Coming Soon - War with Iran?

[Bruce Dazzling]

Starman Skye

I had to come back and watch the video again.
It was really painful to watch it - like cognitive root canal work.

So I tried some NLP - an apporach called "triple description" where in any communication system , you try to adopt (at least) three ways of looking at what happens.

Stepping in Adam's shoes - he has direct experiential evidence (serving in Iraq) underpinning what he is saying. He sees himself communicating with someone who has no experience of that. He titled the video
WARNING: Supporting the war in Iraq will make you sound like a fucking moron

Stepping into my shoes - there seems a massive gap here and I was stunned at the lady walking off. On reflection, I think she was faced with information that created such cognitive dissonance that it created actual physical 'flight or fight' stress - and her body fled scene of the danger.

Stepping into the ladies shoes...
"Oh gosh he has a video. I should have worn something else.
He said he is a vet I should respect him and listen.
Big guy He is really in my face, I mentioned Morocco
twice, Ignored me. Feel afraid. My words dont sound right.
Tieing me in knots. Words not coming out.. must get outta here!'


I think the video has important issues about the need to exploring classes of communication activity that will engage rather than disengage / alienate all people involved.

My favorite part of the video occurs at around 3:20 when the younger blond woman turns away from the interview, recognizing it for the immensely uncomfortable horror show that it is.

I'd LOVE to hear the conversation the two women had immediately following the interview.

[AlicetheKurious]

Who will attack Iran? Europe? They have their own problems. The US? Is the US in any position to assault a much more powerful state than Iraq and Afghanistan combined? So, will Israel do it? No way:

November 03, 2011

"Hold Me Back!"
Why Israel Will Not Attack Iran
by URI AVNERY

EVERYBODY KNOWS the scene from school: a small boy quarrels with a bigger boy. “Hold me back!” he shouts to his comrades, “Before I break his bones!”

Our government seems to be behaving in this way. Every day, via all channels, it shouts that it is going, any minute now, to break the bones of Iran.

Iran is about to produce a nuclear bomb. We cannot allow this. So we shall bomb them to smithereens.

Binyamin Netanyahu says so in every one of his countless speeches, including his opening speech at the winter session of the Knesset. Ditto Ehud Barak. Every self-respecting commentator (has anyone ever seen a non-self-respecting one?) writes about it. The media amplify the sound and the fury.

“Haaretz” splashed its front page with pictures of the seven most important ministers (the “security septet”) showing three in favor of the attack, four against.

* * *

A GERMAN proverb says: “Revolutions that are announced in advance do not take place.” Same goes for wars.

Nuclear affairs are subject to very strict military censorship. Very very strict indeed.

Yet the censor seems to be smiling benignly. Let the boys, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense (the censor’s ultimate boss) play their games.

The respected former long-serving chief of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, has publicly warned against the attack, describing it as “the most stupid idea” he has ever heard”. He explained that he considers it his duty to warn against it, in view of the plans of Netanyahu and Barak.

On Wednesday, there was a veritable deluge of leaks. Israel tested a missile that can deliver a nuclear bomb more then 5000 km away, beyond you-know-where. And our Air Force has just completed exercises in Sardinia, at a distance larger than you-know-where. And on Thursday, the Home Front Command held training exercises all over Greater Tel Aviv, with sirens screaming away.

All this seems to indicate that the whole hullabaloo is a ploy. Perhaps to frighten and deter the Iranians. Perhaps to push the Americans into more extreme actions. Perhaps coordinated with the Americans in advance. (British sources, too, leaked that the Royal Navy is training to support an American attack on Iran.)

It is an old Israeli tactic to act as if we are going crazy (“The boss has gone mad” is a routine cry in our markets, to suggest that the fruit vendor is selling at a loss.) We shall not listen to the US any more. We shall just bomb and bomb and bomb.

Well, let’s be serious for a moment.

* * *

ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period.

Some may think that I am going out on a limb. Shouldn’t I add at least “probably” or “almost certainly”?

No, I won’t. I shall repeat categorically: Israel Will NOT Attack Iran.

Since the 1956 Suez adventure, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an ultimatum that stopped the action, Israel has never undertaken any significant military operation without obtaining American consent in advance.

The US is Israel’s only dependable supporter in the world (besides, perhaps, Fiji, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.) To destroy this relationship means cutting our lifeline. To do that, you have to be more than just a little crazy. You have to be raving mad.

Furthermore, Israel cannot fight a war without unlimited American support, because our planes and our bombs come from the US. During a war, we need supplies, spare parts, many sorts of equipment. During the Yom Kippur war, Henry Kissinger had an “air train” supplying us around the clock. And that war would probably look like a picnic compared to a war with Iran.

* * *

LET’S LOOK at the map. That, by the way, is always recommended before starting any war.

The first feature that strikes the eye is the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which every third barrel of the worlds seaborne oil supplies flow. Almost the entire output of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Iraq and Iran has to run the gauntlet through this narrow sea lane.

“Narrow” is an understatement. The entire width of this waterway is some 35 km (or 20 miles). That’s about the distance from Gaza to Beer Sheva, which was crossed last week by the primitive rockets of the Islamic Jihad.

When the first Israeli plane enters Iranian airspace, the strait will be closed. The Iranian navy has plenty of missile boats, but they will not be needed. Land-based missiles are enough.

The world is already teetering on the verge of an abyss. Little Greece is threatening to fall and take major chunks of the world economy with her. The elimination of almost a fifth of the industrial nations’ supply of oil would lead to a catastrophe hard even to imagine.

To open the strait by force would require a major military operation (including “putting boots on the ground”) that would overshadow all the US misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can the US afford that? Can NATO? Israel itself is not in the same league.

* * *

BUT ISRAEL would be very much involved in the action, if only on the receiving end.

In a rare show of unity, all of Israel’s service chiefs, including the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet, are publicly opposing the whole idea. We can only guess why.

I don’t know whether the operation is possible at all. Iran is a very large country, about the size of Alaska, the nuclear installations are widely dispersed and largely underground. Even with the special deep penetration bombs provided by the US, the operation may stall the Iranian efforts – such as they are – only for a few months. The price may be too high for such meager results.

Moreover, it is quite certain that with the beginning of a war, missiles will rain down on Israel – not only from Iran, but also from Hizbollah, and perhaps also from Hamas. We have no adequate defense for our towns. The amount of death and destruction would be prohibitive.

Suddenly, the media are full of stories about our three submarines, soon to grow to five, or even six, if the Germans are understanding and generous. It is openly said that these give us the capabilities of a nuclear “second strike”, if Iran uses its (still non-existent) nuclear warheads against us. But the Iranians may also use chemical and other weapons of mass destruction.

Then there is the political price. There are a lot of tensions in the Islamic world. Iran is far from popular in many parts of it. But an Israeli assault on a major Muslim country would instantly unite Sunnis and Shiites, from Egypt and Turkey to Pakistan and beyond. Israel could become a villa in a burning jungle.

* * *

BUT THE talk about the war serves many purposes, including domestic, political ones.

Last Saturday, the social protest movement sprang to life again. After a pause of two months, a mass of people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. This was quite remarkable, because on that very day rockets were falling on the towns near the Gaza Strip. Until now, in such a situation demonstrations have always been canceled. Security problems trump everything else. Not this time.

Also, many people believed that the euphoria of the Gilad Shalit festival had wiped the protest from the public mind. It didn’t.

By the way, something remarkable has happened: the media, after siding with the protest movement for months, have had a change of heart. Suddenly all of them, including Haaretz, are sticking knives in its back. As if by order, all newspapers wrote the next day that “more than 20,000” took part. Well I was there, and I do have some idea of these things. There were at least 100,000 people there, most of them young. I could hardly move.

The protest has not spent itself, as the media assert. Far from it. But what better means for taking people’s minds off social justice than talk of the “existential danger”?

Moreover, the reforms demanded by the protesters would need money. In view of the worldwide financial crisis, the government strenuously objects to increasing the state budget, for fear of damaging our credit rating.

So where could the money come from? There are only three plausible sources: the settlements (who would dare?), the Orthodox (ditto!) and the huge military budget.

But on the eve of the most crucial war in our history, who would touch the armed forces? We need every shekel to buy more planes, more bombs, more submarines. Schools and hospitals must, alas, wait.

So God bless Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Where would we be without him?

URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Link

[Hammer of Los]

..

Please God they already cannot get away with another war.

Their power wanes by the day.

Thank you Alice.

..

[vanlose kid]

timing...

Central Asian Setback for the U.S. Military
Written by John Daly
Friday, 04 November 2011 13:38

The last few weeks have seen the U.S. Department of Defense suffer a number of setbacks in its effort to retain military influence overseas.

First came the startling announcement on 21 October, when President Obama announced that all American troops would be withdrawing from Iraq by 31 December under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement. Accordingly, 39,000 U.S. soldiers will leave Iraq by the end of the year.

The deal breaker?

Washington’s demand for continued immunity for any remaining U.S. troops, and the Iraqi government of President Jalal Talibani couldn’t, or wouldn’t, deliver.

Now the handwriting’s apparently on the wall further east, as Kyrgyz president-elect Almazbek Atambaev firmly told the United States on 1 November to leave its Manas military air base outside the capital Bishkek when its lease expires in 2014.

Atambaev, the former Prime Minister, won Kyrgyzstan’s 30 October presidential election. Speaking to journalists in the wake of his victory Atambaev said, “When I was appointed Prime Minister last year, and again this year, I warned employees and leaders of the U.S. embassy and visiting representatives that, in 2014 and in line with our obligations, the United States should leave the base. We know that the United States very often participates in various military conflicts. It happened in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now there is a tense situation with Iran. I wouldn’t want any of these countries one day to make a return strike on the military base.”

If Atambaev carries through with his pronouncements, then assuming that the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan extends beyond 2014, the Pentagon’s efforts there will be impacted, as the Manas facility remains the sole U.S. military base in Central Asia outside of Afghanistan. While the Obama administration has promised to fully withdraw all troops from Afghanistan the same year that the lease for the Kyrgyzstan base expires, 2014, next year’s presidential elections could upend that scenario.

But, roiling beneath the surface, it is the Pentagon’s close relationship with the former presidential administrations of Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiev that stoked populist resentment against the Manas facility, especially the cozy fueling agreements, details of which are only slowly coming to light, but which apparently provided both presidencies with a massive “off the books” cash flow. Key to the Pentagon’s efforts were murky agreements with the fuel entity Mina/Red Star, which provided fuel for Manas so off the record that when it was awarded a no-bid renewal contract in 2009 worth $729 million over three years journalistic inquiries were met with a stony “national security” defense to deny particulars of the agreement.

The presidency of interim president Roza Otumbaeva raised the stakes in 14 January, when Kyrgyz government representatives presented U.S. officials and Mina Corp. executives with the proposal to pay $55 per ton of fuel in excise tax, or else volunteer to pay $100 per ton of fuel directly to the state budget. Under the terms of the existing basing agreement for Manas, the U.S. government and its contractors were exempted from all local taxes.

Washington’s response was immediate and predictable. U.S. embassy spokesman Christian Wright in Bishkek said the exemption from excise tax is “vital” to the U.S. military’s ability to operate at Manas, offering the legalese, “Under the bilateral 2009 Agreement for Cooperation, the acquisition of articles and services in the Kyrgyz Republic by or on behalf of the United States in implementing the agreement is not subject to any taxes, customs duties or similar charges in the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic. Such articles and services include all fuel provided to the Manas Transit Center, including fuel supplied by sub-contractors.

This is standard practice around the world. The U.S. government has similar agreements with many countries throughout the world for fuel to be delivered free of all duties and taxes. The exemption from fuel taxes is a vital part of our ability to carry out the mission of the Manas Transit Center.”

Having thrown the dice to continue to operate Manas on the cheap, the Pentagon seems to have lost significant position on the grand Central Asian geostrategic chessboard. What is most extraordinary is that this represents the third time around for Washington wrangling over Manas and its attendant costs. After Akaev was ousted by the March 2005 “Tulip Revolution,” Washington quickly refashioned similar agreement with the new administration of President Kurmanbek Bakiev, who was subsequently ousted by popular unrest in April 2010.

For the Kyrgyz, the Russians are the devil they know, the Chinese are the devils flush with yuan, and the Americans, two decades after the collapse of the USSR, are the tight-fisted guys all too willing to cut a deal corrupting the previous presidential administrations of Akaev and Bakiev while delivering lectures about democracy. To quote some of the acerbic critics of former U.S. President George W. Bush, “all hat, no cattle.”

The Pentagon has lost yet another opportunity to expand its global footprint, but to use an American baseball metaphor, “three strikes and you’re out.” It’s not as if anyone except the most tone-deaf in Washington couldn’t see it coming.

By. John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

http://oilprice.com/Geo-Politics/Asia/C ... itary.html

*

[semper occultus]

Who will attack Iran? Europe? They have their own problems. The US? Is the US in any position to assault a much more powerful state than Iraq and Afghanistan combined? So, will Israel do it? No way....

...I know they're not supposed to actually use the stuff but that still leaves

Is Big Saudi Arms Sale a Good Idea?
Authors:
Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at Center for Strategic and International Studies
William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative, New America Foundation
Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, Lexington Institute
F. Gregory Gause III, Professor and chair of political science department, University of Vermont
Interviewer(s): Deborah Jerome, Deputy Editor

September 27, 2010

www.cfr.org

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have recently ordered U.S. weapons worth around $123 billion. The largest deal, if approved by Congress, would be a $60 billion package of U.S. arms for Saudi Arabia, including eighty-four new and seventy refurbished F-15 fighters, supplied largely by Boeing, as well as seventy Apache helicopters, seventy-two Black Hawks, and thirty-six Little Birds.

Anthony H. Cordesman

The U.S. invasion of Iraq has left Iraqi forces a decade away from being a counterbalance to Iran; Saudi Arabia is the only meaningful regional power to work with........Iran already poses a missile and chemical weapons threat and may pose a nuclear one within the next three to five years.

Coupled with recent U.S. offers of "extended regional deterrence" and the creation of a Saudi Air Force that is more of a threat to Iran than Iran's conventional missiles are to Saudi Arabia, they offer the best hope of both giving Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states security and stopping a nuclear arms race in the region.

Loren Thompson

The biggest component of the transaction involves new and refurbished F-15 fighters, which are designed for both air dominance and attack of ground targets. The fighter sale could have been a serious problem for Israel if Saudi Arabia had been offered stealthy F-22s or F-35s, because those aircraft would have been suitable for executing a surprise attack. The F-15 is not stealthy, and although its movements can be masked through the skillful application of tactics and electronic-warfare technology, Israeli defenders should have no difficulty detecting any threatening moves.

For Iran, though, the transaction presents a powerful deterrent since there is nothing in Tehran's current arsenal that can cope with the latest versions of the F-15 fighter or the AH-64 attack helicopter. The radical Shiite regime in Iran constitutes the most serious military threat to Saudi Arabia, so I expect that the pending arms sale will be followed by additional agreements to modernize the Saudi Eastern Fleet in the Gulf and upgrade missile defenses.

.....( ok totally mad...but the hawks are running out of time & totally mad seems to be SOP these days...)

[The Consul]

So we got this great idea, we put a "small" thermonuclear device in say the capitol of Grgyschrtstan, Brzlgwivrstan, the channel islands...where ever...doesn't matter, But what we do is sell access to the different components of the bomb to competing forces. Triggering device, core, arming device,payload disarming device, etc. Of course, eventually, we will have to put a bigger bomb in Washington DC, but the sales of that would have huge margins with which much political influence can be had and, well....the Pentagon will insist that all players abide by a totally fair and equal Flat Tax.

[AlicetheKurious]

...I know they're not supposed to actually use the stuff but that still leaves

Is Big Saudi Arms Sale a Good Idea?

No doubt Saudi Arabia, like Israel, would be delighted to have the US attack Iran, but no way, no way, would it do so itself. If Israel is vulnerable to an Iranian counter-strike, multiply that by 10 for Saudi Arabia, with all those vital oil fields well within striking range and the regime already feeling threatened by the revolutionary fervor sweeping the region and which, in Saudi Arabia, is especially concentrated among Saudi Shi'ites. The Saudis would provide the US with plenty of covert help (and they would insist that it remain covert), but they're in no position for many, many compelling reasons, to launch such a war themselves.

[semper occultus]

….yeah you're right....it'll never happen….in reality Iran are going to become fully nuclear-weapons capable…which I guess means the Saudi’s are going to go the same route…..

.....still it'd be a neat coup de frappe to those of an insane & evil inclination if they really, seriously didn’t want Iranian doomsday-weapons pointing at them & needed to create a situation in which to launch some kind of Saddam Hussein style crack-down on the restive shi'ite population...who ofcourse happen to live ontop of all those super-giant fields !

[vanlose kid]

..

Please God they already cannot get away with another war.

Their power wanes by the day.

...

more reason for war, no? waning power.

also, it'll boost the economy, create jobs: iraq and afghanistan. ask Krugman.

who'll attack? a coalition of the tanked?

*

[vanlose kid]

Iran To Israel: "We'll Show You Hell"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/08/2011 13:01 -0500


While we are looking for the full IAEA report blasting Iran and specifically its nuclear program, claiming that Iran carried out work relevant for developing nuclear arms according to a UN report citing 'credible' info, as well as having information of activities in Iran specific to nuclear weapons, we already know what Iran's response is to any potential 'provocations' from Israel. To wit: "We'll show you 'hell'" UPI explains: "Israel will learn the true meaning of "hell" if it decides a military strike against Iran is worth the risk, an Iranian national security official said. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is said to have been reviewing strike plans against Iran's nuclear infrastructure as the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Iranian officials have said any attack on its nuclear infrastructure would be suicidal." And the soundbites keep getting better: "If a military challenge is started against Iran in the region, the Zionist regime will definitely be faced with a hell," Javad Jahangirzadeh, a lawmaker on Iran's national security commission, told the semiofficial Fars News Agency." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in a Tuesday interview with Israel Radio, said Israel doesn't want war. If dragged into conflict, he said, the casualties would be low. "Israel is the strongest country in the region and it will stay that way," he added." And while a few weeks or even days ago, the outcome of this event would have been easily predictable, following the just announced "microphone" gaffe involving Sarkozy, Obama and Netanyahu, suddenly the odds are far more interesting. Regardless, at this point, aside from concluding that Keynesians everywhere must be rejoicing at the imminent GDP boost driven by the military-industrial complex, we can also venture to gamble: short glass manufacturers. In a few months there may be a natural glut.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/iran-isra ... w-you-hell

*

[vanlose kid]

moral handwringing aside it sounds like a done deal.

Iran could be the unmaking of Obama's presidency

The die is not yet cast, but for Barack Obama to attack Iran would be a rupture of faith in the change he once represented

Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 November 2011 19.34 GMT

Iran presents Barack Obama with the biggest international test of a presidency mired in underachievement. Having fluffed his lines on Afghanistan, climate change and the Arab spring, he is under growing pressure to fulfil his pledge to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to indicate that Obama is steadily failing in this objective, too. So what should he do? A wrong move now, and all the disappointments of the past three years could be wholly eclipsed by the most profound of moral ruptures.

It all comes down to Obama because, in the end, the US alone has the military firepower to stop Tehran in its tracks. Now Libya, supposedly, is done and dusted, Israeli officials have turned hyper, talking up the Iranian threat and arguing the time for diplomacy has all but passed. Those glum doomsayers, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defence chief Ehud Barak, and president Shimon Peres, are frantically ringing alarm bells like a trio of demented churchwardens. Something, they say, must be done, preferably involving some very large American bombs.

Republican hopefuls in the 2012 presidential election are beating the war drums too, sensing that Iran is a bunker-buster issue that could penetrate Obama's strong record on national security. Governor Rick Perry of Texas, a leading candidate, is saying he would fully support a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations. Another aspiring commander-in-chief, former senator Rick Santorum, describes Iran as the "enemy". It is campaign-trail nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense – and it ramps up the pressure on Obama.

While Perry and the pacemakers play drums, the Gulf's Sunni-led monarchies, historical enemies of revolutionary Shia Iran, are on acoustic guitar. Their lament, orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, is music to the ears of tone-deaf neocons and oil executives everywhere: Iran is the snake skulking under every stone – backing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the blood-drenched Alawite regime in Syria. An Iran armed with the bomb, they warn, would terrorise the region, threaten energy supplies, and provoke a pan-Arab nuclear arms race. Their solution? By "cutting off the head of the snake", Washington would defang these troubles and maybe get Syria (and pro-Tehran Iraq) thrown in for free.

So far the Obama White House is holding the line. Officials describe the IAEA report as "deeply troubling" and say all options remain open. But Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, insists the US continues to focus primarily on diplomacy and sanctions to bring pressure to bear on Iran. This circumspection has solid foundations. Expert opinion suggests military action against Iran's numerous dispersed and protected nuclear-related targets would probably not work, would likely kill and maim many civilians, and would certainly provoke unpredictable, potentially devastating consequences.

A 2006 study produced by the US Army War College, Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, suggested up to 1,000 air sorties might be required to ensure underground sites were eradicated, including possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Thus a pre-emptive strike would actually mean all out, escalating nuclear war with Iran, military retaliation against Israel, hostilities in neighbouring states, and a global oil shock. This might not look so great as Obama goes before the American people next November to seek a second term.

Yet alarmingly, the assumption that Obama would never be so dumb as to start another Middle East war is questioned. Author Jeffrey Goldberg suggests Obama would act militarily against Iran if he were persuaded Israel was at critical risk. "He doesn't want to be remembered as the president who failed to guarantee Israel's existence," Goldberg said. David Rothkopf, writing in Foreign Policy, is similarly sceptical. "If the president believes there is no other alternative to stopping Iran from gaining the ability to … manufacture nuclear weapons, he will seriously consider military action and it is hardly a certainty he won't take it." Cynical electoral calculations about walking tall in the world could influence such a decision.

The die is not yet cast. Unlike George Bush and Tony Blair contemplating Iraq in 2002, Obama has not already decided what to do. But here in dismal prospect, if he gets it wrong, is the unmaking of the Obama presidency, the betrayal of all those who believed his election heralded a shift away from the confrontational behaviours of the past. For Obama to attack Iran would be morally insupportable: it would be a rupture of faith. As a politician and as a leader, he would place himself beyond redemption.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... presidency

*

[AlicetheKurious]

moral handwringing aside it sounds like a done deal.

Yet alarmingly, the assumption that Obama would never be so dumb as to start another Middle East war is questioned. Author Jeffrey Goldberg suggests Obama would act militarily against Iran if he were persuaded Israel was at critical risk. "He doesn't want to be remembered as the president who failed to guarantee Israel's existence," Goldberg said. David Rothkopf, writing in Foreign Policy, is similarly sceptical. "If the president believes there is no other alternative to stopping Iran from gaining the ability to … manufacture nuclear weapons, he will seriously consider military action and it is hardly a certainty he won't take it." Cynical electoral calculations about walking tall in the world could influence such a decision.

Wishful thinking by zionist warmongers with a rather dismal record of supporting disastrous foreign policy failures for the US (that nonetheless benefited Israel)? It's striking how many of them, like David Rothkopf and Paul Bremer III, are Kissinger proteges, demonstrating how, when war criminals are allowed to roam free, they breed and continue to plague humanity for generations.

But the fact remains: when all the smoke and bullshit are cleared away, there is no rational reason for attacking Iran, and the US simply cannot afford to do so. It's not necessarily an exaggeration to say that, in the current global and domestic environment, it would be a suicidal act. With all the unambiguous threats emanating from politicians and pundits in Washington and Israel for the past decade or so, Iran has had all the time it needs to prepare a response that will extract a terrible price from the US and its allies in the region. There are other players, including Russia and China, who have vital interests at stake. It all comes down to who really makes the decisions for the American empire, on whose behalf, and how invulnerable their position is.

On the other hand, if the record is anything to go by, the US NEVER attacks powerful states, only much weaker countries that have already been "softened up" by decades of undeclared war and sabotage. Nevertheless, the lesson of Afghanistan and Iraq is that even when the US heads a COW (Coalition of the Willing) and even when it is attacking a nation whose military is crippled, the cost is devastating to the US on so many levels; how much more, then, when there is no COW in sight and the target in question is a regional military and economic and political power?

What we're seeing is a bunch of bullies each egging the others on, but unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq, the head bully is punch-drunk and battered and not so ready to start something against an even bigger and stronger adversary. Just because the likes of Goldberg and Rothkopf are becoming shrill in their warmongering doesn't necessarily mean that this time they'll get what they want. In these particular circumstances, I don't think they will.

Anyway, time will tell.

[Searcher08]

I wonder if the equation is purely financial.

Libya was seen as financially worth the return - remember one of the very first things the "opposition" did was... set up a central bank structure. They appeared to do this in semi-bombed out ruins in Benghazi...

I dont know enough about international money flows to see the specifics of how the US / UK / Zio Axis of Bankers could mint it from an all-out Iran war..


The Russians and Chinese would be mightily pissed, but wont do anything.

I think the shift of power over the last couple of decades from 'business' to 'finance' (the world is now ruled by Goldman Sachs, rather than Lockheed Martin) overrules the "we need a war to test our new toys" logic.

There is also lots of talk about closing the Straights of Hormuz by Iranian clerics but I would question how long they would be able to do that - and if they did would get their nearby naval infrastructure bombed to shit.

As to how the Iranians respond - their military response to the Iraqi invasion was dominated / interfered with by the clerical faction - will this be a big factor in a response in future? There is also the threat of bombing the non-miltary Russian operated Bushehr plant which is now live (and whose appalling safety standards represent a Fukushima in the making, according to many nuke experts)

As for the US attacking a powerful foe, there was that little dust-up in the Forties... they would love a big punch-up.

[Simulist]

Author Jeffrey Goldberg suggests Obama would act militarily against Iran if he were persuaded Israel was at critical risk.

Assuming of course that such decisions are really vested with the current resident-in-chief at the White House, rather than his bosses.

I'm not sure anymore just what the actual powers are of the President of the United States (although I do know what I was taught in civics class, what I continue to hear from the mouthpieces in the mainstream media, and what is generally believed to be true among a populace that doesn't demonstrate much care for the truth). Appearances can be deceiving — especially in a fake democracy that draws its very breath from deception.

[Hammer of Los]

Simon Tisdall in the Guardian is not interested in telling you the truth, but something else entirely.

I mean what the hell is this supposed to mean exactly;

Having fluffed his lines on Afghanistan, climate change and the Arab spring, he is under growing pressure to fulfil his pledge to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.

He's telling me the Obama presidency has been a failure without specifying what those failures were exactly.

Still, I believe we might learn something from reading between his lines.

A test indeed! What must Obama do to pass his "test?"

They have backed Obama into a corner. They have made his presidency increasingly difficult in order to convince him he has no option.

Tisdall's piece is preparatory propaganda. The narrative is that Obama was under tremendous pressure to attack Iran, so he did so, and then his political career was over. That is the narrative they are selling you. And I guess that may be what happens if they get their Iran War Wish. Still, all their wishes have backfired so far, so perhaps all we need is a little, or even a truckload of Faith.

They will either attack or not.

There is nothing I can do about that directly.

The evil of it is plain to see.

Who will say it is not? It is the ones calling for War, who are putting the pressure on Obama, it is they whose political careers should be over.