Coming Soon - War with Iran?

[Nordic]

Wow. Thought I'd check out the Daily Show tonight while The Colbert Report downloads to the DVR, and the guy is totally schilling against Iran, totally carrying the water for the warmongers. Pretty sick shit. Not very funny to be literally threatening a country with war and trying to be silly and funny at the same time.

What's especially repugnant is he's even showing clips from Leon Panetta's interview above, and is LEAVING OUT the part where Panetta admits Iran is NOT making a nuclear bomb.

Wow.

This is a new lowest of lows for him.

[AlicetheKurious]

Report: Iran nuclear scientist killed in blast
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 11, 2012 -- Updated 0803 GMT (1603 HKT)

(CNN) -- A blast in a Tehran neighborhood reportedly killed a nuclear scientist Wednesday morning, the latest in a string of attacks against such scientists in the country.

A motorcyclist placed the bomb under Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan's Peugeot 405, the country's IRNA news agency said.

The blast wounded two others who passengers in the car, the news agency said.

Roshan worked at Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province, according to another news agency Fars.

The attack followed a similar mode of operation as others that have killed nuclear scientists in Tehran.

In November 2010, nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari was killed in a blast where a motorcyclist stuck a bomb in his car.

In January 2010, Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi died in a bomb attack.

Iranian security officials blamed the attack on agents working for Israel, multiple Iranian media outlets reported.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is for energy purposes only, disputing allegations by the United States and other countries that it is trying to develop a weapons program.

The country has been engaged in a war of words with Israel, whom it accuses of trying to destabilize the republic. Link

Actually, four Iranian nuclear scientists have targeted for assassination since late 2010, in bombing attacks: three people were killed, including one student who was unlucky enough to have the same name as a prominent Iranian nuclear physicist, and one, the current chief of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, barely escaped with his life.

Just curious: if it's true that Iran is such a terrorist headquarters, how come Israeli nuclear scientists are so safe, while Iranian scientists are being murdered with car bombs?

[American Dream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/11/ ... y-in-iran/

JANUARY 11, 2012

White House and State Department are in No Position to Issue Credible Denials Regarding Spying Charges

An American Spy in Iran?

by DAVE LINDORFF


I wouldn’t want to be Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the 28-year-old former US Marine just recently sentenced to death by a court in Iran after being convicted of being an American spy.

Hekmati, who was born in Arizona to Iranian exile parents, and who grew up in Michigan, is being defended by President Obama, whose White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, declared, “Allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for, or was sent to Iran by the CIA are false.” The White House, not content with that denial, went on to trash the Iranian government and legal system, with Vietor adding, “The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions, and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons.”

This spirited high-level defense of Hekmati, who was arrested in late August shortly after he entered Iran, would carry a bit more weight though, if President Obama himself hadn’t lyingly made the same statement in person at a press conference last spring, in reference to Raymond Davis, the man Pakistani police arrested after he had slaughtered two young men (later identified as Pakistani intelligence personnel) on a crowded Lahore street in broad daylight. Despite weeks of insistence by the White House and the State Department that Davis was, variously, a consular or embassy employee in Pakistan, and threats to cut off US aid to the country if he were prosecuted, the US was eventually forced to admit that Obama had lied, and that he was in truth a contract worker for the CIA. (An investigative report by this author, funded by Counterpunch magazine and run shortly after the shooting incident, first outed Davis as a US intelligence operative.)

Davis, who was suspected by Pakistani prosecutors of actually being involved in a campaign of terror bombings in Pakistan, also faced a possible death penalty for murder and espionage, but was ultimately released and deported from Pakistan after pleading guilty to the shootings and paying (with funds provided behind the scenes by the US) blood money to the families of his victims, in a back-room deal worked out with the Pakistani government.

Vietor’s second assertion in the Hekmati case, that the Iranian regime routinely makes false accusations of spying against people, is laughable, coming as it does from a US government that tortures captives, that has been bringing false terrorism cases against people at a prodigious rate, and that is currently holding, in Guantanamo, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and in US prisons, literally hundreds of people who have been falsely accused of being spies and terrorists.

A videotaped confession released by the Iranian government shows Hekmati, who also holds an Iranian passport and speaks fluent Farsi, confessing to working as a spy for the CIA. In that confession, which was broadcast in Iran, he says he was trained in intelligence work in the Marines and later at Bagram and by the giant military contractor BAE Systems, and was to have been maneuvered into a position inside the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. That confession tape is being condemned as a sham by the US. But State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland’s statement saying, “Allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for, or was sent to Iran by the CIA, are simply untrue. The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions, and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons,” sounds almost comical coming from a government that for many months tortured Army Specialist Bradley Manning, first in a military jail in Kuwait where he was prevented from contacting anyone, including a lawyer, and then at a military prison in Quantico, VA. Manning’s prolonged torture, which included being kept stripped naked 24 hours a day, having to stand naked at attention for inspection outside his cell each day, being sleep-deprived for days on end, and being held in solitary, all of which treatment was condemned by a former Marine commander of Quantico, were all in an apparently unsuccessful effort to get him to “sing.” The government is desperate to get Manning to implicate Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange as the instigator who got Manning to allegedly provide Wikileaks with hundreds of thousands of embarrassing secret Pentagon and State Department cables, documents and videotapes, exposing US war crimes and diplomatic bullying.

It doesn’t help Hekmati’s case either that President Obama, a former Constitutional Law professor who as president is also the commander in chief of the US military, months ago publicly declared Pvt. Manning guilty or treason, though Manning had yet to face a military court, and is supposed to be presumed innocent.

While Hekmati’s family, the US government, and the Iranian exile community in the US are all declaring Hekmati’s innocence on the charge of spying, claiming he had innocently entered Iran to visit his two grandmothers, both of whom live there, his case does seem a bit peculiar. This is not just another college professor, journalist or wayward hiker mistakenly crossing the border into Iraq, caught up in some political game.

According to the Associated Press, records show Hekmati served in the Marines from 2001 to 2005, trained in Arabic at the Army’s language school in Monterey, California, was deployed to Iraq from April to November 2004, where he reportedly worked in intelligence, and later, in 2010, worked for BAE Systems Inc, US subsidiary of BAE Systems PLC, a UK-based military contractor that on its website describes itself as a “global defense and security company.” The BAE site says the company delivers a “full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and support services.”

BAE is heavily involved in the military intelligence field.

AP also reported that Hekmati left BAE after his surprisingly short tenure there to go to work in some “unspecified capacity” for the U.S. government–a vague terminology that is usually used for intelligence agency work. His father, a community college professor in Flint, Michigan, reportedly told AP that before going to Iran, reportedly to visit a grandmother who lives there, his son had been working in Qatar for a company “that serves the Marines.” No further information about that company or the nature of its work was provided.

The US maintains a huge military base and airfield in Qatar, which, of course, is ground zero for US military planning for any future attack on, or conflict with Iran. The US Central Command (CENTCOM), which would be the command center in any war with Iran, is also located in Qatar. More to the point, perhaps, Qatar is also where the US Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) is located, which oversees the secret operations of US Army Rangers, Green Berets, Delta Force, Marine Corps, US Navy SEALS and pilots of the US Air Force. Various journals have quoted US government sources as confirming that the US is engaged in secret operations against Iran, including sabotage and spying, and the US has also been sending spy drones over the country, one of which was recently captured by Iranian forces.

Certainly there is good reason to believe that the Iranian legal system, like the US legal system, is corrupt and unfair, particularly when it comes to cases involving national security. And I’m not saying Hekmati is a spy, based on either his conviction by an Iranian court or on his videotaped “confession.”

I am saying that the denials by the US are every bit as unreliable, even to the point of being laughable, as are any claims being made by Iran.

The sad reality is that the US government has become such a cesspool of lying and disinformation, of torture and forced confessions, and of corrupted courts and prosecutors, that it no longer has the capacity or the image of integrity to convince other nations or the people of the world of the innocence of those American citizens who get caught up in international spying charges.

If Hekmati is innocent of the crime of spying, he will have to count on some kind of a Cold War-type spy-swap deal, or on some kind of diplomatic deal in which the US agrees to stop threatening to bomb Iran, and agrees to keep Israel’s war-mongers at bay, to deliver him from lengthy imprisonment or execution. He sure can’t count on moral suasion from Washington winning his release!

Meanwhile he has to hope that a cynical group of neo-cons and neo-libs in Washington aren’t merrily plotting to use his execution as an excuse to do what they’ve been angling at for years: attack Iran.



DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new Project-Censored Award-winning independent online alternative newspaper. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.

[vanlose kid]

found this on the tube. worth watching. from the yt blurb:

Sincere appreciation and gratitude goes to Rick Steves and PBS for depicting an honest vision of our beloved country ; IRAN
With many thanks
Dr. Ali Asadi

Join Rick as he explores the most surprising and fascinating land he's ever visited: Iran. In this one-hour, ground-breaking travel special, you'll discover the splendid monuments of Iran's rich and glorious past, learn more about the 20th-century story of this perplexing nation, and experience Iranian life today in its historic capital and in a countryside village. Most important, you'll meet the people of a nation whose government has so exasperated our own.

*

[Nordic]

From Sibel Edmonds blog:

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/01 ... y-11-2012/


http://intelnews.org/2012/01/11/01-906/

Israeli Mossad training Iranian exiles in Kurdistan: French newspaper

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

A leading French newspaper has claimed that Israeli intelligence agents are recruiting and training Iranian dissidents in clandestine bases located in Iraq’s Kurdish region. Paris-based daily Le Figaro, France’s second-largest national newspaper, cited a “security source in Baghdad”, who alleged that members of Israeli intelligence are currently operating in Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region. According to the anonymous source, the Israelis, who are members of the Mossad, Israel’s foremost external intelligence agency, are actively recruiting Iranian exiles in Kurdistan. Many of these Iranian assets, who are members of Iran’s Kurdish minority and opposed to the Iranian regime, are allegedly being trained by the Mossad in spy-craft and sabotage. The article in Le Figaro claims that the Iranian assets are being prepared for conducting operations inside the energy-rich country, as part of Israel’s undercover intelligence war against Iran’s nuclear energy program. The Baghdad source told the French daily that part of Israel’s sabotage program against sensitive Iranian nuclear facilities, which includes targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear experts, is directed out of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, “where [Mossad] agents have stepped up their penetration”. For this, “the Israelis are using Kurdish oppositionists to the regime in Iran, who are living are refugees in the Kurdish regions of Iraq”, the source told Le Figaro. Although the article makes no mention of official or unofficial sanction of the Israeli operations by the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, it implies that the alleged Mossad activities are an open secret in Iraqi Kurdistan. This is not the first time that allegations have surfaced in the international press about Israeli intelligence activities in Kurdistan. In 2006, the BBC flagship investigative television program Newsnight obtained strong evidence of Israeli operatives providing military training to Kurdish militia members. The program aired video footage showing Israeli expects drilling members of Kurdish armed groups in shooting techniques and guerrilla tactics. The Israeli government denied having authorized any such training, while Iraqi Kurdish officials refused to comment on the report. But Israeli security experts told the BBC that it would be virtually impossible for Israeli trainers to operate inside Iraqi Kurdistan “without the knowledge of the Kurdish authorities”. More recently, in September of 2010, the government of Lebanon arrested three Kurds in Jounieh, a coastal town 15 kilometers north of Beirut, which it accused of working for Israeli intelligence. All three were members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a secessionist armed group fighting for an independent Kurdish homeland in Turkey’s far-eastern Anatolia region.

[Ben D]

Well that's at least 251,000 bpd at stake...

Japan to reduce Iran oil imports, supporting US

TOKYO (AP) — Japan gave a boost Thursday to the U.S. campaign to sanction Iran over its nuclear program, pledging to buy less Iranian oil, a day after China reacted coolly to the U.S. effort.

Japan imports about 10 percent of its oil from Iran, Azumi said.
"We plan to start reducing this 10 percent share at soon as possible in a planned manner," he said.

Japan's quick agreement contrasts with China's public silence on the matter during Geithner's visit there. A diplomat who briefed reporters about an upcoming Middle East trip by Premier Wen Jiabao repeated earlier government statements rejecting sanctions as a way to resolve the dispute with Iran.

http://news.yahoo.com/japan-reduce-iran-oil-imports-supporting-us-084051092.html

[ninakat]

Two U.S. Aircraft Carriers Near Iran, With A Third On The Way

. . . “I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that we’re somehow zorching [speeding] two carriers over to there because we’re concerned with what happened today in Iran [the bomb that killed the nuclear scientist],” said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman. “This is just prudent force posture requirements set by the combatant commander.” . . .

[ninakat]

Iraq Redux?
Iran: the Neocons Are At It Again
by RALPH NADER
January 12, 2012

The same neocons who persuaded George W. Bush and crew to, in Ron Paul’s inimitable words, “lie their way into invading Iraq” in 2003, are beating the drums of war more loudly these days to attack Iran. It is remarkable how many of these war-mongers are former draft dodgers who wanted other Americans to fight the war in Vietnam.

With the exception of Ron Paul, who actually knows the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, the Republican presidential contenders have declared their belligerency toward Iranian officials who they accuse of moving toward nuclear weapons.

The Iranian regime disputes that charge, claiming they are developing the technology for nuclear power and nuclear medicine.

The inspection teams of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) that monitor compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran belongs, have entered Iran numerous times and, while remaining suspicious, have not been able to find that country on the direct road to the Bomb.

While many western and some Arab countries in the Gulf region have condemned Iran’s alleged nuclear arms quest, Israel maintains some 200 ready nuclear weapons and has refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty, thereby avoiding the IAEA inspectors.

Israelis in the know have much to say. Defense minister, Ehud Barak, responded to PBS’s Charlie Rose’s question “If you were Iran wouldn’t you want a nuclear weapon?” with these words:

“Probably, probably. I don’t delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel. They have their history of 4,000 years. They look around and they see the Indians are nuclear. The Chinese are nuclear, Pakistan is nuclear as well as North Korea, not to mention the Russians.”

The Iranian regime, with a national GDP smaller than Massachusetts, is terrified. It is surrounded by powerful adversaries, including the U.S. military on three of its borders. President George W. Bush labeled Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, one of the three “axis of evil,” and Teheran knows what happened to Iraq after that White House assertion. They also know that North Korea inoculated itself from invasion by testing nuclear bombs. And all Iranians remember that the U.S. overthrew their popular elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and installed the dictatorial Shah who ruled tyrannically for the next 27 years.

Recently, Iran has experienced mysterious cyber sabotage, drone violations of its air space, the slaying of its nuclear scientists and the blowing up of its military sites, including a major missile installation. Israeli and American officials are not trying too hard to conceal this low level warfare.

Israel military historian—strategist Martin van Creveld said in 2004, that Iranians “would be crazy not to build nuclear weapons considering the security threats they face.” Three years later he stated that “the world must now learn to live with a nuclear Iran the way we learned to live with a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear China….We Israelis have what it takes to deter an Iranian attack. We are in no danger at all of having an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us…thanks to the Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from the U.S. and Germany.”

U.S. General John Abizaid is one of numerous military people who say that the world can tolerate a nuclear Iran—which, like other countries, does not wish to commit suicide.

Using the “Iranian threat,” served Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who on his first tour of duty back in 1996, speaking to a joint session of Congress, made a big point of the forthcoming Iranian bomb.

Somehow the Iranians, who were invaded in 1980 by a U.S.-backed Saddam Hussein, resulting in a million casualties, and who have not invaded anybody for 250 years, are taking a very long time to build a capability for atomic bomb production, much less the actual weapons.

In mid-2011, Meir Dagan, recently retired head of Israel’s “CIA,” repeated his opposition to a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, adding it would engulf the region in a conventional war.

He further took the Israeli government to task for failing “to put forth a vision,” noting that “Israel must present an initiative to the Palestinians and adopt the 2002 Saudi Arabia peace proposal, reiterated since, that would open full diplomatic relations with some two dozen Arab and Islamic countries in return for an Israeli pullback to the 1967 borders and recognition of a Palestinian state.

The war-mongers against Iran have often distorted Iranian statements to suit their purpose and kept in the shadows several friendly Iranian initiatives offered to the George W. Bush Administration.

Flynt L. Leverett, now with Brookings and before a State Department and CIA official, listed three initiatives that were rejected. Right after the Sept. 11 attacks, Iran offered to help Washington overthrow the Taliban. The U.S. declined the offer. Second, in the spring of 2003, top Iranian officials sent the White House a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve questions regarding its weapons programs, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel. This proposal was rebuffed and ignored.

Third, in October 2003, European officials secured an agreement from Iran to suspend Iranian uranium enrichment and to pursue talks that Mr. Leverett said “might lead to an economic, nuclear and strategic deal.” The Bush administration “refused to join the European initiative, ensuring that the talks failed,” he added.

A few days ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Iran was developing a capability for making nuclear weapons someday but was not yet building a bomb. So why is the Obama Administration talking about a western boycott of Iran’s oil exports, so crucial to its faltering, sanctions-ridden economy? Is this latest sanction designed to squeeze Iranian civilians and lead to the overthrow of the regime? Arguably it may backfire and produce more support for the government.

Backing the Iranian regime into such a fateful corner risks counter-measures that may disrupt the gigantic flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Should that occur, watch the prices of your gasoline, heating bill and other related products go through the roof—among other consequences.

Isn’t it about time for the abdicatory Congress to reassert its constitutional responsibilities? It owes the American people comprehensive, public House and Senate hearings that produce knowledgeable testimony about these issues and all relevant history for wide media coverage.

The drums of war should not move our country into a propagandized media frenzy that preceded and helped cause the Iraq invasion with all the socio-cide in that country and all the costly blowbacks against U.S. national interests?

It is past time for the American citizenry to wake up and declare: Iran will not be an Iraq Redux!

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.

[ninakat]

[ninakat]

Oil Refiners Sever Links to Iran
Published: Thursday, 12 Jan 2012
By: Javier Blas, Financial Times

European refiners have started to sever links with Iran, stopping spot purchases of crude ahead of a European Union meeting later this month that could impose a full oil embargo on Tehran.

. . .

[AlicetheKurious]

‘IAEA leaked secret info to Iran enemy’

Press TV – January 11, 2012

A senior lawmaker says assassination of Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan proves that the confidential information provided to international bodies by Iran has been leaked to the country’s enemies.

“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must be trusted by nations because nations and governments give their documents to the agency,” said speaker of the Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Kazem Jalali on Wednesday.

“How the enemies of [the Islamic] establishment have obtained the names and information of our country’s elite is a question we would like to know the answer to,” he added.

Jalali stressed that the IAEA, international community and the UN nuclear agency’s member states using their membership against the Islamic Republic must be held accountable for their actions.

The lawmaker said the resemblance of the Wednesday assassination and other Zionist-American killings indicate that the “principle of assassination has been institutionalized in the American system and Zionist regime.”

“Assassinations like what happened in Tehran this morning lack operational value as such assassinations are called blind [acts of terror] which prove the maximum frustration of the enemies because they have not been able to weaken the [Iranian] nation’s resolve and therefore resort to any shameful measure,” Jalali said.

Ahmadi Roshan was a Sharif University of Technology chemical engineering graduate and served as the deputy director of marketing at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.

On Wednesday morning, an unknown motorcyclist attached a sticky bomb to Ahmadi Roshan’s car near Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran.

Ahmadi Roshan was immediately killed as the result of explosion, and his driver, who had sustained injures, passed away a few hours later in hospital.

The latest terrorist attack comes as Iran has reached an agreement with the P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany – to hold negotiations in Turkey.

The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to sway the UNSC to impose four rounds of sanctions on Iran.

Based on these accusations, they have also repeatedly threatened Tehran with the “option” of a military strike.

This is while in November 2011, some of the US presidential hopefuls called for conducting covert operations ranging from assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists to launching a military strike on Iran as well as sabotaging Tehran’s nuclear program.

The calls for assassinations are not idle threats as a number of Iranian scientists have been assassinated over the past few years. Professor Majid Shahriari and Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi are among the victims of these acts of terror.

On November 29, 2010, Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi were targeted by terrorist attacks; Shahriari was killed immediately and Dr. Abbasi, the current director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, only sustained injuries.

Iran says as the UN Resolution 1747, adopted against Tehran in March 2007, cited Abbasi’s name as a “nuclear scientist,” the perpetrators were in a position to trace their victim.

According to reports, Ahmadi Roshan had recently met International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, a fact which indicates that the IAEA has leaked information about Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientists. Link

[Nordic]

Zerohedge now reporting that the embargo is to be delayed.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/west-blin ... six-months

Somebody realized that making oil prices go up THAT much would be counterproductive. Imagine that.

[Ben D]

No that's been the case since the beginning Nordic, I remember reading it when the legislation was first signed by Obama. It is to meant to give those nations currently oil trading with Iran time to find other sources to replace Iran.

[AlicetheKurious]

I finally got around to watching it -- what a feast for the eyes, and food for thought, too. Two things: first, I became terrified because the horrors inflicted on the people of Iraq, the hellhole that until recently was no less magnificent than Iran is today, are being planned for Iran; and second, I couldn't help wondering if regular American citizens would be as friendly to an Iranian reporter and camera crew if the situation were reversed.

Actually, three things: except for the politicization of religion and vice versa, I fervently wished Egypt could be as well run as Iran.

[seemslikeadream]

War on Iran: It’s Not A Matter of “If”
by ALEXANDER COCKBURN

The world’s press is choc-a-bloc with “if” questions about Iran and war. Will Israel attack? Is Obama, coerced by domestic politics in an election year, being dragged into war by the Israel lobby? Will he lunch the bombers? Is the strategy to force Iran into a corner, methodically demolishing its economy by embargoes and sanctions so that in the end a desperate Iran strikes back.

As with sanctions and covert military onslaughts on Iraq in the run up to 2003, the first point to underline is that the US is waging war on Iran. But well aware of the US public’s aversion to yet another war in the Middle East, the onslaught is an undeclared one.

The analogy here is the run up to Pearl Harbor. Let me quote from a useful timeline. On October 7, 1940, a US Navy IQ analyst Arthur McCollum wrote an 8 point memo on how to force Japan into war with US. Beginning the next day FDR began to put them into effect and all 8 were eventually accomplished.

On February 11, 1941 FDR proposed sacrificing 6 cruisers and 2 carriers at Manila to get into war. Navy Chief Stark objected: “I have previously opposed this and you have concurred as to its unwisdom.

In March 1941 FDR sold arms and convoyed them to belligerents in Europe — both acts of war and both violations of international law — the Lend-Lease Act. On June 23, 1941 Advisor Harold Ickes wrote FDR a memo the day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, “There might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. FDR was pleased with Admiral Richmond Turner’s report read July 22: “It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of petroleum will lead promptly to the invasion of Netherland East Indies…it seems certain she would also include military action against the Philippine Islands, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war.”

The next day FDR froze all Japanese assets in US cutting off their main supply of oil. US. Intelligence information was withheld from Hawaii from this point forward. Against protests from US naval commanders the West Coast fleet was moved to Hawai’i.

John Maynard Keynes once said, “The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” Ronald Reagan used to attribute this insight to the man he loved to call “Nikolai Lenin”, thundering from podium after podium across America, that Lenin had said “The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.”

You want a graphic illustration of what US embargoes are doing in the way of debauching Iran’s currency? Here’s a graph of US dollar exchange rates with the Iran rial, from last week:

Imagine if the Iranians had done this to the US dollar? Can you imagine any American politician who would have refrained from calling this an act of war?

To further inflame the leadership in Iran we had last week the murder of Iran nuclear scientist Ahmadi Roshan which came on the one-year anniversary of the murder of two other Iranian nuclear scientists by similar methods. As CounterPuncher Peter Lee writes, “It came at a time of heightened tensions (anyway, tensions higher than the usual heightened tensions), inviting the inference that somebody, probably somebody in the region, wants to goad the Iranian government into a response that could start the military action ball rolling.”

As for the embargoes of Iranian oil, Obama is most certainly doing the oil industry a big favor. There have been industry-wide fears of recession-fueled falling demand and collapse of oil prices. That has led to industry-wide enthusiasm (aided by heavy pressure from the majors) for strongly cutting total world oil production (and enjoying the bonuses flowing from the subsequent world price rise), with all the cuts to be taken out of the hide of the Iranians. The Financial Times made clear the need to shrink world production in the following key paragraph in a report last week: “Oil prices have risen above $110 a barrel since Iran threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint, accounting for about a third of all seaborne traded oil. Oil fell to a low of $99 in October amid global economic growth worries.”

As Pierre Sprey remarked to me, “Note also that this is one of those rare but dangerous moments in history when Big Oil and the Israelis are pushing the White House in the same direction. The last such moment was quickly followed by Dubya’s invasion of Iraq.”

It’s somewhat immaterial to ask whether Obama really wants war with Iran, thus interfering with the “strategic pivot” to Asia. Presidents are creatures of circumstances and lobbies, and Obama is certainly no exception. We have to hope that the traditional prudence of Iran’s leadership prompts them not to make some desperate retaliatory lunge, such as mining the Straits of Hormuz, or offering some kindred excuse to the US to up the tempo of the undeclared war it is already waging.

To the Tumbrils!

Some readers of my consignment last week of certain words to the tumbrils expressed curiosity about the word. A tumbril was a farm cart . They were used to carry prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution.

Some more candidates. Fred Gardner writes: “Add ‘Gamechanger’ to the mis- and over-used words of 2011. For years I’ve winced as lawyers and businessmen and reporters casually used ‘game’ in reference to the legal system, finance, war itself… You sometimes see a bumper sticker on a sports car that says ‘the one with the most toys wins.’It makes me want to give them a little nudge with the old Volvo…”

Jon Swift: “Also the drug-treatment shibboleth: ‘The user’s always chasing that first high.’ As though they couldn’t POSSIBLY enjoy it the 875th time. You never hear ‘Religious worshippers are always chasing that first feeling of being at one with God’ or ‘Voters are always chasing that first thrill they got on entering the booth at 18….’”

Wat Stearns: “I nominate ‘expensed’ and ‘leveraged’ for the tumbrils as well.”

Let me toss in the odious “project,” initially favored by the left but now in general currency, attached to almost every human endeavor. Also “conversation” – a way of taming all debate and doctrinal struggle into demure prattle. And let us note the meteoric rise of “existential.”

Tumbril time! And if you want a vivid sense of what it was like for French aristos condemned to death to hear the rattle of the tumbril as it arrived to take him to the guillotines, I advise a trip to the Conciergerie in Paris. Very creepy.