Iraqi MP: Baghdad Not to Allow Israel to Use Iraq's Soil against Iran

30 september 2012, Fars News Agency http://english.farsnews.com (Iran)

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq will not allow Israel or the US to use its soil or airspace for an attack on Iran, a senior Iraqi legislator stressed on Sunday.

"Iraq opposes any aggression against Iran which is a neighboring country and will not allow Israel to use Iraq's airspace for waging an attack on Iran or any other country," Member of the Iraqi parliament's Security and Defense Committee Alexander Witwit told FNA.

"Iraq has on many occasions stated that its airspace is open to no country for an attack on Iran," Witwit reiterated, and warned that violating Iraq's airspace "will be a blatant violation of Iraq's national sovereignty and dignity" and will be followed by dire consequences.

The remarks by the Iraqi official came against a backdrop of Israel's intensified threats against Iran.

Israel and its close ally the United States accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads.

Iran vehemently denies the charges, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Iran has warned that it would target Israel and its worldwide interests in case it comes under attack by the Tel Aviv.

The United States has also always stressed that military action is a main option for the White House to deter Iran's progress in the field of nuclear technology.

In response, Iran has warned it would hit the US, Israel and their worldwide interests and close the strategic Strait of Hormuz if it became the target of a military attack over its nuclear program.

Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the strategic Persian Gulf waterway, is a major oil shipping route.

THE GRAND DEFAULT

29 september 2012, Gush Shalom http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english (Israel)

Uri Avnery's Column

I AM sitting here writing this article 39 years to the minute from that moment when the sirens started screaming, announcing the beginning of the war.

A minute before, total quiet reigned, as it does now. No traffic, no activity in the street, except a few children riding bicycles. Yom Kippur, the holiest day for Jews, reigned supreme. And then…

Inevitably, the memory starts to work.

THIS YEAR, many new documents were released for publication. Critical books and articles are abundant.

The universal culprits are Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan.

They have been blamed before, right from the day after the war, but only for superficial military offences, known as The Default. The default was failing to mobilize the reserves, and not moving the tanks to the front in time, in spite of the many signs that Egypt and Syria were about to attack.

Now, for the first time, the real Grand Default is being explored: the political background of the war. The findings have a direct bearing on what is happening now.

IT TRANSPIRES that in February 1973, eight months before the war, Anwar Sadat sent his trusted aide, Hafez Ismail, to the almighty US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. He offered the immediate start of peace negotiations with Israel. There was one condition and one date: all of Sinai, up to the international border, had to be returned to Egypt without any Israeli settlements, and the agreement had to be achieved by September, at the latest.

Kissinger liked the proposal and transmitted it at once to the Israeli ambassador, Yitzhak Rabin, who was just about to finish his term in office. Rabin, of course, immediately informed the Prime Minister, Golda Meir. She rejected the offer out of hand. There ensued a heated conversation between the ambassador and the Prime Minister. Rabin, who was very close to Kissinger, was in favor of accepting the offer.

Golda treated the whole initiative as just another Arab trick to induce her to give up the Sinai Peninsula and remove the settlements built on Egyptian territory.

After all, the real purpose of these settlements – including the shining white new town, Yamit – was precisely to prevent the return of the entire peninsula to Egypt. Neither she nor Dayan dreamed of giving up Sinai. Dayan had already made the (in)famous statement that he preferred “Sharm al-Sheik without peace to peace without Sharm al-Sheik”. (Sharm al-Sheik, which had already been re-baptised with the Hebrew name Ophira, is located near the southern tip of the peninsula, not far from the oil wells, which Dayan was also loath to give up.)

Even before the new disclosures, the fact that Sadat had made several peace overtures was no secret. Sadat had indicated his willingness to reach an agreement in his dealings with the UN mediator Dr. Gunnar Jarring, whose endeavors had already become a joke in Israel.

Before that, the previous Egyptian President, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, had invited Nahum Goldman, the President of the World Jewish Congress (and for a time President of the World Zionist Organization) to meet him in Cairo. Golda had prevented that meeting, and when the fact became known there was a storm of protest in Israel, including a famous letter from a group of eighth-graders saying that it would be hard for them to serve in the army.

All these Egyptian initiatives could be waved aside as political maneuvers. But an official message by Sadat to the Secretary of State could not. So, remembering the lesson of the Goldman incident, Golda decided to keep the whole thing secret.

THUS AN incredible situation was created. This fateful initiative, which could have effected an historic turning point, was brought to the knowledge of two people only: Moshe Dayan and Israel Galili.

The role of the latter needs explanation. Galili was the eminence grise of Golda, as well as of her predecessor, Levy Eshkol. I knew Galili quite well, and never understood where his renown as a brilliant strategist came from. Already before the founding of the state, he was the leading light of the illegal Haganah military organization. As a member of a kibbutz, he was officially a socialist but in reality a hardline nationalist. It was he who had the brilliant idea of putting the settlements on Egyptian soil, in order to make the return of northern Sinai impossible.

So the Sadat initiative was known only to Golda, Dayan, Galili and Rabin and Rabin’s successor in Washington, Simcha Dinitz, a nobody who was Golda’s lackey.

Incredible as it may sound, the Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, Rabin’s direct boss, was not informed. Nor were all the other ministers, the Chief of Staff and the other leaders of the armed forces, including the Chiefs of Army Intelligence, as well as the chiefs of the Shin Bet and the Mossad. It was a state secret.

There was no debate about it – neither public nor secret. September came and passed, and on October 6th Sadat’s troops struck across the canal and achieved a world-shaking surprise success (as did the Syrians on the Golan Heights.)

As a direct result of Golda’s Grand Default 2693 Israeli soldiers died, 7251 were wounded and 314 were taken prisoner (along with the tens of thousands of Egyptian and Syrian casualties).

THIS WEEK, several Israeli commentators bemoaned the total silence of the media and the politicians at the time.

Well, not quite total. Several months before the war, in a speech in the Knesset, I warned Golda Meir that if the Sinai was not returned very soon, Sadat would start a war to break the impasse.

I knew what I was talking about. I had, of course, no idea about the Ismail mission, but in May 1973 I took part in a peace conference in Bologna. The Egyptian delegation was led by Khalid Muhyi al-Din, a member of the original group of Free Officers who made the 1952 revolution. During the conference, he took me aside and told me in confidence that if the Sinai was not returned by September, Sadat would start a war. Sadat had no illusions of victory, he said, but hoped that a war would compel the US and Israel to start negotiations for the return of Sinai.

My warning was completely ignored by the media. They, like Golda, held the Egyptian army in abysmal contempt and considered Sadat a nincompoop. The idea that the Egyptians would dare to attack the invincible Israeli army seemed ridiculous.

The media adored Golda. So did the whole world, especially feminists. (A famous poster showed her face with the inscription: “But can she type?”) In reality, Golda was a very primitive person, ignorant and obstinate. My magazine, Haolam Hazeh, attacked her practically every week, and so did I in the Knesset. (She paid me the unique compliment of publicly declaring that she was ready to “mount the barricades” to get me out of the Knesset.)

Ours was a voice crying in the wilderness, but at least we fulfilled one function: In her ‘March of Folly”, Barbara Tuchman stipulated that a policy could be branded as folly only if there had been at least one voice warning against it in real time.

Perhaps even Golda would have reconsidered if she had not been surrounded by journalists and politicians singing her praises, celebrating her wisdom and courage and applauding every one of her stupid pronouncements.

THE SAME type of people, even some of the very same people, are now doing the same with Binyamin Netanyahu.

Again, we are staring the same Grand Default in the face.

Again, a group of two or three are deciding the fate of the nation. Netanyahu and Ehud Barak alone make all the decisions, “keeping their cards close to their chest”. Attack Iran or not? Politicians and generals are kept in the dark. Bibi and Ehud know best. No need for any other input.

But more revealing than the blood-curdling threats on Iran is the total silence about Palestine. Palestinian peace offers are ignored, as were those of Sadat in those days. The ten-year old Arab Peace Initiative, supported by all the Arab and all the Muslim states, does not exist.

Again, settlements are put up and expanded, in order to make the return of the occupied territories impossible. (Let’s remember all those who claimed, in those days, that the occupation of Sinai was “irreversible”. Who would dare to remove Yamit?)

Again, multitudes of flatterers, media stars and politicians compete with each other in adulation of “Bibi, King of Israel”. How smoothly he can talk in American English! How convincing his speeches in the UN and the US Senate!

Well, Golda, with her 200 words of bad Hebrew and primitive American, was much more convincing, and she enjoyed the adulation of the whole Western world. And at least she had the sense not to challenge the incumbent American president (Richard Nixon) during an election campaign.

IN THOSE days, I called our government “the ship of fools”. Our current government is worse, much worse.

Golda and Dayan led us to disaster. After the war, their war, they were kicked out – not by elections, not by any committee of inquiry, but by the grassroots mass protests that racked the country.
Bibi and Ehud are leading us to another, far worse, disaster. Some day, they will be kicked out by the same people who adore them now - if they survive.

NETANYAHU ROSNA, NA ONU, CONTRA O IRÃ

27 setembro 2012/ EDITORIAL Vermelho http://www.vermelho.org.br (Brasil)

Deu o previsto: o discurso do primeiro-ministro de Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, na Assembleia Geral da ONU foi recheado de ameaças contra o Irã e da rejeição a qualquer iniciativa de paz no Oriente Médio.

Netanyahu tentou subir o tom e propôs o estabelecimento de uma “linha vermelha” para conter o projeto nuclear iraniano. Parodiando o Coelho, de Alice no País das Maravilhas, repetiu: "Está ficando tarde, muito tarde", para conter o Irã. Uma obsessão agressiva que se traduziu ainda em reclamações contra a campanha pelo reconhecimento do Estado da Palestina.

Netanyahu agitou o fantasma, adequado para as temerosas mentes conservadoras do Ocidente, de um Irã distribuindo armas nucleares a terroristas. Justificou com essas repetidas alegações absurdas o discurso agressivo que, mesmo dentro de seu governo, não encontra consenso absoluto mas enfrenta resistências de alguns setores, como ficou claro recentemente com o vazamento à imprensa de debates da intimidade da administração de Israel.

Mas ele insiste, ameaçador: "Diante de uma linha vermelha clara, o Irã cederá", assegura, dizendo que o "futuro do mundo está em jogo".

O governo de Teerã tem repetidas vezes garantido a finalidade pacífica de seu programa nuclear, embora Israel, Estados Unidos e União Europeia acusem o país do objetivo de construir um arsenal nuclear. Movem dura e ameaçadora campanha contra o Irã que só não se traduziu, ainda, em ações de agressão contra o país devido a alguns fatores. Entre eles a resistência de algumas grandes nações como Rússia, China e Brasil, e a própria e crescente capacidade militar (convencional) que o Irã vem demonstrando em sucessivos testes e manobras de treinamento.

Outro fator, que não pode ser desprezado, é o isolamento internacional de Israel, e de Netanyahu em particular. Isolamento sinalizado pela frieza com que foi tratado, nesta viagem a Nova York, por Barack Obama (que não abriu espaço na agenda para um encontro com ele) e, também, pela ovação com que o dirigente palestino Mahmud Abbas foi recebido ao discursar na Assembleia Geral e propor o reconhecimento da Palestina como Estado (não-membro) das Nações Unidas.

Netanyahu age como um brigão de rua disposto a distribuir ultimatos para atemorizar seus adversários. E recebeu, de certa forma, uma reprimenda pública do secretário de Defesa dos EUA, Leon Panetta, que recentemente justificou sua oposição a um ultimato contra o Irã lembrando que chefes Estado não agem dessa maneira que pode voltar-se também contra o autor da ameaça.

A retórica dos EUA, a pouco mais de um mês antes da eleição presidencial de novembro que vai definir o destino do presidente Obama, tem sido ambígua ante um adversário com poder de fogo considerável e capacidade de reação cujos efeitos podem se espalhar pelo mundo. Um exemplo é a ameaça, real, de fechamento do estreito de Ormuz em consequência de um ataque ao Irã, e que poderá cavar ainda mais o buraco econômico em que os países ricos sobretudo estão medidos.

Mesmo assim, o discurso de Barack Obama, na terça-feira (25), na mesma Assembleia Geral que acaba de ouvir Netanyahu, também foi ameaçador. Embora tenha se oposto à imposição de um ultimato contra Teerã, Obama, que fez acenos ao mundo árabe, de certa forma antecipou o conteúdo do discurso do primeiro-ministro de Israel dizendo que o tempo para o Irã colaborar "não é ilimitado".

Os discursos na Assembleia Geral são feitos por chefes de Estado perante chefes de Estado, e constituem um termômetro da situação do mundo. Neste sentido, o pronunciamento do governante de Tel Aviv não inovou mas confirma uma disposição agressiva que, em defesa de sua própria política opressiva contra os palestinos e contra os povos do Oriente Médio, não recua ante a ameaça muito maior, a ameaça de um conflito armado generalizado que pode decorrer de um ataque contra o Irã.

US ELECTIONS CONCEAL PREPARATIONS FOR WAR WITH IRAN

27 September 2012, World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org (Australia)

Barry Grey

Within American ruling circles, it is well known that plans for war against Iran are far advanced, but there is a conspiracy of silence by both political parties and the media to keep this reality out of the presidential election. The intent is to drag the American people into yet another bloody war in the Middle East on the basis of false pretexts and lies, despite broad popular opposition to an attack on Iran.

Nothing reveals the anti-democratic and fraudulent character of the elections more clearly than the refusal to explain to the American people the military carnage that is being prepared in their name and allow them to express their democratic will.

Over the past week, a number of commentaries in the American and European press have warned of an attack by either Israel or the US, or both, against Iran in the near future, and a bipartisan group of former foreign policy officials, retired generals and former legislators has issued a report outlining the potentially catastrophic consequences of an unprovoked attack on the Persian Gulf country.

Some of the recent articles have the character of a pre-emptive political strike by ruling class figures wary of a war against Iran, while others suggest that such a war is necessary and inevitable. The confluence of such commentaries is itself an indication that detailed planning for war is underway.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, President Obama reiterated that the US will “do what we must” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is pressing for greater US security guarantees to Israel, whose prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, has criticized Obama for not moving quickly enough to launch military action.

But beyond such general threats, the reality of advanced plans for war is being concealed.

The National Journal on Monday posted an article entitled “The Path to War with Iran.” The article, prompted by a conference held last Friday by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on the subject of US-Israeli coordination against Iran, began by noting the significance of Obama’s speech last March before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “Obama announced a new policy that put the United States and Iran on a collision course from which neither has veered,” the author wrote.

“Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment,” Obama declared at the time. “I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon… I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.”

Commenting on the implications of Obama rejecting a policy of “containing” a nuclear Iran, the author wrote: “Either Tehran would have to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program, or the president was all but pledging a preventive war to destroy it.”

He then noted that Washington has deployed the largest US naval armada to the Persian Gulf in years and that the US Senate last Friday passed a bipartisan resolution, cosponsored by more than three-fourths of the chamber, ruling out a strategy of containment in regard to Iran.

The article quoted David Makovsky, an Israel “expert” and senior fellow at the Washington Institute, saying that the next administration, whether headed by Obama or Romney, will be under “intense pressure” to launch a military attack on the oil-rich country. Patrick Clawson, an Iran “expert” and director of research at the Washington Institute, said that, “[R]ight now we are headed towards war.”

The German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung published an article on Monday headlined “Dangerous War Rhetoric” that began: “When everyone is talking of war, a spark is sufficient to ignite one.”

The article compared the current situation in the Middle East to the eve of World War I, warning, “From a European perspective, things seem much like Europe in 1914.” It went to say that war could be set off by “an unplanned incident between US and Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf, a miscalculation of the Israeli or of the Iranian military, or a significant terrorist attack.”

Albert Hunt, Washington editor at Bloomberg News, published an article in Newsday, also last Monday, headlined “Americans Deserve a Pre-Emptive Debate on Attacking Iran.” He began: “The last two presidents have misled voters on the cost of armed conflicts. Amid another election, the drumbeats of war are sounding again. This time the subject is Iran. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Here we go again.”

Some of the disastrous consequences such a war could have were spelled out in a report released last week by the Iran Project, a bipartisan panel of former leading US diplomats, military officers and congressmen.

They wrote, “Even in order to fulfill the stated objective of ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear bomb, the US would need to conduct a substantially expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years. If the US decided to seek a more ambitious objective, such as regime change in Iran or undermining Iran’s influence in the region, then an even greater commitment of force would be required to occupy all or part of the country. Given Iran’s large size and population, and the strength of Iranian nationalism, we estimated that the occupation of Iran would require a commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the US has expended over the past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.”

The report pointed to risks of “all-out regional war” in the Middle East, of unidentified allies of Iran (such as Russia or China) acting to help Iran repel US attacks, and of a global economic collapse.

There is also the possibility that the US or Israel might employ nuclear weapons. During the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Hillary Clinton threatened to “obliterate” Iran.

The American ruling class has a long history of organizing wars of aggression behind the backs of the American people. President Lyndon Johnson ran for election in 1964 pledging to avoid a major war in Vietnam, even as he was planning to escalate the US intervention. He notoriously told the military brass, “Just let me get elected, and then you can have your war.”

In the 2000 presidential election, plans for an attack on Iraq were concealed by both Bush and Gore. In the 2002 mid-term election, the Democrats made a calculated decision, despite broad popular opposition to Bush’s war plans, not to discuss the advanced preparations for an invasion.

In 2008, Obama postured as an anti-war candidate, and proceeded once in office to continue the war in Iraq, expand the carnage in Afghanistan and extend US military aggression and subversion to Pakistan, Libya and Syria.

Whatever pledges of military action Obama and Romney may have given Netanyahu, they are for criminal acts of aggression carried out with contempt for US and Israeli public opinion. A recent poll by the Chicago Council for Global Affairs found 70 percent opposition in America to a US strike on Iran. Another poll found only 32 percent support in Israel for an Israeli strike.

This is a damning indictment of American capitalism and of the American political system. Even after hundreds of thousands of lives were lost and trillions of dollars squandered in unpopular wars for US control of the oil-rich Middle East, US imperialism is pressing ahead with plans for a new, even deadlier war.

The American people must be warned: A vast crime is being prepared behind your backs and in your name! Unless the war criminals in the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA are disarmed and held to account, ever-more bloody regional wars will coalesce into another global conflagration.

The working class is the social force that can prevent this, but only if it breaks free of the Democratic Party and the two-party system and takes the path of mass political struggle for the overthrow of the capitalism, the root cause of war, and the establishment of socialism.

“WAR ON IRAN WILL TRIGGER WORLD WAR III”

September 24, 2012, Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca (Canada)

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-war-on-iran-will-trigger-world-war-iii/

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

 “Our defensive power has been created on the basis of our defensive strategy and the presumption ruling our defensive strategy is that we will enter an massive battle with a US-led coalition.” Brigadier General Hossein Salami, IRGC Deputy Commander, September 2012)

Both the US and Israel have threatened to implement a preemptive first strike attack against Iran, the consequences of which would be devastating.

Responding to these ongoing threats, Iran’s Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Amir Ali Hajizadeh has warned that a US-Israeli military attack against Iran could lead to the outbreak of a Third World War. He also intimated that Israel cannot launch a war without the green-light from the US.

If such a war were to be launched, according to General Hajizadeh, a scenario of uncontrolled military escalation is likely to occur. If attacked, Iran would retaliate against both Israeli and US targets including US military facilities in neighboring countries (ie. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gulf States):

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force General Amir Ali Hajizadeh warned the US and the Zionist regime [Israel] that an attack on Iran will likely trigger World War III.

Speaking to the Arabic news network, Al-Alam on Sunday, General Hajizadeh said the US and the Israeli regime may not enter war with Iran “independent from each other, meaning that either one of these two starts the war, it will be joined by the other one”.

“We see the US and the Zionist regime standing fully on the side of each other and we cannot imagine the Zionist regime initiating a war without the US backup. Due to the same reason, if a war breaks out, we will definitely wage battle on both sides and will definitely be engaged with the US bases,” he said.

“In case such conditions arise, a series of incidents will take place which will not be controllable and manageable and such a war might turn into a third world war. That means, certain countries may enter the war for or against Iran,” added the general.

The IRGC commander warned that in case such war is waged on Iran, the US bases in “those countries around us and inside the neighboring countries will be targeted and they will even be threatened by the nations of these very states”. (Fars News Agency, September 23, 2012, emphasis added)

The World is at a dangerous crossroads. The statement of General Hajizadeh must be taken seriously.

Active war preparations against Iran have been ongoing for the last eight years. Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated. Israel cannot act without the support of its allies.

This is a coordinated endeavor of the Pentagon, NATO and Israel’s Defense Force (IDF) directed against Iran. Several non-NATO partner countries including the frontline Arab states (members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative) are also involved.

Media Disinformation

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to humanity. Quite the opposite: it is viewed as a humanitarian endeavor.

Retaliation

The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people’s inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be “taken out”.

Iran has significant military capabilities. The fact that an attack on Iran could lead to retaliation and escalation which could potentially unleash a “global war” is not a matter of concern.

While the Islamic Republic does not constitute a threat to the security of Israel, Iran’s military brass has emphasized that in the case of an attack on Iran, retaliation against Israel is contemplated, with potentially devastating consequences:

On Saturday, IRGC’s top Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said an enemy invasion of Iran is possible, but such a war would put an end to the life of the Zionist regime of Israel.

….

“War may break out, but if Zionists [Israeli government] start something, that will be the point of their annihilation and the endpoint of their story,” he added.

Jafari, meantime, underlined that “no one dares to wage an extensive ground assault on Iran”.

The General said if the enemy were wise, there wouldn’t be any problem, “but the problem is that there is no guarantee for this rationality and we should be prepared too.

Later yesterday, his deputy, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, cautioned that any possible attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Zionist regime would provide an opportunity for Tehran to wipe the regime off the earth.

“If the Zionists embark on attacking Iran, it will provide a historical opportunity for the Islamic Revolution to wipe them off the world’s geographical history,” Salami said on Saturday night on the state-run TV.

“We are now through with concerns about the Zionist regime’s threats,” he said, adding that Israel has bitter memories of its last-decade wars with the regional allies of the Islamic Republic, including Hezbollah and Hamas Movement.

“(Given the above-mentioned failures) how does it (the Zionist regime) want to be a threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran?” Salami asked.

He, meantime, underlined Iran’s preparedness to confront any aggression against the country, and said, “Our defensive power has been created on the basis of our defensive strategy and the presumption ruling our defensive strategy is that we will enter an massive battle with a US-led coalition.”

On Friday, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi also warned that Tehran would reciprocate any aggression against the country with an “immediate” and “non-stop” response, stressed.

“We do not feel threatened by the boastful remarks of Zionist leaders, because they are creatures with deep fright who continue crying out since they know that Iran’s response to threats will be readymade, immediate and non-stop,” Major General Firouzabadi told reporters on the sidelines of September 21 military parades marking the anniversary of the Week of Sacred Defense here in Tehran on Friday morning.

“The Zionist regime officials have declared in their (military) estimates that military operations against Iran neither can be done by Israel nor is useful for them,” he added.

He also stated that Iran’s armed forces today are unpredictable and their strategy and actions cannot be foreseen by the enemies.

The Sacred Defense Week, commemorating Iranians’ sacrifices during the 8 years of Iraqi imposed war on Iran in 1980s, started on Friday with nationwide parades by various units of the Islamic Republic Army, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basij (volunteer) forces in Southern Tehran. (Fars News Agency, September 23, 2012, emphasis added)

Reverse the Tide of War

We call upon our readers to spread the message far and wide.

We call upon people across the land, in America, Western Europe, Israel, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their governments which are supportive of military action against Iran, against the media which serves to camouflage the devastating implications of a war against Iran.

The people of Israel are largely united against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resolve to attack Iran.

A protocol of non-aggression should be reached between Israel and Iran.

* * *

The object of this book is to forcefully reverse the tide of war, challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, Global Research, Montreal, 2012)

Order your copy of

“Towards a World War III Scenario” by Michel Chossudovsky

Reviews

Professor Chossudovsky’s hard-hitting and compelling book explains why and how we must immediately undertake a concerted and committed campaign to head off this impending cataclysmic demise of the human race and planet earth. This book is required reading for everyone in the peace movement around the world.”
-Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois College of Law

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
-John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
-Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute

ISRAELI LEADER PRESSES OBAMA TO SET TRIGGER FOR WAR AGAINST IRAN

18 September 2012, World Socialist Web Site https://www.wsws.org (Australia)

By Peter Symonds

In another provocative move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on two prominent American TV talk shows on Sunday to press the Obama administration to set a “red line” for military action against Iran over its nuclear program.

While denying that he was intervening in US politics, Netanyahu’s inflammatory language was obviously aimed at generating a nuclear scare over Iran and pressuring Obama to set a trigger for war in the midst of the American presidential campaign. Republican challenger Mitt Romney has already branded Iran’s nuclear program as Obama’s “greatest failure” in foreign policy and accused him of abandoning Israel.

Netanyahu told CNN’s “State of the Union” that: “They [Iran] are moving very rapidly to completing the enrichment of the uranium that they need to produce a nuclear bomb. In six months or so they’ll be 90 percent of the way there.” Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press”, he declared: “They’re in the last 20 yards, and you can’t let them cross the goal line,” adding that would have “grievous consequences for the peace and security of us all.”

Netanyahu’s remarks are a deliberate falsification, designed to create the impression that the country is on the brink of building a nuclear device. Tehran has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and its uranium enrichment facilities are all monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Regular IAEA reports detail Iran’s stockpile of uranium, which has been enriched at no more than 20 percent, well short of the 90 percent required for a nuclear bomb.

Tehran has repeatedly denied any plans to build a nuclear weapon. Moreover, US intelligence agencies have assessed that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to construct a nuclear bomb. Netanyahu provided no evidence to the contrary. His comments are completely cynical given that Israel has a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them anywhere in the Middle East.

In his remarks, Netanyahu seized on the wave of anti-US protests in the Middle East to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment. Referring to the Iranian regime, he declared: “It’s the same fanaticism that you see storming your embassies today. You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?”

The crude anti-Islamic video produced by elements of the American Christian right may have triggered the protests, but the underlying resentment and hostility throughout the region has been fuelled by decades of oppression and wars by US imperialism and its allies, including Israel. Netanyahu raises the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran, but it is Israel that has waged brutal wars of aggression in the Middle East.

Netanyahu made similarly provocative remarks last week, implying that Israel would take unilateral military action against Iran if the US did not. “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” he told a press conference in Jerusalem.

To date, the Obama administration has rejected Netanyahu’s demands. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has bluntly stated that the US was “not setting deadlines” for military action. Appearing on the same talk shows as Netanyahu last Sunday, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice reiterated that all options, “including a military one,” were on the table. But she insisted that there was still “time and space” to force Iran to bow to international diplomatic pressure and sanctions.

These differences between the US and Israel are purely tactical. Obama is just as willing as Netanyahu to resort to military force against Iran. Since the beginning of the year, the Pentagon has been systematically building up US military presence in the Persian Gulf—doubling the number of aircraft carrier battle groups to two and stationing sophisticated F-22 fighters in the region.

Under the guise of “defence”, Washington has bolstered the anti-missile systems of its regional allies, including Israel, to block possible Iranian retaliation against an American attack. This week, the US navy commenced the largest ever anti-mine exercise in the Persian Gulf, involving warships from 30 countries, including Britain, France and Japan. While the US navy claimed these war games were purely defensive, the clear aim is to be able to neutralise Iran’s capacity to mine the Gulf and thus enhance Washington’s ability to attack with impunity.

The Obama administration has also collaborated closely with the Israeli government in waging a covert campaign of sabotage and assassination against Iran. It is widely acknowledged that the US and Israel were responsible for the Stuxnet computer virus that damaged or destroyed gas centrifuges in Iran’s uranium enrichment plants. In the past two years, four top Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed, almost certainly by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad operating with direct or indirect US support.

On Monday, Iran’s nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani claimed that “terrorists and saboteurs” operating under the cover of the IAEA were responsible for explosions earlier this year that cut power to Iran’s uranium enrichment plants at Fordow and Natanz. While there is no independent evidence for such an attack, it cannot be automatically ruled out, given the close association of IAEA inspectors with foreign intelligence agencies, including the US and Israel.

The Obama administration might have rejected Netanyahu’s demand for a “red line”, for the present at least. But its highly provocative actions, including the imposition of crippling economic sanctions, the military build-up in the Gulf, and its involvement in covert operations inside Iran, have raised tensions throughout the region and greatly heightened the danger of war. The chief target of any American attack will not be Iran’s nuclear program, but the Iranian regime itself, which Washington regards as an obstacle to its ambitions to consolidate its dominance of the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.

A MESSAGE FROM ROMNYAHU

A MESSAGE FROM ROMNYAHU September 12th, 2012 Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel) Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי ONCE UPON a time, President Richard Nixon wanted to appoint a certain lawyer to the US Supreme Court. “But the man is a complete moron!” one senator exclaimed.

“So what,” answered another, “There are a great many morons in the US, and they have a right to be represented in the court as much as any other sector of society.”

Perhaps the United Morons of America have a right to elect Mitt Romney president. But for the sake of the US and Israel, I hope that this will not happen.

Some people say that Israel is the 51st state of the Union. Some say that it is the first among the 51. Whatever, our lives – and perhaps our deaths – depend to a great extent on the man in the White House.

So, with all my misgivings (and I have a lot) about Barack Obama, I very much hope that he will be reelected.

IN HIS latest seizure of wisdom, Romney did not only disclose that 47% of Americans are parasites, but also that “the Palestinians” want to destroy Israel. According to him, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has no solution, it will go on forever.

I wonder where he got this last piece from.

In Nazi Germany there was a certain Herr Doktor Otto Dietrich, a functionary of the Ministry for Propaganda. Every day, he would gather the editors of the important newspapers in Berlin and tell them what their headline and editorial were going to be the next day.

That was before the Internet and fax. Nowadays, the Prime Minister’s office faxes a daily ‘page of messages” to Netanyahu’s ministers and other stooges, telling them what messages they are to spread.

I strongly suspect that Romney read this page of messages just before he met his audience, composed of billionaires (or mere millionaires). After all, he couldn’t have invented these astounding pieces of insight all by himself, could he?

“THE PALESTINIANS” means “all Palestinians”. All nine million of them in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Israel, not to forget the refugees around the world.

Well, I suppose that if by divine intervention Israel were to disappear from the globe, very few Palestinians would shed a tear. Neither would many Israelis shed a tear if, again by divine intervention, all the Palestinians disappeared. Quite a few Israelis would even volunteer to help God Almighty in this task. Who knows, if Romney’s evangelical friends pray enough, their God may dematerialize all those Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians and assorted other miscreants.

Alas, such fantasies belong to the realms of dreams and nightmares. In the real world, peoples do not disappear even after gruesome genocides, nor can states which possess nuclear bombs be eradicated by foreign enemies.

I know quite a number of Palestinians, and not one of them believes that Israel can be annihilated. Since Yasser Arafat decided in late 1973 that he must come to terms with Israel, the great majority of Palestinians want a deal that will enable them to set up a state of their own in a part of historical Palestine. This is called the “two-state solution”.

The present government of Israel does not want this, because they are not ready to give up the 22% of historical Palestine which would become the State of Palestine. Since they have no viable alternative, the government’s spokespeople assert that “this conflict has no solution”.

One of the fathers of this slogan is Ehud Barak. After the failed 2000 Camp David meeting, Barak, then Prime Minister, famously declared that “we have no partner for peace”. Since Barak was the main cause for the meeting’s failure, I dubbed him “peace criminal”.

Netanyahu gratefully picked up Barak's cry, and now the great majority in Israel believes this message implicitly. (Recently I was interviewed by a Danish journalist. I told her: When we finish, stop the first taxi. Ask the driver about peace. He will tell you “Peace would be wonderful. I am ready to give back all the territories for peace. But unfortunately the Arabs will never make peace with us,” An hour later the journalist excitedly called me: “I did as you told me, and the driver repeated your words one by one.”)

“No solution” gives an impression of “everything will remain as it is”. That is a mistake. Nothing remains as it is. Things move all the time, settlements expand, Palestinians will rise up, the world is in flux, the Arab world changes, some day an American president will put the interests of the US ahead of those of Israel. Where will we be then?

THE GIST of Romney’s message is that the two-state solution is dead. This reminds me of Mark Twain’s famous: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

It is now in fashion to say so. Quite a trend. However, different people have different reasons for believing that the two-state solution is dead.

Parents, teachers, pedophiles and cannibals all say they love children. But their motives are not the same. This is also true for the would-be undertakers of the two-state solution. They include:

One: Idealists, who wish for people of different nations to live together in harmony and equality in one state. (I would like them to study the history of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, and the present situation of the French in Canada, Scots in Britain, Flemish in Belgium and Basques and Catalans in Spain.)

Two: Arabs, who really believe that this is a peaceful way to get rid of Israel.

Three: Settlers, who want to turn the whole of historical Palestine into their dominion and, if possible, “cleanse” the country of non-Jews.

Four: Israelis, who believe that the settlements have created a situation that is “irreversible”. (Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, coined this phrase already in the early 1980s, when there were less than 100 thousand settlers. I told him then that nothing was irreversible except death. Situations created by human beings can be changed by human beings.)

Five: Anti-Zionists, including Jewish anti-Zionists, who hate Zionism indiscriminately, with all its good and bad aspects, and for whom the very existence of a “Jewish” state is an abomination.

Six: Muslim fanatics, who believe that Palestine is a Muslim waqf (religious grant), so that allowing any part of it to non-Muslims is a deadly sin.

Seven: Jewish fanatics, who believe that all of Eretz-Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates, has been promised to the Jews by God, so that conceding any part of it to non-Jews is a deadly sin.

Eight: Christian fanatics, who believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ will be possible only after the ingathering of all the Jews in this country (with no place in it for anyone else.)

Sorry if I have forgotten someone.

SOME OF these people have invented something called the “one-state solution”. That is an oxymoron. There is a one-state problem, there is no one-state solution.

From time to time it is worthwhile to come back to the basic facts of our life:

There are two peoples living in this country.

Neither of the two will go away. They are here to stay.

While the Arab Palestinians living in the country are still a minority, they will constitute the majority quite soon.

Both peoples are intensely nationalistic.

The two peoples have different cultures, languages, religions, historic narratives, social structures, standards of living. At present, after some 130 years of continuous conflict, there is intense hatred between them.

The possibility that these two peoples could live peacefully in one state, serving in the same army and police, paying the same taxes and abiding by the same laws enacted by the same common parliament, is nil.

The possibility that these two peoples could live peacefully side-by-side in two states, each with its own flag and its own elected government (and its own soccer team), does exist.

Such co-existence can take different forms: from a loose confederation with open borders and free movement to closer forms of evolving structures, like the European Union.

I hope that this is not too complicated for Mitt Romney to understand. But this may become irrelevant if – as I fervently hope – he is not elected.

I would hate for an ignoramus to be given the opportunity to learn world affairs on our

backs.