kidnapping” anymore. What I see is this: on substance, the Skripal false flag has crashed and burned, just like MH17 or the Douma chemical attack, but unlike MH17 or Douma, the Skripals are two witnesses whose testimony has the potential to result in a gigantic scandal, not just for the May government, but for all those spineless Europeans who showed “solidarity” with Britain. In other words, the Skripals will probably never be allowed to speak freely: they must either be killed or totally brainwashed or disappeared. Any other option would result in a scandal of planetary magnitude.
I can’t pretend like my heart goes out to Sergei Skripal: the man was an officer who gave an oath and who then betrayed his country to the British (he was a British agent, not a Russian one as the press writes). Those holding him today are his former bosses. But Iulia? She is completely innocent and as of April 5th (when she called her sister Victoria), she was clearly in good health and with a clear mind. Now she has been disappeared and I don’t know which is worse, the fact that she might never reappear or that she might one day reappear following months of British “counseling”. As for her father, he paid for his betrayal and he too deserves a better fate than being poisoned, used and then disappeared.
In the big scheme of things (the Zionists war against our entire planet), two individuals like Sergei and Iulia Skripal might not matter. But I think that the least we can do is to remember them and their plight.
This also begs the question of what kind of society we live in. I am not shocked by the fact that the British state would resort to such methods (they have always used them). I am shocked that in a so-called western “democracy” with freedom, pluralism and “European values” (whatever that means) the Brits could get away with this.
How about some “solidarity” with the Skripals – you, Europeans?!
US following Israeli diktats over Iran nuclear deal: Commentator
Press TV – May 9, 2018
A commentator believes the reason why President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal is because Israel which is “dictating” the policy of the United States is not “satisfied” with the agreement and is “sabre-rattling for war.”
“It was entirely predictable what Donald Trump was going to do. This was no kind of surprise. The bottom line is what they are doing is revealing themselves for who they are – by “they” I am talking about Israel and the United States establishments. What they are actually revealing is that they are out of step with the rest of the world. They have actually revealed that they have no sincerity and they are pursuing a policy which is hell-bent on causing conflict,” Seyyed Mohsen Abbas told Press TV in an interview on Wednesday.
He also maintained that Iran’s full compliance with its obligations under the nuclear deal over the last two years proved the Islamic Republic’s “sincerity”.
On Tuesday, Trump announced his decision to withdraw the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers and re-impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The announcement came despite massive efforts by the European allies of the US to convince Trump to stay in the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached between Iran and the P5+1, five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the US, France, Britain, Russia and China, plus Germany.
Many are of the opinion that Trump has adopted the “Netanyahu Doctrine” wholesale and made it official American policy. His announcement to exit the Iran nuclear deal could have been scripted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu word for word. This, analysts believe, was not about improving or “fixing” the Iran deal. It was nixing and deep-sixing the JCPOA, and making sure it can never be resurrected. Without any pretense of setting up an alternative arms-control deal or a Plan B.
Before he joined the presidential race three years ago next month, Trump knew little about the Iran deal and cared even less, but for others, this is not just about pulling out of the JCPOA. It is part of a much wider campaign to confront Iran, one that always believed in a very different approach to that of the administration of former President Barack Obama and its European allies in striking the Iran deal. They have a broader philosophy of how to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons. This is the “Netanyahu Doctrine.”
Meanwhile, in a separate interview, Alexander Azadegan, professor and editor-at-large with ImperialNews.com, told Press TV that Trumps’ withdrawal from the JCPOA has nothing to do with nuclear issues, adding that it is aimed at “regime change” in Iran.
“This discussion about the nuclear weapons or nuclear energy, this is all a red herring, it is all a distraction effort from what they really want to do, which is the entire collapse of the Iranian economy, in fact a declaration of war on Iran’s economy, which would lead to a regime change in Iran. That was their goal right from the outset,” he said.
The academic also said the United States was seeking to wage “psychological warfare” against Iran in an attempt to “manufacture consent for yet another war”.
He said Trump was deprioritizing the United States’ strategic goals and objectives by pursuing the foreign policy dictated by Israel.
Netanyahu believes the unspecified and tougher sanctions Trump spoke of could ultimately force Iran to negotiate and sign a much tougher arms control agreement, one with stricter inspection requirements, a more comprehensive dismantlement of the uranium enrichment program and no time limits on its implementation.
But there is a deeper desire, one that is rarely mentioned in public: In private, Netanyahu has been speaking hopefully in recent days of the deepening economic crisis in Iran and the prospect of renewed sanctions bringing the Islamic Republic to its knees, ultimately achieving regime change.
The dream scenario is a smaller-scale version of the Soviet Union’s disintegration in the early 1990s. Just as Netanyahu’s heroes Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher stood up to the Soviets and pushed them into an arms race that bankrupted Moscow and broke up the USSR, so he believes the sanctions can do likewise to Iran.
Last week’s “Iran lied” presentation in Tel Aviv, where Netanyahu put on show the Iranian nuclear archives Israel had seized in Tehran and spirited away, was staged for the benefit of one viewer in the Oval Office. It did the trick and sealed the Iran deal’s fate.
Netanyahu, in a televised address, unveiled what he called documents which show there is a “secret” side to the Iranian nuclear program.
Standing in front of a large screen at the Israeli ministry for military affairs, Netanyahu used props, video and slides to claim that Iran is lying about its nuclear program.
He showed documents and scores of CDs, which he said were “evidence” of Iran’s “secret” activities. The premier, however, did not go beyond making claims and refused to unveil the content of the materials he was presenting as alleged proof.
Boeing, Airbus licenses to sell jets to Iran to be revoked: US Treasury
Press TV – May 9, 2018
The US Treasury says licenses held by aerospace giants Boeing and Airbus to sell passenger jets to Iran will be revoked after Washington announced its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.
“The Boeing and (Airbus) licenses will be revoked,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday.
“Under the original deal there were waivers for commercial aircraft, parts and services and the existing licenses will be revoked,” he added.
The remarks came after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he was quitting the Iran nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Trump also said that he would reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose “the highest level” of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
Trump’s decision came despite massive efforts by Washington’s European allies to convince the US president to stay in the JCPOA.
He had threatened US exit from the multilateral nuclear accord unless the European parties fixed what he has claimed “flaws” in the agreement.
In December 2016, France-based Airbus Group signed a deal to sell Iran 100 jetliners worth about $19 billion at list prices. It has delivered three planes so far.
In the same month, Chicago-based Boeing Co. announced a contract with Iran for 80 aircraft valued at $16.6 billion. It further announced another agreement in April 2017 to sell Iran 30 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for $3 billion, with purchase rights for another 30 planes.
In remarks published on Tuesday before the Treasury’s announcement, Airbus had said it would study Trump’s decision on the JCPOA, noting that it would take some time.
Meanwhile, Boeing said the company would consult with the government on next steps.
“As we have throughout this process, we’ll continue to follow the US government’s lead,” said Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Separately on Tuesday, US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned European companies that they would face immediate sanctions for new deals with Iran and that they have at most six months to wind down already existing agreements.
“No new contracts are permitted” he said. “For contracts that already exist, there is a wind-down period to allow an orderly termination of the contract,” he said.
Moreover, the new US ambassador to Berlin warned German companies to halt activities in Iran.
Richard Grenell issued the warning just hours after arriving in Berlin and presenting his credentials to the German president.
“US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy,” he said. “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”
This is while Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said following Trump’s announcement that Tehran would stay in the JCPOA with other signatories and stressed that from now on everything depends on the country’s national interests.
Rouhani noted that the US president has a history of undermining international treaties, stressing that Iran has always complied with its commitments to the deal, while the US has never lived up to its obligations.
Rouhani also noted that from now on the JCPOA is between Iran and the five remaining countries.
Trump announces ‘withdrawal’ from Iran nuclear deal
Press TV – May 8, 2018
President Donald Trump has announced his decision to withdraw the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers and re-impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
“I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,” Trump said Tuesday in a televised address from the White House.
“In a few moments, I will sign a presidential memorandum to begin reinstating US nuclear sanctions on the Iranian regime. We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanctions.”
The announcement came despite massive efforts by the European allies of the US to convince Trump to stay in the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached between Iran and the P5+1, five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, France, Britain, Russia and China – plus Germany.
Trump left the door open for further negotiations with Iran.
“The fact is, they’re going to want to make a new and lasting deal. One that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people,” Trump claimed. “When they do I am ready, willing and able.”
The European Union, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany have expressed support for the deal.
Iran has on numerous occasions asserted that its nuclear program is merely peaceful and not meant to make nukes.
The Warmakers
The Saker • Unz Review • May 5, 2018
Between the US strikes on Syria in April and the recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, we are in somewhat of a lull in the Empire’s search for a new war to start. The always helpful Israelis, in the person of the ineffable Bibi Netanyahu, are now beating the drums for, well, if not a war, then at least some kind of false flag or pretext to make the US strike at Iran. And then there is the always bleeding Donbass (which I won’t address in today’s analysis). So let’s see where we stand and try to guesstimate where we might be heading. To be honest, trying to guess what ignorant warmongering psychopaths might do next is by definition a futile exercise, but since there are some not negligible signs that there are at least a few rational people still left in the US White House and/or Pentagon (as shown by the mostly “pretend strikes” on Syria last month), we can assume (hope) that some residual degree of sanity is still present. At the very least Americans in uniform have to ask themselves a very basic and yet fundamental question:
Do I want to die for Israel? Do I want to lose my job for Israel? How about my pension? Maybe just my stock options? Is it worth risking a major regional war for such a “wonderful” state?
A lot depends on whether the US military leaders (and people!) will have the courage to ask themselves this question and, if they do, what their reply will be.
But, first, let’s begin with the good news:
The DPRK and ROK are in direct talks with each other.
This is indeed a truly great development for at least two reasons. First, of course, the main and objective one: anything which lowers the risks of war on the Korean Peninsula is good. But there is a second reason which we should not discount: Trump can now take all the credit for this and claim that his (empty) threats are what brought the North Koreans to the negotiating table. I say – let him. In fact, I hope that they organize a parade for Trump somewhere in the US, with confetti and millions of flags. Like for an astronaut. Let him feel triumphant, vindicated and very, very manly. MAGA, you know?!
Yeah, that will be sickening to the thinking (not to mention counter-factual), but if a little bit of intellectual nausea is the price to pay for peace, I say let’s do it. If Trump, Bolton, Haley and the rest of them can feel that they “kicked ass” and that their “invincible military” is what brought “Rocket Man” to “give up his nukes” (he never said any such thing, but never mind that) then I sincerely wish them a joyful and highly ego-pleasing celebration. Anything to stop them from looking for another war to start, at least for a now.
Now the bad news.
The Israelis are at it again
Amazing, isn’t it? The Israelis have been whining about “imminent” Iranian nukes for years [decades], and they are still at it. Not only that, but these guys have the nerve to say “Iran lied”. Seriously, even by the already unique Israeli standards, that is chutzpah elevated to a truly stratospheric level. If it were just Bibi Netanyahu, then this would be comical. But the problem is that Israel has now fully subjugated all the branches of the US government to its agents (the Neocons) and that they now run everything: from the two branches of the Uniparty to Congress, to the media and, now that Trump has abjectly caved in to all their demands, they also run the White House. They apparently also run the CIA, but there still might be some resistance to their lunacy in the Pentagon. The US is now quite literally run by a Zionist Occupation Government, no doubt about it whatsoever.
So what are these guys really up to? Listen to the one man who knows them best, and whose every single word you can take to the bank, Hezbollah General Secretary Nasrallah (ever wondered why Hezbollah, which has not committed anything even remotely looking like a terrorist attack since the 1980s is called the “A-Team of terrorists”? Just saying…):
The first event is the Israeli blatant and manifest aggression against the T-4 base or airport on the outskirts of Homs, that targeted Iranian forces from the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution of Iran who were present there, hitting them with a large number of missiles, causing 7 martyrs among its officers and soldiers and wounding others. This was a new, significant and important event. Maybe some people do not pay attention to its importance and magnitude. In this operation, Israel has deliberately killed (Iranian soldiers). This is an unprecedented event. In the past, Israel has struck us [Hezbollah] for example in Quneitra, and it turned out that coincidentally Guardians [of the Islamic Revolution] officers were with us. Israel declared hastily that they did not know it, and thought that all (targeted soldiers) were Hezbollah’s. This is an event that has no precedent since 7 years, it is unprecedented since 7 years, that Israel openly targets the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution in Syria, killing deliberately, in an operation that caused a number of martyrs and wounded (…) I want to tell the Israelis that they must know – I wrote that statement accurately and I read it to them – they must know that they have committed a historic mistake. This is not a simple blunder. They committed an act of great stupidity, and by this aggression, they entered in a direct confrontation with Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And Iran, O Zionists, is not a small country, it is not a weak country, and it is not a cowardly country. And you know it very well. As a comment on this incident, I stress that it constitutes a turning point in the situation of the region. What follows will be very different from what preceded it. This is an incident that cannot be considered lightly, contrary to what happens with many incidents here. It is a turning point, a historic turning point. And when the Israelis committed this stupid act, they had some assessment (of the situation), but I tell them that their evaluation is false. And even in the future, since you have opened a new path in the confrontation, (you should ensure) not to be wrong in your evaluations. In this new path you opened and initiated, don’t be wrong in your assessment, when you are face to face, and directly (in conflict) with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I can only agree with this evaluation. As does The Jerusalem Post, NBC News, and many others. Regardless of how crazy this notion might sound to rational people (see below), there are all the signs that the Israelis are now demanding that the US start a war against Iran, either by choice or more likely, to “stand by our Israeli allies and friends” after they attack Iran first.
Israel is truly a unique and amazing country: not only does it openly and brazenly completely ignore international law, not only is it the last overtly racist country on the planet, not only has it been perpetuating a slow-motion genocide against the Palestinians for decades, it also constantly uses its considerable propaganda resources to advocate for war. And in order to achieve these goals, it does not mind allying itself with a regime almost as despicable and evil as the Zionist one – I am talking about the Wahabi nutcases in the KSA. And all that under the high patronage of the United States. Some “Axis of Kindness” indeed!
What is their plan? Actually, it is fairly straightforward.
The Israeli plan “A” (failed)
Initially, the plan was to overthrow all the secular (Baathist) regimes in power and replace them by religious nutcases. That would not only weaken the countries infected by that spiritual rot, it would set them backwards for many decades, some of them would break up into smaller entities, Arabs and Muslims would kill each other in large numbers while the Israelis would proudly claim that they are a “western country” and the “only democracy in the Middle-East”. Even better, when the Daesh/ISIS/al-Qaeda/etc types commit atrocities on an industrial scale (and always on camera, professionally filmed, by the way), the slow-motion genocide of Palestinians would really be completely forgotten. If anything, Israel would declare itself threatened by “Islamic extremism” and, well, extend a couple of “security zones” beyond its borders (legal or otherwise), and do regular bombing runs “because Arabs only understand force” (which would get the Israelis a standing ovation from the “Christian” Zionist rednecks in the US who love the killing of any Aye-rabs and other “sand niggers”). At the end of all this, the Zionist wet dream: unleashing the Daesh forces against Hezbollah (which they fear and hate since the humiliating defeat the IDF suffered in 2006).
Now I will readily agree that this is a stupid plan. But contrary to the propaganda-induced myth, the Israelis are really not very bright. Pushy, arrogant, nasty, driven – yes. But smart? Not really. How could they not realize that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would result in Iran becoming the main player in Iraq? This is a testimony of how the Israelis always go for “quick-fix” short-term “solutions”, probably blinded by their arrogance and sense of racial superiority. Or how about their invasion of Lebanon in 2006? What in the world did they think they would achieve there? And now these folks are taking on not Hezbollah, but Iran. Hassan Nasrallah is absolutely correct, that is a truly stupid decision. But, of course, the Israelis now have a “plan B”:
The Israeli plan “B”
Step one, use your propaganda machine and infiltrated agents to re-start the myth about an Iranian military nuclear program. And never mind that the so-called “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” was agreed upon by all five of the UNSC Permanent Members, and Germany (P5+1) and even the European Union! And never mind that this plan places restrictions on Iran which no other country has ever had to face, especially considering that since 1970 Iran has been a member in good standing with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while Israel, of course, is not. But the Zionists and their Neocon groupies are, of course, quite exceptional people, so they are constrained by neither facts nor logic. If Trump says that the JCPOA is a terrible deal, then this is so. Hey, we are living in the “post-Skripal” and “post-Douma” era – if some Anglo (or Jewish) leaders say “highly likely” then it behooves everybody to show instant “solidarity” lest they are accused of “anti-Semitism” or “fringe conspiracy theories” (you know the drill). So step one is the re-ignition ex nihilo of the Iranian military nuclear program canard.
Step two is to declare that Israel is “existentially threatened” and therefore has the right to “defend itself”. But there is a problem here: the IDF simply does not have the military means to defeat the Iranians. They can strike them, hit a couple of targets, yes, but then when the Iranians (and Hezbollah) unleash a rain of missiles on Israel (and probably the KSA) the Israelis will not have the means to respond. They know that, but they also know that the Iranian counter-attack will give them the perfect pretext to scream “oy vey!! oy, gevalt!!” and let the dumb Americans fight the Iranians.
You might object that the US does not have a mutual defense treaty with Israel. You are wrong. It does, it is called AIPAC. Besides, last year the US established a permanent US military base in Israel, making it a “tripwire”: just claim that “the Ayatollahs” tried to attack the US base with “chemical weapons” and, bingo, you now have a pretext to use all your military forces in retaliation, including, by the way, your tactical nuclear forces to “disarm” the “genocidal Iranians who want to wipe Israel off the map” or some variation of this nonsense.
You might wonder what the point of all that would be if Iran does, as I say, not have any military nuclear program?
My answer would be simple: do you really think the Syrians have been using chemical weapons?!
Of course not!
All this nonsense about Saddam’s WMD, the Iranian nuclear program, the Syrian chemical weapons or, for that matter, Gaddafi’s “Viagra armed raping soldiers”, and before that the “Racak massacre” in Kosovo or the various “Markale market” atrocities in Sarajevo for that matter: these were just pretexts for aggression, nothing more.
In Iran’s case, what the Israelis fear is not that they will be “wiped off the map” (that is a mistranslation of words originally spoken by Ayatollah Khomenei) by Iranian nukes; what really freaks them out is to have a large, successful Muslim regional power like Iran openly daring to denounce Israel as an illegitimate, racist state. The Iranians are also openly denouncing the US imperialism and they are even denouncing the Wahabi dictatorship of the House of Saud. That is Iran’s real “sin”: to dare defy openly the AngloZionist Empire and be so successful at it!
So what the Israelis really want to do is:
- inflict a maximum amount of economic damage upon Iran
- punish the Iranian population for daring to support the “wrong” leaders
- overthrow the Islamic Republic (do to it what they did to Serbia)
- make an example to dissuade any other country who dares to follow in Iran’s footsteps
- prove the omnipotence of the AngloZionist Empire’s
To reach this objective, there is no need to invade Iran: a sustained cruise missile and bombing campaign will do the job (again, like in Serbia). Finally, we just have to assume that the Zionists are evil, arrogant and crazy enough to use nuclear weapons on some Iranian facilities (which they will, of course, designate as “secret military nuclear research” installations).
The Israelis hope that by making the US hit Iran really hard, they will weaken the country enough to also weaken Hezbollah and the other allies of Iran in the region sufficiently and break the so-called “Shia crescent”.
In their own way, the Israelis are not wrong when they say that Iran is an existential threat to Israel. They are just lying about the nature of this threat and why it is dangerous for them.
Consider this:
If the Islamic Republic is allowed to develop and prosper and if the Islamic Republic refuses to be terrified by Israel’s undisputed ability to massacre civilians and destroy public infrastructure, then the Islamic Republic will become an attractive alternative to the kind of repugnant Islam embodied by the House of Saud which, in turn, is the prime sponsor of all the collaborator regimes in the Middle-East from the Hariri types in Lebanon to the Palestinian Authority itself. The Israelis like their Arabs fat and corrupt to the bone, not principled and courageous. That is why Iran must, absolutely must, be hit: because Iran by its very existence threatens the linchpin upon which the survival of the Zionist entity depends: the total corruption of the Arab and Muslim leaders worldwide.
Risks with Israel’s plan “B”
Think of 2006. The Israelis had total air supremacy over Lebanon – the skies were simply uncontested. The Israelis also controlled the seas (at least until Hezbollah almost sank their Sa’ar 5-class corvette). The Israelis pounded Lebanon with everything they had, from bombs to artillery strikes, to missiles. They also engaged their very best forces, including their putatively ‘”invincible” “Golani Brigade”. And that for 33 days. And they achieved exactly *nothing*. They could not even control the town of Bint Jbeil right across the Israeli border. And now comes the best part: Hezbollah kept its most capable forces north of the Litany river so the small Hezbollah force (no more than 1,000 men) was composed of local militias supported by a much smaller number of professional cadre. That’s a 30:1 advantage in manpower for the Israelis. But the “invincible Tsahal” got it’s collective butt kicked like few have ever been kicked in history. This is why, in the Arab world, this war is since known as the “Divine Victory”.
As for Hezbollah, it continued to rain down rockets on Israel and destroy indestructible Merkava tanks right up to the last day.
There are various reports discussing the reasons for the abject failure of the IDF (see here or here), but the simple reality is this: to win a war you need capable boots on the ground, especially against an adversary who has learned how to operate without air-cover or superior firepower. Should Israel manipulate the US into attacking Iran, the exact same thing will happen: CENTCOM will establish air superiority and have an overwhelming firepower advantage over the Iranians, but other than destroying a lot of infrastructure and murdering scores of civilians, this will achieve absolutely nothing. Furthermore, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is no Milosevic, he will not simply surrender in the hope that Uncle Sam will allow him to stay in power. The Iranians will fight, and fight, and continue to fight for weeks, and months and then possibly years. And, unlike the “Axis of Kindness” forces, the Iranians do have credible and capable “boots on the ground”, and not only in Iran, but also in Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan. And they have the missiles to reach a very large number of US military facilities across the region. And they can also not only shut down the Strait of Hormuz (which the USN would eventually be able to re-open, but only at a cost of a huge military operation on the Iranian coast), they can also strike at Saudi Arabia proper and, of course, at Israel. In fact, the Iranians have both the manpower and know-how to declare “open season” on any and all US forces in the Middle-East, and there are plenty of them, mostly very poorly defended (that imperial sense of impunity “they would not dare”).
The Iran-Iraq war lasted for eight years (1980-1988). It cost the Iranians hundreds of thousands of lives (if not more). The Iraqis had the full support of the US, the Soviet Union, France and pretty much everybody else. As for the Iranian military, it had just suffered from a traumatic revolution. The official history (meaning Wikipedia) calls the outcome a “stalemate”. Considering the odds and the circumstances, I call it a magnificent Iranian victory and a total defeat for those who wanted to overthrow the Islamic Republic (something which decades of harsh sanctions also failed to achieve, by the way).
Is there any reason at all to believe that this time around, when Iran has had almost 40 years to prepare for a full-scale AngloZionist attack the Iranians will fight less fiercely or less competently? We could also look at the actual record of the US armed forces (see Paul Craig Roberts’ superb summary here) and ask: do you think that the US, lead by the likes of Trump, Bolton or Nikki Haley will have the staying power to fight the Iranians to exhaustion (since a land invasion of Iran is out of the question)? Or this: what will happen to the world economy if the entire Middle-East blows up into a major regional war?
Now comes the scary part: both the Israelis and the Neocons always, always, double-down. The notion of cutting their losses and stopping what is a self-evidently mistaken policy is simply beyond them. Their arrogance simply cannot survive even the appearance of having made a mistake (remember how both Dubya and Olmert declared that they had won against Hezbollah in 2006?). As soon as Trump and Netanyahu realize that they did something really fantastically stupid and as soon as they run out of their usual options (missile and airstrikes first, then terrorizing the civilian population) they will have a stark and simple choice: admit defeat or use nukes.
Which one do you think they will choose?
Exactly.
Going nuclear?
Here is the paradox: in purely military terms, using nukes on Iran will serve no pragmatic purpose. Nuclear weapons can be used in one of two ways: against military assets (“counterforce”) or against civilians (“countervalue”). The point is that by the time the Neocons and their Israeli patrons come to the point of considering using tactical nuclear forces against the Iranians, there won’t be a good target to hit. Iranian forces will be dispersed and mostly in contact with allied (or even US forces) and nuking an Iranian battalion or even a division won’t fundamentally alter the military equation. As for nuking Iranian cities just out of savagery, this will only serve one purpose: to truly get Israel wiped off the map of the Middle-East. I would not put it past the Neocons and their Israeli bosses to try to use a tactical nuclear weapon to destroy some Iranian civilian nuclear facility or some underground bunker with the very mistaken hope that such a show of force and determination will force the Iranians to submit to the AngloZionist Empire. In reality, this will only infuriate the Iranians and strengthen their resolve.
As for the currently “macronesque” Europeans, they will, of course, first show “solidarity” on the basis of “highly likely”, especially Poland, the Ukies and the Baltic statelets, but if nuclear weapons start going off in the Middle-East, then the European public opinion will explode, especially in Mediterranean countries, and this might just trigger yet another major crisis. Israel wouldn’t give a damn (or, as always, blame it all on some totally mysterious resurgence of anti-Semitism), but the US most definitely does not want the Anglo grip on the continent compromised by such events.
Maybe a Korean scenario?
Is there a chance that all the huffing and puffing will result in some kind of peaceful resolution as what seems to be in the works in Korea? Alas, probably not.
A few months ago it sure looked like the US might do something irreparably stupid in Korea (see here and here) but then something most unexpected happened: the South Koreans, fully realizing the insanity of Trump’s reckless threats, took the situation in their own hands and began making overtures to the North. Plus all the rest of the regional neighbors emphatically and clearly told Trump & Co. that the consequences of a US attack on the DPRK would be apocalyptic for the entire region. Alas, there are two fundamental differences between the Korean Peninsula and the Middle-East:
- On the Korean Peninsula, the local US ally (the ROK) does not want war. In the Middle-East it is the local US ally (Israel) which pushes the hardest for a war.
- In Far-East Asia all the regional neighbors were and are categorically opposed to war. In the Middle-East most regional neighbors are sold out to the Saudis who also want the US to attack Iran.
So while the risks and consequences of a conflagration are similar between the two regions, the local geopolitical dynamics are completely different?
What about Russia in all this?
Russia will never *choose* to go to war with the US. But Russia also understands that Iran’s security and safety is absolutely crucial to her own security, especially along her southern borders. Right now there is a fragile equilibrium of sorts between the (also very powerful) Zionist lobby in Russia and the national/patriotic elements. In truth, the recent Israeli attacks in Syria have given more power to the anti-Zionist elements in Russia, hence all the talk about (finally!) delivering the S-300s to Syria. Well, we will see if/when that happens. My best guesstimate is that it might already have happened and that this is simply kept quiet to restrain both the Americans and the Israelis who have no way of knowing what equipment the Russians have already delivered, where it is located or, for that matter, who (Russians or Syrians) actually operate it. This kind of ambiguity is useful to placate the pro-Zionist forces in Russia and to complicate AngloZionist planning. But maybe this is my wishful thinking, and maybe the Russians have not delivered the S-300s yet or, if they have, maybe these are the (not very useful) S-300P early models (as opposed to the S-300PMU-2 which would present a huge risk to the Israelis).
The relationship between Russia and Israel is a very complex one (see here and here), but if Iran is attacked I fully expect the Russians, especially the military, to back Iran and provide military assistance short of overtly engaging US/Israeli/NATO/CENTCOM forces. If the Russians are directly attacked in Syria (and in the context of a wider war, they very well might be), then Russia will counter-attack regardless of who the attacker is, the US or Israel or anybody else: the Zionist lobby in Russia does not have the power to impose a “Liberty-like event” on the Russian public opinion).
Conclusion: Accursed are the warmakers, for they shall be called the children of Satan
The Israelis can eat falafel, create “Israeli kufiyeh” and fancy themselves as “orientals”, but the reality is that the creation of the state of Israel is a curse on the entire Middle-East to which has only brought untold suffering, brutality, corruption and wars, wars and more wars. And they are still at it – doing all they can to trigger a large regional war in which many tens or even hundreds of innocent people will die. The people of the US have now allowed a dangerous cabal of psychopathic Neocons to fully take control of their country and now those, who Papa Bush used to call the “crazies in the basement” have their finger on the nuclear button. So now it all boils down to the questions I opened this article with:
Dear US Americans – do you want to die for Israel? Do you want to lose your job for Israel? How about your pension? Maybe just your stock options? Because make no mistake, the US Empire will not survive a full-scale war against Iran. Why? Because all Iran needs to do to “win” is not to lose, i.e. to survive. Even bombed out and scorched by conventional or nuclear strikes, if Iran comes out of this war still as an Islamic Republic (and that is not something bombs or missiles will change) then Iran will have won. In contrast, for the Empire, the failure to bring Iran to its knees will mean the end of its status as the world Hegemon defeated not by a nuclear superpower, but by a regional conventional power. After that, it will just be a matter of time before the inevitable domino effect breaks up the entire Empire (check out Richard Greer’s excellent book “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” for a very plausible account on how that could happen)
Okay, unlike Russia, Iran cannot nuke the US or, for that matter, even reach it with conventional weapons (I don’t even think that the Iranians will successfully attack a US carrier as some pro-Iranian analysts say). But the political and economic consequences of a full-scale war in the Middle-East will be felt throughout the United States: right now the only thing “backing” the US dollar, so to speak, are USN aircraft carriers and their ability to blow to smithereens any country daring to disobey Uncle Sam. The fact that these carriers are (and, truly, have been for a long while) useless against the USSR and Russia is bad enough, but if it becomes known urbi et orbi that they are also useless against a conventional regional power like Iran, then that’s it, show over. The dollar will turn into monopoly money in a very short span of time.
Wars often have “Nietzschean consequences”: countries which wars don’t destroy often come out even stronger than before they were attacked, even if it is at a horrendous price. Both the Israelis and the Neocons are too dialectically illiterate to realize that by their actions they are just creating increasingly more powerful enemies. The old Anglo guard which ran the US since its foundation was probably wiser, possibly because it was better educated and more aware of the painful lessons learned by the British (and other) Empire(s).
Frankly, I hope that the ruling 1%ers running the US today (well, they are really much less than 1%, but never mind that) will care about their wealth and money more than they care about appeasing the Neocons and that the bad old Anglo imperialists who built this country will have enough greed in themselves to tell the Neocons and their Israeli patrons to get lost. But with the Neocons controlling both wings of the Uniparty and the media, I am not very hopeful.
Still, there is a chance that, like in Korea, somebody somewhere will say or do the right thing, and that awed by the potential magnitude of what they are about to trigger, enough people in the US military will follow the example of Admiral William Fallon and CENTCOM commander at the time who told the President “an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch”. I believe for his principled courage, the words of Christ “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matt 5:9) can be applied to Admiral Fallon and I hope that his example will inspire others.
The Latest Act in Israel’s Iran Nuclear Disinformation Campaign
By Gareth Porter | Consortium News | May 3, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim in his theatrical 20-minute presentation of an Israeli physical seizure of Iran’s “atomic archive” in Tehran would certainly have been the “great intelligence achievement” he boasted if it had actually happened. But the claim does not hold up under careful scrutiny, and his assertion that Israel now possesses a vast documentary record of a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program is certainly fraudulent.
Netanyahu’s tale of an Israeli intelligence raid right in Tehran that carted off 55,000 paper files and another 55,000 CDs from a “highly secret location” requires that we accept a proposition that is absurd on its face: that Iranian policymakers decided to store their most sensitive military secrets in a small tin-roofed hut with nothing to protect it from heat (thus almost certainly ensuring loss of data on CDs within a few years) and no sign of any security, based on the satellite image shown in the slide show. (As Steve Simon observed in The New York Times the door did not even appear to have a lock on it.)
The laughable explanation suggested by Israeli officials to The Daily Telegraph – that the Iranian government was afraid the files might be found by international inspectors if they remained at “major bases” — merely reveals the utter contempt that Netanyahu has for Western governments and news media. Even if Iran were pursuing nuclear weapons secretly, their files on the subject would be kept at the Ministry of Defense, not at military bases. And of course the alleged but wholly implausible move to an implausible new location came just as Netanyahu needed a dramatic new story to galvanize Trump to resist the European allies’ strong insistence on preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Act (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran.
In fact, there is no massive treasure trove of secret files about an Iran “Manhattan Project.” The shelves of black binders and CDs that Netanyahu revealed with such a dramatic flourish date back to 2003 (after which a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) said Iran had abandoned any nuclear weapons program) and became nothing more than stage props like the cartoon bomb that Netanyahu used at the United Nations in 2012.
Disinformation Campaign
Netanyahu’s cartoon bomb
Netanyahu’s claim about how Israel acquired this “atomic archive” is only the latest manifestation of a long-term disinformation campaign that the Israeli government began to work on in 2002-03. The documents to which Netanyahu referred in the presentation were introduced to the news media and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) beginning in 2005 as coming originally from a secret Iranian nuclear weapons research program. For many years U.S. news media have accepted those documents as authentic. But despite the solid media united front behind that narrative, we now know with certainty that those earlier documents were fabrications and that they were created by Israel’s Mossad.
That evidence of fraud begins with the alleged origins of the entire collection of documents. Senior intelligence officials in the George W. Bush administration had told reporters that the documents came from “a stolen Iranian laptop computer”, as The New York Times reported in November 2005. The Times quoted unnamed intelligence officials as insisting that the documents had not come from an Iranian resistance group, which would cast serious doubt on their reliability.
But it turned that the assurances from those intelligence officials were part of an official dissimulation. The first reliable account of the documents’ path to the United States came only in 2013, when former senior German foreign office official Karsten Voigt, who retired from his long-time position as coordinator of German-North American cooperation, spoke with this writer on the record.
Voigt recalled how senior officials of the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachtrendeinst or BND, had explained to him in November 2004 that they were familiar with the documents on the alleged Iran nuclear weapons program, because a sometime source—but not an actual intelligence agent—had provided them earlier that year. Furthermore, the BND officials explained that they had viewed the source as “doubtful,” he recalled, because the source had belonged to the Mujahideen-E Khalq, the armed Iranian opposition group that had fought Iran on behalf of Iraq during the eight year war.
BND officials were concerned that the Bush administration had begun citing those documents as evidence against Iran, because of their experience with “Curveball” – the Iraqi engineer in Germany who had told stories of Iraqi mobile bioweapons labs that had turned to be false. As a result of that meeting with BND officials, Voigt had given an interview to The Wall Street Journal in which he had contradicted the assurance of the unnamed U.S. intelligence officials to the Times and warned that the Bush administration should not base its policy on the documents it was beginning to cite as evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, because they had indeed come from “an Iranian dissident group.”
Using the MEK
The Bush administration’s desire to steer press coverage of the supposedly internal Iranian documents away from the MEK is understandable: the truth about the MEK role would immediately lead to Israel, because it was well known, that Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad had used the MEK to make public information that the Israelis did not want attributed to itself – including the precise location of Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility. As Israeli journalists Yossi Melman and Meir Javadanfar observed in their 2007 book on the Iran nuclear program, based on U.S., British and Israeli officials, “Information is ‘filtered’ to the IAEA via Iranian opposition groups, especially the National Resistance Council of Iran.”
Mossad used the MEK repeatedly in the 1990s and the early 2000’s to get the IAEA to inspect any site the Israelis suspected might possibly be nuclear-related, earning their Iranian clients a very poor reputation at the IAEA. No one familiar with the record of the MEK could have believed that it was capable of creating the detailed documents that were passed to the German government. That required an organization with the expertise in nuclear weapons and experience in fabricating documents – both of which Israel’s Mossad had in abundance.
El Baradei: Didn’t buy it
Bush administration officials had highlighted a set of 18 schematic drawings of the Shahab-3 missile’s reentry vehicle or nosecone of the missile in each of which there was a round shape representing a nuclear weapon. Those drawings were described to foreign governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency as 18 different attempts to integrate a nuclear weapon into the Shahab-3.
Netanyahu gave the public its first glimpse of one of those drawings Monday when he pointed to it triumphantly as visually striking evidence of Iranian nuclear perfidy. But that schematic drawing had a fundamental flaw that proved that it and others in the set could not have been genuine: it showed the “dunce cap” shaped reentry vehicle design of the original Shahab-3 missile that had been tested from 1998 to 2000. That was the shape that intelligence analysts outside Iran had assumed in 2002 and 2003 Iran would continue to use in its ballistic missile.
New Nose Cone
It is now well established, however, that Iran had begun redesigning the Shahab-3 missile with a conical reentry vehicle or nosecone as early as 2000 and replaced it with a completely different design that had a “triconic” or “baby bottle” shape. It made it a missile with very different flight capabilities and was ultimately called the Ghadr-1. Michael Elleman, the world’s leading expert on Iranian ballistic missiles, documented the redesign of the missile in his path-breaking 2010 study of Iran’s missile program.
Iran kept its newly-designed missile with the baby bottle reentry vehicle secret from the outside world until its first test in mid-2004. Elleman concluded that Iran was deliberately misleading the rest of the world – and especially the Israelis, who represented the most immediate threat of attack on Iran – to believe that the old model was the missile of the future while already shifting its planning to the new design, which would bring all of Israel within reach for the first time.
The authors of the drawings that Netanyahu displayed on the screen were thus in the dark about the change in the Iranian design. The earliest date of a document on the redesign of the reentry vehicle in the collection obtained by U.S. intelligence was August 28, 2002 – about two years after the actual redesign had begun. That major error indicates unmistakably that the schematic drawings showing a nuclear weapon in a Shahab-3 reentry vehicle – what Netanyahu called “integrated warhead design” were fabrications.
Netanyahu’s slide show highlighted a series of alleged revelations that he said came from the newly acquired “atomic archive” concerning the so-called “Amad Plan” and the continuation of the activities of the Iranian who was said to have led that covert nuclear weapons project. But the single pages of Farsi language documents he flashed on the screen were also clearly from the same cache of documents that we now know came from the MEK-Israeli combination. Those documents were never authenticated, and IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, who was skeptical of their authenticity, had insisted that without such authentication, he could not accuse Iran of having a nuclear weapons program.
More Fraud
There are other indications of fraud in that collection of documents as well. A second element of the supposed covert arms program given the name “Amad Plan” was a “process flow chart” of a bench-scale system for converting uranium ore for enrichment. It had the code name “Project 5.13”, according to a briefing by the IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen, and was part of a larger so-called “Project 5”, according to an official IAEA report. Another sub-project under that rubric was “Project 5.15”, which involved ore processing at the Gchine Mine.” Both sub-projects were said to be carried out by a consulting firm named Kimia Maadan.
But documents that Iran later provided to the IAEA proved that, in fact, “Project 5.15” did exist, but was a civilian project of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, not part of a covert nuclear weapons program, and that the decision had been made in August 1999 – two years before the beginning of the alleged “Amad Plan” was said to have begun.
The role of Kimia Maadan in both sub-projects explains why an ore processing project would be included in the supposed secret nuclear weapons program. One of the very few documents included in the cache that could actually be verified as authentic was a letter from Kimia Maadan on another subject, which suggests that the authors of the documents were building the collection around a few documents that could be authenticated.
Netanyahu also lingered over Iran’s denial that it had done any work on “MPI” or (“Multi-Point Initiation”) technology “in hemispheric geometry”. He asserted that “the files” showed Iran had done “extensive work” or “MPI” experiments. He did not elaborate on the point. But Israel did discover the alleged evidence of such experiments in a tin-roofed shack in Tehran. The issue of whether Iran had done such experiments was a central issue in the IAEA’s inquiry after 2008. The agency described it in a September 2008 report, which purported to be about Iran’s “experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device.”
No Official Seals
The IAEA refused to reveal which member country had provided the document to the IAEA. But former Director-General ElBaradei revealed in his memoirs that Israel had passed a series of documents to the Agency in order to establish the case that Iran had continued its nuclear weapons experiments until “at least 2007.” ElBaradei was referring to convenient timing of the report’s appearance within a few months of the U.S. NIE of November 2007 concluding that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons-related research in 2003.
Netanyahu pointed to a series of documents on the screen as well a number of drawings, photographs and technical figures, and even a grainy old black and white film, as evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons work. But absolutely nothing about them provides an evidentiary link to the Iranian government. As Tariq Rauf, who was head of the IAEA’s Verification and Security Policy Coordination Office from 2002 to 2012, noted in an e-mail, none of the pages of text on the screen show official seals or marks that would identify them as actual Iranian government documents. The purported Iranian documents given to the IAEA in 2005 similarly lacked such official markings, as an IAEA official conceded to me in 2008.
Netanyahu’s slide show revealed more than just his over-the-top style of persuasion on the subject of Iran. It provided further evidence that the claims that had successfully swayed the U.S. and Israeli allies to join in punishing Iran for having had a nuclear weapons program were based on fabricated documents that originated in the state that had the strongest motive to make that case – Israel.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian on U.S. national security policy and the recipient of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. His most recent book is Manufactured Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, published in 2014.
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‘Conspiracy Theory’ Now Fact: Greater Israel Has Arrived
By Kit Klarenberg | Mint Press News | January 28, 2025
Ever since Tel Aviv’s 1948 creation, much has been said and written about ‘Greater Israel’ – the notion Zionism’s ultimate end goal is the forcible annexation and ethnic cleansing of vast swaths of Arab and Muslim lands for Jewish settlement, based on Biblical claims this territory was promised to Jews by God. The mainstream media typically dismisses this concept as antisemitic conspiracy theory, or at most the fringe fantasy of a minuscule handful of extremist Israelis.
In reality … continue
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