Confirming what has always been the implicit way in which the US is going to get sucked into its next major war, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed that the US would definitely involve itself in a war on Iran if Israel decided to launch one.
“Obviously Israel is an independent country, and they’ll make whatever decisions they make on their own based on what they think is in their national interests,” Panetta said, adding that “if they should make that decision, that obviously the United States would take action” to protect its interests in the region.
Though Panetta has sought to duck the question in most interviews, insisting only that there was “common cause” with Israel before going on about how the time to attack Iran has not yet arrived.
President Obama has repeatedly made similar statements about “having Israel’s back,” but the reality of what this entails, a commitment to another massive war and potential open-ended occupation, seems to have so far been carefully kept out of the conversation.
Israel needs to piss off. If the Israelis are stupid enough to "attack" Iran, they SHOULD be on their own. Oh yeah and, good luck with that…
u missed the bigger point. The secretary pretty much stated that few if any of the IDF will be involved. sIsrael has not been in real conbat since 1973 when they almost lost everything. The Israel government learned a long time ago that having men in uniform is good image but let the fools who vote the USA congress and senate do the bleeding. Israel provides money and our kids provide the blood. What a sad day for our nation.
Israel provides the money that the US gives them.
The question I want to know, is when is it a good time to attack Uncle Leon for all his talk of war… and circumventing OUR constitution…………………. He was warned by Senator Jeff Sessions…..
"Take action to protect its interests"- what if the best way to do that was to shoot down some Israeli planes? Seems pretty obvious that would be the best way to get the message across that it's the US that is the superpower, and Israel that is the pissant little postage stamp of a country that is way too big for its britches.
This bozo Panetta, this tool . . . or is it FOOL of Zion, should be run off the 'reservation.' Be "we" have to stop depending on the constitution for our relief; our enemies own it and will always bend it to their benefit and use it against "us."
He is just a puppet on a string.
America is Israel's B****.
Uri Avnery says Israel will never attack Iran and the USA will never attack Iran. This warmongering is nothing more than empty diplomatic bluster designed to bully Iran into doing what they are already doing – not developing nukes. The Republicans want war as a matter of course, to distract the public from the facts that they don't have jobs, their houses are being repossessed, their student loans are disappearing and the price of gas is being jacked up by rumors of war with Iran and right-wing oil speculators trying to unseat Obama. Netanyahu is facing re-election soon, and he needs to implant fear into the body politic of Israel to keep his office. Is this sick, or what?
I sure hope you are right…
>right-wing oil speculators
Who is that, then? Also, consider that speculators are gonna speculate. Which is what every market participant does…
Spot on. There is no way that israel will ever survive a massive retaliatory strike by Iran. Iran is a large nation, larger than Alaska, larger than Germany, France, Italy and Spain combined. israel is about the size of New Jersey with no place to hide. israel's reputation is dismal throughout the world and even in the US the tide is turning against israeli arrogance. That zionist nut case, educated in America, Netanyahu's real goal is to label Obama anti-israel, anti-jew and an enemy of all jews to secure a right-wing GOP victory in November.
If Israel attacks Iran and the Obama Administration judges it is not in the interest of the United States for Israel to attack Iran, then, Panetta says, "obviously the United States would take action to protect its interests in the region." Does this not mean that the United States stands ready to stop an Israeli attack on Iran, by force if necessary? Why is no one in the media not asking of Secretary Panetta, or the President, this "obvious" question?
Oh dear, it seems we are not far away from nuclear war. Precipitated by Israel and backed up by the U.S., we'll have WW3 before you know it.
There is madness in our world. Our leaders are psychopaths. The nations claiming they stand for human rights and democracy are the ringleaders.
When are the 7 billion people going to stand up and confront the evidoers?
See. Didn't I tell ya. I knew this SOB would eventually vomit out the usual murderous mutterings. Didn't take all that long either. Batting 1000 there Panetta.
Obama needs a public relations coup to give him a bump in the polls prior to the elections, and our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen are going to give it to him at the cost of some of their lives, whether they want to or not.
Might want to get your affairs in order, boys and girls- Iran is no Iraq and know you're coming. While you're at it, might want to read a good book on Stalingrad, that might cheer you up some.
It never ceases to amaze me how often these pieces of shit throw away American interests for the benefit of Israel and their own political careers. Then again, it's not like these idiots actually care about the US … just read how that war-criminal that's in charge of the CIA today says he wants to monitor every application connected to the internet. Someone needs to explain to this incompetent (or more likely criminal) fuckwitt that the CIA isn't allowed to act like that on US soil.
Recently at Arlington National they buried a guy who was killed on his 4th combat tour. He was 23 years old. What an abuse the powerful and rich especially of the dual citizens to the concept of a voluntary military. Voluntary military means we will abuse you and start wars for no reason just because we can. We need to make sure you do not live long enough to ever collect your pension. Yes who needs 30 years old in the military as long as we can continue to gather the young into the wars. Iran is a problem for the expansion of USA/Israel. Nuclear iran would mean nothing to the real situation.
The untimely death of that unfortunate young man illustrates why if whenever we wage war in future (God forbid), we must pay for it up front, (no more putting it on the national credit card), and EVERYONE between 18-55 must be eligible for the draft (no deferments). When our "best" and "brightest" have to pony up the dough for every bomb and boot, and when they've got real skin in the game and their spawn are being used as cannon fodder, our "leaders" will make peace in a New York minute.
Can any Zionist-Christian supporter of Israel name ONE thing that Israel has done FOR the US during its 60+ years of existence?
Taking hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars does NOT count.
Deliberately attacking the USS Liberty in 1967 even strafing the lifeboats in an attack to kill every US sailor does NOT count.
Anything – anyone?
America would be better off in every possible way had Israel not been created in 1948.
How reassuring to know that one of these two countries is independant and makes its own decisions!
One is independent and the other gets to pay the bill both in treasure and in blood.
Middle-East run dry or oil — Israel would have to go
andy
“America is Israel’s B****”
Quite the reverse, for what will happen to Israel when peak oil has come and gone, when Western war materials can no longer be traded for Middle-East oil?
For we the people are the B**** prostitutes who have been seduced by all the excessive wealth produced by the oil and war materials industry. For give up our beloved Empire USA, do this and each and everyone of us who has any wealth, we give up a full half of our individual property and self-worth.
"if they should make that decision, that obviously the United States would take action” to protect its interests in the region." someone needs to grill Panetta to have him explain out exactly what the hell "take action" would mean. Which would of course be the job of the journalists if we had any real journalism left in this country
Panetta seems to be undermining his boss, as Obama’s stated ‘Red Line’ is when Iran builds the bomb, implicitly telling Nutwityahu not to attack, at least not now.
I learned from this site first that the stupid war on Iraq only served to deliver a sympathetic regime to Iran. Whatever realistic fears Israel had of Saddam's assistance to Palestinian terrorists would be dwarfed by what this might mean for support by Iraq of Hezbollah. I thought all this bluster about the nukes was just intimidation to keep Iran from expoiting the opening al-Maliki seemed to represent. But a 'war' with Iran could mean reintroducing the 'coalition' occupation into southern Iraq. That would put us back in the Iraq quagmire to keep Israel happy.
Gee! I wish the US were an independent country so our faux leaders wouldn't have to pretend to be real Americans.
70% of US politics is about its militarism agendas around the world, therefore US keeping its occupation forces in Europe, Japan, Korea, Persian Gulf, Asia and other part of the world. US hase’nt drown done its military occupation from anywhere but in last 15 years expending it to Balkan countries and more so in South East Asia.
History is shown that US and EU government are capable of doing any illegal, braking international laws turning it to legal by lying to people of the world expecting it to be a democratic approach. In this scenario, US and EU governments have entered the new era forced in keeping its national and international hegemony, that they are forced in working with Tyrants as Saudis and UAE, that they are forced to organize new mafia, that they are forced to use terrorism to their benefits causing detractions, that they are forced into creating mercenaries (Black Water and others) to do the dirty job of US and EU militarism regimes and so on. Here is yet another of their dirty social psychological warfare when they lose.
LONDON (Reuters) – A provocative photograph of a near-naked young woman appears among
e-mails apparently sent to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and hacked by opposition activists who shared them with Western media. Yahoo news March 17, 2012.
The end of the American empire will come when Israel and Iran sign a peace and security agreement. The US is done in the ME. Persona non grata. Israel needs a new regional partner to survive and Iran has shown that it has no qualms about accepting Israel's "right to exist" in their offer of a few years ago (summarily rejected by the US).
Think it not possible with the current rhetoric? Watch and see. I give it a year. Sea change in the ME.
Has Isreal ever made peace with anyone – itself included?
What are you smoking? I will take your tomfoolery as being complete satire!
Iran has 75,000,000 citizens while Iraq had about 5,000,000. Iraq had been bombed by the US literally daily for ten years knocking out strategic facilities. Iran has the backing of Russia and China should Israel attack and a formidable military itself. Need I way more.
one must hope that if Israel attacks Iran that Iran teaches this pariah state a long deserved leasson. Iran will be relentless as will be the Muslim world. Israel is the biggest danger to its own survival period.
"Obviously Israel is an independent country,…" However if Israel can by its own actions embroil America in a war or without consequences endanger US interests and personnel, is the United States an 'independent country'? If any other nation did this it would be considered casus belli which is the moral position we should adopt towards Israel too.
Israel is the tail wagging the US dog. We gave Iran their nuclear reactor in 1983 along with fissionable material, and now were are concerned that they are pursuing nuclear advancement? I cannot but remember the USS Liberty, a US ship attacked by Israeli warplanes in 1983. With survivors abandoning ship and in the water, Israeli planes proceeded toi strafe the survivors. And we continue to kiss their a.. Give me a break, if they attack Iran… then let them defend their actions. Its time for America to tell Israel to pi.. off!
Panetta says that Israel is 'an independent country' and thus can do what they want as far as attacking Iran. On the other hand he says the US would be forced 'to take action' or as Obama said 'the US has Israel's back'. This, in effect, gives all the leverage over to Israel and none to the US which is forced to follow Israel's lead. In other words the US is not an independent country.
Nothing like stating the obvious. Too bad Panetta is too chicken sh*t to admit that the US would be doing the bidding for Isreal while the Zionists criticize, demand and ridicule.
One must hope that Russia, and China will issue in no certain terms that if Iran is hit by a nuke, that the US, and Israel will be finished. This needs to be stated especially to Israel since they are so drunk with arrogance that all reality is non existent. Zionism is Naziism in almost every extent. It deplored humanity, acts with paranoid malice, and will sacrifice its own population for a cause that is completely fabricated.
Obama has already declared himself to be the Dictator of the United States in preparation for the coming war:
http://www.examiner.com/finance-examiner-in-natio…
Mass murderer in chief obomber will go down with his ship of empire !
"Sucked In"? Seriously? You think we think the state is RELUCTANT to engage in violence?