Good Friday Attack on Iran?

Operation Bite - April 6 Sneak Attack
By US Forces On Iran Planned
- Russian Military Sources Warn General Ivashov Calls For Emergency Session Of
UN Security Council To Ward Off Looming US Aggression
By Webster G. Tarpley
3-25-7

WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly "Argumenty Nedeli." Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.

The attack is slated to last for twelve hours, according to Uglanov, lasting from 4 AM until 4 PM local time. Friday is a holiday in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.

The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and the for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.

The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran's nuclear program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was re-issued by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English, several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites.

Observers comment that this dispatch represents a high-level orchestrated leak from the Kremlin, in effect a war warning, which draws on the formidable resources of the Russian intelligence services, and which deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness by pro-peace forces around the world.

Asked by RIA-Novosti to comment on the Uglanov report, retired Colonel General Leonid Ivashov confirmed its essential features in a March 21 interview: "I have no doubt that there will be an operation, or more precisely a violent action against Iran." Ivashov, who has reportedly served at various times as an informal advisor to Putin, is currently the Vice President of the Moscow Academy for Geopolitical Sciences.

Ivashov attributed decisive importance to the decision of the Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives to remove language from the just-passed Iraq supplemental military appropriations bill which would have demanded that Bush come to Congress before launching an attack on Iran. Ivashov pointed out that the language was eliminated under pressure from AIPAC, the lobbing group representing the Israeli extreme right, and of Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni.

"We have drawn the unmistakable conclusion that this operation will take place," said Ivashov. In his opinion, the US planning does not include a land operation: " Most probably there will be no ground attack, but rather massive air attacks with the goal of annihilating Iran's capacity for military resistance, the centers of administration, the key economic assets, and quite possibly the Iranian political leadership, or at least part of it," he continued.

Ivashov noted that it was not to be excluded that the Pentagon would use smaller tactical nuclear weapons against targets of the Iranian nuclear industry. These attacks could paralyze everyday life, create panic in the population, and generally produce an atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty all over Iran, Ivashov told RIA-Novosti. "This will unleash a struggle for power inside Iran, and then there will be a peace delegation sent in to install a pro-American government in Teheran," Ivashov continued. One of the US goals was, in his estimation, to burnish the image of the current Republican administration, who would now be able to boast that they had wiped out the Iranian nuclear program.

Among the other outcomes, General Ivashov pointed to a partition of Iran along the same lines as Iraq, and a subsequent carving up of the Near and Middle East into smaller regions. "This concept worked well for them in the Balkans and will now be applied to the greater Middle East," he commented.

"Moscow must expert Russia's influence by demanding an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to deal with the current preparations for an illegal use of force against Iran and the destruction of the basis of the United Nations Charter," said General Ivashov. "In this context Russia could cooperate with China, France and the non-permanent members of the Security Council. We need this kind of preventive action to ward off the use of force," he concluded.

http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070319/62260006.html

http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070321/62387717.html

Heat lowered in Iran standoff but tensions high

Heat lowered in Iran standoff TheStar.com - News - Heat lowered in Iran standoff

Canadian hero in 1979 hostage crisis praises efforts of the U.K. to win release of British captives but warns tensions still high

April 03, 2007

Olivia Ward
STAFF REPORTER

As Britain and Iran narrowed their differences over 15 British naval personnel seized in the Persian Gulf, the Canadian hero of the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis praised London's efforts to end the standoff, but warned the situation is still volatile.

"Britain has handled the situation very well," former Iran ambassador Ken Taylor said in a phone interview from New York. "They have done just the right thing, anticipating some Iranian statements and criticizing others in an appropriate way without increasing tensions."

But Taylor, who helped six American diplomats escape Tehran during a U.S. embassy hostage-taking, added, "this playing field is mined with dynamite. The incident itself may not be comparable with what happened back then, but tensions are at a very high level to start with."

The heat lowered a notch yesterday as Tehran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, announced that "there is no need for any trial" of the 15 British sailors and marines who were captured.

Iran's state radio network, meanwhile, said it would no longer air video "confessions" of the captives, reflecting "positive changes" in Britain's negotiating stance, including hints that the London government was willing to find ways of avoiding confusion over national boundaries in the Persian Gulf.

The conciliatory moves averted what might have been Britain's worst diplomatic nightmare, with the captives paraded in court and threatened with draconian punishment.

In that worst-case scenario, analysts say, the U.S. might enter the struggle, leading to an escalating military confrontation and an oil price spike. If sanctions were dramatically widened against banks doing business with Iran, an international currency shock could follow.

"This issue can be resolved and there is no need for any trial," Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Britain's Channel 4 News television yesterday. But he added "there should be a delegation to review the case" and decide whose territorial waters the service people were sailing in when they were taken by Iran 12 days ago.

Britain insists they were on a routine monitoring mission in Iraqi waters under a United Nations mandate, but Iran charges they were trespassing in their territory.

"We must understand how significant claims to the waterways are in this region," said Saeed Rahnema, head of the School of Public Policy and Administration at York University. "The Iran-Iraq war was fought over the Shatt al Arab," a waterway flanking the two countries, he recalled. The combined death toll was more than 1 million.

And, Taylor said, "we shouldn't forget that Iraq's civil war is raging within 15 minutes of where those (Britons) were apprehended." The standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment program also became more dangerous after UN sanctions were tightened last month.

But Taylor said, Iran has shown it does not want to increase tensions over the seizure of the sailors and marines. "(They) made it clear they don't want a scenario like the one three decades ago, with students running amok at the British embassy. At the American embassy there were no police, no security and no soldiers. Yesterday riot police were protecting the British embassy, there was law and order and a government in charge."

Stones and fireworks were thrown at the British embassy in Tehran on Sunday as more than 200 students marched demanding the prisoners be put on trial for espionage. In language reminiscent of the U.S. embassy hostage-taking they also demanded the expulsion of the ambassador and closure of the "den of spies."

Larijani yesterday called on all parties in the naval standoff to stop using "the language of force," while Britain's Foreign Office said it shared with Iran a "desire to make early progress" in ending the dispute.

The incident is far less dramatic than the U.S. faceoff – the most serious in decades of mutual suspicion and hostility. But it is only one of a number of crises in which Iran and the West have locked horns.

As far back as 1946, the Soviet Union helped to launch the Cold War by refusing to withdraw from Iran after World War II.

In 1953, a U.S.-backed coup overthrew nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh after he nationalized the British-owned oil industry, leaving a legacy of Iranian bitterness against the West.

In 1979, relations soured further when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power and declared an Islamic Republic, allowing Islamic students to storm the U.S. embassy and take 52 Americans hostage, in a standoff that lasted 444 days.

The action set a hostile tone that continued in the 1980s, when a U.S. Navy ship shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 passengers, and Khomeini declared a fatwa on British author Salman Rushdie, accusing him of blasphemy for his book The Satanic Verses.

In the 1990s, the U.S. slapped oil and trade sanctions on Iran, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism and committing appalling human rights violations – a situation that was compounded after Iran admitted in 2003 it was producing plutonium, which it said was for peaceful purposes.

Tehran captured eight British servicemen a year later in the same waters where the current group were seized, but released them three days later. Canada's relations with Iran also worsened in 2003 when Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died of massive injuries in an Iranian prison.

Folly Of War With Iran by Steven Heller

The papers are reporting that Israel is arranging safe passage for its jets to bomb Iran. A Kuwaiti paper says that Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have given their permission for the planes to overfly those countries. The British paper The Telegraph quotes a senior unnamed Israeli defense official who says Israel is bargaining with the U.S. for an “air corridor” over Iraq. A U.S. carrier strike group sits off the coast of Iran with another one approaching. The administration continues to ratchet up the rhetoric. It now blames Iran for the Iraq insurgency. Another war could be weeks away.

Will Americans be fooled again? We went through this before. Three presidents and Congress said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and were a threat “to the world.” He had VX and smallpox. He had a nuclear program. He was in league with al-Qaida. The United States launched 10 years of sanctions and four years of all-out war, yet none of the charges were true.

The regime in Tehran is repulsive. Its “Holocaust Conference” was a sick joke. But Iran hasn't started a war in 200 years and there's no evidence it's suicidally planning a war against the United States or Israel. Yet the drumbeats for another shock-and-awe assault are getting louder.

Iran's activities monitored

Iran is indeed enriching uranium, but it's all under the eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency and there hasn't been any report that any of the material has been engineered to the point where it could be used in a bomb. Scott Ritter, the former Marine intelligence officer and U.N. arms inspector, who got it right about Iraq's lack of WMD, has been saying for years that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, only a nuclear energy program.

It was started by the late Shah of Iran with United States approval. Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New Yorker journalist, spoke at Yale on Jan. 31. He said the CIA has informed the administration that it can find “no evidence of a parallel program” in Iran to secretly make nuclear bombs.Yet even if Ritter and Hersh are wrong and Iran makes some nuclear bombs, how is that a serious threat to the United States or to Israel? Both countries could reduce Iran to a radioactive cinder in a few hours.

The charge that Iran is fueling the insurgency in Iraq is ludicrous. Iran is Shia.The Shia in Iraq have not fought the US troops except in two battles in 2004. The Iraqi government is dominated by the Shia pro-Iran parties. They are collaborating, not fighting the United States. The supposedly new high-tech “shaped charge” weapons have been used for decades and are well-known to Iraqi army veterans.

Nuclear attack against Iran?

Incredibly, it's quite possible that a United States-Israeli attack on Iran could involve nuclear weapons. Last month the Times of London reported that Israel is practicing bombing runs simulating attacks using “tactical” nuclear weapons. Its ultra-right wing government is spreading hysteria.The Israeli media trumpets stories from politicians and historians saying that Iran is planning a new Holocaust. It's whipping up the public to approve an atomic attack. U.S. politicians make no criticism, explaining that this “option” must be left on the table.

That an unprovoked attack on Iran would be a grave violation of international law is of no consequence to the administration, but consider what the effect of an attack would be on the U.S. and on our troops. Iran could suspend its oil sales. It could rocket the oil sheikdoms that gave Israel safe passage. It might be able to block oil transport through the Straits of Hormuz. Are we ready for $100 barrel oil? Are we ready to have our troops in Iraq become sitting ducks for Iranian missiles? And what if the Iraqi Shia do start to mount their own insurgency?

There is some hope of avoiding this disaster. The politicians are pathetic. None of them has come out forthrightly saying there's no need for war with Iran. According to the London Times, some U.S. generals are prepared to quit if Bush gives an order for an attack on Iran, but that would come too late. The people have to speak out angrily and massively and denounce the folly of an attack on Iran. They have to do it now.

Stanley Heller is chairman of the Middle East Crisis Committee, based in Woodbridge. He lives in West Haven.

Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring

http://www.guardian .co.uk/print/ 0,,329712014- 111322,00. html
Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring

Despite denials, Pentagon plans for possible attack on nuclear sites are well advanced

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday February 10, 2007

Guardian

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office.

Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.

Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, said yesterday: "I don't know how many times the president, secretary [of state Condoleezza] Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran."

But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. "Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place."

He added: "We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous."

Deployment

Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made.

Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action.

In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled.

The danger is that the build-up could spark an accidental war. Iranian officials said on Thursday that they had tested missiles capable of hitting warships in the Gulf.

Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was under way: "Gates said there is no planning for war. We know this is not true. He possibly meant there is no plan for an immediate strike. It was sloppy wording.

"All the moves being made over the last few weeks are consistent with what you would do if you were going to do an air strike. We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq. It is an air operation."

One of the main driving forces behind war, apart from the vice-president's office, is the AEI, headquarters of the neo-conservatives. A member of the AEI coined the slogan "axis of evil" that originally lumped Iran in with Iraq and North Korea. Its influence on the White House appeared to be in decline last year amid endless bad news from Iraq, for which it had been a cheerleader. But in the face of opposition from Congress, the Pentagon and state department, Mr Bush opted last month for an AEI plan to send more troops to Iraq. Will he support calls from within the AEI for a strike on Iran?

Josh Muravchik, a Middle East specialist at the AEI, is among its most vocal supporters of such a strike.

"I do not think anyone in the US is talking about invasion. We have been chastened by the experience of Iraq, even a hawk like myself." But an air strike was another matter. The danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon "is not just that it might use it out of the blue but as a shield to do all sorts of mischief. I do not believe there will be any way to stop this happening other than physical force."

Mr Bush is part of the American generation that refuses to forgive Iran for the 1979-81 hostage crisis. He leaves office in January 2009 and has said repeatedly that he does not want a legacy in which Iran has achieved superpower status in the region and come close to acquiring a nuclear weapon capability. The logic of this is that if diplomatic efforts fail to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment then the only alternative left is to turn to the military.

Mr Muravchik is intent on holding Mr Bush to his word: "The Bush administration have said they would not allow Iran nuclear weapons. That is either bullshit or they mean it as a clear code: we will do it if we have to. I would rather believe it is not hot air."

Other neo-cons elsewhere in Washington are opposed to an air strike but advocate a different form of military action, supporting Iranian armed groups, in particular the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), even though the state department has branded it a terrorist organisation.

Raymond Tanter, founder of the Iran Policy Committee, which includes former officials from the White House, state department and intelligence services, is a leading advocate of support for the MEK. If it comes to an air strike, he favours bunker-busting bombs. "I believe the only way to get at the deeply buried sites at Natanz and Arak is probably to use bunker-buster bombs, some of which are nuclear tipped. I do not believe the US would do that but it has sold them to Israel."

Opposition support

Another neo-conservative, Meyrav Wurmser, director of the centre for Middle East policy at the Hudson Institute, also favours supporting Iranian opposition groups. She is disappointed with the response of the Bush administration so far to Iran and said that if the aim of US policy after 9/11 was to make the Middle East safer for the US, it was not working because the administration had stopped at Iraq. "There is not enough political will for a strike. There seems to be various notions of what the policy should be."

In spite of the president's veto on negotiation with Tehran, the state department has been involved since 2003 in back-channel approaches and meetings involving Iranian officials and members of the Bush administration or individuals close to it. But when last year the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sent a letter as an overture, the state department dismissed it within hours of its arrival.

Support for negotiations comes from centrist and liberal thinktanks. Afshin Molavi, a fellow of the New America Foundation, said: "To argue diplomacy has not worked is false because it has not been tried. Post-90s and through to today, when Iran has been ready to dance, the US refused, and when the US has been ready to dance, Iran has refused. We are at a stage where Iran is ready to walk across the dance floor and the US is looking away."

He is worried about "a miscalculation that leads to an accidental war".

The catalyst could be Iraq. The Pentagon said yesterday that it had evidence - serial numbers of projectiles as well as explosives - of Iraqi militants' weapons that had come from Iran. In a further sign of the increased tension, Iran's main nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, cancelled a visit to Munich for what would have been the first formal meeting with his western counterparts since last year.

If it does come to war, Mr Muravchik said Iran would retaliate, but that on balance it would be worth it to stop a country that he said had "Death to America" as its official slogan.

"We have to gird our loins and prepare to absorb the counter-shock," he said.

War of words

"If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly"
George Bush, in an interview with National Public Radio

"The Iranians clearly believe that we are tied down in Iraq, that they have the initiative, that they are in position to press us in many ways. They are doing nothing to be constructive in Iraq at this point"
Robert Gates

"I think it's been pretty well-known that Iran is fishing in troubled waters"
Dick Cheney

"It is absolutely parallel. They're using the same dance steps - demonise the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux"
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter- terrorism specialist, in Vanity Fair, on echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq

"US policymakers and analysts know that the Iranian nation would not let an invasion go without a response. Enemies of the Islamic system fabricated various rumours about death and health to demoralise the Iranian nation, but they did not know that they are not dealing with only one person in Iran. They are facing a nation"
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 200

Why the Democrats Won't Save Us: Clinton, Edwards and Obama: Strike Iran

Why the Democrats Won't Save Us
Clinton, Edwards and Obama: Strike Iran
by Joshua Frank
www.dissidentvoice.org

February 6, 2007

Over the past weekend Hillary Clinton pledged to end the war in Iraq if she is elected. "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will," she told a large crowd at the Democratic National Committee's winter convention in Washington.

It was the first time since announcing her candidacy that Hillary acknowledged the growing movement against the war when discussing Iraq, which faced its bloodiest period since the invasion almost four years ago with over 1,000 reported deaths in the last seven days alone. Also in attendance at the DNC meeting were other presidential hopefuls, including John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, who both attempted to paint themselves as the best antiwar candidate in the hunt for the White House.

The top candidates' tepid words on Iraq were a sign of what's to come over the next year and a half as their rhetorical talents are turned on high. Despite Obama's reassurance that he did not support the war from the beginning, along with Edwards' claims that he's had a change of heart on his past pro-war votes -- neither candidate distinguished their position from the Bush administration when it came to the looming Iran confrontation.

In fact two weeks earlier, while visiting Israel, Edwards laid out his position on Iran quite succinctly:

"Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons . . . The vast majority of people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. This will make the American people reticent toward going for Iran. But I think the American people are smart if they are told the truth, and if they trust their president. So Americans can be educated to come along with what needs to be done with Iran."

Hillary Clinton pushed virtually the same bitter line while addressing the annual AIPAC convention held in New York City last week. "U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,'' Clinton told the crowd of Israel supporters. "In dealing with this threat . . . no option can be taken off the table.''

Barack Obama has also been upfront about how he would deal with Iran, arguing that he would not rule out the use of force and supports surgical strikes of alleged nuclear sites in the country if diplomacy (read: coercion) fails. To put it bluntly, none of the front running Democrats are opposed to Bush's dubious "war on terror" or his bullying of Iran. They support his aggression in principle but simply believe a Democratic presidency could handle the job more astutely. All put Israel first and none are going to fundamentally alter U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Times like these require bravery. They require a fight. A fight against immoral and illegal policies. A fight against tyranny. A fight for freedom. Freedom from hatred. Freedom from occupation. Americans and the people of the Middle East deserve better than Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama. They deserve to live their lives without the threat of warfare and bloodshed. They deserve to live without fear.

Joshua Frank is Co-Editor of Dissident Voice, and the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush. He edits BrickBurner.org, the official blog of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: joshua@dissidentvoice.org.

2007: Decisive Year for the Israeli-Neocon Attack Iran Plan

2007: Decisive Year for the Israeli-Neocon Attack Iran Plan By Kurt Nimmo

Global Research, January 2, 2007

kurtnimmo.com - 2007-01-01

As if to kick off the New Year, and usher in the required political mindset, the Israelis are switching the attack Iran mantra into hyperdrive. “As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors,” declares Israeli Brigadier General Oded Tira. “We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure.” It is refreshing, in a sadistic sort of way, so little translation is required here. First, Tira, a former IDF chief artillery officer, has cut to the chase, not belaboring us with the sort of platitudes uttered by a Binyamin Netanyahu or Ehud Olmert. In order for Israel to exist, so the reasoning goes, it is required for the United States to attack Iran and kick off world war three, or as the neocons call it, world war four. Of course, by “existence” the former IDF officer means Israel must continue the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, continue killing and torturing the Palestinian people, and mucking around in the domestic affairs of its Arab neighbors. I believe the second point, however, is not necessary, as in many ways the Democrats are more pro-Israel than the Republicans, if that is possible. Killing large numbers of Muslims—650,000, by conservative estimates, in Iraq alone as the year ends—is indeed a bipartisan affair. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while dissing the neocon occupation of Iraq in the name of political expediency, have called for invading Iran. But the likely Democrat presidential selectee, John Edwards, is even more pro-Zionist than either Clinton or Obama. “Edwards has been one of Israel’s strongest and most consistent supporters in the U.S. Senate, and as President, he will work in the tradition of Democratic Presidents like Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Bill Clinton to strengthen the special relationship between the United States and Israel and the Jewish people. He will work tirelessly to strengthen America’s economic and political ties with Israel—the region’s only democracy—and will ensure that America will do what is necessary to ensure Israel’s security, including through economic and military aid,” declares the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, billed as a “non-partisan” organization established “to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship by emphasizing the fundamentals of the alliance,” that is to say disseminate propaganda through the Jewish Virtual Library, a sprawling online encyclopedia. Specifically, in regard to Iran, Edwards said during a vice presidential selectee “debate” in 2004: “It’s important for America to confront the situation in Iran, because Iran is an enormous threat to Israel and to the Israeli people.” Not the American people, mind you, but the Israeli people. As president, Edwards will carry Israel’s torch forward, making certain to ignite Iran—not that he will be required to do such, as the departing neocons will do it for him, possibly sooner before later. Mr. Tira offers a few choice suggestions on how best to start world war four and ultimately destroy America. “For our part, we must prepare an independent military strike by coordinating flights in Iraqi airspace with the US. We should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the use of airbases in its territory and also enlist the support of the Azeri minority in Iran. In addition, we must immediately start preparing for an Iranian response to an attack.” In addition to the lucrative Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and billions in oil and gas revenue, the Israelis are interested in using Azerbaijan as a staging platform for a future attack, as Tira notes. According to Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter, the Israeli Mossad is busily at work unleashing covert intelligence cells inside Iran, “supplemented with specially trained commandos entering Iran disguised as local villagers,” according to Hersh. In an interview published by Aljazeera, Ritter claims “the Mossad is working with the Azeri population” to undermine Iranian sovereignty. The strategic importance of the Israeli-Azeri alliance should not be underestimated—Azeris are the second largest ethnic group within Iran. “Human Rights Watch reports that between 15 and 20 million Azeris reside in Iran, and that they ‘inhabit a strategically important, prosperous area in northwest Iran, relatively close to Tehran,’” notes Nick Grace C. According to Glenn Hauser, who monitors short wave radio, the Voice of Southern Azerbaijan is an Israeli operation. Wolfgang Bueschel, another short wave monitor, told “IPS in October 1992 from Baku, that the Israelian (sic) secret service specialist David Kimche and… Richard Secord, who was involved in the Iran-Contra-Affair, visited Azerbaijan, (and) presented a delegation of more Israelian secret service personnel. Mr. Culuzadeh took part on a return visit to Israel, (and) lead a delegation of Azerbaijan/Uzbek/Kazakh secret services.” But simply stirring up the Azeri population will not be enough, not without an aroused United States, once again willing to lend its once powerful, now increasingly impotent, military to the Israeli cause. “Based on the urgency of General Tira’s extraordinary pleas, it is immediately apparent that he has been shocked by the turn of political events inside America. By this time, he has learned from official US sources that the long-anticipated attack against Iran has been shelved because of tectonic shifts in American politics,” writes Michael Carmichael. In short, the Israelis are not prepared to wait for the glacial turn of American politics, especially now that the decidedly pro-Israel Democrats are taking over the reigns of Congress. Israel has demanded the United States invade Iran for a couple years now and is obviously growing increasingly agitated with the slow move in that direction, a move nonetheless promised before Bush leaves office. Even though Mr. Carmichael believes the neocon plan for attacking Iran is in decline, the principals remain faithful to the cause. For instance, Binyamin Netyanahu. In an op-ed published in the neocon-infested Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu declares “Iran can still be stopped,” and the Israelis “must make it clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the US and the entire world, not only Israel.” In other words, in regard to the in-coming Democrat Congress, there must be “an intense, international, public relations front focusing first and foremost on the US…. The time has come for the Israeli government to put our existence in its utmost priority. If it does so, I guarantee that both my party members and myself will give our full support in preparation against the Iranian threat, as we did in the Lebanon war,” never mind that “war” went badly for Israel, as it ran smack up against the reality of a well-armed and trained Hezbollah. Come the invasion of Iran, Hezbollah’s resistance will look like an informal dress rehearsal by way of comparison. As it now appears, 2007 will be the decisive year for Israel’s long-planned attack on Iran, thanks to a never-ending stream of propaganda and the easily exploitable ignorance of the American people. “The Bush administration, with the able help of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel Lobby, has succeeded in exploiting the ignorance of the American people about nuclear technology and nuclear weapons,” writes Scott Ritter. “If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.” In addition to AIPAC influence and the overtime work of the neocons, the latter with a virtual electronic forum thanks to the corporate media and the former now diligently canvassing Congress for easily won support, there is Bush’s “legacy” to consider. “Bush can’t stop now,” writes Scott Horton. “He figures his legacy as a disgrace to America and all mankind can be postponed or perhaps somehow even reversed if he could have just a little more time. Time for what? Could it be that Bush truly intends to carry out the full neoconservative program in the Middle East, complete with more regime changes? …. Perhaps the question is whether Israel will start a war in Syria as a back door to the expansion of America’s war to Iran, or will the U.S. simply fake another Gulf of Tonkin provocation in the Indian Ocean and hit Syria second?…. Robert Parry reports that Bush, Blair and Olmert are already planning for more war in the new year. The Iranians seem to have waited too long to get their act together. If they had withdrawn from the NPT and started harvesting plutonium the way North Korea did, instead of throwing their books wide open to the UN and trying to go along, they’d have a nuclear deterrent by now.” Deterrent or not, Iran will not come out on the short end of any attack, although doubtless plenty of Iranians will die. It will be the United States and Israel that will ultimately suffer, or rather the people of these countries. If Israel manages to goad the United States into an attack, the economic consequences alone will put an end to the demented aspirations of Pax Americana, and this will spell disaster for Israel as well, as it cannot possibly hope to exist in current form if its nanny funds, to the tune of billions each year, suddenly evaporate.