President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran

Israel is the rogue state which has repeatedly threatened and attacked/
invaded the countries around it in the region.. Iran hasn't attacked/
invaded another country in something like 300 years.. Of course it has
helped Hezbollah and Hamas with their resistance against the illegal
Israeli occupations in Palestine and Lebanon which is the primary
motivation for the coming attack on Iran (see the youtube at
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....with-iran.html)
which George Bush has apparently given Israel the green light to
initiate according to the following article which appeared in the
London Sunday Times yesterday:



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4322508.ece



From The Sunday Times

July 13, 2008



President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran



As Tehran tests new missiles, America believes only a show of force
can deter President Ahmadinejad
President George W Bush: US officials acknowledge that no American
president can afford to remain idle if Israel is threatened

Uzi Mahnaimi in Washington
President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be
prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear
facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a
senior Pentagon official.

Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism
that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic
consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an
“amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites
with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.

“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate
attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said. But the
Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from
American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq
for logistical support.

Nor is it certain that Bush’s amber light would ever turn to green
without irrefutable evidence of lethal Iranian hostility. Tehran’s
test launches of medium-range ballistic missiles last week were seen
in Washington as provocative and poorly judged, but both the Pentagon
and the CIA concluded that they did not represent an immediate threat
of attack against Israeli or US targets.

Related Links
Iran and Israel's game of bluff
Iran isolation grows as gas project cancelled
An itchy finger on the taunt button
“It’s really all down to the Israelis,” the Pentagon official added.
“This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been
decided. But the president is really preoccupied with the nuclear
threat against Israel and I know he doesn’t believe that anything but
force will deter Iran.”

The official added that Israel had not so far presented Bush with a
convincing military proposal. “If there is no solid plan, the amber
will never turn to green,” he said.

There was also resistance inside the Pentagon from officers concerned
about Iranian retaliation. “The uniform people are opposed to the
attack plans, mainly because they think it will endanger our soldiers
in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the source said.

Complicating the calculations in both Washington and Tel Aviv is the
prospect of an incoming Democratic president who has already made it
clear that he prefers negotiation to the use of force.

Senator Barack Obama’s previous opposition to the war in Iraq, and his
apparent doubts about the urgency of the Iranian threat, have
intensified pressure on the Israeli hawks to act before November’s US
presidential election. “If I were an Israeli I wouldn’t wait,” the
Pentagon official added.

The latest round of regional tension was sparked by the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard, which fired nine long and medium-range missiles
in war game manoeuvres in the Gulf last Wednesday.

Iran’s state-run media reported that one of them was a modified
Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which has a claimed range of 1,250 miles
and could theoretically deliver a one-ton nuclear warhead over Israeli
cities. Tel Aviv is about 650 miles from western Iran. General Hossein
Salami, a senior Revolutionary Guard commander, boasted that “our
hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for
launch”.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said she saw the launches
as “evidence that the missile threat is not an imaginary one”,
although the impact of the Iranian stunt was diminished on Thursday
when it became clear that a photograph purporting to show the missiles
being launched had been faked.

The one thing that all sides agree on is that any strike by either
Iran or Israel would trigger a catastrophic round of retaliation that
would rock global oil markets, send the price of petrol soaring and
wreck the progress of the US military effort in Iraq.

Abdalla Salem El-Badri, secretary-general of Opec, the oil producers’
consortium, said last week that a military conflict involving Iran
would see an “unlimited” rise in prices because any loss of Iranian
production — or constriction of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz
— could not be replaced. Iran is Opec’s second-largest producer after
Saudi Arabia.

Equally worrying for Bush would be the impact on the US mission in
Iraq, which after years of turmoil has seen gains from the military
“surge” of the past few months, and on American operations in the
wider region. A senior Iranian official said yesterday that Iran would
destroy Israel and 32 American military bases in the Middle East in
response to any attack.

Yet US officials acknowledge that no American president can afford to
remain idle if Israel is threatened. How genuine the Iranian threat is
was the subject of intense debate last week, with some analysts
arguing that Iran might have a useable nuclear weapon by next spring
and others convinced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is engaged in
a dangerous game of bluffing — mainly to impress a domestic Iranian
audience that is struggling with economic setbacks and beginning to
question his leadership.

Among the sceptics is Kenneth Katzman, a former CIA analyst and author
of a book on the Revolutionary Guard. “I don’t subscribe to the view
that Iran is in a position to inflict devastating damage on anyone,”
said Katzman, who is best known for warning shortly before 9/11 that
terrorists were planning to attack America.

“The Revolutionary Guards have always underperformed militarily,” he
said. “Their equipment is quite inaccurate if not outright inoperable.
Those missile launches were more like putting up a ‘beware of the dog’
sign. They want everyone to think that if you mess with them, you will
get bitten.”

A former adviser to Rice noted that Ahmadinejad’s confrontational
attitude had earned him powerful enemies among Iran’s religious
leadership. Professor Shai Feldman, director of Middle East studies at
Brandeis University, said the Iranian government was getting
“clobbered” because of global economic strains. “His [Ahmadinejad's]
failed policies have made Iran more vulnerable to sanctions and people
close to the mullahs have decided he’s a liability,” he said.

In Israel, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has his own domestic
problems with a corruption scandal that threatens to unseat him and
the media have been rife with speculation that he might order an
attack on Iran to distract attention from his difficulties. According
to one of his closest friends, Olmert recently warned him that “in
three months’ time it will be a different Middle East”.

Yet even the most hawkish officials acknowledge that Israel would face
what would arguably be the most challenging military mission of its 60-
year existence.

“No one here is talking about more than delaying the [nuclear]
programme,” said the Pentagon source. He added that Israel would need
to set back the Iranians by at least five years for an attack to be
considered a success.

Even that may be beyond Israel’s competence if it has to act alone.
Obvious targets would include Iran’s Isfahan plant, where uranium ore
is converted into gas, the Natanz complex where this gas is used to
enrich uranium in centrifuges and the plutonium-producing Arak heavy
water plant. But Iran is known to have scattered other elements of its
nuclear programme in underground facilities around the country.
Neither US nor Israeli intelligence is certain that it knows where
everything is.

“Maybe the Israelis could start off the attack and have us finish it
off,” Katzman added. “And maybe that has been their intention all
along. But in terms of the long-term military campaign that would be
needed to permanently suppress Iran’s nuclear programme, only the US
is perceived as having that capability right now.”

Additional reporting: Tony Allen-Mills in New York



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Israel should not be allowed to push US into war with Iran

No More Blank Checks for War
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday, July 11, 2008

After the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo on June 28,
1914, Austria got from Kaiser Wilhelm a "blank cheque" to punish
Serbia. Germany would follow whatever course its ally chose to
take. Austria chose war on Serbia. And World War I resulted.

On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in its
dispute with Germany over Danzig, a town of 350,000 Germans. Should
war come, Britain would fight on Poland's side.

Poland refused to negotiate, Adolf Hitler attacked, and Britain
declared war. After six years, the British Empire collapsed.
Germany was burnt to ashes. Poland entered the slave quarters of
Joseph Stalin's empire.

Lesson: No great power should ever give to a small ally or client
state a blank check to drag it into war.

This raises the question: Has President Bush given Israel a blank
check?

A year ago, Israel attacked and smashed an alleged nuclear reactor
site in Syria. In April, Israel held a five-day civil defense
drill. In June, Israel sent 100 F-15s and F-16s, with refueling
tankers, toward Greece in a simulated attack. The planes flew 1,450
kilometers, the distance to Iran's uranium enrichment facility at
Natanz.

On June 6, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened, "If Iran
continues its nuclear weapons program we will attack it."

Ehud Olmert returned from a June meeting with Bush to tell
Israelis, "George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian
threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the
matter before the end of his term."

Is Israel bluffing, or in dead earnest?

For while Israel can do damage to Iran, she cannot defeat Iran
without using nuclear weapons. But any attack Israel launched
against Iran would require U.S. complicity, and any Israeli war
with Iran would almost certainly require the United States to do
most of the fighting to win or end it.

Thus, if George Bush does not want war with Iran, with two U.S.
wars already, he must inform the Israelis in unequivocal terms that
the United States opposes any Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran,
and will not assist but denounce any such attack.

If Bush believes war with Iran is vital to U.S. security, he should
make that case to Congress. To allow Israel to start a war we do
not want would be an abdication of his duty as president.

Clearly, among the reasons Israel conducted its dress rehearsal for
war was to maximize pressure on Iran to halt enriching uranium.
Bush may well have welcomed the added pressure.

But as the Iranians have insisted, they are entitled, under the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty they signed and Israel did not, to
enrich uranium for fuel in power plants. Tehran has declared it
will not be the only nation to surrender its legal rights under the
NPT. And in response to the Israeli military exercises, Tehran
conducted its own missile-firing exercises this week.

If neither side yields, confrontation is inevitable. Perhaps soon.

For we are only four months from the election, and Israel is pawing
the ground to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Is this Bush's back door to war with Iran?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen, in Israel a week
ago, returned to say a "third front" in the Middle East, with Iran,
would be "extremely stressful" to U.S. forces.

He is saying that U.S. ground forces probably cannot now cope with
another war, with a nation three times as large as Iraq.

Asked about Israel taking unilateral action, Mullen replied, "This
is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be
more unstable." But Mullen is not the president. What did Bush tell
Olmert? Does Israel have a green light, a yellow light or a red
light?

Should Israel attack Iran and Bush deny complicity, he would no
more be believed than were Britain and France in 1956. Then, the
Israelis stormed into Sinai, and Britain and France said they were
intervening to separate the warring nations and secure the Suez
Canal. Outraged, Ike ordered the British, French and Israelis alike
to get out of Suez and Sinai. They did.

President Bush must step up to the plate.

If he believes sanctions are not succeeding and Iran's nuclear
program must be halted, he should go to Congress for authority to
neutralize the facilities. If he has not so concluded, he should
tell Israel it is not to start a war that U.S. airmen, sailors,
soldiers and Marines will have to finish.

America needs to restore that absolute freedom of action in matters
of war and peace she once had, before entering the skein of
entangling alliances that now encumber the republic.

No ally, no client state, should ever be allowed to drag America
into a war she has not chosen, constitutionally, to fight.

No more blank checks for any nation.

SOURCE:
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/07/pjb...hecks-for-war/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Subject: Iran to only use missiles in defense

Date: Sunday, July 13, 2008, 11:56 AM

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?i...onid=351020101



Iran to only use missiles in defense
Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:03:48


Iran has assured the international community that its military
capabilities will only be used to safeguard regional peace and
stability.

In a Sunday press conference, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa
Mohammad-Najjar said recent large-scale maneuvers conducted in Iran
prove that international sanctions will not weaken the resolve of the
Armed Forces in defending the country's territorial integrity.

"These maneuvers prove that international sanctions can never sabotage
the Islamic Republic's military self-sufficiency," the Brigadier
General said.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully tested
advanced shore-to-sea, surface-to-surface and sea-to-air missiles in
an extensive military maneuver which ended on Sunday.

Other Iranian officials have also stressed that Iran's missile
capabilities would only be used to defend the country in case an act
of aggression is launched against the country.

"The Islamic Republic, as we have repeatedly insisted, is not a threat
to any country… its defense capabilities will always be used to
maintain peace and security in the region," said Iranian government
spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham on Saturday.

"Our missile systems are operative, and positioned in a defensive
array which enables us to provide a crushing defense in the shortest
time possible,” said Iranian Air Force Commander General Hossein
Salami on July 9.

The Commander of IRGC's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brigadier General
Seyyed Mohammad Hejazi, also described the missiles as 'a defensive
tool against invasions' on July 10.

SBB/AA


-----------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?i...onid=351020101



Iran will target US bases if attacked
Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:18:18


Iran says its Armed Forces would target the heart of Israel and 32 US
bases before the dust settles from an attack on the country.

"If the enemy was confident that it would emerge victorious from an
attack on Iran, they would not put it off for even another day," an
aide to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Mojtaba Zolnoor said on
Saturday.

Today, through the efforts of Iranian experts, the military
capabilities of the country's Armed Forces have reached an advanced
level, he added.

"If the US or Israel fire one bullet against Iran, the Iranian Armed
Forces will not hesitate to target the heart of Israel and 32 US
military bases in the region before the dust settles," warned
Ayatollah Khamenei's representative in the Islamic Revolution Guards
Corps (IRGC).

Iran has repeatedly warned that its Armed Forces are fully prepared to
immediately deliver a crushing response to any offensive on Iranian
territory.

Iran's words of caution come following escalating speculation that the
Israeli maneuver in early June was held in preparation for a war with
the Islamic Republic.


----------------------------------------------------------------------



New War Brewing: US, Israel Take Dangerous Steps
by Eric Margolis
GENEVA - The U.S., Israel and Iran are playing a very dangerous game
of chicken that soon could result in a new Mideast war.



U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iran is not working on nuclear
weapons. But the Bush administration and Israel, recently joined by
France, are issuing increasingly loud threats of military action to
frighten Iran into halting its nuclear enrichment program.



Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely for civilian use. Tehran
is alternating between conciliatory statements and threats to
retaliate against any attack by inflicting economic chaos on the
global economy. Europe fears the economic damage a war against Iran
would bring far more than Iran¢s nuclear program.



Senior Israeli officials are openly threatening to attack Iran¢s
nuclear installations before President George W. Bush¢s term expires.
Early, this month Israel staged a large, U.S.-approved exercise using
F-15s and F-16s to rehearse an attack over 900 miles - precisely the
distance to Iran¢s nuclear facilities.



The highly regarded American journalist Seymour Hersh just confirmed
that the U.S. Congress authorized a $400-million plan to overthrow Iran
¢s government and incite ethnic unrest. This column reported a year
ago that U.S. and British special forces were operating in Iran,
preparing for a massive air campaign. Israel¢s destruction of an
alleged Syrian reactor last fall was a warning to Iran.



This week a Pentagon official claimed an Israeli attack on Iran was
coming before year end.

Other Pentagon and CIA sources say a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent,
with or without Israel. The Bush administration is even considering
using small tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian
targets.



Senior American officers Admiral William Fallon and Air Force Chief
Michael Mosley recently were fired for opposing war against Iran.
According to Israel¢s media, President Bush even told Israel¢s Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert that he could not trust America¢s intelligence
community and preferred to rely on Israeli intelligence.



AIR BLITZ

Intensifying activity is evident at U.S. bases in Europe and the Gulf,
aimed at preparing a massive air blitz that may include repeated
attacks on 3,100 targets in Iran. Other sources say Iranian
Revolutionary Guard installations will be barraged by cruise
missiles.



In Washington, Congress, under intense pressure from the Israel lobby,
is about to adopt a resolution calling for a naval blockade of Iran,
an overt act of war.



Pro-Israel groups have been airing TV commercials claiming Iran is
attacking American troops in Iraq and threatens the U.S.



The Bush administration¢s last desperate act, its Gotterdammerung,
could be war with Iran. UN weapons inspectors concur with U.S.
intelligence that there is no proof Iran is working on nuclear arms,
but the neocon war party in Washington is determined to loosen a final
Parthian shaft by striking Iran.



Israel asserts the right to maintain its Mideast nuclear monopoly by
destroying all fissile-producing reactors in the region. Iran vows to
retaliate against Israel with its inaccurate Shahab missiles, shut the
Strait of Hormuz and mine the Gulf, producing worldwide financial
panic, severe fuel shortages, and $400-$500 per barrel oil. Iran
likely will attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait, and
strike Saudi and Kuwaiti oil facilities. Canadians in Afghanistan
could also become targets.

GRAVE DAMAGE



The embattled Bush administration¢s bunker mentality is leading to war
that will gravely damage long-term U.S. Mideast interests. A single
Iranian missile hit on Israel¢s reactor would do more damage to the
Jewish state than all its previous wars. Besides, Israel cannot
destroy Iran¢s nuclear infrastructure. A U.S. or Israeli attack on
Iran will guarantee Tehran decides to build nuclear weapons. Israel
and Iran have turned their regional rivalry into a confrontation that
threatens all.



Iran¢s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, not its bombastic President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, controls that nation¢s military and insists Iran
will not produce nuclear weapons. Israel claims it faces a second
holocaust. Iran says Israel¢s nuclear forces threaten its existence.

The dogs of war are being unleashed.



Eric Margolis is a columnist for The Toronto Sun.

Published on Sunday, July 6, 2008 by The Toronto Sun




http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/06/10160/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Ron Paul *Iranians Tested Missiles AFTER Israel had WAR GAMES!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1y47K29J1o

------------------------------------------------------------------


HR 362 and the Alarming Escalation of Hostility Towards Iran



http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/08/10204/


by Alan Nasser
The current tension among political observers as to whether the U.S.
and/or Israel will undertake military action against Iran before
president Bush leaves office has been greatly intensified by the
prospect that Congress will pass a frightening resolution, HR 362, as
early as this week.
The Demands of HR 362
HR 362, sponsored by Rep. Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, calls
for the president to enact more draconian economic sanctions against
Iran. These include an embargo against any imports of refined
petroleum. (While Iran is of course a major exporter of oil, it
imports at least 40% of its refined petroleum.) The wording of the
Resolution is chilling in the extreme: “Congress… demands that the
President initiate an international effort to immediately and
dramatically increase the economic, political and diplomatic pressure
on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by…
prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products;
imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles,
ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and
prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not
involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program.” The
resolution is moving quickly through the House and could pass as early
as this week.
The “stringent inspection requirements” listed would require a naval
blockade, thereby constituting an act of war. And this is how the
resolution would be perceived by virtually all Iranians. The result
would surely marginalize moderates in Iran who would shun retaliatory
measures against the Bush administration’s aggressive rhetoric, which
has been escalating since fall of 2007. Iranians would unify behind
their most belligerent leaders and the country would have been handed,
by the president and Congress, powerful reasons to develop nuclear
weapons for purposes of deterrence.
The final clause of the Resolution contains a classic example of
political doubletalk: “… nothing in this Resolution shall be construed
as an authorization of the use of force against Iran.” But an embargo-
with-inspections scheme can be put in effect only by means of a
blockade, which logically entails the use of force.
Congressional Democrats, the IAEA and Factual Falsehoods in HR 362
There is more support now than there was a year ago in Congress,
especially among the Democrats, for military action against Iran. Thus
HR 362’s co-sponsors include 96 House Democrats and 111 House
Republicans. These are the same Democrats whom Americans voted into
Congress, in November 2006, as majorities in both houses, based on
what voters believed to be the Democrats’ opposition to war in the
Middle East.
To add insult to injury, HR 362 justifies its content with
demonstrably false accusations about Iran’s nuclear program. The
Resolution charges that Iran’s importing and manufacturing of
centrifuges are “covert” and “illicit.” But under both the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory, and Iran’s
agreements with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), these activities are entirely permitted. The
IAEA has publicly stated its support of Iran’s uranium enrichment
program, which it states is in full accord with all treaty
requirements to which Iran is subject.
Late last October IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei remarked to CNN: “Have
we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can be readily used into
a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No. … I
very much have concern building confrontation, because that would lead
to a disaster. I see no military solution. The only durable solution
is through negotiations and inspections. My fear is that if we
continue to escalate from both sides that we would end up on a
precipice, we would end up in an abyss.” ElBaradei’s most recent
statements repeatedly echo these October remarks.
The Role of AIPAC
That HR 362 has been so warmly received on Capitol Hill is a sad
testimony to Congress’s willing dependence on external interests which
cannot be assumed to be identical to those of most Americans. The
Resolution is known to have been initially drafted by the American-
Israeli lobby AIPAC. In early June AIPAC sent more than a thousand
lobbyists to Congress to whip up support for this Resolution.
Congress’s well known subordination to AIPAC’s agenda should not be
construed as a democratic response to the wishes of the American
Jewish community. Polls show that more than 80% of Jewish-Americans
oppose an attack on Iran. Congress’s compliance to AIPAC’s interests
amounts to obeisance to a foreign State, not to any domestic
constituency.
HR 362 and the Pre-Invasion Rhetoric Re Iraq: Preludes to War
Reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s decision to impose severe extensive
sanctions against Iraq, the White House last October unilaterally
imposed harsh economic sanctions against a number of important Iranian
institutions. In addition to targeting more than 20 Iranian companies
and the country’s 3 major banks, the sanctions were announced as aimed
mainly at Iran’s uniformed security force, the Revolutionary Guard
Corps (RGC), which the Bush administration characterized, with no
evidence, as “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction” and RGC’s
Quds Force, which has been branded as a “supporter of terrorism.”
These two accusations were the main pretexts for the invasion of Iraq.
Since Quds is part of RGC, and the latter is a state institution, the
branding of Quds as a terrorist organization was ipso facto to brand
Iran as a terrorist state.
Just as Washington had earlier cooperated with Saddam Hussein in his
war against Iran (by providing him with, among other things, chemical
weapons), so too had Washington benefited from Quds’s provision of
arms to the U.S.-backed Muslim government in Bosnia, its aiding the
forces fighting the Soviet military in Afghanistan, and its support
for those fighting the Taliban. Quds even assisted, with U.S.
approval, Kurdish guerrillas’ assault on the Baathist regime of
Saddam.
The demonization of former allies has been common to Washington’s war
preparations against both Iraq and Iran. In both cases perhaps the
principal objectives have been to shut down the possibilities for a
negotiated settlement, and to provide a “legal” framework for war by
specifying the pretexts of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.
The Democrats’ overwhelming support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq is
well known. Their legislation prior to the October 2007 sanctions is
perhaps less well remembered. Shortly before Secretary Condoleezza
Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the October
sanctions, the Democratic-led house passed legislation that would
impose sanctions on non-U.S. energy companies doing business in Iran.
The legislation passed by an overwhelming 397 - 16 vote.
Democratic leaders justified this legislation as cutting off funding
for Iran’s (entirely legal) nuclear program. But the legislation was
surely motivated in large part by the intention to eliminate any
competitive advantage that might be enjoyed by competitors of U.S. oil
companies, which no longer have access to Iran-based profits.
HR 362 is a major extension of the October sanctions. The latter were
intended to deal a damaging blow to Iran’s economy. The RGC is not
merely a military institution. It performs a broad range of economic
activities. Its engineering unit includes among its major projects a
$2 billion dollar contract to develop Iran’s main gas field, a $1.3
billion contract for a new pipeline to Pakistan, the construction of a
Tehran metro extension, a high-speed rail link connecting the capital
and Isfahan, the expansion of shipping ports and the construction of a
major dam.
The October sanctions are known to have already had a significant
impact on Iran’s economy. HR 362 is intended to intensify that damage,
to take negotiations off the table, to provoke Iranian hard-liners.
Its passage would constitute another giant step toward what Mohamed
ElBaradei called “an abyss.”
Alan Nasser is professor emeritus of Political Economy at The
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wa. His articles have appeared in
The Nation, Monthly Review, Commonweal, and a number of professional
journals.

---------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 11:47 AM

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweis...tack-iran.html





http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweis...-matthews.html



-------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, July 10, 2008, 3:38 AM



Youtube video of Congressman Ron Paul speaking out against House Con
Res 362 (the Iran blockade resolution written and pushed by AIPAC
validating the Mearsheimer and Walt book yet again in the process -
see www.israellobbybook.com):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9_vpQEX5Z0




-------------------------------------------------------------------------

DE BORCHGRAVE: Attack plans spiked (be sure to scroll down to the
comments section as well)?



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-plans-spiked/





------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://amconmag.com/2008/2008_06_30/article3.html


, July 8, 2008, 11:25 PM



June 30, 2008 Issue
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative



Looking Into the Lobby

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference is
one of Washington’s most important—and least reported—events.

by Philip Weiss

For three days in the capital in early June, suspense built over the
question of how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
conference would greet Barack Obama. There was a lot of grousing about
Obama in the hallways of the Washington Convention Center, and AIPAC
officials repeatedly warned the faithful to be respectful. “We are not
a debate society or a protest movement. … our goal is to have a friend
in the White House,” executive director Howard Kohr said in a strict
tone. It wasn’t hard to imagine things going poorly: Obama gets booed
on national television. He feels insulted. Conservative Jewish donors
and voters turn off to Obama. He becomes president without their
support. AIPAC has no friend in the Oval Office.

But of course, Obama complied. His speech became the annual example
the conference provides of a powerful man truckling. Two years ago, it
was Vice President Cheney’s red-meat speech attacking the
Palestinians. Last year, it was Pastor John Hagee’s scary speech
saying that giving the Arabs any part of Jerusalem was the same as
giving it to the Taliban. Obama took a similar line. He suggested that
he would use force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, made no
mention of Palestinian human rights, and said that Jerusalem “must
remain undivided,” a statement so disastrous to the peace process that
his staff rescinded it the next day. Big deal. The actual meeting had
gone swimmingly.

This was my first AIPAC conference, and the first surprise was how
blatant the business of wielding influence is. The conference makes no
bones about this function, the most savage expression of which is the
Tuesday dinner at which AIPAC performs its “roll call,” where the
names of all the politicians who have come to the conference are read
off from the stage by three barkers in near auctioneer fashion. The
pols try to outdo one another in I-love-Israel encomia. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi surely won the day when she teared up while dangling the
dogtags of three Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah and Hamas two
years ago.

The second big surprise was that apart from coverage of the headline
speakers, the AIPAC conference is a media no man’s land. It would be
hard to imagine a more naked exhibition of political power: a
convention of 7,000 mostly rich people, with more than half the
Congress in attendance, as well as all the major presidential
candidates, the prime minister of Israel, the minority leader, the
majority leader, and the speaker of the House. Yet there is precious
little journalism about the spectacle in full. The reason seems
obvious: the press would have to write openly about a forbidden
subject, Jewish influence. They would have to take on an unpleasant
informative task that they have instead left to two international
relations scholars in their 50s—Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer,
authors of last year’s book The Israel Lobby.

The press is missing a phantasmagorical event. Imagine a basement
meeting in the Warsaw Ghetto transplanted to the biggest hall in
Vegas, and you have something of the feeling of the thing. The staging
is faultless. Little documentaries called “Zionist Stories” play on
the Jumbotron, complete with footage of Auschwitz, and then the
subject of the documentary comes out on stage to thundering applause.
There is breakout session after breakout session on Middle East policy
and Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, with star turns by Natan
Sharansky, Bill Kristol, and Leon Wieseltier. The press was excluded
from “Advanced Lobbying Techniques,” but still this is a feast of the
political condition. And posh. The roll call is described by AIPAC as
the largest seated dinner in Washington. The wine flows. I went about
in a daze of awe and admiration.

My awe was for men like Haim Saban, a toymaker and giant donor to the
Democratic Party. After his Zionist story, Saban came out on stage
wearing a platinum tie and white shirt and silver gray suit. He has
wonderful presence and something of an Arab look—black-haired, wide
forehead. He was surrounded by 200 college students, veterans of the
Saban Leadership Seminars he sponsors at AIPAC.

On Middle East policy, Saban is barely distinguishable from his
Republican counterparts, who are there in equal force. The main hall
of the conference was filled with lavishly-produced banners featuring
AIPAC donors, not a few with trophy wives, alongside statements of
their mission. There was Donald Diamond, an Arizona real estate
developer whom the New York Times recently profiled on the front page
after he raised $250,000 for John McCain. The Times said nothing in
its piece about Diamond’s Israel work. But that was all the banner was
about. “The U.S.-Israel relationship is the single most important
determinant of democracy in the world, and we must commit to securing
it,” Diamond wrote. “It is so obvious to us that the Jewish community
is a family and that we have to take care of each other.”

I was writing that down when an AIPAC spokesman stopped to check my
credentials. The audience for this stuff isn’t the public, it’s people
in the hall—other rich Jews who might put AIPAC in their wills.

At most conventions, people gather out of self-interest. Therein lies
my admiration: the AIPAC’ers didn’t come for selfish reasons. They are
devoutly concerned with the lives of people they don’t know, very far
away. Yes, people with whom they feel tribal kinship. When Israelis
came out on the dais to speak, they were almost invariably overwhelmed
by the generosity, if not the Vegas schmaltz. “There is a tremendous
amount of love in this place,” Meir Nissensohn, an Israeli executive
of IBM, said in wonder. “If it was a beaker, it would explode.” Even a
sharp critic like myself of what AIPAC is doing to American policy in
the Middle East was frequently moved by the pure loving feeling that
surrounds you at every moment.

Among the devout there is only one real issue: What is the latest
AIPAC line? This is the organization’s function. After consulting
closely with the Israeli political leadership (leaning toward the
right wing), AIPAC regurgitates a simple version of Israeli policy to
its followers, who in turn regurgitate that line to American
politicians. AIPAC’ers do this with the conviction that Israel’s life
is on the line. “It is we that are the guardians of that
relationship,” AIPAC president David Victor said. James Tisch, the
Lowes executive and leader in the Jewish community, warned the
audience that it might be 1939 all over again were it not for them.

AIPAC makes sure the Israeli line is America’s line by cultivating
politicians before they reach the national scene. Victor described
this process when he warned the audience that 10 percent of Congress
will be new next year because so many seats are open: “Do we know
them? Do they know us? Have they been to Israel? Do they understand
the issues we care so deeply about?” Finding Israel activists in the
suburbs of Detroit is easy, Victor said. “But how about finding the
one right person to reach out to candidates for communities like
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, or Tacoma, Washington, or Council Bluffs,
Iowa? Ladies and gentlemen, the success or failure of the pro-Israel
community rests on three words, our personal relationships.” And
people accused Walt and Mearsheimer of fostering a conspiracy theory.

AIPAC flashes its relationships the way kids trade baseball cards.
Bill Kristol said that Hart Hasten, a Holocaust survivor and
successful Indianapolis businessman, had been crucial to shaping Dan
Quayle’s view of Israel, having “spent a lot of time” with Quayle when
he was still a congressman. (Quayle’s office later told me, “The
statement Bill Kristol made was not exactly accurate. Mr. Quayle said
his broad knowledge of Israel came from many people and sources, not
specifically from Mr. Hasten.”) Dan Senor, an analyst on CNN and
former AIPAC intern, boasted that AIPAC won over Spencer Abraham when
he was the head of the state Republican Party, years before he became
a Michigan senator. The party was $500,000 in debt, and an AIPAC
leader helped him pay that off. And of course, the famous story was
told of George W. Bush going up in Ariel Sharon’s helicopter in 1998,
two years before he ran for president, and saying of Israel’s ten-mile
waist, “We have driveways in Texas longer than that.”

The anxiety about Obama is that he is so new to the scene that few
people have had a chance to get to him. The relationship guy is Lee
Rosenberg of Chicago, who introduced Obama. “I can personally attest
that Senator Obama is a genuine friend of Israel,” he said. In 2006,
Obama “fulfilled a pledge he made to the Chicago Jewish community” and
visited Israel. And the topper: Obama “has gotten to know” Benjamin
Netanyahu, the former prime minister who is against ever dividing
Jerusalem. Rosenberg looked pale, drained—as queasily forceful as a
mob boss vouching for an unknown family’s bona fides.

The good news I can report is the new AIPAC line. In some ways the
organization is belligerent: speakers emphasized the need to attack
Iran before it gets nukes and to invade Gaza to take on Hamas. But
peace is in the air, too, now that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s
government is working overtime to cut a deal with the Palestinians on
the West Bank and with the Syrians for the return of the Golan
Heights. AIPAC reflected this policy. I heard a few conference-goers
saying at microphones that the Bible gives Israel a right to the West
Bank. But they received only a smattering of applause, and in one
instance the moderator said the questioner was using inappropriate
language.

The soul of the conference for me was Tal Becker, the highly
personable Israeli negotiator. “I see [Palestinian negotiator] Saeb
Erekat a lot more than I see my wife and kids,” he said, promising
that if he and Palestinian moderates fail to reach an agreement, their
goal is “to keep talking and keep talking and keep talking.”

Yet before you get out your handkerchief, reflect that AIPAC has for
more than 30 years promoted the colonization process. In 1975, when
President Ford wanted to reassess Mideast policy over Israeli
intransigence, he was cut off at the knees by an AIPAC letter signed
by 76 senators. Then in 1989, when James Baker went before AIPAC and
told them to give up their idea of a Greater Israel including the West
Bank, George H.W. Bush received a letter of anger signed by 94
senators. In both instances, AIPAC was hewing to the Israeli
government line and nullifying American policymaking.

No, AIPAC’s change of heart cannot be ascribed to the good thinking of
American Jews. They’re not thinking at all. They have passed on their
full powers of judgment to the Israeli government. In that sense, the
Zionists in that hall might best be compared to Communists of the ’30s
and ’40s, who also abandoned their judgment to a far off authority
even as they argued this and that subclause codicil in intense
councils. On my train ride back to New York, a little rich kid of
about 14, traveling with his uncle in the seat behind me, called his
parents to complain that Obama’s views on Israel seemed “tailored” and
“he’s never really stood up for Israel.” Indoctrination, pure and
simple.

The great sadness here is that American Jewry is the most educated,
most affluent segment of the public. Yet on this issue there is little
independent thinking. The obvious question is whether they don’t have
dual loyalty. As a Jew, I feel uncomfortable using the phrase, given
its long history, but the facts are inarguable. Leon Wieseltier of The
New Republic speaks of everything “we” should do to make peace with
the Palestinians, then corrects himself to say what Israel should do.
Speaker after speaker says that Israel is in our hearts. People who
emigrate to Israel are applauded, and when the national anthems are
played, one cantor sings the “Star Spangled Banner,” but the
“Hatikvah” has two cantors belting it out, with the audience roaring
along. Maybe most revealing, I heard a right-wing Israeli politician
sharply criticizing Olmert’s policy in the West Bank. Think of the
scandal it would cause if American politicians went abroad and
criticized the president’s foreign policy. It’s no scandal here
because AIPAC is a virtual extension of Israel.

Of course, AIPAC and its roll call of politicians would say that
American and Israeli interests are identical. I wonder how those
politicians really feel. Their I-love-the-miracle-of-Israel rhetoric
is so endless that it creates an undercurrent of doth protest too much—
an impression that if there weren’t so much money at stake, they would
run from Israel with winged heels.

AIPAC takes care to remind the pols of deeper reasons to help the
Jews. The Holocaust imagery never stops. And there is a related theme:
that Jews are the golden goose of Western society. The very last of
the “Zionist Stories” AIPAC showed before Obama and Clinton spoke was
of a scientist, IBM’s Nissensohn. The piece emphasized Israel’s
contribution to high-tech industry from software to desalination,
hinting at a traditional Jewish idea: for a society to flourish, it
must treat Jews well. Haim Saban’s story made the same point. Look
what Egypt lost when it forced the Saban family to flee.

The theme of the conference was “The U.S.-Israel Relationship: Built
to Last.” But that seems another case of protesting too much. AIPAC is
beset on many sides.

It surely noticed how much attention Palestinians got this spring for
commemorations of the Nakba, their dispossession in 1948 and onwards.
AIPAC fought back with its own dispossession narrative. About 700,000
Jews, including Haim Saban, were forced out of Arab societies
following the formation of Israel. One of them was novelist Eli Amir,
who grew up in privileged Baghdad and was forced into a refugee camp
in 1950. Amir appeared live by satellite and berated AIPAC for not
highlighting his story before this year.

Another problem for AIPAC is the growing alienation of younger Jews
from Israel’s hardline policies, especially as those Jews do well here
and assimilate. “I worry a lot more about the American Jewish
community than I do about Israel—about which I have grave doubts,”
Wieseltier said.

AIPAC is happy to work with non-Jewish Americans. At one dinner, I sat
at the same table with Mark and Carrie Burns, Christian evangelical
radio hosts from Illinois. Carrie said that many Christians she knows
will vote on Jerusalem being in the hands of the Jews as a litmus
issue. Thus AIPAC may hope to replace dwindling elite influence with
populist numbers. I wouldn’t hold my breath. Carrie said that at a
synagogue she addressed, the first question came from a high-school
girl who said, “But isn’t Israel an apartheid state?”

The Jews are quietly leaving the room. Saban described his horror at
visiting his son’s college, Wesleyan, and seeing a table on peace in
the Middle East at which Israel was demonized. Some of the kids at
that table were surely Jews.

Especially now that an alternative lobby, J Street, has formed on its
left, AIPAC seems to be making gestures in a more peaceable direction.
One was the testimony from Sderot, the Israeli city bordering Gaza
that American politicians must learn to pronounce or face political
doom. (I think it’s Stay-ROTE.) It was inevitable that someone from
the region would take the stage, and it’s impossible to imagine a more
appealing spokesperson than Chen Abrahams, a pretty, soft-spoken
kibbutz-dweller of about 40. The audience was utterly quiet as she
described the terrible price her community has paid for the siege of
Gaza. Nothing like the price the Palestinians have paid, I’d note.
Still, if this was schmaltz, it was real schmaltz. At the end of her
taped appearance, Abrahams said, “My biggest hope is for peace. I
believe in talking to them, I don’t believe in wiping them out.” I was
stunned.

Then Abrahams came out on stage to a standing ovation, and it struck
me that it might be possible to take all the loving energy in this
place now directed at helping other Jews and redirect it to great
effect. If the AIPAC legions were somehow convinced that Jews will
only be safe in the Middle East if the Arabs among them were also safe—
without checkpoints, without a siege, with the dignity and freedom
that Jews have had in the West—all these arrayed powers might then be
directed to a larger idea of family and produce a miracle at last.

__________________________________________

Philip Weiss is at work on a book about Jewish issues. He blogs at
www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/.



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Date: Monday, July 7, 2008, 2:29 PM

Commentary: Guns of August spiked?



http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/...8101215458112/

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Stop The AIPAC sponsored "Iran War Resolution"



http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=91563


Additional about AIPAC's push for the coming war with Iran via the
following URL (be sure to access the Scott Ritter youtubes linked at
the top of the comments section as well):



AIPAC Pushing US to War with Iran for Israel:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....with-iran.html



Hedges: It's Insane to Attack Iran:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....tack-iran.html



Bob Barr: Attacking Iran Highly Irresponsible and Detrimental:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....an-highly.html



McCain's loyalty is to Israel first and foremost:



http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....ubscribe..html