U.S.-Iran: From War Of Nerves To Full-Scale War?

Source: Voice of Russia

Boris Volkhonsky

Iran – U.S.: game of nerves and muscles

As reported by The Los Angeles Times, The U.S. Navy is upgrading its defensive and offensive capabilities in the Persian Gulf to counter threats from Iran to seize the Strait of Hormuz and block the flow of oil.

Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert told reporters that the Navy will add four more mine-sweeping ships and four more CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters with mine-detection capability. The Navy is also sending more underwater unmanned mine-neutralization units to the region.

On the other hand, according to reports, the Iranians have boasted that they could “swarm” large U.S. ships with their smaller, fast-moving craft. They have also reportedly been laying mines along their coastline.

In January, the chief of the Iranian army warned the U.S. not to send another ship to the Persian Gulf after the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis departed. Another carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, entered the gulf weeks later without incident.

Almost simultaneously, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order titled “National Defense Resources Preparedness.” The executive order, published on the official White House website, “delegates authorities and addresses national defense resource policies” “in times of national emergency.” Several media have already labeled the document as an attempt to impose a state of emergency in peacetime. In any case, this is definitely a new indication of the U.S. readiness for any course of development in the most volatile region of the world.

And, as if to further strengthen the impression, The New York Times reported on Monday that “a classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead.”

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.

Turkish PM: Israeli Attacks on Gaza are ‘State Terror’

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made some quite heated statements in condemnation of the most recent Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in a speech Tuesday, calling the attacks a “massacre.”

A cease fire between Gaza militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went into effect Tuesday but there have been reports of rocket attacks despite this agreement.

Thus far, according to Israeli news outlet Haaretz, almost 200 rockets have hit Israeli territory since the most recent outbreak of violence began on Friday.

The Israeli Air Force has conducted some 37 airstrikes on targets in the Gaza Strip, 19 of which supposedly targeted rocket launchers while 18 allegedly targeted weapons warehouses.

These attacks have resulted in 26 Palestinian deaths, 22 of which were allegedly militants while four were civilians who had no hand in the rocket fire.

In a speech to the Turkish parliament, Erdogan called on Israel to “stop the brutal attack against Palestinians and stop the massacre and bloodshed.”

He also called the Israeli airstrikes on Palestinians “state terror,” adding that the Turkish people have an obligation to “remember that Gazans are our brothers, and will always remain so.”

The Bloody Road to Damascus

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Prof. James Petras

The Triple Alliance’s War on a Sovereign State

 

There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the uprising to overthrow President Assad of Syria is a violent, power grab led by foreign-supported fighters who have killed and wounded thousands of Syrian soldiers, police and civilians, partisans of the government and its peaceful opposition.

The outrage expressed by politicians in the West and Gulf State and in the mass media, about the ‘killing of peaceful Syrian citizens protesting injustice’ is cynically designed to cover up the documented reports of violent seizure of neighborhoods, villages and towns by armed bands, brandishing machine guns and planting road-side bombs.

The assault on Syria is backed by foreign funds, arms and training. Due to a lack of domestic support, however, to be successful, direct foreign military intervention will be necessary. For this reason a huge propaganda and diplomatic campaign has been mounted to demonize the legitimate Syrian government. The goal is to impose a puppet regime and strengthen Western imperial control in the Middle East. In the short run, this will further isolate Iran in preparation for a military attack by Israel and the US and, in the long run, it eliminates another independent secular regime friendly to China and Russia.

In order to mobilize world support behind this Western, Israeli and Gulf State-funded power grab, several propaganda ploys have been used to justify another blatant violation of a country’s sovereignty after their successful destruction of the secular governments of Iraq and Libya.

The Larger Context: Serial Aggression

The current Western campaign against the independent Assad regime in Syria is part of a series of attacks against pro-democracy movements and independent regimes from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. The imperial-militarist response to the Egyptian democracy movement that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship was to back the military junta’s seizure of power and murderous campaign to jail, torture and assassinate over 10,000 pro-democracy protestors.

An Israeli Attack Against Iran "Would Destroy Chance of Peace for Generations"

Source: Global Research
Richard Silverstein

In an interview in The Nation, David Grossman, Israel’s leading novelist and moral conscience, expresses the conviction that Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak want a war against Iran:

…He said he had “a very bad feeling” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were going to order an attack, even against America’s wishes. “There is a dynamic to all these warlike declarations,” he said.

I’ve written often in the past about David Grossman as an admirable, but attenuated figure.  As a liberal Zionist who is a moral bellwether for Israeli centrist and leftists, but one who is constrained by many of the limitations inherent in those defending major elements of the Israeli status quo.  With Grossman, the glass is always both half empty and half-full.  He is someone always willing to sound the alarm about the worst depredations of the rightist governments who have afflicted Israel for the past decade or more.  But he is also someone who never wants to be too far ahead of his countrymen.  He is one of them, and feels their moral confusion and remains constrained, as they are, about Israel’s predicament and how to get out of it.

The good news is that Grossman has launched an assault on Bibi and Barak’s plan to assault Iran.  He’s gone so far as to accept that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be far less bad than an Israeli attack on Iran in order to prevent this outcome.

In both Larry Derfner’s Nation interview and Grossman’s own Haaretz op-ed (Hebrew), he’s offered cogent analysis of the thinking of the Israeli leadership.  He’s especially good at placing their mindset in the context of Jewish history:

He [Netanyahu] has this idea that we are the people of eternity, am ha’netzach from the Bible, and our negotiations, as he sees it, are with eternity, with the primal currents of history and mankind, while the United States, with all due respect, is just another superpower like Rome or Athens or Babylon, and we’ve survived them all,” said Grossman. “I’m afraid that this way of thinking might encourage Netanyahu to take the step” of attacking Iran.

Eleven Killed as Israel Strikes Gaza Overnight

Source: RT

At least 11 Palestinians, including two militant leaders, have been killed and a dozen wounded in a series of air strikes by the Israeli Air Force on the Gaza Strip. The attacks were launched in response to the shelling of Israeli territory from Gaza.

­A senior Palestinian militant Zuhair al-Qaisi, the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, was killed in the first strikes by Israeli warplanes, along with another senior member of the PRC, Mahmoud Hannani. The PRC, which has strong ties with Hamas, is known to have carried out rocket attacks against Israel, and the Israelis say al-Qaisi was targeted because he was planning an attack.

In response to the attack that killed al-Qaisi Palestinian militants fired approximately 40 rockets from Gaza into southern Israel on Friday night. Israeli sources say at least eight people suffered injuries in the shelling, one of whom was seriously wounded.

The IAF then performed another series of airstrikes on various targets in the Gaza strip on Friday night in response to these latest attacks. The latest airstrike killed three Palestinians after an Apache-fired rocket hit a house and a car, Al Jazeera reports, citing medical sources.

Three of those killed in the air raids reportedly belonged to a military wing of the Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades.

Some of the targets of Israeli war jets included empty military training camps in different parts of Gaza Strip.

George Galloway: Iran is not a punch bag. This War Must be Stopped Before it Begins

Source: StopTheWarCoalition

George Galloway, speaking at Stop the War Coalition's National Conference on 3 March 2012, spelt out the consequences of an attack on Iran by Israel and the United States. Following the defeat of the Western powers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the British government is sleep-walking into another disastrous war, he said. They will have to be stopped or all of us will pay for their mistake for the rest of our lives.

Netanyahu gifts Obama Esther Scroll

Source: PressTV

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given US President Barack Obama a Hebrew tome containing details of a plot to annihilate the Jews in ancient Iran.

"Then too, they wanted to wipe us out," Netanyahu reportedly told Obama when presenting him with The Scroll of Esther during their meeting on Monday.

The Scroll of Esther tells the 2,500-year old story of a plot by Haman, the minister of Persian king Xerxes, to annihilate the Jewish people living in Persia. But his scheme is foiled by Esther, the king’s wife.

Jewish people read the scroll, known to them as the Megillah, on the eve of the Jewish costume holiday of Purim on March 7.

One of the verses of the scroll says, "And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them that hated them."

This is while Iranians have always lived in peace alongside the followers of the Jewish faith. Today, Iranian Jews live freely in Iran and even enjoy political advantages which include having a representative in Majlis.

US and Israel Plan Attacks on Iran

Source: Bloomberg

Obama administration officials are escalating warnings that the U.S. could join Israel in attacking Iran if the Islamic republic doesn’t dispel concerns that its nuclear-research program is aimed at producing weapons. 

Four days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told reporters the Joint Chiefs of Staff have prepared military options to strike Iranian nuclear sites in the event of a conflict. 

“What we can do, you wouldn’t want to be in the area,” Schwartz told reporters in Washington yesterday. 

Pentagon officials said military options being prepared start with providing aerial refueling for Israeli planes and include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Pentagon plans are classified. 

“There’s no group in America more determined to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon than the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Army General Martin Dempsey told the House Budget Committee yesterday. “I can assure you of that.” 

Separately, unnamed U.S. officials told the Washington Post that U.S. military planners are increasingly confident that sustained attacks with the Air Force’s 30,000-pound (13,608 kilograms) “bunker-buster” bombs could put Iran’s deeply buried uranium-enrichment plant at Fordo out of commission.

Iran War Propaganda, World Bank Wants Control of the Sea, & Stratfor Emails

Source: The Intel Hub

The Intel Hub News Brief with Joe Joseph and special guest Madison Ruppert of http://endthelie.com. Topics covered include the buildup to a possible war with Iran, the World Banks call to control the high seas, stratfor emails and its connection to Israel and Iran.

'Total War State': US Introduces New Security Law

Source: RT

The National Defense Authorization Act, which will allow American authorities to detain US citizens indefinitely without trial, comes into effect Thursday. American film director Sean Stone told RT it's a step on the path towards “a total war state.”

­Stone says that instead of addressing domestic economic concerns, Washington is trying “to build a martial state, using Iran as the terrorist enemy or threat.” He adds that America is now “in a state of martial law.”

Stone went on to tell RT that the new legislation was passed in a dangerous time, when “Syria is being destabilized and Iran, on its border, is being threatened by Israel and America.” 

But another war abroad, Stone asserts, will bring tremendous consequences because, “if you attack Iran, Hezbolah and Hamas will unleash on Israel – which will bring America and potentially Russia into the equation.”

Russia Upgrades Syrian Radars to Warn of U.S., Israeli Attack

Source: Ria Novosti

Russia has modernized two radars in Syria and Lebanon that could threaten U.S. or Israel’s ability to launch a surprise attack against Syria and Iran, Israeli DEBKAfile portal said on Monday.

The range of the Jabal Al Harrah electronic and surveillance station south of Damascus has been increased to cover all parts of Israel and Jordan, the Gulf of Aqaba and northern Saudi Arabia.

The range of a Russian-equipped Syrian radar stationed on Lebanon’s Mount Sannine has also been extended, and the data-sharing capability of both radars has been improved.

As a result, the radars are now capable of tracking “U.S. and Israeli naval and aerial movements in the Eastern Mediterranean up to and including Cyprus and Greece.”

“Moscow decided to boost its radar tracking and surveillance reach for Iran’s benefit in response to a complaint from Tehran that it could not longer count on Russia for a real-time alert on an incoming U.S. or Israeli military strike, because those resources were stretched to the limit in support of the Assad regime,” DEBKAfile said citing its sources in the U.S. military.

Russia is alarmed by the growing threat of a military strike on Iran, which is increasingly reported as being an option under consideration by Israeli and U.S. military planners as Tehran continues to move ahead with its uranium enrichment program.

Israel to Attack Iran without US permission: Report

Source: PressTV

Israeli official say they will not alert the US if they decide to launch a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities amid growing war threats against Tehran.

An unnamed US intelligence official said Israelis argue that if they keep Washington in the dark, it is unlikely that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential assault.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak have delivered the message to senior US officials who have visited Israel, the Associated Press reported.

In a similar report published by The Telegraph on Tuesday, Israeli sources said US President Barack Obama was rebuffed last month when he demanded private guarantees that no strike would go ahead without White House notification, suggesting Israel no longer plans to "seek Washington's permission."

Over the past few months, several US officials including Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and top lawmakers have visited Israel to reportedly dissuade Tel Aviv from attacking Iran.

Israeli officials are also scheduled to hold talks with senior US officials including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta about Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Israeli officials have recently ramped up their war rhetoric, threatening Iran with military strikes in case the US-engineered sanctions against the country fail to force Tehran into abandoning its nuclear energy program. 

Russian Policy On Syria: Preventing All-Out War In Middle East

Source: China Daily
Boris Dolgov

Russia vetoed the United Nations Security Council resolution, which sought to blame President Bashar al-Assad for the violence against civilians in Syria and urged him to step down, because it did not correspond to the real situation in Syria, where the majority of Syrian people, 60 percent, support his government.

I saw for myself demonstrations by tens of thousands of people who support President al-Assad when I visited Syria in August 2011 and in January 2012. Many of the international media, such as CNN, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, are waging an information war against Syria. They portray al-Assad's regime as suppressing the people and shooting peaceful protestors. This is not true. The real cause of the violence in Syria is the terrorist activities of some anti-government groups, which are armed and financed from abroad. This has already resulted in the deaths of 3,000 civilians and 2,000 soldiers and policemen.

If passed, the UN Security Council resolution would have given the leaders of NATO countries the excuse to begin military intervention in Syria. The consequences of such intervention, as was shown by NATO's military intervention in Libya, would be the deaths of thousands of Syrian civilians, and the opportunity for radical Islamic groups to increase their influence in the country. This would likely lead to civil war or the disintegration of Syria into five or more small states divided on religious and national lines. It would also result in the seizure of the Syrian arsenal by radical Islamic groups, who could then use them against the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and against Russia.

The United States, the United Kingdom, France and Israel, as well as Turkey and the Arabic monarchies of the Persian Gulf, which now play a leading role in the League of Arab States, pursue a policy of pressuring the Syrian leadership to stand down and support the external Syrian National Council and armed opposition groups in Syria with the aim of overthrowing the al-Assad regime.

Putin: Iran Strike Would be 'Catastrophic'

Source: Ria Novosti

Russia is troubled by the growing threat of a military strike on Iran, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday, adding that fear of foreign intervention pushes other “nuclear threshold” states to acquire nuclear weapons, rather than dissuading them.

“Russia is alarmed by the growing threat of a military strike” against Iran, Putin said in a lengthy campaign article focusing on Russia’s foreign policy, published in the daily Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper ahead of presidential elections on March 4, which he is widely expected to win.

“If this happens, the consequences will be truly catastrophic, their real scope impossible to imagine,” Putin wrote.

Such a military strike is increasingly reported as being an option under consideration by Israeli and US military planners as Iran moves ahead with its uranium enrichment program. Western countries and Israel say Iran is trying to build atomic weapons. Tehran rejects that accusation and says its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes.

“We propose to recognize Iran’s right to develop a civilian nuclear program, including the right to enrich uranium” in exchange for placing the country’s nuclear activities under the tight control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the international nuclear safety watchdog, Putin said.

If this is achieved, then all sanctions against Iran, including unilaterally imposed by individual countries, need to be lifted, Putin said in the 6,000-word article outlining his foreign policy vision ahead of the elections next Sunday.

In the article, Putin lashed out at the West for excessive pressure on sovereign countries by means of sanctions and military interventions, clearly referring to the NATO-led military operations in Iraq and Libya.

Israel inks $1.6 Billion Arms Deal with Azerbaijan

Source: AP
Amy Teibel

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli defense officials on Sunday confirmed $1.6 billion in deals to sell drones as well as anti-aircraft and missile defense systems to Azerbaijan, bringing sophisticated Israeli technology to the doorstep of archenemy Iran.

The sales by state-run Israel Aerospace Industries come at a delicate time. Israel has been laboring hard to form diplomatic alliances in a region that seems to be growing increasingly hostile to the Jewish state.

Its most pressing concern is Iran's nuclear program, and Israeli leaders have hinted broadly that they would be prepared to attack Iranian nuclear facilities if they see no other way to keep Tehran from building bombs.

Iran denies Israeli and Western claims it seeks to develop atomic weapons, and says its disputed nuclear program is designed to produce energy and medical isotopes.

In Jerusalem, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Iran's nuclear program will take center stage in his upcoming talks with U.S. and Canadian leaders. Netanyahu is to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa on Friday and with President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday.

...

It was not clear whether the arms deal with Azerbaijan was connected to any potential Israeli planes to strike Iran. The Israeli defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not at liberty to discuss defense deals.

Read Full Article..

U.S. Intelligence Agencies Agree: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Despite the repeated statements made by United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta which have clearly indicated that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and the analysis of the American intelligence community, the heated anti-Iranian rhetoric never seems to let up.

Indeed, it has even been reported by none other than the New York Times that intelligence analysts in America have yet to find any hard evidence indicating that Iran has even decided to construct a nuclear bomb.

American intelligence assessments have continued to be congruent with the 2007 intelligence report which clearly concluded that Iran had in fact completely abandoned their nuclear program years before (scroll to the bottom of the article to read the embedded report).

According to anonymous U.S. officials, this assessment was reinforced by the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate and “it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.”

So, how can the governments of the United States and Israel continue to ignore their own intelligence agencies and nonsensically push forward with the effort to go to war with Iran?

If nothing else, it has become painfully clear that our so-called leaders are ignoring any and all contrary evidence which might weaken their war effort and making the relentless push towards war.

'US Pays Price in Blood for Israel'

Source: PressTV


The US embassy is under lockdown and Afghan police have killed 20 people in protests spread across the country against the burning of the Koran by US troops.

Interview with James Morris, Editor of America-hijacked.com, Los Angeles.‎

Irresponsible Anti-Iranian Fear-Mongering

Source: SJLendman.com
Steve Lendman

Irresponsible anti-Iranian political and pack journalism rhetoric sound ominously like spurious Iraqi WMD threats in the run-up to the 2003 war.

In his January State of the Union address, Obama said:

"Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal."

At the same time, Netanyahu told Israel's Knesset:

"Only a combination of crippling sanctions and putting all the options on the table can make Iran stop" its nuclear program.

Republican presidential aspirants also use the issue irresponsibly. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all support bombing Iran's nuclear sites and assassinating its scientists. Only Ron Paul's strongly opposed but hawkish din drowns him out.

Daily reports heighten the alleged "Iranian threat." Multiple rounds of sanctions were imposed. In late January, Israel's Mossad connected DEBKAfile reported Obama ordering a "massive US military buildup around Iran: up to 100,000 troops by March."

America's heaviest concentration of regional might matches its strength before invading Iraq in 2003. DEBKA suggested "May as (a) tentative date for clash(ing) with Iran."

On February 22, DEBKA stoked more fear headlining,"Iran cuts down to six weeks timeline for weapons-grade uranium," saying:

"Tehran this week hardened its nuclear and military policies in defiance of tougher sanctions and ahead of international nuclear talks."

Washington, NATO allies, Israel, and IAEA inspectors know Iran poses no nuclear threat. Nonetheless, pro-Western IAEA head Yukiya Amano said Tuesday night:

"It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin during the first or second meetings. We engaged in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached."

DEBKA claims its where Tehran "conducts experiments in nuclear explosives and triggers."

In fact, no evidence suggests Parchin Military Complex conducts nuclear related activities. IAEA's been there before, took environmental samples, and found nothing. Parchin manufactures and tests conventional explosives.

Breaking News: Israel Backing Down from Iran Threats

Source: Global Research
Michael Carmichael

Israel is backing down from her threats to bomb Iran. 

In a scathing loss of face for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, diplomatic sources in Israel have revealed that President Shimon Peres will meet privately with President Obama at the White House before - repeat before Netanyahu. 

High level sources in Israel have just leaked a sanitized version of the President's plan to the Israeli press. But, there is much more to the story. In his meeting at the White House, Peres will inform Obama that Netanyahu has performed poorly in his handling of the Iran nuclear crisis and that bellicose statements from the Prime Minister's cabinet have been both self-intimidating and self-destructive.

Then after meeting with Peres, Obama will address AIPAC and finally meet with Netanyahu to counsel him on the sad fact of the self-inflicted damage to the diplomatic credibility of his right-wing government. More on the diplomatic kabuki in due course.

According to a report in Haaretz, by Yossi Verter (February 22, 2012), entitled Peres to tell Obama Israel should not strike Iran soon,