US Israeli Nuclear War Fuse Lit on 60th Anniversary

Has the Battle for America Begun?


This article contains several forecasts, including the possible start of a major war with unforeseeable consequences, if the U.S. should happen to attack Iran.

Of course it is in the nature of forecasts to be speculative. There are also forecasts that are intended to serve as warnings and thereby contribute to preventing the events under analysis from ever taking place.

The world’s financial elite, long having made their homes in the metropolises of Western Europe, also with a major branch in New York City , may be the party that is really behind what could be an attempt to start World War III by pitting the U.S. against the Asiatic land powers, most notably Russia

The elite have long viewed control of the vast resource-rich Asian continent as the key to control of the world, with the fulcrum of domination being the oil-rich Middle East . Such a war could begin if the U.S. and Britain follow through by attacking Iran on the heels of the Afghan and Iraq wars and recent military deployments to the Persian Gulf region.

The attack may be nuclear, egged on by neocon extremists in the U.S. and their counterparts in Israel , who may simultaneously carry the attack to Lebanon and Syria . (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, “Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War,” Global Research, May 7, 2008.) These events are closely tied to the U.S. economic recession now underway and the 2008 presidential election.

What is unique about this analysis is the author’s contention that the U.S. is being used unwittingly by the European-based financial powers for their own purposes. They know that the U.S. economy is bankrupt, because they have made it so through a quarter century of financial manipulations that have destroyed our manufacturing base and left us horrendously in debt.

Now they have suckered us into the last thing we need—a major Asian land war that threatens to bring Russia and perhaps China into the fray. But that’s all right, because once we have exhausted ourselves and courted nuclear retaliation, Europe, which is uniting under the European Union, will likely be left standing, as will Israel .

Note that Israel was created by and owes its primary allegiance to the European financiers, especially those in London , even though the U.S. has been its primary arms supplier and enabler since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. If the financiers, aided by Israel , can instigate a major war to get rid of Russia , along with the U.S. , as world powers, they will have accomplished their aim.

The Unique Status of the U.S. and Russia

The U.S. and Russia are the two great continental powers which up until about a century ago most stood in the way of the rapacity and greed of the international financial elite. The people of both nations have a history of being deeply spiritual, talented and innovative, and rooted in the land. Both nations tried for a long time to keep Western Europe , with its history of economic and colonialist imperialism, at arms length.

Despite the wars and traumas of the 20th century, both the U.S. and Russia remain cultures where ordinary people have struggled to express themselves, to learn, to work, and to excel, even with Russia ’s background of Tsarist and Soviet autocracy. See, for instance, the writings of Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-).

This heritage is much different from that of the Western European aristocratic culture with its rigid class divisions, where an economically powerful oligarchy has controlled society for centuries and has always managed to stay on top despite wars and revolutions.

The aristocratic tradition is most notable in Great Britain , with the incredible wealth of the Windsor royal family and the concentric circles of power and influence which surround it. These circles are made up of a blend of the old nobility with the more recent additions of bankers, financiers, industrialists, government executives, media moguls, and intelligence operatives who continue to control much of the wealth of the world.

The people who settled America fled that predatory aristocratic culture to find freedom. It is less well known how Tsarist Russia resisted Western European domination, but it is a fact that a longstanding alliance among the House of Romanoff, the Orthodox Church, the rural nobility, and the peasantry came together to create a culture that successfully kept that nation free from external control for most of its history.

European Lust for Control of the Middle East

It was really the European elite, both deeply materialistic and coldly inhumane, that was responsible for both of the 20th century’s world wars, for funding the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia , and for bringing about today’s economic crisis that threatens to reduce to abject poverty or even starve perhaps half of the world’s population. Now a third world war threatens, and while it appears on the surface that the immediate cause may be U.S. ambitions in the Middle East , this is a mask for the underlying machinations of the European controllers who are pulling the strings.

These people couldn’t care less if the U.S. is bankrupted or destroyed in a larger Asian conflict while engaged in doing their dirty work. In fact that appears to be the plan. A nation like the U.S. that owes as much money as it does today to foreigners, including China and Japan who purchase close to half our national debt, is no longer master of its own destiny.

The European desire for military conquest of the Middle East dates to the Crusades which started in the 11th century. By the end of the 18th century, Great Britain had planted itself on the eastern terminus of the region through the conquest of India . In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt . World War I saw the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, with Britain and France redrawing the map of an area consisting of almost a million square miles. When Israel was founded in 1948, it became a Western bridgehead.

But today it’s the U.S. , with its bases in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and conquests in Afghanistan and Iraq , that leads the charge. This is so, even though a glance at the map shows how contrary to our strategic interests—and how unimaginably expensive—it is for us to have been drawn into a major open-ended military commitment in this part of the world. Some call it empire. Rational men call it lunacy.

How has this come about? Since the 1970s, the U.S. has been dangerously dependent on Middle Eastern oil and on the OPEC nations to purchase our Treasury bonds. The need to sell our debt abroad came about late in the Vietnam War when our post-World War II trade surplus was reversed and the government went deeply into debt to pay for the war and the growth in income support entitlements.

But there is another explanation for why we are there—pressure from the Jewish lobby. This lobby acts in the U.S. , perhaps unwittingly and certainly against its own interests as U.S. citizens, as a surrogate not only for Israel , but, taking a longer view, also for the European financial elite who backed the creation of a Jewish national state in Palestine in the first place.

Of course many Jews, including sizeable numbers in Israel , themselves no longer believe in policies which have brought them so much ill repute. Increasingly, people of goodwill, including many of the Jewish faith, are coming to understand that neither opposition to the abuses of the financial elite nor questioning the actions of the Israeli state itself is anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic.

But if events continue in the same direction, the Asiatic land powers, now loosely organized through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China , Russia , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan , and Uzbekistan , with Iran as an observer, will have had enough. There is a line in the sand facing west as well as east. A major war is clearly on its way which seems to be timed to coincide with the ongoing economic collapse that is undermining the U.S. economy and also threatening to plunge much of the world into famine.

Connection with the 2008 Presidential Election

The war scenario is unfolding now and will likely accelerate as we approach the November presidential election. The actions underway appear to be designed to present any new president with a fait accompli, where corrective action is no longer possible. It would be the last and worst of the catastrophes visited on our nation by the revolutionary cabal of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and the neocon shock troopers who took over when the Supreme Court awarded Bush the presidency after the 2000 Florida election debacle. Within nine months came the 9/11 attacks, followed by wars against Afghanistan and Iraq using off-the-shelf plans. Next came the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Acts.

Now in 2008 the three remaining presidential candidates are all compromised. Hillary Clinton, with her husband Bill, have long been servitors of that branch of the international financial elite headquartered on Wall Street in New York City . Recently, Republican candidate John McCain traveled to do homage to Israel , then attended a soiree with the Fourth Baron Rothschild in London . Barack Obama has also affirmed his loyalty to Israel , though his utterances against Iran are less vehement than those of Hillary Clinton, who has threatened to “obliterate” that nation.

Obama appears the most likely to become president, because the financial controllers, acting through the corporate media, seem to have designated him as such. Hillary Clinton is under intense pressure to get out, even though the Democratic race is a virtual dead heat and she just routed Obama in the West Virginia primary. The latest blow to Clinton is the endorsement of Obama by John Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice presidential candidate.

Obama is the candidate who came out of nowhere because eighty percent of Americans believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction. He is the candidate calling for “change,” whatever that means.

Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times, says, “Mrs. Clinton, we’re assured by sources right and left, tortures puppies and eats babies. But her policy proposals continue to be surprisingly bold and progressive….Mr. Obama is widely portrayed, not least by himself, as a transformational figure who will usher in a new era. But his actual policy proposals, though liberal, tend to be cautious and relatively orthodox.”

The determination by the financial controllers that Obama is the anointed one may also be shown by the entry into the race of former Georgia congressman Bob Barr as the candidate of the Libertarian Party. Barr will siphon votes away from John McCain and make Obama’s election a certainty, just as Ross Perot did with President George H.W. Bush in 1990, allowing the election to swing to pro-business Democrat Bill Clinton.

Barr’s entry is no accident and serves multiple purposes. According to journalist James P. Tucker, Jr., for instance, attendees at an April 25-28 meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington , D.C. , made a determination to stop Republican candidate Dr. Ron Paul’s momentum in stirring up a political “revolution.” (James P. Tucker, Jr., “Trilateral Commission: Global Elite Gather in D.C.,” Global Research, May 6, 2008)

Dr. Paul, who has been delivering the news that the Federal Reserve by which the bankers rule should be abolished, and that U.S. foreign policy based on military conquest of the world should end, has been causing, according to the Trilateralists cited by Tucker, “significant future damage.” Bob Barr will doubtless be awarded handsomely for his trouble in helping de-fuse Dr. Paul’s movement.

Dr. Paul is to be commended for his stance in taking on the establishment, and from the financiers’ point of view, such populist uprisings as he is leading obviously must be checked. Using a Libertarian candidate to do this costs them nothing, as it is almost comical how the “macho” but outdated laissez-faire economics of the Libertarians play into the hands of the privately-owned banking system which makes all the important economic decisions anyway.

Obviously the financial establishment must feel reassured by the likelihood that Obama really won’t change much of anything. Overseas, this could make it even more certain that a wider war will start before the election, so that Obama, being “cautious and relatively orthodox,” as Krugman says, will go along with whatever scenario he is handed and so will be handcuffed by events.

The trigger could be a 9/11-type faux attack, possibly a “suitcase” nuke going off in a U.S. port city, as has been rumored. Other possible scenarios include an attack on Iran being a cover for the election to be “stolen” from Obama, or even for the election to be canceled, with Bush continuing as president. Perhaps this is what explains Bush’s curious detachment in the face of his coming departure as the most unpopular president in history. He may even entertain the psychopathic idea that cancelling the election could be perfectly “legal” and within his rights as a wartime chief executive. What would Obama do if faced with such an outrage while out on the campaign trail? Perhaps nothing.

Meanwhile, Democratic figures in Congress, such as Senator Joe Biden and Congressman John Conyers, are threatening to impeach President Bush if he attacks Iran without a congressional resolution. Unfortunately, the Democrats are totally lacking in credibility given their failure to force Bush to retreat from Iraq despite their mandate in the 2006 elections where they regained a majority in both houses. Bush would probably like nothing more in the waning days of his presidency than calling their bluff.

A Calamity Rooted in History

Events on this scale take decades or even centuries to develop. In fact such plans may have been in the works at least since the late 1800s, when three world wars were allegedly forecast by such figures as the celebrated Confederate general and Freemason Albert Pike, elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite’s Southern Jurisdiction in 1859.

True to Pike’s prediction, 1914-18 saw World War I, which forced the centuries-old rule of the European landed nobility to accommodate to the banking elites and to the heads of the industrial cartels which built the war machines of the combating nations.

According to Benjamin Freedman (1890-1984), an American eye-witness to events within the Woodrow Wilson administration, Wilson took the U.S. to war only after being pressured to support Great Britain when the British agreed to facilitate creation of a Zionist state in Palestine . The original Zionists, led by Theodor Herzl, had been favorably disposed to accepting a British offer of virgin land in Kenya , but the financiers wanted Palestine because of Middle Eastern oil and proximity to the Suez Canal . The result was the Balfour Declaration of 1916.

At the end of World War I came the Russian Revolution, when the financiers paid for the Bolsheviks to destroy the Russian Christian monarchy of the Romanoffs. Soviet communism was the result. Less than a generation later another world war was fought, with World War II ending with the triumph of the U.S. , Britain , France , the Soviet Union, and China as allies. Afterwards, finance capitalism exerted its control of the developing world through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. According to economist Michael Hudson, the West declared the existence of a Cold War only after the Soviet Union refused to accede to U.S. hegemony by joining the IMF. (Michael Hudson, Superimperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, 2003)

Another major revolution followed World War II, as had happened after World War I, but this time in China , where the communists under Mao Tse-Tung took over. In 1948, the nation of Israel was declared, partly through the instrumentality and wealth of the Third Baron Rothschild, who was also an MI5 controller and alleged Soviet agent. (See Roland Perry, The Fifth Man, 1994.)

The key event in how the financial elite gained control over the U.S. in the postwar world was the 1971 decision by the Nixon administration to remove the dollar gold peg and allow world currencies to “float.” After the U.S. agreed to the explosion of OPEC oil prices in the 1970s, dollars flooded the world. (See Richard C. Cook, “Extraordinary Times, Intentional Collapse, and Takedown of the U.S.A. ,” Global Research, April 30, 2008.)

In 1979 the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker plunged the U.S. into recession to fight the resulting inflation, and the U.S. producing economy was wrecked. Since that time there has been no real growth of the U.S. GDP or the standard of living of American workers. Rather a steady and seemingly irreversible decline has set in under the euphemistic title of the “service economy.” Since the early 1980s there has been a constant cycle of inflating and deflating asset bubbles, with the latest episode being the collapse of the housing bubble following the ruinous housing and real estate inflation engineered by Alan Greenspan, Volcker’s successor as head of the Federal Reserve.

The result of the bubble economy under the Federal Reserve regime known as “monetarism” has been a debt overhang on the U.S. producing economy of $50 trillion, four times the nominal GDP of $13 billion. There is an additional overhang of more than $500 trillion in derivative speculation worldwide that many legitimate U.S. investors, including employee pension funds, have been caught up in.

Severe economic distress usually leads to war, with the elite financing both sides and using the resulting chaos to redraw the map to their advantage. We have now had two world wars, and the third appears to be coming. The end result, according to “conspiracy theorists,” is supposed to be a financial world dictatorship with Europe ’s financial and hereditary aristocrats at the top of the heap. The center of this dictatorship would be Northern Europe, with the focal point being the two-square-mile financial district known as the City of London . This group also controls the European Union headquartered in Brussels .

Then what is left of North America, Asia, Africa, and Latin America would be tightly controlled colonies inhabited by relatively small numbers of “human cattle” and their overseers. The advanced technological execution for the machinery of control and oppression would be the job of professionals in the field, probably including the British MI5, the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and private armed mercenaries like Blackwater and Halliburton.

Dangers of the Present Moment

Whatever may be the murky background of the financiers’ conspiracy of subversion, what makes the present situation so dangerous is that entire nations and regions are slipping from their grasp. Russia , China , Venezuela , Bolivia , Ecuador , and other nations are becoming increasingly independent. Meanwhile, as food prices inflate, people in developing nations are facing starvation, even as Western agribusiness and oil companies reap record profits. Political upheavals are inevitable.

It has never been so obvious to so many that Western-style finance capitalism is ruining the world. An example of the growing awareness is a new book entitled Currency Wars (Huobi Zhanzheng), written by a Chinese author who lived in the United States and worked on Wall Street.

According to Asia Times Online (April 8, 2008), Currency Wars “has become a runaway bestseller in China in the past nine months. The book caused a sensation of interests and heated discussions in Chinese cyber space and other media on Western intentions behind its demand that China quickly appreciate the value of its currency. Song Hongbing, the book's author, draws from a wide range of literature in English and argues that the modern history of international finance is primarily a process of how a very small number of powerful families in the West have established their control over governments and international institutions.

“According to Song, there is no such thing as a free market when it comes to global finance and financial institutions. From the Rothschild family at the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the rise of J.P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, and other prominent U.S. financial powerhouses, Song sees all the modern wars, depressions, and manmade disasters having a linkage to the manipulation of a handful of Western private bankers.”

And it’s not only in China . Through the internet, hundreds of millions of people are wising up to what the central banks and global corporations run by the world’s super-rich are doing to them.

So the financiers are realizing that things are not going their way. The world is becoming more diverse. Nations, peoples, and regions long for freedom and security. Science and technology have the potential to bring about astounding improvements in the standard of living, as well as individual knowledge and potency.

There is also a worldwide resurgence of nationalism, for example, in Russia . After that nation overthrew communism in 1991, the international financiers attempted to move in through the Russian oligarchs and take control of the nation’s resources. But a free election brought Vladimir Putin to power. He succeeded in producing on Russian soil a nationalist revolution which is loathed by the Western financier press, such as the Washington Post. Russia today is regaining its identity and independence.

In East Asia , China is threatening to break out of the system of U.S. dollar hegemony and use its own currency to bring about commercial stability in the region. In the Middle East, Iran has yet to cave in to U.S. pressure, the Palestinians still defy Israel , and in other areas around the world, including Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, movements toward indigenous self-governance threaten to upset the “ Washington consensus” and introduce a truly multilateral tenor to world affairs. The euro is also making inroads as an alternative reserve currency.

Meanwhile, the American colossus is eroding. The U.S. government, with almost $10 trillion in debt, has been declared functionally bankrupt by experts. The domestic economy no longer has a manufacturing sector worth speaking of. Outside of the financial centers on the east and west coasts, the nation’s business establishment is deeply in debt and noncompetitive with overseas producers. Public health is declining.

The U.S. financial system began to deflate in the summer of 2007 but has so far avoided a wholesale crash due to the easy credit policies of the Federal Reserve in allowing financial institutions to roll over their debts. This is all likely to terminate after the 2008 election, when the Federal Reserve stops bailing out the system and real depression sets in. Simply put, the U.S. population no longer has anything close to sufficient income to support its accustomed way of life, especially with the ongoing collapse of the standard of living due to oil and food price increases.

So the war-mongers may be thinking they must now act before it’s too late—before a worldwide convulsion throws them from their seats of power. The time for the financiers to set off the next major conflagration may have arrived. Naïve American politicians are there, as always, ready to help, perhaps sensing but not really acknowledging that they have been led into a trap.

The Real U.S. Strategic Interest

If the next big war starts soon it will likely have been triggered in order to distract attention from our economic woes. Once chaos sets in there will be food riots and starvation around the world, including in America . And yes, the police and military are getting ready. The war will be a handy excuse to lock up people by using the Patriot Acts and various executive orders signed by President George W. Bush. Canada and Israel have already signed a joint public safety “partnership,” which doubtless includes cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

At this point you would expect American policy-makers to realize that the U.S. has no strategic interest in maintaining its military forces overseas in such a vulnerable posture and would start withdrawing. You would also expect that they would do what President Franklin Roosevelt did during the New Deal which was to utilize public credit to rebuild the U.S. public and private infrastructure before the economy collapses altogether.

The fact that none of the mainstream political leaders, least of all McCain or the Democratic front-runner Obama, has any intention of taking such decisive action proves that policy is not being controlled from within the United States . When a person or a nation fails to act in its own self-interest, there has to be a reason. That reason is usually that its actions are controlled from outside.

The fact is that the U.S. economy is controlled by international finance, not by the U.S. business establishment or by our own political system. So the U.S. cannot change anything, especially in taking effective and rational measures to get the nation out of debt. Similarly in the area of foreign and military affairs, the nation appears unable to backtrack from its march to catastrophe.

So whether the people of this nation want it or not—and a majority do not—wars are being waged, with the one against Iran likely to be followed by a general world conflict—the battle for Asia . It will be the financiers and their personal military forces—chiefly Israel , which is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons—who will be left to pick up the pieces once the U.S. and Russia have reduced each other’s forces to rubble.

Can anything be done? Of course. A U.S. president worthy of the office would take two immediate actions. The first would be to abolish the Federal Reserve, as Ron Paul advocates. But instead of hankering for a Libertarian “free-banking” system more suited to 1830 than to 2008, “We the People” should demand that our elected representatives in the White House and Congress use public credit to rebuild our economy and provide our people with real income security. (See Richard C. Cook, "An Emergency Program of Monetary Reform for the United States," Global Research, April 26, 2007.)

The second immediate action should be to stop trying to conquer the globe militarily on behalf of alien financial and geopolitical interests. These measures will also allow the governmental tax burden to be cut radically, because the main purposes of the income tax are to pay interest on the national debt and finance wars.

It is now time for all genuine American patriots, including those in the military, intelligence, and political establishments, as well as students, workers, employees, managers, industrialists, and retirees to recognize the crisis and step forward fearlessly to defend the real interests of our country. Increasingly people are coming to understand that winning the battle for America requires steadfast opposition to the cabal which holds power and is ready to throw our nation and its population to the wolves for a bit of vainglory and thirty pieces of silver.

Unfortunately, it seems to be the way with empires for those in power to be identified exclusively with their personal self-interest while the world crashes down around them. People must wake up. The house is on fire. We can only hope that some still have eyes to see.

Of course everything in Washington could change with a responsible president who is supported by a new Congress which has the determination that should be expected after the voters take their vengeance this November on a Republican Party that Bush, Cheney, and Rice have tarred with infamy. But then again only if a widened Middle Eastern war can be prevented between now and then. It could be prevented if an awakened military loyal to the Constitution refused to obey the illegal orders of a repudiated lame duck president acting without congressional authorization.

For the longer-term, we should step back, reassess the geopolitical outlook, and take the long-overdue step of recognizing who our natural allies in the world really are. One of these is Russia . Instead of fighting Russia we should forge a new alliance with that nation with the aim of securing peace, first in the Middle East and then in the world. If we want to find an enemy to attack, we should start with Wall Street, then send an expeditionary force to lay siege to the City of London .

by Richard C. Cook
http://www.richardccook.com/

See also:
"The War in Space Has Already Begun."

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will be published soon by Tendril Press. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, “the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years.” His Challenger website is at www.richardccook.com. A new economics website at www.RealSustainableLiving.com is upcoming, with partner/author Susan Boskey. To get on his mailing list, for questions and comments, or to pre-purchase copies of his new book, write EconomicSanity@gmail.com.

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Planned US Israeli Attack on Iran: Will there be a War against Iran?

by Michel Chossudovsky

The media has failed to cover the history of US war preparations directed against Iran. News coverage of US sponsored war preparations in relation to Iran started to surface in early 2007 in scanty press reports.

Although confirmed by official military documents and reports, public opinion has largely been kept in the dark and misinformed on these war preparations.

A war on Iran has been envisaged since the mid-1990s as part of a strategic "sequencing" of theater operations. During the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated "in war theater plans" to invade first Iraq and then Iran:

"The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President's National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman's National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command's theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM's theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States' vital interest in the region - uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil."

(USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy , emphasis added)

Consistent with CENTCOM's 1995 "sequencing", the plans to target Iran were activated under TIRANNT (Theater Iran Near Term) in the immediate wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. TIRANNT consisted in a model scenario type analysis of a theater war directed against Iran. The analysis, which involved senior military and intelligence experts, consisted in examining different theater scenarios.

"The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command [resigned in March 2008], has inherited computerized plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term)." (New Statesman, 19 Feb 2007)

The following text (in annex) entitled Planned US Israeli Attack on Iran was published three years ago by Global Research in May 2005. It outlines the earlier phase of US-Israel war preparations in relation to Iran.

(See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO505A.html)

While much of this analysis remains valid, military planning in relation to Iran is now in a much more advanced stage. Moreover, the structure of military alliances underlying the Pentagon's war plans has also evolved. NATO is now part of the military alliance.

Under NATO auspices, in liaison with the Pentagon, British, German, Turkish and French forces are slated to play a significant role in the case of an attack on Iran and Syria.

In this regard, it is worth noting that already in 2005, NATO and Israel had established the basis of a far-reaching military cooperation agreement. In turn, Turkey, which from a military standpoint constitutes a significant force within NATO, has a comprehensive bilateral military cooperation agreement with Israel.

According to military documents and statements, US, Israeli and allied forces are "in an advanced state of readiness". In fact much of the war planning had already reached that "advanced stage" in 2005.

Several important variables come into play in assessing the possibility of an all out war on Iran.

"An advanced stage of readiness" to attack Iran does not signify that a war will actually occur. A number of important countervailing factors must be addressed.

Saber Rattling

Apart from outright war, the US sponsored war preparations serve several other foreign policy objectives.

The threat of war coupled by advanced military preparedness are often used to bully countries into compliance, to oblige them to give up their sovereignty, to open up their economy to Western investors, to privatize and sell off their assets to American companies, etc. These threats will only be effective if the country does not have the ability to defend itself militarily. The strength of its national economy is also a major consideration.

The Sabre rattling is ongoing in relation to Iran. The objective is ultimately to subdue Iran as a regional power and take possession of its oil wealth, which constitutes approximately ten percent of total world reserves.

What are Iran's military capabilities, namely its ability to defend itself and inflict damage on US and allied forces?

The answer to this question involves essentially two aspects.

First, Iran has an advanced air defense system, using both Iranian and Russian technology. Moreover, it has, according to Western military experts, perfected its ballistic missile capabilities to the extent that it is capable of inflicting significant damage on US and allied military installations in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and Israel.

Over the last few years, Iran has been actively preparing for a US sponsored attack. Moreover, resulting from the surge in oil revenues, the Tehran government has enhanced capabilities to finance its military preparedness. In this regard, Iran is in a very different situation to that of Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, targeted by Anglo-American air attacks under the "No Fly Zone" coupled with more than ten years of deadly economic sanctions.

US military planners are fully aware of the possibility of escalation. If extensive air attacks were to be launched, Iranian conventional forces would immediately cross the border into Iraq and attack US military installations. This is a factor which has contributed to "putting the war on hold".

Instead of extensive bombings which would result in retaliation. Washington may decide as a first step in a broader military campaign to launch limited air attacks, on the presumption that Iran would not retaliate. According to Philip Giraldi, the attack would "be as 'pinpoint' and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties." Before launching a "limited attack", the US would attempt to ensure, through threat and secret negotiations, that retaliation would not occur.

The US Military's "Ability to Fight Wars"

Adm. William Fallon, who was recently fired as Commander of US Central Command (USCENTCOM) was acutely aware of Iran's ability to retaliate militarily and inflict significant losses to US and coalition forces. This understanding was in fact conveyed at the outset of the 2003 war scenarios under TIRANNT.

Prior to his dimissal, Admiral Fallon played down the possibility of a war with Iran: “We are not going to do Iran on my watch.”.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, while broadly supportive of the Bush-Cheney White House, has officially acknowledged US military weaknesses. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "may have undermined the military's ability to fight wars against major adversaries - including Iran." ( quoted in Haaretz, October 22, 2007).

In an interview with the New York Times, Mullen stated:

"...the risks could be very, very high.... We're in a conflict in two countries out there right now... We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world."

These statements were made at the very outset of his mandate as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October 2007.

Mullen's hesitations to wage war on Iran are not based on a divergent political stance but on a realistic assessment of US military capabilities. Admiral Mullen recognizes that the US military is overstretched and that in relation to Iraq, the US military is facing serious problems in military recruitment.

Moreover, tacitly acknowledged by the Pentagon, US and coalition forces are facing fierce resistance in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Appointment of General David Petraeus as Head of USCENTCOM

The appointment of General David Petraeus to the Head of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) has served to neutralize potential opposition within the US Armed Forces. It reinforces Vice President Cheney's ability to order an attack and ensure that the Military will fully support the Bush administration.

The objective is to "set up Iran for attack" using Iran's alleged intervention in Iraq as a pretext and justification, "on [the] grounds that Iran ... is responsible for the mounting death toll among American troops in Iraq." (See Iran should be "Set Up for an Attack" by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach, Global Research, May 2008). Iran is also accused of intervening in Afghanstan and Lebanon. In this regard, the 2006 Israeli attacks on Lebanon are part of the roadmap of a broader war directed against Iran and Syria. (See Mahdi D. Nazemroaya, Global Research, May 2007)

Armed Clashes in Lebanon

The recent armed clashes in Lebanon opposing Hizbollah to the US-Israeli supported May 14th Movement, have precipitated the country into chaos. Fighting erupted after the pro-US Siniora government announced a crackdown on Hizbollah.

Hizbollah has taken control of parts of West Beirut setting the stage for a NATO "peacekeeping" intervention inside Lebanon. A greater involvement of NATO coupled with the militarization of the entire Eastern Mediterranean coastline is an integral part of the Iran-Syria war scenario: "a peacekeeping" role by NATO forces, on behalf of Israel, targetting Syria as well as Hizbollah and Hamas.

These recent events in Lebanon have been triggered quite deliberately with a view to destabilzing the country. They are part of the US sponsored military roadmap; they are intended to set the stage for a confrontation with Syria.

The Structure of Military Alliances

The structure of military alliances is crucial. America's allies are Israel and NATO.

Iran's allies are China and Russia and the member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Both China and Russia have far-reaching bilateral military cooperation agreements with Iran. Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan.

In October 2007, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation between the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, barely mentioned by the Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged military alliance between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO. It is worth noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises in 2006, which coincided with those conducted by Iran. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats, Global Research, August 2006)

In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is also intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seaking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing.

In this regard, a military operation directed against Iran can only succeed if the structure of military alliances which link Iran to China and Russia is significantly weakened.

There are indicaitons that this Eurasian military alliance underlying the SCO has in fact been strengthened. While currently Iran has observer status, the Tehran government has indicated its desire to become a full member of the SCO. Moreover, in the course of the last year, Iran has strengthened its bilateral ties in the field of energy and oil and gas pipelines with India as well as Pakistan. The positioning of India on the side of Iran in the oil and energy field is another factor which weakens Washington's influence in the region.

"What Tehran is seaking is "nothing less than a blueprint for a new correlation of nations in Eurasia, whose collaboration in developing continental infrastucture--nuclear energy, gas and oil pipelines, and transportation--should establish the economic, and therefore political, basis for true independence" (see Muriel Mirak Weissbach, May 2008)

History points to the importance of competing military alliances. In the present context, the US and its NATO partners are seaking to undermine the formation of a cohesive Eurasian SCO-CSTO military alliance, which could effectively challenge and contain US-NATO military expansionism in Eurasia, combining the military capabilities not only of Russia and China, but also those of several former Soviet republics including Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.

The Decision to go to War: Not a Rational Choice

The decision to go to war is not made by the Military high command.

The decision to go to war is taken by civilians.

The US Military is characterised by a hierarchy and command structure. Orders come from above, emanating from the "civilian government", namely the Bush administration. They are transmitted downwards through the military command structure. Once the order to go to war is taken, it is not discussed or debated, it is carried out by the military. Moreover, in all likelihood, in implementing a "preemptive attack" on Iran, the Bush administration would bypass the US Congress, in blatant violation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

In practice, the President and Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush, does not decide. He also obeys orders from above. He follows the diktats of powerful financial and corporate interests.

This war is profit-driven. "War is good for business". It is a money making operation. It results in billions of dollar of profits for Wall Street, the oil giants and the military industrial complex, not to mention the institutional speculators in the oil, currency and commodity markets.

The objective of the proposed war is to extend the frontiers of the global capitalist economy, eventually taking control of Iran's oil wealth. The broader implications of a war using tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater are of no concern to those who decide to go to war.

The Central Role of Vice President Dick Cheney

In contrast to previous adminstrations, the Vice President has played a central role in the Bush adminstration, overshadowing the office of the President. In practice, Vice President Cheney, supported by an army of senior officials and loyal advisers, controls the White House. At the same time, Cheney is part of a powerful corporate apparatus, through his links to Halliburton and the role Halliburton has played in defining a profit-driven military agenda.

Cheney has personally played a key roie in activating war plans directed against Iran.

"At the outset of Bush's second term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell. He hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, "be doing the bombing for us", without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them "to do it"." (Michel Chossudovsky, May 2005)

Cheney is the de facto Head of State, he overshadows George W. Bush, who is mere figurehead. More recently, he has played a key role in pressuring the frontline Arab states into supporting a preemptive attack on Iran.

Vice President Cheney has little concern for the likely consequences and the resulting loss of life which would result from the use of both conventional and nuclear weapons. He is fully aware that even a limited air attack on Iran could contribute to unleashing a broader Middle East-Central Asian war, extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to China's Western frontier. The various scenarios of this broader war have already been envisaged.

Most serious Crisis in Modern History

We are at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. These war plans coincide with a parallel process of economic restructuring and a deepseated Worldwide economic depression. War and globalization are intimately related processes. The militarisation of the Middle East and Central Asia supports the extension of the global "free market" system into new frontiers.

In turn, the war has heightened the economic crisis. The civilian economy is collapsing, overshadowed and undermined by the dynamic growth of the military industrial complex, which in a very real sense produces "weapons of mass destruction. In turn, the concurrent hikes in the price of crude oil, in the price of basic food staples, through speculative activities on major commodity exchanges have contributed to impoverishing millions of people.

"The antiwar movement must act, consistently, to prevent the next phase of this war from happening.

This is no easy matter. The holding of large antiwar rallies will not in itself reverse the tide of war.

High ranking officials of the Bush administration, members of the military and the US Congress have been granted the authority to uphold an illegal war agenda.

What is required is a grass roots network, a mass movement at national and international levels, which challenges the legitimacy of the military and political actors, and which is ultimately instrumental in unseating those who rule in our name.

War criminals occupy positions of authority. The citizenry is galvanized into supporting the rulers, who are "committed to their safety and well-being". Through media disinformation, war is given a humanitarian mandate.

To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be closed down, the war machine (namely the production of advanced weapons systems) must be stopped and the burgeoning police state must be dismantled.

The corporate backers and sponsors of war and war crimes must also be targeted including the oil companies, the defense contractors, the financial institutions and the corporate media, which has become an integral part of the war propaganda machine.

Antiwar sentiment does not dismantle a war agenda. The war criminals in the US, Israel and Britain must be removed from high office.

What is needed is to reveal the true face of the American Empire and the underlying criminalization of US foreign policy, which uses the "war on terrorism" and the threat of Al Qaeda to galvanize public opinion in support of a global war agenda." (Michel Chossudovsky, May 1st 2005)

Michel Chossudovsky, May 14, 2008

ANNEX: TEXT OF 2005 ARTICLE

Planned US Israeli Attack on Iran

by Michel Chossudovsky

May 1st, 2005

At the outset of Bush's second term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell. He hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, "be doing the bombing for us", without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them "to do it":

"One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," (quoted from an MSNBC Interview Jan 2005)

Israel is a Rottweiler on a leash: The US wants to "set Israel loose" to attack Iran. Commenting the Vice President's assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants Prime Ariel Sharon to act on America's behalf and "do it" for us:

"Iran I think is more ambiguous. And there the issue is certainly not tyranny; it's nuclear weapons. And the vice president today in a kind of a strange parallel statement to this declaration of freedom hinted that the Israelis may do it and in fact used language which sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis to do it."

The foregoing statements are misleading. The US is not "encouraging Israel". What we are dealing with is a joint US-Israeli military operation to bomb Iran, which has been in the active planning stage for more than a year. The Neocons in the Defense Department, under Douglas Feith, have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran ( Seymour Hersh, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HER501A.html )

Under this working arrangement, Israel will not act unilaterally, without a green light from Washington. In other words, Israel will not implement an attack without the participation of the US.

Covert Intelligence Operations: Stirring Ethnic Tensions in Iran

Meanwhile, for the last two years, Washington has been involved in covert intelligence operations inside Iran. American and British intelligence and special forces (working with their Israeli counterparts) are involved in this operation.

"A British intelligence official said that any campaign against Iran would not be a ground war like the one in Iraq. The Americans will use different tactics, said the intelligence officer. 'It is getting quite scary.'" (Evening Standard, 17 June 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/FOX306A.html )

The expectation is that a US-Israeli bombing raid of Iran's nuclear facilities will stir up ethnic tensions and trigger "regime change" in favor of the US. (See Arab Monitor, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ARA502A.html ).

Bush advisers believe that the "Iranian opposition movement" will unseat the Mullahs. This assessment constitutes a gross misjudgment of social forces inside Iran. What is more likely to occur is that Iranians will consistently rally behind a wartime government against foreign aggression. In fact, the entire Middle East and beyond would rise up against US interventionism.

Retaliation in the Case of a US-Israeli Aerial Attack

Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war.

In other words, the air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.

Moreover, the planned attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up a new space, for the deployment of Israeli forces. The participation of Turkey in the US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following an agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

In other words, US and Israeli military planners must carefully weigh the far-reaching implications of their actions.

Israel Builds up its Stockpile of Deadly Military Hardware

A massive buildup in military hardware has occurred in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

Israel has recently taken delivery from the US of some 5,000 "smart air launched weapons" including some 500 BLU 109 'bunker-buster bombs. The (uranium coated) munitions are said to be more than "adequate to address the full range of Iranian targets, with the possible exception of the buried facility at Natanz, which may require the [more powerful] BLU-113 bunker buster ":

"Given Israel's already substantial holdings of such weapons, this increase in its inventory would allow a sustained assault with or without further US involvement." (See Richard Bennett, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BEN501A.html )

Gbu 28 Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28)

The Israeli Air Force would attack Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr using US as well Israeli produced bunker buster bombs. The attack would be carried out in three separate waves "with the radar and communications jamming protection being provided by U.S. Air Force AWACS and other U.S. aircraft in the area". (See W Madsen, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD410A.html

Bear in mind that the bunker buster bombs can also be used to deliver tactical nuclear bombs. The B61-11 is the "nuclear version" of the "conventional" BLU 113. It can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html , see also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris ) .

According to the Pentagon, tactical nuclear weapons are "safe for civilians". Their use has been authorized by the US Senate. (See Miochel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405A.html )

Moreover, reported in late 2003, Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran. (See Gordon Thomas, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/THO311A.html

Even if tactical nuclear weapons are not used by Israel, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities not only raises the specter of a broader war, but also of nuclear radiation over a wide area:

"To attack Iran's nuclear facilities will not only provoke war, but it could also unleash clouds of radiation far beyond the targets and the borders of Iran." (Statement of Prof Elias Tuma, Arab Internet Network, Federal News Service, 1 March 2005)

Moreover, while most reports have centered on the issue of punitive air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, the strikes would most probably extend to other targets.

While a ground war is contemplated as a possible "scenario" at the level of military planning, the US military would not be able to wage a an effective ground war, given the situation in Iraq. In the words of former National Security Adviser Lawrence Eagelberger:

"We are not going to get in a ground war in Iran, I hope. If we get into that, we are in serious trouble. I don't think anyone in Washington is seriously considering that." ( quoted in the National Journal, 4 December 2004).

Iran's Military Capabilities

Despite its overall weaknesses in relation to Israel and the US, Iran has an advanced air defense system, deployed to protect its nuclear sites; "they are dispersed and underground making potential air strikes difficult and without any guarantees of success." (Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2005). It has upgraded its Shahab-3 missile, which can reach targets in Israel. Iran's armed forces have recently conducted high-profile military exercises in anticipation of a US led attack. Iran also possesses some 12 X-55 strategic cruise missiles, produced by the Ukraine. Iran's air defense systems is said to feature Russian SA-2, SA-5, SA-6 as well as shoulder-launched SA-7 missiles (Jaffa Center for Strategic Studies).

The US "Military Road Map"

The Bush administration has officially identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”.

Targeting Iran is a bipartisan project, which broadly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil conglomerates, the Wall Street financial establishment and the military-industrial complex.

The broader Middle East-Central Asian region encompasses more than 70% of the World's reserves of oil and natural gas. Iran possesses 10% of the world's oil and ranks third after Saudi Arabia (25 %) and Iraq (11 %) in the size of its reserves. In comparison, the US possesses less than 2.8 % of global oil reserves. (See Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/WAD412A.html )

The announcement to target Iran should come as no surprise. It is part of the battle for oil. Already during the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated "in war theater plans" to invade both Iraq and Iran:

"The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President's National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman's National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command's theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM's theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States' vital interest in the region - uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.

(USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy , emphasis added)

Main Military Actors

While the US, Israel, as well as Turkey (with borders with both Iran and Syria) are the main actors in this process, a number of other countries, in the region, allies of the US, including several Central Asian former Soviet republics have been enlisted. Britain is closely involved despite its official denials at the diplomatic level. Turkey occupies a central role in the Iran operation. It has an extensive military cooperation agreement with Israel. There are indications that NATO is also formally involved in the context of an Israel-NATO agreement reached in November 2004.

Planning The Aerial Attack on Iran

According to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, George W. Bush has already signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran, scheduled for June.(See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/JEN502A.html )

The June cut-off date should be understood. It does not signify that the attack will occur in June. What it suggests is that the US and Israel are "in a state of readiness" and are prepared to launch an attack by June or at a later date. In other words, the decision to launch the attack has not been made.

Ritter's observation concerning an impending military operation should nonetheless be taken seriously. In recent months, there is ample evidence that a major military operation is in preparation:

1) several high profile military exercises have been conducted in recent months, involving military deployment and the testing of weapons systems.

2) military planning meetings have been held between the various parties involved. There has been a shuttle of military and government officials between Washington, Tel Aviv and Ankara.

3) A significant change in the military command structure in Israel has occurred, with the appointment of a new Chief of Staff.

4) Intense diplomatic exchanges have been carried out at the international level with a view to securing areas of military cooperation and/or support for a US-Israeli led military operation directed against Iran.

5) Ongoing intelligence operations inside Iran have been stepped up.

6) Consensus Building: Media propaganda on the need to intervene in Iran has been stepped up, with daily reports on how Iran constitutes a threat to peace and global security.

Timeline of Key Initiatives

In the last few months, various key initiatives have been taken, which are broadly indicative that an aerial bombing of Iran is in the military pipeline:

November 2004 in Brussels: NATO-Israel protocol: Israel's IDF delegation to the NATO conference to met with military brass of six members of the Mediterranean basin nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. "NATO seeks to revive the framework, known as the Mediterranean Dialogue program, which would include Israel. The Israeli delegation accepted to participate in military exercises and "anti-terror maneuvers" together with several Arab countries.

January 2005: the US, Israel and Turkey held military exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean , off the coast of Syria. These exercises, which have been held in previous years were described as routine.

February 2005. Following the decision reached in Brussels in November 2004, Israel was involved for the first time in military exercises with NATO, which also included several Arab countries.

February 2005: Assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The assassination, which was blamed on Syria, serves Israeli and US interests and was used as a pretext to demand the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

February 2005: Sharon fires his Chief-of-Staff, Moshe Ya’alon and appoints Air Force General Dan Halutz. This is the first time in Israeli history that an Air Force General is appointed Chief of Staff (See Uri Avnery, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/AVN502A.html )

The appointment of Major General Dan Halutz as IDF Chief of Staff is considered in Israeli political circles as "the appointment of the right man at the right time." The central issue is that a major aerial operation against Iran is in the planning stage, and Maj General Halutz is slated to coordinate the aerial bombing raids on Iran. Halutz's appointment was specifically linked to Israel's Iran agenda: "As chief of staff, he will in the best position to prepare the military for such a scenario."

March 2005: NATO's Secretary General was in Jerusalem for follow-up talks with Ariel Sharon and Israel's military brass, following the joint NATO-Israel military exercise in February. These military cooperation ties are viewed by the Israeli military as a means to "enhance Israel's deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria." The premise underlying NATO-Israel military cooperation is that Israel is under attack:

"The more Israel's image is strengthened as a country facing enemies who attempt to attack it for no justified reason, the greater will be the possibility that aid will be extended to Israel by NATO. Furthermore, Iran and Syria will have to take into account the possibility that the increasing cooperation between Israel and NATO will strengthen Israel's links with Turkey, also a member of NATO. Given Turkey's impressive military potential and its geographic proximity to both Iran and Syria, Israel's operational options against them, if and when it sees the need, could gain considerable strength. " (Jaffa Center for Strategic Studies, http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v7n4p4Shalom.html )

The Israel-NATO protocol is all the more important because it obligates NATO to align itself with the US-Israeli plan to bomb Iran, as an act of self defense on the part of Israel. It also means that NATO is also involved in the process of military consultations relating to the planned aerial bombing of Iran. It is of course related to the bilateral military cooperation agreement between Israel and Turkey and the likelihood that part of the military operation will be launched from Turkey, which is a member of NATO.

Late March 2005: News leaks in Israel indicated an "initial authorization" by Prime Minster Ariel Sharon of an Israeli attack on Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant "if diplomacy failed to stop Iran's nuclear program". (The Hindu, 28 March 2005)

March-April 2005: The Holding in Israel of Joint US-Israeli military exercises specifically pertaining to the launching of Patriot missiles.

US Patriot missile crews stationed in Germany were sent to Israel to participate in the joint Juniper Cobra exercise with the Israeli military. The exercise was described as routine and "unconnected to events in the Middle East": "As always, we are interested in implementing lessons learned from training exercises." (UPI, 9 March 2005).

April 2005: Donald Rumsfeld was on an official visits to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. His diplomatic endeavors were described by the Russian media as "literally circling Iran in an attempt to find the best bridgehead for a possible military operation against that country."

In Baku, Azerbaijan Rumsfeld was busy discussing the date for deployment of US troops in Azerbaijan on Iran's North-Western border. US military bases described as "mobile groups" in Azerbaijan are slated to play a role in a military operation directed against Iran.

Azerbaijan is a member of GUUAM, a military cooperation agreement with the US and NATO, which allows for the stationing of US troops in several of the member countries, including Georgia, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. The stated short term objective is to "neutralize Iran". The longer term objective under the Pentagon's "Caspian Plan" is to exert military and economic control over the entire Caspian sea basin, with a view to ensuring US authority over oil reserves and pipeline corridors.

During his visit in April, Rumsfeld was pushing the US initiative of establishing "American special task forces and military bases to secure US influence in the Caspian region:

"Called Caspian Watch, the project stipulates a network of special task forces and police units in the countries of the regions to be used in emergencies including threats to objects of the oil complex and pipelines. Project Caspian Watch will be financed by the United States ($100 million). It will become an advance guard of the US European Command whose zone of responsibility includes the Caspian region. Command center of the project with a powerful radar is to be located in Baku." ( Defense and Security Russia, April 27, 2005)

Rumsfeld's visit followed shortly after that of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's to Baku.

April 2005: Iran signs a military cooperation with Tajikistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering Afghanistan's Northern frontier. Tajikistan is a member of "The Shanghai Five" military cooperation group, which also includes Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Iran also has economic cooperation agreements with Turkmenistan.

Mid April 2005: Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets George W Bush at his Texas Ranch. Iran is on the agenda of bilateral talks. More significantly, the visit of Ariel Sharon was used to carry out high level talks between US and Israeli military planners pertaining to Iran.

Late April 2005. President Vladmir Putin is in Israel on an official visit. He announces Russia's decision to sell short-range anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and to continue supporting Iran's nuclear industry. Beneath the gilded surface of international diplomacy, Putin's timely visit to Israel must be interpreted as "a signal to Israel" regarding its planned aerial attack on Iran.

Late April 2005: US pressure in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been exerted with a view to blocking the re-appointment of Mohammed Al Baradei, who according to US officials "is not being tough enough on Iran..." Following US pressures, the vote on the appointment of a new IAEA chief was put off until June. These developments suggest that Washington wants to put forth their own hand-picked nominee prior to launching US-Israeli aerial attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities. (See VOA, http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-04-27-voa51.cfm ). (In February 2003, Al Baradei along with UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix challenged the (phony) intelligence on WMD presented by the US to the UN Security Council, with a view to justifying the war on Iraq.)

Late April 2005. Sale of deadly military hardware to Israel. GBU-28 Buster Bunker Bombs: Coinciding with Putin's visit to Israel, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (Department of Defense) announced the sale of an additional 100 bunker-buster bombs produced by Lockheed Martin to Israel. This decision was viewed by the US media as "a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions."

The sale pertains to the larger and more sophisticated "Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator" (including the WGU-36A/B guidance control unit and support equipment). The GBU-28 is described as "a special weapon for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The fact of the matter is that the GBU-28 is among the World's most deadly "conventional" weapons used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, capable of causing thousands of civilian deaths through massive explosions.

The Israeli Air Force are slated to use the GBU-28s on their F-15 aircraft.
(See text of DSCA news release at http://www.dsca.osd.mil/PressReleases/36-b/2005/Israel_05-10_corrected.pdf

Late April 2005- early May: Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Israel for follow-up talks with Ariel Sharon. He was accompanied by his Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, who met with senior Israeli military officials. On the official agenda of these talks: joint defense projects, including the joint production of Arrow II Theater Missile Defense and Popeye II missiles. The latter also known as the Have Lite, are advanced small missiles, designed for deployment on fighter planes. Tel Aviv and Ankara decide to establish a hotline to share intelligence.

May 2005: Syrian troops scheduled to withdraw from Lebanon, leading to a major shift in the Middle East security situation, in favor of Israel and the US.

Iran Surrounded

The US has troops and military bases in Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and of course Iraq.

In other words, Iran is virtually surrounded by US military bases. (see Map below). These countries as well as Turkmenistan, are members of NATO`s partnership for Peace Program. and have military cooperation agreements with NATO.

Copyright Eric Waddell, Global Research, 2003 (Click Map to enlarge)

In other words, we are dealing with a potentially explosive scenario in which a number of countries, including several former Soviet republics, could be brought into a US led war with Iran. IranAtom.ru, a Russian based news and military analysis group has suggested, in this regard:

"since Iranian nuclear objects are scattered all over the country, Israel will need a mass strike with different fly-in and fly-out approaches - Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and other countries... Azerbaijan seriously fears Tehran's reaction should Baku issue a permit to Israeli aircraft to overfly its territory." (Defense and Security Russia, 12 April 2005).

Concluding remarks:

The World is at an important crossroads.

The Bush Administration has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

Iran is the next military target. The planned military operation, which is by no means limited to punitive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, is part of a project of World domination, a military roadmap, launched at the end of the Cold War.

Military action against Iran would directly involve Israel's participation, which in turn is likely to trigger a broader war throughout the Middle East, not to mention an implosion in the Palestinian occupied territories. Turkey is closely associated with the proposed aerial attacks.

Israel is a nuclear power with a sophisticated nuclear arsenal. (See text box below). The use of nuclear weapons by Israel or the US cannot be excluded, particularly in view of the fact that tactical nuclear weapons have now been reclassified as a variant of the conventional bunker buster bombs and are authorized by the US Senate for use in conventional war theaters. ("they are harmless to civilians because the explosion is underground")

In this regard, Israel and the US rather than Iran constitute a nuclear threat.

The planned attack on Iran must be understood in relation to the existing active war theaters in the Middle East, namely Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.

The conflict could easily spread from the Middle East to the Caspian sea basin. It could also involve the participation of Azerbaijan and Georgia, where US troops are stationed.

An attack on Iran would have a direct impact on the resistance movement inside Iraq. It would also put pressure on America's overstretched military capabilities and resources in both the Iraqi and Afghan war theaters. (The 150,000 US troops in Iraq are already fully engaged and could not be redeployed in the case of a war with Iran.)

In other words, the shaky geopolitics of the Central Asia- Middle East region, the three existing war theaters in which America is currently, involved, the direct participation of Israel and Turkey, the structure of US sponsored military alliances, etc. raises the specter of a broader conflict.

Moreover, US military action on Iran not only threatens Russian and Chinese interests, which have geopolitical interests in the Caspian sea basin and which have bilateral agreements with Iran. It also backlashes on European oil interests in Iran and is likely to produce major divisions between Western allies, between the US and its European partners as well as within the European Union.

Through its participation in NATO, Europe, despite its reluctance, would be brought into the Iran operation. The participation of NATO largely hinges on a military cooperation agreement reached between NATO and Israel. This agreement would bind NATO to defend Israel against Syria and Iran. NATO would therefore support a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, and could take on a more active role if Iran were to retaliate following US-Israeli air strikes.

Needless to say, the war against Iran is part of a longer term US military agenda which seeks to militarize the entire Caspian sea basin, eventually leading to the destabilization and conquest of the Russian Federation.

The Antiwar Movement

The antiwar movement must act, consistently, to prevent the next phase of this war from happening.

This is no easy matter. The holding of large antiwar rallies will not in itself reverse the tide of war.

High ranking officials of the Bush administration, members of the military and the US Congress have been granted the authority to uphold an illegal war agenda.

What is required is a grass roots network, a mass movement at national and international levels, which challenges the legitimacy of the military and political actors, and which is ultimately instrumental in unseating those who rule in our name.

War criminals occupy positions of authority. The citizenry is galvanized into supporting the rulers, who are "committed to their safety and well-being". Through media disinformation, war is given a humanitarian mandate.

To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be closed down, the war machine (namely the production of advanced weapons systems) must be stopped and the burgeoning police state must be dismantled.

The corporate backers and sponsors of war and war crimes must also be targeted including the oil companies, the defense contractors, the financial institutions and the corporate media, which has become an integral part of the war propaganda machine.

Antiwar sentiment does not dismantle a war agenda. The war criminals in the US, Israel and Britain must be removed from high office.

What is needed is to reveal the true face of the American Empire and the underlying criminalization of US foreign policy, which uses the "war on terrorism" and the threat of Al Qaeda to galvanize public opinion in support of a global war agenda.

TEXT BOX: Israel's Nuclear Capabilities

With between 200 and 500 thermonuclear weapons and a sophisticated delivery system, Israel has quietly supplanted Britain as the World's 5th Largest nuclear power, and may currently rival France and China in the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal. Although dwarfed by the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, each possessing over 10,000 nuclear weapons, Israel nonetheless is a major nuclear power, and should be publicly recognized as such.

Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from a minimum of 200 to a maximum of about 500. Whatever the number, there is little doubt that Israeli nukes are among the world's most sophisticated, largely designed for "war fighting" in the Middle East. A staple of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are "neutron bombs," miniaturized thermonuclear bombs designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property intact.(16) Weapons include ballistic missiles and bombers capable of reaching Moscow...

The bombs themselves range in size from "city busters" larger than the Hiroshima Bomb to tactical mini nukes. The Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenals of all other Middle Eastern states combined, and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for "deterrence."

Many Middle East Peace activists have been reluctant to discuss, let alone challenge, the Israeli monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region, often leading to incomplete and uninformed analyses and flawed action strategies. Placing the issue of Israeli weapons of mass destruction directly and honestly on the table and action agenda would have several salutary effects. First, it would expose a primary destabilizing dynamic driving the Middle East arms race and compelling the region's states to each seek their own "deterrent."

Second, it would expose the grotesque double standard which sees the U.S. and Europe on the one hand condemning Iraq, Iran and Syria for developing weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously protecting and enabling the principal culprit. Third, exposing Israel's nuclear strategy would focus international public attention, resulting in increased pressure to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and negotiate a just peace in good faith. Finally, a nuclear free Israel would make a Nuclear Free Middle East and a comprehensive regional peace agreement much more likely. Unless and until the world community confronts Israel over its covert nuclear program it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful resolution of the Israeli/Arab conflict, a fact that Israel may be counting on as the Sharon era dawns.

From John Steinbach, Israel's Nuclear Arsenal,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE203A.html