Iran Strike Imminent: Russian Diplomat

Source: The Hindu
Vladimir Radyuhin

Israel will attack Iran this year if a new round of talks scheduled for April fail, a leading Russian newspaper reported quoting a senior Russian diplomat. 

Russian diplomats at the United Nations believe the strike against Iran is “a matter of when, not if,” the Kommersant daily said on Wednesday. 

“The attack will be mounted before the end of this year. Israel is blackmailing [U.S. President Barack] Obama by confronting him with a dilemma: either he supports the war option or will lose the support [of the U.S. Jews],” a high-ranking official of the Russian Foreign Ministry told the newspaper ahead of the U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria on Monday. 

After the meeting, the Russian diplomat said the attack could come earlier, any time after April when the six-nation group holds new talks with Iran. 

The Kommersant quoted the diplomat as saying that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to warn Iran that the talks were a “last chance for Tehran” to avoid the attack. 

The newspaper said that a precise date and location for the talks was still being discussed. Iran on Tuesday confirmed that the talks would take place soon and said Turkey had been suggested as the venue. 

The coming strike against Iran will save Syria from foreign military intervention, the unnamed Russian diplomat told the Kommersant. 

“Americans realize that Israel will attack Iran and it would be too much to have two wars in the region,” the diplomat said explaining Washington’s consent to let U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan pursue his peace efforts in Syria.

Russia Calls U.S.-Led Military Exercises In Georgia Provocation

Source: Xinhau News Agency
Russia calls U.S.-Georgia drills “provocation”

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described joint U.S.-Georgia drills which started Wednesday as “provocation”.

“The drills are supposed to be for the suppression of riots. I told the (U.S.) Secretary of State that this looks like provocation,” Lavrov told a meeting in the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Moscow hoped those holding the exercises would bear in mind the fragile stability in Trans-Caucasian region, Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, he denied Moscow had urged anyone to recognize the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying Russia had only actively supported the regions in expanding their international contacts.

“We do not hold these talks. This is a business of our allies, Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Lavrov said, adding Russia would support its friends politically.

Moscow recognized the two regions’ independence in August 2008 following a brief armed conflict with Georgia. In response, Georgia severed its diplomatic relations with Russia.

Source: Civil Georgia

Lavrov: U.S.-Georgian Military Drills ‘Provocative’

 

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that ongoing joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises “seems somewhat provocative” and that he had raised this “serious issue” when he met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week in New York.

Libya's Big-Oil PM Rolls Over for Western Masters

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

El-Keib obfuscates/defends Libyan support for terrorist militants in Syria.  

Libya's Prime Minister, and British Petroleum, Total, and Shell-funded Petroleum Institute chairman Abdurrahim el-Keib, flatly denied allegations by Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin that Libya was directly funding, training, and arming militants in Syria. El-Keib's denial stands in direct contradiction of reports like the London Telegraph's "Leading Libyan Islamist met Syrian Army Opposition Group," where it was revealed that "the new Libyan authorities had offered money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad."


Images: Screenshots from the Petroleum Institute's "Partners and Sponsors" page, as well as el-Keib's profile page (inset). (click image to enlarge)

....

Additionally, VoltaireNet.org would confirm Abdul Hakim Belhaj, Tripoli's military commander and leader of the US State Department-listed terror organization Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), was not just assisting Syrian militants but in fact leading them in NATO's armed destabilization of Syria.

Clearly, Libya is assisting the US by admittedly training, arming, and providing foreign-terrorists to fight alongside Syrian militants, in yet another example of post US-engineered "Arab Spring" nations emerging as US client-states. Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, a US-funded activist leader installed upon a wave of destabilization triggered by US-backed activists, has likewise supported US efforts to isolate and topple the Syrian government. Marzouki announced that Tunisia would begin withdrawing recognition of the Syrian government and prepare to expel the Syrian ambassador from Tunisia.

Syria: Clinton Admits US On Same Side As Al Qaeda To Destabilise Assad Government

Source: Global Research
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky and Finian Cunningham 
 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that Al Qaeda and other organizations on the US “terror list” are supporting the Syrian opposition.

Clinton said: “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, al-Qaida [sic], Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].” [1] (Click here to watch video)

Yet at the same time, in the above BBC interview the US Secretary of State repeats the threadbare Western claim that the situation in Syria is one of a defenceless population coming under “relentless attack” from Syrian government forces.

There is ample evidence that teams of snipers who have been killing civilians over the past year in Syria belong to the terrorist formations to which Clinton is referring to.

As Michel Chossudovsky points out in a recent article: “Since the middle of March 2011, Islamist armed groups – covertly supported by Western and Israeli intelligence – have conducted terrorist attacks directed against government buildings, including acts of arson. Amply documented, trained gunmen and snipers, including mercenaries, have targeted the police, armed forces as well as innocent civilians. There is ample evidence, as outlined in the Arab League Observer Mission report, that these armed groups of mercenaries are responsible for killing civilians. 

While the Syrian government and military bear a heavy burden of responsibility, it is important to underscore the fact that these terrorist acts – including the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children – are part of a US-NATO-Israeli initiative, which consists is supporting, training and financing  ‘an armed entity’ operating inside Syria.” [2]

The admission at the weekend by Hillary Clinton corroborates the finding that armed groups are attacking civilians and these groups are terroristic, according to US own definitions, and that the situation in Syria is not one of unilateral state violence against its population but rather is one of a shadowy armed insurrection.

Clinton’s admission retrospectively justifies the stance taken by Russia and China, both of which vetoed the proposed UN Security Council Resolution on 4 February, precisely because that proposal was predicated on a spurious notion that the violence in Syria was solely the responsibility of the Al Assad government.

Syria: White House Preaches Peace as Pentagon Prepares for War

Source: RT

The White House is saying “no” to arming opposition and other military involvement in the Syrian conflict – for the moment. Pentagon and US Central Command launched a review of US military capabilities in case that “no” turns a “yes.”

­The backdoor for military action was ajar with State Department, spokesman Victoria Nuland saying that US never takes any option off the table, even though they “don't think more arms into Syria is the answer." It appears the Pentagon has a similar view, as it has reportedly launched a full-scale review of its available military might.

Two senior administration officials told CNN that “options are being prepared in the event President Barack Obama was to call for them.” Support for opposition groups and outright military strikes are among the options being looked at.

This type of planning exercise is typical for the Pentagon, which would not want to be in the position of not having options for the president, if and when they are asked for, both officials told CNN. One of them called the effort a “scoping exercise,” with Pentagon looking into what capabilities are available given other US military commitments in the region.

Vladimir Putin Accuses Hillary Clinton of Inciting Protests

Source: The Telegraph
Andrew Osborn 

Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of orchestrating public unrest on Russia’s streets after last Sunday’s disputed parliamentary election in a Cold War-style outburst certain to damage US-Russia relations. 

In his first comments on three days of anti-Kremlin protests, the Russian prime minister alleged that Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, had deliberately encouraged his political opponents to take to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

“She sent a signal to some activists inside the country,” Mr Putin told a meeting of his supporters. “They got the message and started active work with the support of the US state department.”

Mrs Clinton angered the Kremlin after she declared that the vote, which international observers said was riddled with fraud, was neither free nor fair.

But Mr Putin accused Mrs Clinton of rushing to conclusions before the facts were all in.

He said: “I watched the reaction of our American partners. The first thing that the secretary of state said was that the elections were dishonest and unfair even though she had not even received material from the election monitors at that stage.” 

Building a Justification for Waging War: Hillary Clinton's Deceptive Bluffs on Iran's Nuclear Program

Source: Global Research.ca
Kourosh Ziabari

When Hillary Clinton doesn't make sense 

U.S. President Barack Obama will be a lame duck next year and the officials in his administration, especially his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are hilariously doing their best to make sure that they haven't spared any effort to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries and sabotage the stability and security of those whom they call "enemies", like Iran. 

On October 27, Hillary Clinton gave an exclusive interview to the UK's state-funded, state-run BBC Persian TV and in an attempt aimed at reaching out to the Iranian nation, made bombastic remarks which have certainly infuriated the Iranian nation and demonstrated that the hostile behavior and antagonistic stance of the U.S. government toward the Iranian nation is a manifestation of the idiom "the leopard can't change its spots." 

At the beginning of the interview, Clinton referred to the sanctions imposed against Iran by the U.S. and its European allies and said that these sanctions are targeted at forcing the Iranian government into abandoning its nuclear program which she called is an effort to construct nuclear weapons and not for civilian purposes. Forgetting the detrimental impacts of economic sanctions against the ordinary people, Clinton talked of the United States as a friend of the Iranian people, and said that she wanted to reaffirm her country's "very strong support for and friendship toward the people of Iran." She further added that the behavior of the United States towards the Iranian government is different from its behavior toward the Iranian people, and by saying that, she clearly paraded her diplomatic naiveté and artlessness. How do you justify enmity with a government which is democratically elected by a group of people which you claim of being supportive of? 

Secondly, maybe Mrs. Secretary has forgotten that the U.S. itself is the largest possessor of nuclear weapons in the world. How can such a police state which has so far killed millions of people around the world, from Nagasaki and Hiroshima to Baghdad and Kabul, boast of its concerns about the development of nuclear bombs by a country which is the most pacifist country in a boiling and tumultuous region such as Middle East and hasn't ever invaded nor attacked any country in the past century? 

Clinton Urges China to Put Pressure on Iran

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Source: Channelnewsasia.com

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged China to use its influence to raise pressure on Iran after new charges that the Tehran regime is pursuing nuclear weapons, officials said.

Clinton, meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Hawaii ahead of a weekend Asia-Pacific summit, talked "extensively" about Iran amid Western calls for further sanctions on the Islamic state, a senior US official said.

Clinton said "it was critical for China to communicate both publicly but also privately with Iran that they were on a course that was dangerous," the official, who attended the talks, said on customary condition of anonymity.

China, which along with Russia is one of Iran's main sources of diplomatic support, earlier Thursday rejected calls for new sanctions against Tehran and instead urged further dialogue on its nuclear drive.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN atomic watchdog, said on Tuesday it had "serious concerns" based on "credible" information that Iran has "has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."

Iran has consistently denied it is seeking nuclear weapons, insisting its atomic programme is meant to produce electricity in the oil-rich nation.