Barack Obama's push for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear programme has failed to quell talk of a pending military confrontation. Statements from America's top defence officials suggest a strike is in the planning stages - and could use a type of bomb never seen before. And as RT's Anastasia Churkina reports, it looks as if history may be repeating itself.
An attack on Iran might happen in the summer, the Chief of Staff of Russian Army General Nikolai Makarov, warned today on the channel Russia Today. When referring to the tensions created around the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, Makarov noted that the West, especially the military in Washington and Tel Aviv, are preparing an act of war against the Persian country in April or no later than June this year.
The argument used for aggression, which Tehran considers artificially made to justify a war, refers to the alleged Iranian attempt to develop a nuclear program with military pretensions.
But Iran defends its right to use atomic energy for peaceful purposes and to produce fuel for its nuclear facilities.
The West reacts with bellicosity and more unilateral sanctions against the Persian state each time it refers to new programs to develop the atomic sphere and to reiterate its peaceful character, the source warned...[Full Article]
While President Obama’s supporters hailed his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as the end of the war in the middle east, behind the scenes the Pentagon has been quietly massing troops and armaments on two islands located just south of the Strait of Hormuz, and within easy striking distance of Iran.
In addition to some 50,000 U.S. troops currently in the region waiting for orders (apparently they won’t be home by this past Christmas as was originally promised), Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama is deploying an additional 50,000 soldiers to be ready for ‘any contingency’ by March...[Full Articles]
Neocons in Israel and the United States are escalating their rhetoric to prepare us for war with Iran. Even the infamous John Yoo, architect of George W. Bush’s illegal torture and spying programs, is calling on the Republican presidential candidates to “begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”
Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the legal right to produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said on CBS that Iran is not currently trying to build a nuclear weapon.
Nevertheless, the United States and Israel are mounting a campaign of aggression against Iran. The United States has imposed punishing sanctions against Iran that are crippling Iran’s economy, and pressuring other countries and strong-arming financial institutions to stop buying oil from Iran, the world’s third largest exporter. The Obama administration is also preparing new punitive measures that target the Central Bank of Iran. And the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 which would outlaw any contact between U.S. government employees and some Iranian officials.
There is also evidence that Israel, with the possible assistance of the United States, has orchestrated the assassinations of at least five Iranian nuclear scientists or engineers since 2007. The New York Times reported: “The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on [January 11] when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour.” These assassinations constitute acts of terrorism. There have also been cyber-attacks on Iranian centrifuges and an explosion at a missile facility last year that killed a senior general and 16 other people.
These acts of aggression are designed to provoke Iran to retaliate, including possibly closing the Strait of Hormuz, which will spark a war that could spread to the entire Middle East...[Full Article]
A political expert says the Mossad and the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorists carried out the assassination of the Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan after clearance from handlers in Washington.
“Ultimately the author must have been Washington” as “none of the groups would dare carry out this high-profile hit without clearance from handlers in Washington,” wrote Finian Cunningham in the Global Research.
Cunningham added that the US, along with “British MI6, Mossad and local proxies” has been orchestrating a campaign of terrorist subversion in Iran with the aim of overthrowing the establishment of the Islamic Republic, and “this is the real reason for the contrived confrontation over Iran's nuclear activities.”
“The US covert war against Iran raised the stakes even higher today with the assassination of yet another nuclear scientist, with some analysts saying that the Islamic Republic is being pushed into a corner to either back down in its confrontation with the US or retaliate - the latter most certainly triggering an all-out war,” wrote Finian Cunningham. ...[Full Article]
JERUSALEM -- Israeli leaders typically greet word of violent setbacks to Iran's nuclear program with a wall of silence. Now a throwaway comment by Israel's military chief has hinted of possible Israeli involvement in attacks like the explosion that killed an Iranian nuclear scientist Wednesday.
The car bombing in Tehran was the latest in a string of murky mishaps for Iran's nuclear program caused by computer worms, explosions and assassinations of top experts. Israel, which has identified a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, is widely suspected of involvement.
While officials never comment on covert military activities, testimony by Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz to a closed parliamentary committee on Tuesday appeared particularly prescient.
The Israeli military leader told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that "2012 is expected to be a critical year for Iran." He cited "the confluence of efforts to advance the nuclear program, internal leadership changes, continued international pressure and things that happen to it unnaturally."
Gantz's testimony was leaked by a meeting participant who spoke on condition of anonymity because the testimony was closed.
Israeli officials in the past have spoken somewhat giddily of the "unnatural" setbacks that have plagued Iran's nuclear program. The timing of Gantz's testimony, just hours before Wednesday's assassination, was perhaps the strongest hint yet of Israeli involvement.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said: "I don't know who settled the score with the Iranian scientist, but I certainly am not shedding a tear."
Hazhir Teimourian, an Iran expert at the Limehouse Group of Analysts in London, stressed it was impossible to be certain who carried out the attack. But he said Israel was a logical candidate.
"The Israelis really have the ability and the incentive," he said...[Full Article]
USS Kitty Hawk -- a 1,000 feet supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board
The US military is preparing a massive military campaign against Iran, sending thousands of American troops, warships and weaponry to Israel.
An unnamed source said the military deployment of US anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel will occur in January and later this spring, Global Research reported.
Commander of the US Third Air Force based in Germany Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc said it is not just an "exercise," but a "deployment," The Jerusalem Post said.
Washington and Tel Aviv have planned to hold what they call the largest-ever joint military exercise this spring.
The US commander visited Israel two weeks ago to confirm details for “the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to Israel.”
The US General also visited one of Israel's three Iron Dome anti-missile outposts. The Israeli Air Force has announced plans to deploy a fourth Iron Dome system in coming months.
While US troops will be stationed in Israel for an unspecified amount of time, Israeli military personnel will be added to United States European Command (EUCOM) in Germany.
This is while the US is reportedly bringing its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile systems to Israel.
The White House has resumed its anti-Iran war rhetoric after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report in November, in which Tehran was accused of conducting activities related to developing nuclear weapons. Iran strongly dismissed the allegations.
US analyst Robert Parry said the documentary evidence showed that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano was installed with the support of the US and that he privately indicated to US and Israeli officials that he would help advance their goals regarding Iran.
In December, Iran's Navy launched massive 10-day military drills in the strategic Strait of Hormuz to show that the country is ready to defend itself against any attack.
"We wanted to send this message to certain powers that Iran is always prepared to defend itself against foreign aggression," Iran's Navy Deputy Commander Admiral Amir Rastegari told Press TV.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law fresh economic sanctions, targeting Iran's Central Bank and financial sector.
Anti-Iran measures provoked by the US and Israel are aimed to deny Iran's right of having peaceful nuclear program.
Tehran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, has repeatedly stated that its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes.
Closure of key oil choke point would send oil prices skyrocketing to $300-$500 a barrel, experts say
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Following erroneous reports yesterday that Iran had closed the Strait of Hormuz, a rumor that caused a brief spike in oil prices, MP Parviz Sorouri today reiterated Iran’s threat to close the key oil choke point if the country’s nuclear facilities come under attack.
“The Strait of Hormuz is one of these options (for defending the country); if the strait is secure it should be secure for all, it can’t be secure for all except for Iran, if such a thing happens, naturally Iran can use this capacity to close the waterway within its territorial waters and within its borders in accordance with international rules and regulation,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Parviz Sorouri told reporters on Wednesday.
“We cannot keep mum and remain handcuffed against threats. If enemies intend to bring their threats against us into action, we will use all our capacities, too, and the Strait of Hormuz is one of these capacities,” Sorouri said in comments reported by Iran’s official Fars News Agency.
On Monday we reported how Iran was preparing to stage a drill based around closing the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a US/Israeli attack. 24 hours later real-time analyst website Ransquawk reported the “rumor” that the Strait had been closed, which was almost immediately confirmed to be false. The rumor arose out of confusion regarding the military exercise, which is set to take place soon.
“The Iranian armed forces are set to stage military drills in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to practice how to defend Iran,” confirms the Fars report.
Experts have warned that the closure of Iran’s key shipping transit, through which 15.5 million barrels of oil pass each day representing 33% of the world’s total oil shipments, would send oil prices through the roof.
Closing the Strait for a period of just 30 days would send crude racing up to $300-$500 dollars a barrel, a level that would trigger global economic instability and cost the U.S. nearly $75 billion in GDP. “One bomb on Iran and oil prices could shoot up to $300 or even $500 a barrel,” veteran UPI correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave wrote recently.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast warned last week that oil prices would soar above $250 dollars barrel if sanctions were placed on Iran.
In response, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated, “Any disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a very grave threat to all of us and a red line for the US.”
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard has said it will not return a US surveillance drone captured by its armed forces.
UK Telegraph
Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Guard, said in remarks broadcast on state television that the violation of Iran's airspace by the US drone was a "hostile act" and warned of a "bigger" response. He did not elaborate on what Tehran might do.
"No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country," Salami said.
Iranian television broadcast video Thursday of Iranian military officials inspecting what it identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel drone.
Iranian state media have said the unmanned spy aircraft was detected over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles from the border with Afghanistan. US officials have acknowledged losing the drone.
Salami called its capture a victory for Iran and a defeat for the US in a complicated intelligence and technological battle...[Full Article]
The U.S. drone that apparently fell into Iran's hands was part of a joint CIA-military reconnaissance operation, Fox News has learned.
A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the spy plane was being used for the CIA-military operation along the Afghan-Iranian border when it lost connectivity and disappeared.
Officials had earlier confirmed the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, but it was previously unclear what the drone was doing or which agency was operating it.
After Iran's military made the questionable claim Sunday that it had shot down the drone, the CIA at first referred questions to the Pentagon.
The NATO-led military coalition then issued a brief statement, appearing to describe the mission as part of the routine military operation in Afghanistan.
"The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week," the International Security Assistance Force said. "The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."
But the official confirmation that the drone was part of a CIA-military mission would seem to line up with earlier confirmation that the drone was not a run-of-the-mill aircraft...[Full Article]
Explosions and assasinations at Iran nuke base pinned to Israel may have been CIA
NY Daily News
In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuke program.
In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.
Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander who headed Iran’s missile program. And the IRNA state news agency reported that scientists had discovered a new computer virus in their systems, a more sophisticated version of the Stuxnet worm deployed last year to foul up Iran’s centrifuges.
Iran said the army base explosion was an accident and the new Duqu virus was contained. But Israeli newspapers and some U.S. experts said it appeared to be more from an ongoing secret operation by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat.
The covert campaign encompasses a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and a similar explosion at another Iranian missile base two years ago both widely attributed to the Mossad...[Full Article]
While Iranian officials insist the explosion at the Bid Ganeh base was accidental, caused by the movement of ammunition, claims from anonymous western and Israeli officials that Saturday's blast was a covert Israeli operation have gained momentum...[Full Article]
CIA admittedly finances groups blamed for bloody attacks aimed at destabilizing Tehran
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Friday, November 11, 2011
Tehran’s contention that the United States is carrying out terror attacks inside Iran in an effort to destabilize the Ahmadinejad regime in preparation for a military assault was largely ignored by the establishment media, but it’s an admitted fact that the CIA uses terrorist proxies to do precisely that.
“Iran has irrefutable evidence that exposes the official involvement of the United States government in anti-Iran planning and the dispatching of elements to conduct acts of sabotage and terror in Iran and other regional countries,” secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili said last week, promising to send evidence of “US state-sponsored terrorism” to the United Nations
“We possess one hundred pieces of irrefutable evidence that reveal the US role in directing terrorists for conducting acts of terror in Iran and the region,” Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei added.
Because the story was reported by Iranian state media, the western press received it with a collective shrug of the shoulders. The new IEAE report claiming Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon was afforded about a thousand times more coverage.
However, the fact that the United States is training and bankrolling terrorist groups to destabilize Iran through violence and other acts of subversion is admitted.
As former CIA veteran Robert Baer explained in the documentary Vanguard: America’s Secret War With Iran, the U.S. has been at war with Iran through its terrorist proxies for years, notably the Kurdish militant nationalist group PJAK, which has been blamed for numerous attacks in Iran.
As the London Telegraph, ABC News and numerous other mainstream outlets reported back in 2007, the U.S. is also using the Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni terrorist group Jundullah to carry out suicide bombings and other destabilization attacks in Iran, a policy crafted by the Bush administration which has been continued under Obama.
“President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert “black” operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs,” reported Telegraph.
Part of that destabilization campaign involved the the CIA “Giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan,” stated the report.
Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In October 2009, Jundullah attacked the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at their headquarters in Pishin, near the border with Pakistan, killing 40 people.
The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad’s government and is also active in Pakistan, having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.
In May 2008, ABC News reported on how Pakistan was threatening to turn over six members of Jundullah to Iran after they were taken into custody by Pakistani authorities.
“U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran,” reported ABC news, highlighting again the close relationship between the terror group and the CIA.
In July 2009, a Jundullah member admitted before a court in Zahedan Iran that the group was a proxy for the U.S. and Israel.
Abdolhamid Rigi, a senior member of the group and the brother of the group’s leader Abdolmalek Rigi, who was one of the six members of the organization extradited by Pakistan, told the court that Jundullah was being trained and financed by “the US and Zionists”. He also said that the group had been ordered by America and Israel to step up their attacks in Iran.
Jundullah is not the only anti-Iranian terror group that US government has been accused of funding in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government.
Multiple credible individuals including US intelligence whistleblowers and former military personnel have asserted that the U.S. is conducting covert military operations inside Iran using guerilla groups to carry out attacks on Iranian Revolution Guard units.
It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran.
After a bombing inside Iran in March 2007, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official blew the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.
A story entitled, US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran, reveals how funding for the attacks carried out by the terrorist groups “comes directly from the CIA’s classified budget,” a fact that is now “no great secret”, according to a former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
By Keith Johnson – The Obama administration continues to stick by their absurd claim that 56-year-old Manssor Arbabsiar—a used-car salesman from Round Rock, Texas—was entrusted by the Iranian government to carry out a mafia-style hit on the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C. Even FBI Director Robert Mueller admits that the alleged plot reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, and most former intelligence officers who have weighed in on the matter agree. In fact, former CIA case officer Robert Baer went so far as to say, “The Iranian plot is a bad Hollywood script.” In a Time magazine article that used that quote as it’s title, Baer wrote: “None of it measures up to Iran’s unsurpassed skill in conducting assassinations. As for motives, there are no convincing ones.”
Some take it a step further by suggesting that the plot sounds less like something manufactured out of Hollywood and more like something out of Tel Aviv...[Full Article]
President prepared to use war as re-election campaign tool
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Friday, November 4, 2011
Barack Obama has told America’s allies that the United States will attack Iran before fall 2012 unless Tehran halts its nuclear program, a time frame that suggests Obama is willing to use war as a re-election campaign tool to rally the population around his leadership.
A subscriber-only report by DebkaFile, the Israeli intelligence outfit which has been proven accurate in the past, reveals that shortly after the end of NATO operations in Libya at the start of this week, “President Barack Obama went on line to America’s senior allies, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Israel and Saudi Arabia, with notice of his plan to attack Iran no later than September-October 2012 – unless Tehran halted its nuclear weaponization programs.”
According to the report, the window of opportunity for an attack before Iran moves the bulk of its nuclear processing underground is quickly evaporating.
Obama’s directive contributed to the flurry of reports this week about NATO powers putting their Iran war contingency plans on standby.
“Obama’s announcement was not perceived as a general directive to US allies, but a guideline to blow the dust off the contingency plans for a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities which stayed locked in bottom drawers for three years,” states the report, adding that “Obama’s announcement spurred Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Israel into girding their navies, air forces, ballistic units and anti-missile defense systems for the challenges ahead.”
The imminent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is part of a program to re-arrange the United States’ presence in the Gulf. This dovetails with numerous reports over the past few weeks that large numbers of U.S. troops are being stationed in Kuwait.
“Military sources in the Gulf report that NATO and Persian Gulf leaders are treating the prospect of a US strike against Iran with the utmost seriousness,” states the article, adding that America plans to rebuild its Gulf presence as part “of a new US focus on cutting Iran down to size.”
The timing of a potential fall 2012 attack would of course coincide with Obama’s attempt to secure a second term in the White House. If by that time the United States has embarked on yet another military assault in the Middle East, it would undoubtedly play to Obama’s advantage, just as George W. Bush cited U.S. involvement in Iraq as a reason for voters not to “change horse” in the middle of a race back in 2004.
As we have previously reported, influential neo-cons within the U.S. have made it clear to Obama that they will give him political cover and an opportunity to resurrect his flagging political career if he launched an attack on Iran.
In February last year, vehement Israeli-firster and signatory to the infamous PNAC document Daniel Pipes wrote a piece for the National Review Online entitled, How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran, encouraging Obama to “salvage his tottering administration” by giving orders “for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity.”
Rumors that Israel was preparing for an attack on Iran have been rumbling all summer, but they really came to the fore in early October when US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s October 3 Tel Aviv visit was used as an opportunity by Israeli hawks to convince Panetta to green light the attack. Just ten days later, details emerged of a highly dubious assassination plot in the United States that was blamed on Iran.
This week has seen a barrage of news and leaked information which confirms that Israel, the U.S. and the United Kingdom are all on a war footing in preparation for targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Much of that information came as a result of deliberate leaks by former Israeli intelligence chiefs Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, who are attempting to derail the attack on Iran and remove Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.
DebkaFile has proven itself to be accurate in predicting the precise time frame of conflicts in the past, correctly reporting back in July that the war in Libya would come to a head in early September, which is when rebels seized Tripoli and Gaddafi went on the run.
Should Obama and the United States’ NATO allies lead the attack on Iran, Israel itself is likely to take a back seat, according to reports which suggest the Zionist state will concentrate on defending the home front against likely reprisal attacks carried out by Hizballah.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
Battle-ready troops on standby as tensions rise following dubious assassination plot
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Monday, October 17, 2011
The United States will this week commence huge military maneuvers aimed at Iran, with a massive air fleet patrolling middle eastern skies ready to land at any time, in response to Iran’s involvement in an alleged assassination plot that experts have labeled dubious, amidst fears that US and Israeli targets could be hit by attacks.
As we reported last week, during US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s October 3 Tel Aviv visit, Israeli hawks attempted to persuade Panetta to give the green light for a military strike on Iran. Within ten days, details of an alleged assassination plot against a Saudi ambassador emerged and the foiled attack was blamed on Iran. Innumerable experts immediately voiced their doubts about the authenticity of the plot, with 21-year CIA veteran Robert Baer labeling the story “a truly awful Hollywood script”.
The US military will respond this week with a series of significant military maneuvers designed to threaten Iran, including, “an American air fleet in Middle East skies ready to land at any moment for any contingency,” reports DebkaFile.
“The United States launches a large-scale exercise over the Middle East deploying 41 giant transports of the 22nds Airlift Squadron Monday Oct. 17,” states the report, adding that the aircraft will be packed with fully equipped, battle ready troops.
A further seven warships from the Stennis Battle Group will also “provide ground troops with combat support and strike land and sea targets.”
The Israeli, Egyptian and Saudi armies have also been placed on maximum preparedness, echoing reports that U.S. troops being sent to the region have also been put on full alert.
The maneuvers are also linked to the scheduled release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas on Tuesday, an event that US intelligence officials fear could set off a chain of attacks in the region against US and Israeli targets. Should embassies be targeted, US troops will be in place to react swiftly.
Geopolitical experts have been consistent in their warnings that Israel was preparing to strike Iran this fall.
Back in July, CIA veteran Baer told KPFK Los Angeles that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning an attack on Iran in September to coincide with the Palestine bid for UN membership.
Whether the maneuvers are merely designed to be an act of belligerence against Iran or represent preparations for an actual military strike in support of Israel remains to be seen, but as Gulf News reporter Patrick Seale pointed out Friday, the window of opportunity for an attack on Iran is closing.
“Some western military experts have been quoted as saying that the window of opportunity for an Israeli air attack on Iran will close within two months, since the onset of winter would make such an assault more difficult,” writes Seale, adding that the Israelis’ eagerness to launch the attack has “caused considerable alarm in Washington and in a number of European capitals.”
Both Republican and Democratic US lawmakers have issued strong statements against Iran in recent days, with several all but calling for war. Last week, New York Republican Peter King called on the Obama administration to put troops on standby, labeling the alleged Iranian assassination plot “an act of war”. On Sunday, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned that the US and Iran were on a “collision course”.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
Fabricated terror plot provides pretext for intervention following Panetta’s October 3 Tel Aviv visit
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Wednesday, October 13, 2011
The Obama administration’s fabricated terror plot blamed on Iran represents the green light for an Israeli attack on Iran set to take place within the next two weeks, according to confidential military sources who spoke with Alex Jones.
Israel is concerned that major powers like Germany are moving closer to smoothing relations with Iran and allowing Iran to continue its nuclear enrichment program unimpeded. A two month window has been allocated during which Israel has the opportunity to launch a military assault, waiting until winter when the attack will be more difficult to pull off is not an option.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s October 3 Tel Aviv visit was used by Israeli hawks to convince the United States that it should green light the attack. Less than 10 days later, a fanciful terror plot involving a used car salesman was invented to implicate Iran and create the pretext for a military assault.
“In recent weeks, intense discussions have taken place in Israeli military and intelligence circles about whether or not to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Apparently, the key question in the debate was how to ensure that the United States took part in the attack or, at the very least, intervened on Israel’s side if the initial strike triggered a wider war,” writes Patrick Seale of Gulf News.
That intervention has now been mandated by the announcement of the fabricated terror plot, which was actually concocted last month but only made public now.
While U.S. intelligence officials prepare to release claims about a “chain” of plots that will be blamed on Iran, Time Magazine reports that the Obama administration is preparing to use the accusations to take action beyond mere isolation tactics.
“If the Administration fails to win support for a significant escalation of sanctions or other forms of punishment for the Tehran regime after presenting evidence of the latest allegations of Iranian malfeasance, the ball will land back in Obama’s court,” writes Tony Karon. “Having made the case that Iran has crossed a red line, he will be under growing pressure to act — or risk entering a highly polarized election season haunted by a “soft on Iran” charge.”
With neo-cons rushing to support aggressive measures against Iran, Obama will now be given right cover to pursue yet another act of regime change. As we postulated back in February last year, Obama is being blackmailed into supporting an attack on Iran as the only way to save his presidency. We also speculated that an assassination attempt would be used as the pretext to implicate Iran.
Geopolitical experts have been consistent in their warnings that Israel was preparing to strike Iran this fall.
Back in July, 21-year CIA veteran Robert Baer told KPFK Los Angeles that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning an attack on Iran in September to coincide with the Palestine bid for UN membership.
Speaking with the Alex Jones Show today, former State Department official Steve Pieczenik, who has numerous inside intelligence sources having worked in several sensitive positions during the course of his career, also indicated that the terror plot was completely fabricated and that it would be used a pretext to justify a military strike against Iran.
Pieczenik also pointed out that Israel had recently taken delivery of a large amount of bunker buster missiles.
As we have documented, the alleged assassination plot against Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, which is now being cited by everyone from John Kerry to John McCain as a justification for a potential military strike, is a complete fantasy.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer has revealed that an FBI insider with a high security clearance told him no records whatsoever detailing the plot existed within DOJ channels, clearly indicating the whole episode was manufactured.
It has also now emerged that the alleged “mastermind” behind the plot was a drunk pothead who liked to frequent with prostitutes and was described by those who know him as a “joke”.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
