"Netanyahu Was Imported by GOP to Ensure a War With Iran"

WAR WITH IRAN Israel’s Netanyahu Was Imported by GOP to Ensure a War With Iran Posted on Jan 22, 2015 By Juan Cole This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page. Republican House Majority leader John Boehner secretly invited Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Washington to address Congress and then once it was set up he let Barack Obama know about it. The reason for bringing Netanyahu is that Boehner wants to craft a super-majority in Congress that can over-ride Obama’s veto of new sanctions on Iran.  He doesn’t have enough Republican votes to do so, but if he can get Democrats beholden to the Israel lobbies of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to join the veto over-ride effort, he might succeed. Obama has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to negotiate with Iran over its civilian nuclear enrichment program, intended to allow Iran to replicate the success of France and South Korea in supplying electricity.  (That would allow Iran to save gas and oil exports for earning foreign exchange). Because nowadays producing enriched uranium for fuel via centrifuges is always potentially double use, this program has alarmed the US, Europe, and Israel.  Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given several fatwas (akin to encyclicals) orally in which he forbids making, storing or using nuclear weapons as incompatible with Islamic law (a position also taken by his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini).  So maintaining that Iran is committed to making a nuclear bomb is sort of like holding that the Pope has a huge condom factory in the basement of the Vatican. [LOL.  Pope strikes again.] But, there are no doubt Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commanders and maybe some engineers and scientists who really wish Khamenei would change his mind (he won’t). So if you wanted a compromise between Iranian nuclear doves (the hard line leadership) and Iranian nuclear hawks (the subordinates who have to take orders from the doves), what would you do?  You’d keep options open.  And keeping options open also has a deterrent effect, so it is almost as good as having a nuclear bomb.  That is, if Iran has all the infrastructure that would be needed for a nuclear weapons program but didn’t actually initiate such a program, you’d put enemies on notice that if they try to get up a war on you the way Bush-Cheney got one up on Iraq, they could force you into going for broke and abruptly making a bomb for self-defense.  This posture is called in the security literature “nuclear latency” or colloquially “the Japan Option” (we all know Tokyo could produce a bomb in short order if they felt sufficiently threatened). [Japan as well?  Wow.] I started arguing that this policy was what Iran was up to some 7 or 8 years ago, and I think it is now widely accepted in policy circles. So the point of the UNSC plus Germany negotiations with Iran is really about how long Iran would take to break out and produce a bomb.  Will it be 3 months or one year?  Iran wants a shorter timeline (for maximum deterrence, since they already saw what happened to Baghdad).  The P5 + 1 want a much longer timeline.  They would also like to spike the centrifuges and make sure there is no heavy water reactor (plutonium builds up on the rods). [So negotiations are about bomb producing potential timelines?] If the two sides can reach an acceptable compromise, sanctions would be lifted, Iran would run its Russian-built reactors to produce electricity (though likely within a decade they will be undercut in price by solar panels; still, solar doesn’t have deterrent properties), and there would be thorough frequent UN inspections of its enrichment facilities (plutonium leaves a signature).  It isn’t really possible to have a big nuclear facility hidden from US satellites; the US spotted Fordo immediately.  You need a lot of water, truck traffic, etc. [Fordo = village in Iran.] But Iran would have latency and therefore deterrence and I suppose might be emboldened that Israel wouldn’t dare nuke it because it might well be able to nuke back some months later. US hawks in both parties and the Israeli political right wing want to prevent Iran from having any nuclear enrichment program at all, so as to prevent Iran from having the security that comes from the deterrence Lite produced by latency. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff looked at this issue and have decided that only an Iraq-style invasion, occupation and regime change could hope to abolish the nuclear enrichment program. If that is what it takes, the US and Israeli hawks are perfectly all right with it.  It would be good times for the military-industrial complex, and Israel’s last major conventional enemy (though a toothless one) would be destroyed.  An irritant to US policy and a threat to Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, our big volatile Gasoline Station in the Sky, would also be removed. Iran is three times as populous and three times as large as Iraq.  So I figure this enterprise would cost at least 15,000 troops dead, 90,000 seriously wounded, and altogether $15- 24 trillion dollars over time (including health care for the 90,000 wounded vets).  Given the size of the country and the nationalism of the population, it could be much more like the US war in Vietnam than Iraq was, i.e. it could end in absolute defeat.  Russia and China would almost certainly aid insurgencies to weaken the US. And that is what the right wing psychopaths in Washington DC and Tel Aviv have planned for us.  If they can over-ride Obama’s veto and scuttle the negotiations, they set us up for a war down the line, as Obama warned in the SOTU. In contrast, professional Israeli intelligence analysts are warning against new sanctions and any torpedoing of the Iran talks.  Because they deal in the coin of pragmatism and the real world. [Mossad opposition has been refuted, but I haven't checked on that widely.] Readers should please let their congressional representatives know they would prefer not to be subjected to this disaster. That Netanyahu is an unreliable narrator should be obvious by now: I wrote in 2012 :     Israeli PM Binyamin “Chicken Little” Netanyahu tried to scaremonger about Iraq in 2002, as his contribution to the Anglo-American war of aggression on that country.  “there is no question whatsoever,” Netanyahu said, “that Saddam” was seeking nuclear weapons. He said that Israeli intelligence reported to him that Russian scientists and North Korea were on site and actively aiding this phantom nuclear weapons program.     There was no Iraqi nuclear weapons program in 2002; it was dismantled in the early 1990s by United Nations inspectors.  There were none of the chemical or biological weapons Netanyahu spoke of.  No Russians.  No North Koreans. Bupkes. Netanyahu also warned that Iraq would give nuclear warheads (which it did not have) to “terrorist groups.” He also argued that no inspections could possibly find “mobile weapons sites” (which are impossible), implying that invasion and occupation was the only course open. Netanyahu proved that neither he nor the Israeli intelligence organization, Mossad, had the slightest actual intelligence on Iraq, and that neither should be trusted to provide such intelligence to the US.  Clearly, some right wing Israeli leaders always want the US entangled in regional wars in the Middle East, insofar as they are seeking US support in a hostile region.  They therefore habitually exaggerate the dangers, and are little more than bullshit artists. Netanyahu’s comments on Iraq are almost verbatim what he is now saying about Iran. The Mainstream Media never calls Netanyahu on his bull crap. SOURCE - TRUTHDIG - HERE. COMMENT Back to thinking 'We're doomed!' An interesting read and it should be interesting to see if the Congress numbers are there to override the Presidential veto and set up a potential Iran war US military industry bonanza. Don't know how binding a fatwa is in Iran.   Fatwa = legal opinion on Islamic law binding precedent to those bound to the scholar *but not universally binding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa May be more binding than elsewhere because they're all under the one religious leader, I think. But it doesn't matter, because it sounds like they may be after the deterrent factor of potential for weapons, rather than weapons, and the only thing being negotiated is the lead time on making weapons? Seems a good article.

HIT SQUADS, MUTINY, LOBBY-TOYS, A DEAD POPE, MORAL OUTRAGE -- WHAT 'FREE PRESS'? -- AND MOSSAD

HIT SQUADS, MUTINY, LOBBY-TOYS, A DEAD POPE, MORAL OUTRAGE -- WHAT 'FREE PRESS'? -- AND MOSSAD Started my browsing adventures off with looking for evidence of Iranian hit squads, cos I'm on a half-hearted mission to figure out who's knocked off Argentina's prosecutor, Alberto Nisman. Yet to find Iranian hit squads ... but I've been distracted by this find:  a hilarious 2011 article on Libyan & Iranian 'Greatest Hit Squads' in America: Libyan Phantoms & Iranian Assassins: Greatest Hit Squads 1981-2011 By Mark Ames If you’re feeling like you’re being taken for a ride with all this nonsense about Iranian-Narco-Mexican terror hit-squads infiltrating this great nation, read on… Think this is the guy who's written about American support for Chechen extremists. Yeah, checked and confirmed it's the same guy that wrote the Chechen article I liked.  Posted in relation to it here.  Remember also liking the humour that came across. Anyway, as I get distracted easily, the very next thing, I'm getting blown away by the news that John Boehner and Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer have teed up a Benjamin Netanyahu Congress speech on February 11th, having cut out the main man, Obama, and having seemingly rigged up a scandalous (and mutinous?) scenario, where Bibi gives a speech rebutting US foreign policy. Behind Obama's back: How Netanyahu's US trip was cooked up << Boehner initiated >>  http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.638396 > departure from protocol - Israel ambassador Ron Dermer & speaker John Boehner cook-up > Prevent Iran nuclear weapons shared goal John Boehner’s Bibi invite sets up showdown with White House >>> http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/john-boehner-invites-benjamin-netanyahu-congress-iran-114439.html <<< "Republicans & Democrats in the Capitol seem more closely aligned with Netanyahu than with Obama" >>> Bibi’s Congress speech Feb 11 = foreign leader, blocks from WH (invitation of Congress) to rebut the US foreign policy!! Boehner: "serious threat that exists" "serious conversation" "how serious the threat is" >> Going with 'serious threat', eh? The news seemed massive to me and I got super excited ... but nobody else seems as excited as I was. Just checked to see if it was reported elsewhere and found that The Guardian has also reported on Boehner's moves, rather coolly: John Boehner invites Netanyahu to address Congress on Iran next month   http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/21/boehner-netanyahu-invite-congress-iran-obama However, that's a rather mild take on what seems to be going on, when you consider that the authority of the President of the United States is being challenged here by some lobby-toy politican, Boehner. The Guardian continues: Invitation, provocative move by House speaker, came hours after Obama threatened during State of the Union address to veto any Iran sanctions bill 'Threatened'?  Sounds a rather extreme way to describe what is a statement of Presidential intent made during the President's SOTU address, and presumably within the President's authority. An odd way to convey what seems to be the other way around:  Congress threatening to pass a sanctions bill that the President considers counter-productive to furthering negotiations with Iran, who may well choose to walk, rather than negotiate, at the end of the day. As for 'provocative move', I'd have called it an underhand, backstabbing, embarrassing mutiny.  So what gives? The White House, meanwhile, is downplaying this by calling it a "break of normal diplomatic protocol".  Yeah, I'll say.  If this was happening in Russia, can you imagine the screaming headlines? Anyway, I wanted to know a bit more about Boehner and I found this fantastic Rolling Stone article: The Crying Shame of John Boehner He's a lazy, double-talking shill for corporate interests. So how's he going to fare with the Tea Party? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-the-crying-shame-of-john-boehner-20110105 written by Matt Taibbi, who turns out to be another really clever and funny guy, who's co-edited The eXile with Mark Ames (of the 'Greatest Hit Squads' article fame, above). Not only that, turns out Taibbi's written a piece that was denounced by US politicians and talking heads: "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope"  http://konformist.com/archives/2005/03-2005/kn4m0311.txt At first I was like, dude, this is a bit sick ... but then I got reading and saw the humour in it. Personal favourites: 28. Bears everywhere shitting in woods.  8. Bush continued: "He touched all of us in places no one else could reach." Sure, it may not be to everybody's taste, but so what? This is the condemnation bandwagon list: Hillary Clinton (US lawyer, politician) Michael Bloomberg (businessman, magnate, mayor of NYC) Matt Drudge (political commentator, creator of news aggregate site Drudge Report) Abe Foxman (Soviet-born, US lawyer, national director of Anti-Defamation League) Anthony Weiner (New York politician, House of Reps, sexting scandal) Perhaps others also complained, but from the above list of denouncers (referred to in Wikipedia), there's not a single Catholic among those that took umbrage, so what's the real agenda? In addition to a pious whinge-fest, "the editor who approved the column was fired". A look-up elsewhere indicates that the New York Press editor, Jeff Koyen, was given two weeks unpaid leave but chose to quit, and: Koyen called his former publisher "a spineless alt-weekly weenie" for not standing up to the harsh criticisms the article received. Criticisms came from a variety of people such as U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, a spokesman for New York City Mayor Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph Guliani. Koyen also reacted to statements made by Rep. Anthony Weiner who was quoted by the New York Daily News calling on New Yorkers to "exercise their right to take as many of these rags as they can and put them in the trash." Interrupting the distribution of a newspaper -- even by purchasing a large quantity of them and throwing them out -- is illegal, koyen noted.  Ooh, look, finally a (thrice-married) Catholic among the condemning mob, the toothy Guliani, who caused some controversy by supporting: People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK, also PMOI, MKO), from the United States State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The group was on the State Department list from 1997 until September 2012. They were placed on the list for killing six Americans in Iran during the 1970s and attempting to attack the Iranian mission to the United Nations in 1992. [Wikipedia] Cool, Iranian assassins is what I was originally looking for! Uncertain why a bit of satire caused such political outrage at the time (guessing nearing April 2005). There was four different incidents of US gun violence leading up to that time and 22 people were killed within a short amount of time, but I guess 22 people among a population of over 300 million doesn't upset things as much as it might in a smaller population. Well, not enough to challenge the armaments manufacturers and the gun lobby.  During 2005, USA was 2 years into the Iraq invasion and had been in Afghanistan since 2001. The other thing happening at that time was the final stages of the Terri Schiavo drama being played out.  Basically, heart attack and severe brain damage in 1990; kept on artificial supports until 2005, when feeding tubes were finally removed.  What is horrific is the amount of time this person had to linger in a vegetative state, as well as the amount of time (13 days, I think it was) it then took to die after removal of feeding tubes.  It's like something out of a horror story. It's really doing my head in that something like that can happen to a person and that medical people are not permitted to step in to do the right thing and euthanase the vegetative person, who will exist (if supported) in a vegetative state (which nobody could possibly want as an existence) or otherwise die ... slowly. Anyway, there seems to be some interesting reflections of the past in the present. Currently there's a satire and freedom of press related hysteria that's done an outraged wave around the world (but not as much outrage at the barbaric slaughter of people who have a right to live, to express themselves politically or otherwise, and to work without the threat of violence or death).  The current touring Pope has tried to declare religion as off-limits (self-serving, or what?) and virtually justified the violence along the lines that it could be expected, given his rather stupid insult-my-mother analogy.  The mommy insult analogy makes it sound like some playground bit of bullying between children (unless his Holiness thinks it's fine for adults to go around assaulting or murdering one another because they don't like what's said).  Automatic weapons and a rocket launcher aren't a bit of school-yard 'you-said, so I'm getting even' bullying.  Why trivialise something so ugly and uncivilised that we should all despair for the future on this planet?  Opportunistic politicians and others have also tried to deny the right and merit of free speech, effectively blaming the victims of extremist violence.  A number of figures have also  tried to use this atrocity to further state control agendas of (a) suppression of free speech and (b) expansion of state controls, such as mass surveillance and denial of encryption services etc. Getting back to the Netanyahu and US Congress drama, a Bloomberg article indicates that Mossad has broken ranks with the Israeli PM, telling US officials that new Iran sanctions would 'tank' the nukes negotiations. Israeli Mossad Goes Rogue, Warns U.S. on Iran Sanctions http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-22/netanyahu-mossad-split-divides-u-s-congress-on-iran-sanctions Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  -- supported by Republican Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain -- is pushing for his own legislation on the Iran nuclear deal, which doesn't contain sanctions but would require that the Senate vote on any pact that is agreed upon in Geneva. The White House is opposed to both the Kirk-Menendez bill and the Corker bill; it doesn't want Congress to meddle at all in the delicate multilateral diplomacy with Iran. Israeli intelligence officials have been briefing both Obama administration officials and visiting U.S. senators about their concerns on the Kirk-Menendez bill, which would increase sanctions on Iran only if the Iranian government can't strike a deal with the so-called P5+1 countries by a June 30 deadline or fails to live up to its commitments. Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister’s office has been supporting the Kirk-Menendez bill, as does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, ahead of what will be a major foreign policy confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government in coming weeks. Evidence of the Israeli rift surfaced Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry said that an unnamed Israeli intelligence official had said the new sanctions bill would be “like throwing a grenade into the process.” But an initial warning from Israeli Mossad leaders was also delivered last week in Israel to a Congressional delegation -- including Corker, Graham, McCain and fellow Republican John Barrasso; Democratic Senators Joe Donnelly and Tim Kaine; and independent Angus King -- according to lawmakers who were present and staff members who were briefed on the exchange. When Menendez (who was not on the trip) heard about the briefing, he quickly phoned Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer to seek clarification. OK, what's going on here?  How is who Israeli intelligence (or Israeli politicians) favour in the USA sphere of national sovereignty even relevant, and why are these American politicians -- who are answerable to the American voters -- even in Israel on a 'congressional delegation'?  Don't know why Obama doesn't just step down so Netanyahu can take his rightful place at the helm of US politics, if Israel is pulling that many strings in the US through its intelligence services addressing a visiting congressional delegation, as well as addressing politicians in the US, while Israel's Foreign Minister is making arrangements directly with Boehner (rather than Obama), and even the pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, happens to be playing some role in the decision-making process in the US, by the look of things. American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC Annual budget $67 million @ 2010 America's powerful Pro-Israel Lobby Critics have accused AIPAC of acting as agent of Israeli govt, with a "stranglehold" on the US Congress. [Wikipedia] All of this congress squabbling, and appearance of rogue senators and rogue Mossad, sounds like crap to me.  We wouldn't be privy to any of this if the politicians didn't want us to know about it. I'm going to take a guess and say this is some kind of smokescreen for something.  But I'm not sure what, seeing the final decision can only go as follows:  1) either the US goes with sanctions against Iran or it doesn't.  2) either the Senate gets to vote on the results of any Geneva agreement with Iran or it doesn't. Well, that's that.  But I still don't know what the Iranians get up to, I'm no closer to finding out who killed Alberto Nisman and no wiser about the sport of US Congress.