Threatening Iran

In an Impotent World Even the Bankrupt Can Prevail

Threatening Iran

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japan did not spend years preparing her public case and demonstrating her deployment of forces for the attack. Japan did not make a world issue out of her view that the US was denying Japan her role in the Pacific by hindering Japan’s access to raw materials and energy.

Similarly, when Hitler attacked Russia, he did not preface his invasion with endless threats and a public case that blamed the war on England.

These events happened before the PSYOPS era. Today, America and Israel’s wars of aggression are preceded by years of propaganda and international meetings, so that by the time the attack comes it is an expected event, not a monstrous surprise attack with its connotation of naked aggression.

The US, which has been threatening Iran with attack for years, has passed the job to Israel. During the third week of July, the American vice president and secretary of state gave Israel the go-ahead. Israel has made great public disclosure of its warships passing through the Suez Canal on their way to Iran. “Muslim” Egypt is complicit, offering no objection to Israel’s naval forces on their way to a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US imposed on the world.

By the time the attack occurs, it will be old hat, an expected event, and, moreover, an event justified by years of propaganda asserting Iran’s perfidy.

Israel intends to dominate the Middle East. Israel’s goal is to incorporate all of Palestine and southern Lebanon into “Greater Israel.” The US intends to dominate the entire world, deciding who rules which countries and controlling resource flows.

The US and Israel are likely to succeed, because they have effective PSYOPS. For the most part, the world media follows the US media, which follows the US and Israeli governments’ lines. Indeed, the American media is part of the PSYOPS of both countries.

According to Thierry Meyssan in the Swiss newspaper Zeit-Fragen, the CIA used SMS or text messaging and Twitter to spread disinformation about the Iranian election, including the false report that the Guardian Council had informed Mousavi that he had won the election. When the real results were announced, Ahmadinejad’s reelection appeared to be fraudulent.

Iran’s fate awaits it. A reasonable hypothesis to be entertained and examined is whether Iran’s Rafsanjani and Mousavi are in league with Washington to gain power in Iran. Both have lost out in the competition for government power in Iran. Yet, both are egotistical and ambitious. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 probably means nothing to them except an opportunity for personal power. The way the West has always controlled the Middle East is by purchasing the politicians who are out of power and backing them in overthrowing the independent government. We see this today in Sudan as well.

In the case of Iran, there is an additional factor that might align Rafsanjani with Washington. President Ahmadienijad attacked former President Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most wealthy persons, as corrupt. If Rafsanjani feels threatened by this attack, he has little choice but to try to overthrow the existing government. This makes him the perfect person for Washington.

Perhaps there is a better explanation why Rafsanjani and Mousavi, two highly placed members of the Iranian elite, chose to persist in allegations of election fraud that have played into Washington’s hands by calling into question the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It cannot be that the office of president is worth such costs as the Iranian presidency is not endowed with decisive powers.

Without Rafsanjani and Mousavi, the US media could not have orchestrated the Iranian elections as “stolen,” an orchestration that the US government used to further isolate and discredit the Iranian government, making it easier for Iran to be attacked. Normally, well placed members of an elite do not help foreign enemies set their country up for attack.

An Israeli attack on Iran is likely to produce retaliation, which Washington will use to enter the conflict. Have the personal ambitions of Rafsanjani and Mousavi, and the naive youthful upper class Iranian protesters, set Iran up for destruction?

Consult a map and you will see that Iran is surrounded by a dozen countries that host US military bases. Why does anyone in Iran doubt that Iran is on her way to becoming another Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, in the end to be ruled by oil companies and an American puppet?

The Russians and Chinese are off balance because of successful American interventions in their spheres of influence, uncertain of the threat and the response. Russia could have prevented the coming attack on Iran, but, pressured by Washington, Russia has not delivered the missile systems that Iran purchased. China suffers from her own hubris as a rising economic power, and is about to lose her energy investments in Iran to US/Israeli aggression. China is funding America’s wars of aggression with loans, and Russia is even helping the US to set up a puppet state in Afghanistan, thus opening up former Soviet central Asia to US hegemony.

The world is so impotent that even the bankrupt US can launch a new war of aggression and have it accepted as a glorious act of liberation in behalf of women’s rights, peace, and democracy.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07202009.html

What Would Happen if Israel Attacked Iran?

What Would Happen if Israel Attacked Iran?

29/05/2009
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

The answer that summarizes everything is that no one can do much more than sit in front of the television screens, and watch the red skies. Naturally, this applies to the Tunisian or Mauritanian citizen, for instance, who is far away from the battle field; however, there are large engagement areas that will be threatened with involvement unwillingly by either of the two warring sides, such as the Gulf, Iraq, Palestine, and perhaps beyond these countries.

However, the first question is: Does Israel actually intend to attack Iran, or is it merely political saber rattling? I think that this time the threats are more serious than at any previous time. I do not exclude that the war might erupt after the end of the time limit given by the United States to the Iranians to reach a political solution for the nuclear problem, a time limit that is said to end by the end of the year.

The Israelis consider that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb is an issue of life-and-death, and will fight with everything they have got regardless of the consequences for them or the others. The Israelis believe that Iran might use its nuclear weapons against them; this is contrary to the case with Pakistan, which today possesses a nuclear arsenal of more than 60 nuclear weapons, but Israel has not protested against it.

It is not sufficient merely to know the intentions of Israel, but it is also important to understand the US stance, which increasingly accepts at least a military attack, but not a major war, against Iran after Tehran has got very close - as it is circulating -to having enough fuel to build its own nuclear weapon.

Now, let us go back to the title of the article; what can we do?

If Israel attacks Iran this will mean that Iran will strike right and left: the US ships in the Gulf, the Gulf oil installations, and the US military bases. Naturally Iran will launch a tirade of its missiles against Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, as Saddam Hussein did in the war to liberate Kuwait.

The reason, in my opinion, is that Iran knows that it will not achieve a military victory, because it has neither the offensive nor the defensive capabilities that can protect it from the harm of the US-supported Israeli aggression. However, Iran will resort to inflicting damage in every direction so that it would be able to declare a propaganda victory, the same as Hezbollah did in the summer war against Israel, and Hamas did in the winter war against Israel.

Here, there will be nothing that can be done unless Iran goes further by targeting the Gulf countries in an intensive way through its sleeper terrorist cells, and by targeting the vital centers through missile strikes. A deliberate and continuous action by Iran most probably will compel these countries to join the war.

Some people might think that the Gulf countries are a foregone conclusion as an Iranian target because of the US military bases on their territories, such as Qatar; the US fleets in their harbors, such as in Bahrain; the explicit protection treaties, such as with Kuwait; and over and above all the GCC joint defense agreement among the GCC countries, which means that an attack against any member country will lead to collective war.

The only possibility for the war to remain limited is if Iran restricts itself to replying to Israel, but I rule out this possibility to a great extent.

As for why do we talk today about war, and not peace? This is because we cannot see anything other than the end of the aspired for peaceful solution that preserves for Iran its right to obtain nuclear energy, and protects the region, and not only Israel, from the evil of Iran's possession of nuclear weapons.