by Damian Lataan
lataan.blogspot.com
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Any strike on Iran by either the US or Israel or both is likely to be cataclysmic in scale yet for the Zionists of Israel such a war will serve only to distract the people of the West from the real aims of instigating such a horrific war which is to provide both the opportunity and the cover for Israel to realise its ultimate regional endgame of creating a Greater Israel. The Zionist’s dream of a Greater Israel includes occupying, and eventually annexing, south Lebanon up to at least the Litani River and possibly beyond, and also the full occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the eventual deportation of the Palestinians living in these places to the Sinai and Jordan.
Iran is a geographically large country with a well educated and cultured population that has, since the revolution in 1979 that threw out the US-supported Shah, mainly supported its theocratic hierarchy. It does have its own internal problems that are largely over domestic issues. The Iranian people clearly would like to have their government pay more attention to their welfare needs. Unemployment is high; inflation is high; wages could be better; the health system needs improvement; infrastructure needs upgrading, especially with regard to the processing of its own natural resources. For sure there is a demand for a more liberalised legislation that relies less on Sharia law and more on natural justice. But, for all of Iran’s internal short-comings, the Iranian people are essentially united when it comes to supporting its government’s nuclear power ambitions and also the defence of their country against US and Israeli aggression, threatened or otherwise.
The moment that the West thought it might be able to influence and exploit Iran’s internal divisions in order to create an environment that might bring about revolution leading to regime change has now long passed. The disputed elections of June 2009 created violence in the streets which clearly were aggravated by agents provocateurs supported and financed by Israel and the US. However, the rather feeble attempts to create conditions that might lead to some sort of ‘regime change’ favourable to the US and Israel failed miserably.
As a result of these failures, the West, particularly the US and Israel, have returned to the rhetoric and propaganda of ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ that is designed to induce Western public opinion to support a military strike against Iran ostensibly to eliminate the so-called Iranian ‘nuclear threat’. In order to overcome the total lack of any evidence to support the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme, the US and Israel have adopted a ‘pull out all the stops’ propaganda strategy to the point now that they have said it so often, so loudly and so relentlessly that many now take it as read that Iran really does have a nuclear weapons program despite there still being no actual evidence to support the assertion.
The ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme originated as public rhetoric by Israeli Zionists and their neoconservative supporters in the United States soon after the Shah was deposed and the Islamic Revolutionary government took control. It has reached a crescendo today after years of continuous and increasingly relentless propaganda from Israeli Zionists and neoconservatives. The propaganda existed long before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became Iran’s president, but once becoming president, Ahmadinejad’s own rhetoric about Israel has served only to reinforce the twisted propaganda from the Zionists and neoconservatives about Iran being an existential threat to Israel based on Iran’s continued so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’.
Recently, the Israelis and their neoconservative supporters have changed gear in their propaganda about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’. The call at first was supposedly about finding a diplomatic solution to the perceived problem of a nuclear Iran. Sanctions, as part of finding a ‘diplomatic solution’, are an absolutely necessary step in the path to war against Iran; world public opinion would not support a direct attack against Iran without going via the sanctions route first. UN endorsed sanctions are now in place and, just as the Israelis and the neoconservatives had hoped, they are not having any effect on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. As a result, the Israelis and neoconservatives have shifted up a gear and are now demanding quite openly and in unison that the US attack Iran.
Some commentators have suggested that President Obama is hesitant about attacking Iran and that because of this Israel may take it upon themselves to attack unilaterally. The well publicised recent article by Jeffery Goldberg in Atlantic magazine suggests that that there is a ‘50/50 chance’ that Israel will do just that. Well known neoconservative and former CIA officer, Reuel Marc Gerecht writing in The Weekly Standard also recently suggested that Israel may launch a unilateral strike against Iran. George Will, writing in the Washington Post has said, after lamenting the lack of action against Iran by the US; “If Israel strikes Iran, the world will not be able to say it was not warned”. Other far-right neoconservatives on the other hand, like Michael Barone writing in National Review Online, are saying that Obama just might instigate an attack against Iran. Meanwhile, another neoconservative, Jonathan S. Tobin, writing in the neoconservative flagship intellectual magazine Commentary this month, goes as far as calling upon and encouraging Obama to “emulate Truman’s example of decisive leadership”, eluding to Truman’s use of nuclear weapons on Japan in an effort to end a war that was as good as already over anyway.
The rhetoric of Israel launching a unilateral strike against Iran is designed not so much to garner public opinion against Iran, but more to promote sympathy for Israel from a US Congress that may be otherwise hesitant to support a US strike against Iran. The idea is to get Congress to push Obama to support an Israel that feels so desperate about their situation that they may take it upon themselves to go it alone despite the risks involved. In the process, the rhetoric also attempts to garner public opinion that supports the notion that Israel is a ‘small embattled nation’ struggling to survive in a hostile region.
Pushing the ‘we might need to strike unilaterally’ propaganda as portrayed by the Israeli Zionists and the neoconservatives, however, does not stand up to close scrutiny and even the most cursory analysis reveals that it is, indeed, nothing more than propaganda.
The reality is; Israel is so reliant on the US that it would be utterly impossible for Israel to strike Iran ’unilaterally’. Israel will need the full support of the US to launch any attack against Iran even if the initial attack is carried out solely using current Israeli air force aircraft and personnel in order to appear unilateral. The logistics of obtaining the fuel and ordnance alone that would be required for such a strike will necessitate the full connivance of the US; and the follow-up support of an America apparently coming to Israel’s aid to prevent retaliatory attacks by Iran would require meticulous advance planning and is not something that can be spontaneously set in motion at a moments notice.
The notion that Israel could act ‘unilaterally’ against Iran is one designed purely for propaganda purposes only.
Neither Israel nor the US will be attacking Iran for the exclusive purpose of eliminating Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to destroy its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’; the US and the neoconservatives have made it quite clear that their aim is to bring about regime change in Iran and nothing less. The idea that either or both will attack in order to destroy Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ will merely be the stated casus belli to justify such an attack.
And there are other realities that also need to be considered. Despite the now almost deafening rhetoric of Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’, there is still the not unimportant matter of evidence proving that Iran actually has a ‘nuclear weapons program’. To date not a single skerrick of any hard evidence has been produced to support any of the US or Israeli claims. The UN’s nuclear watchdog organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has not been able to find any evidence and the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007 stated quite categorically that Iran had discarded its nuclear weapon program in 2003. While the 2010 NIE (which this year is entitled ‘The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community’) has suggested that Iran “is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so”, no actual hard evidence was offered to support the idea that Iran actually had a ‘nuclear weapons program’. The 2010 NIE also noted tellingly that: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons”. Surely, if Iran hasn’t yet decided to build nuclear weapons how would it have a nuclear weapons program? And if they ‘do not know’ then what evidence can they possibly have to even assume that Iran has a ‘nuclear weapons program’?
As the threat of UN sanctions against Iran loomed yet again in mid-May, 2010, Turkey, Brazil and Iran came up with a plan that they thought would allay the West’s apprehensions about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’. The plan was actually in response to the West’s demands that Iran send its Low Enriched (LE) uranium to a third country for enrichment to Medium Enriched level (ME) for use in producing isotopes for cancer treatment. The product returned to Iran for use would not then be able to be further enriched to the High Enriched level (HE) required to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran arranged through Turkey and Brazil to send half of its 2400kgs of LE uranium off to France and/or Russia for conversion to ME uranium suitable for producing isotopes.
Not entirely unexpectedly, the US rejected the plan saying that this would still leave Iran with 1200kgs of uranium – enough, once enriched, to build one bomb – which was not acceptable to the US. The irony, of course, is that Iran is now left with enough uranium which, once enriched, is enough to build not just one bomb but two; a point seemingly lost on the US and their allies – or was it?
In rejecting the plan, (which conveniently left Iran with nearly two and a half tonnes of uranium) the way was immediately left open for the US to continue its pursuit of sanctions against Iran through the UN. It was by now quite clear where the US, Israel and their Western allies were heading with this strategy. If Russia and China vetoed further sanctions, the way would then be clear for the US and Israel to claim that Iran’s ‘pursuit of nuclear weapons’ could not now be stopped which would provide a pretext for either or both to then attack Iran. In order to avoid, or at least delay, war against Iran, Russia and China reluctantly agreed on 9 June 2010 to expand the already existing UN sanctions but not before the US agreed to water the new proposals down. Later, the US in partnership with the European Union, adopted further much stronger sanctions against Iran outside of UN oversight.
These latest sanctions, however, are doing nothing to deter Iran from continuing what it is actually legally entitled to do under international law with regards to uranium enrichment within the terms of the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory. It is this lack of deterrence which has now brought on the upsurge in threats from Israel and the neoconservatives. The Israelis and the neoconservatives, continuing to ignore entirely the total lack of any evidence, believe that they have now provided Iran every opportunity to give up their quest for ‘nuclear weapons’ and the only option now is to take military action.
By ignoring the fact that there is no evidence to suggest Iran has a nuclear weapons program and continuing to insist that Iran gives up its lawful peaceful quest for nuclear generated electrical power and to be able to produce isotopes to treat cancer, Israel and the neoconservative have demonstrated that, regardless of anything else Iran might do to allay the West’s fears, the Israelis and the neoconservatives want nothing less than war against Iran.
And now we get down to the reason why war, and only war, is so necessary for the Zionists of Israel and their neoconservative supporters.
Israel knows full well that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. They also know that, even if Iran did manage to obtain a nuclear weapon or two, it would still be utterly impotent. To be sure, two nuclear devises, or even one, detonated in Israel would likely destroy Israel, but if Iran were to commit such a horrendous crime, Iran knows it in turn would be destroyed in retaliation by Israel’s comparatively massive arsenal of nuclear weapons that are undoubtedly dispersed throughout Israel and on board Israel’s submarine fleet.
Despite this, however, the Zionists and neoconservatives, like George Will for example, argue that Iran has some kind of death wish whereby it is willing to ‘martyr’ itself in the cause of destroying Israel. To actually believe that Iran would be willing to sacrifice itself just to get at Israel in this way demonstrates only Zionism’s sense of monumental self-importance – or, more realistically, their desire to portray themselves as the perennial victim where Islam is out to get them no matter the cost.
All of this serves the Zionist purpose. Without war with Iran there would be nothing to distract the world’s attention away from an Israeli attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, the benefit of war with Iran provides a multitude of perceived advantages.
Both the US and Israel have gone to great lengths over the years to emphasise Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ links to Iran portraying them as Iran’s ‘proxies’ on Israel’s doorstep. Building these connections to Iran has been essential to the Zionist’s strategy. From the propaganda point of view, the Zionists use of the word ‘proxy’ in describing Hezbollah and Hamas has been important; for the Zionists and neoconservatives to say that Hezbollah and Hamas are Iran’s ‘proxies’ is to imply that Iran is the main enemy and that Iran had developed Hezbollah and Hamas specifically to provide a means of getting closer to Israel. Presented as proof of this is the supply of arms and finance that flows from Iran.
The reality is somewhat different. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are organisations that resist Israel’s expansionist ambitions and, despite being of two different sects of Islam (Hezbollah is Shiite, as is Iran; while Hamas is Sunni) the two organisations have very common interests inasmuch as both are enemies of expansionist Zionism.
The Zionist dream of a Greater Israel is well known and its history and ideology are well documented. The original idea of a Greater Israel that stretched “from the Nile to the Euphrates” is now truly just a dream. But the Zionists haven’t given up entirely on their dream of a Greater Israel. The Zionists of today firmly believe that the dream of creating a Greater Israel that includes the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and south Lebanon up to the Litani River or even beyond, can be become a feasible reality.
Israel’s past attempts at occupying the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon have failed miserably due to resistance from the Palestinians and the Arabs respectively. Israel’s attempts to spread itself into the West Bank via ever-growing ‘settlements’ have had some success since the 1967 invasion and military occupation but nowhere near as successful as Israel’s invasion, occupation and eventual colonisation of the Golan Heights that occurred at the same time.
Recent attempts by Israel to eliminate Hezbollah and Hamas have failed. The 2006 attacks and invasion of south Lebanon ended in defeat for Israel despite the horrendous loss of lives inflicted on the civilian population by the Israelis. Likewise, the 2008/09 attacks on Hamas in the Gaza which slaughtered over 1300 innocent civilians and all but destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure was also to no avail. Both wars failed to draw in the US and Iran directly and succeeded only in gaining for Israel the condemnation of the world for what many saw as deliberate war crimes committed against civilian populations.
The Zionist leaders of Israel have learnt their lesson; in the future they will not attempt to get what they want while the eyes of the world are upon them. Before attacking Hezbollah and Hamas again the Zionists of Israel need to ensure that the eyes of world are looking elsewhere. They will also need to ensure that their casus belli for attacking Hezbollah and Hamas and invading Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is credible – and what more credible or plausible an excuse could the Israelis have for attacking Hezbollah and Hamas than pre-empting strikes by them in retaliation for Israel having attacked Iran in order to eliminate an ‘existential and imminent nuclear threat’.
While the eyes of the world are watching the turmoil and carnage being wrought on Iran, initiated possibly by Israel and then followed up with the full force of the US, the Israelis will feel free to smash all resistance to them as they attack and then invade Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and launch a full take-over of the West Bank on the grounds that the Palestinians there will launch a full-on third Intafada against the Israelis and the Zionist settlers.
For the war against Iran, the aim will be to bring the government to its knees by use of massive and overwhelming air power against Iran’s governmental and military institutions forcing the Iranians to capitulate and sue for peace at the UN. There is unlikely to be any kind of occupation; only the threat of more force if the government of Iran does not concede to US demands. The major demand will be for a change in government to one that is friendly to the US, Israel and the West; in other words; regime change.
Meanwhile, the Israelis will consolidate their positions in the areas they occupy by ruthlessly liquidating Hezbollah and Hamas during the fighting. The occupation of south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank eventually will give way to annexation, even in the face of opposition from most of the world, and the peoples of those places will be forced out and relocated. The Palestinian people will be forced in to the Sinai or Jordan while the Arabs of south Lebanon will be forced north of the Litani River.
Overall, once the war begins, the US and Israel will be relying on their overwhelming military might, especially their air-power, in order to prevail. The US are far too overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan to be able to invade and occupy such a vast country as Iran and would rely on its air-power to maintain its domination. In Lebanon and the Gaza Strip Israel would rely initially on its air-power and then ground mechanised and infantry forces to launch an invasion and maintain an occupation. The same would apply in the West Bank.
There will be nothing spontaneous or ‘unilateral’ about the coming confrontation; it has been in the planning for decades by the Zionists and their neoconservative supporters. Regime change in Iran will be the war aim for the US while the defeat of Hezbollah and Hamas and the subsequent occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon with a view to eventual annexation will be Israel’s war aims while creating a Greater Israel will be their ultimate goal. In all theatres the war will devastate the civilian populations leading to massive upheavals and deaths.
The war against Iran is likely to be cataclysmic in scale but for the Israelis such a war will serve only to be the catalyst for the creation of the Zionists dream; Greater Israel. The ultimate costs of the final confrontation, however, in the end may very well be more than any side can bear.
http://lataan.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-cataclysmic-war-against-iran-only.html
