U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel will take military action against Iran despite U.S. objections and are beefing up U.S. facilities in the region in case of a regional conflict, according to the Wall Street Journal.
President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have privately sought assurances from Israeli leaders in recent weeks that they will not unilaterally attack Iran, but the Israeli response has so far been evasive, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. believes its military bases and personnel in neighboring Iraq, for example, would be vulnerable if war did break out and so is keeping its Embassy in Baghdad on alert. The U.S. has also sent a second aircraft carrier strike group to accompany its 15,000 troops based in Kuwait. Arms transfers to key allies in the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, et al., have been sped up in recent months as a further deterrent to Iran.
The renewed concern of an aggressive Israeli strike comes after an Iranian nuclear scientist who supervised a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb placed on his car by two assailants in northern Tehran. The act, which has a series of similar precedents, is widely believed to be the work of U.S. or Israeli intelligence agencies, or both.
There is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and the opinion of the U.S. intelligence community, the Obama administration, and the latest IAEA report is that Iran’s enrichment is so far civilian in nature. Additionally, Iran has agreed to host a delegation of United Nations nuclear inspectors this month, following up on continuous inspections in recent years.
Still, the U.S. posture has remained aggressive, even if the leadership is hesitant to start another war. Harsh U.S.-led economic sanctions that have been placed on Iran in addition to a covert war consisting of cyber-attacks, commercial sabotage, and support for rebel groups inside Iran aimed at undermining the regime.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Micah Zenko, a fellow in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations, maintains that “if Israel attempts such a high-risk and destabilizing strike against Iran, President Obama will probably learn of the operation from CNN rather than the CIA. History shows that although Washington seeks influence over Israel’s military operations, Israel would rather explain later than ask for approval in advance of launching preventive or preemptive attacks.”
This is the role that Israel performs for the US, taking responsibility for actions that the US wants to do, but wants to be able to distance themselves from, as with past Israeli sales of military weapons to South Africa and the training of the militaries of dictators in South America in the 1970s and 1980s.
If Israel did not exist, the US would have to invent it.
Of course, the Iranians see through it, which is why it will rightly hold both the US and Israel responsible.
The only reason Obama is making noise is probably because their timetable is all out of whack.
http://theliveload.blogspot.com/2012/01/contradic…
Let's be clear, Israel is not seriously considering attacking iran as a unilateral first strike. What this has been since 2007 is called the "hold me back" strategy, Israel threatens to attack Iran, washington is forced to do something to Iran (Sanctions, assassinations, covert war, black operations etc.)
So, yes, you should be afraid of reading in the news that Israel is threatening to bomb iran. Because that means America is going to do something STUPID, to appease their Israeli masters. Israel goes to America and says "hold me back" and America goes " ok ok, we'll sanctions off their oil exports.
Simple as that, that has been the process for the last 4 years.
You forgot what else Washington is" forced" to do:
"provide more money and materiel to Israel.
It is blackmail
actually it is greenmail…
same thing their buddies were doing to US corps in the US back in the 80's
How about we shoot the israeli planes out of the sky when they fly over Iraq? And then we cut ties with them?
I dare Americans do this.
Where is my comment? I hate this s**t.
just more hype here. no meat.
Worried? Just pull the plug on all those stolen tax "goodies" and watch the worries disappear.
Oh, yeah, we're sooooooo worried. That's why we've emplaced a baby, aged, infirmed, women and children killing embargo on Iran exactly like we did with Iraq – hundreds of thousands of victims with that one. Makes one proud to be an American!
understood.
the zionist entity is just like a usa aircraft carrier .it does not excist except that it gets us arms and money. and does just the us wants.
Let Israel attack – and then stay out of it. Let Israel deal with the consequences as Iran and its allies strike back.
No sacrificing American lives for the sake if Israeli arrogance, paranoia and belligerence.
There are several reasons I don't think Israel will attack Iran. One…Israel only attacks countries who have little or no defense…ie Palastinians/ Lebanon. Two…Having Israeli pilots coming home in body bags will not play well in Israel. they don't care about thousands of American soldiers dying…but when it comes to their Jewish sons, it's a totaly different story.Three. .As long as you have a bought and paid for US Congress…why not let them do the dirty work. All you need is a small incident to ignite a full blown war, with the proding of our neocon loving national media.
Israel attacked Gaza during the 2008 election cycle, perhaps fearful of a change in US policy after the election.
Will Israel attack Iran in 2012 for the same reason?
Typical American foreign policy: do as i a say, don't do as i do! If Israel feels Iran is a threat, which they aren't according to the I.A.E.A reports, then let them deal with it accordingly. Our Founding Fathers warned of foreign intervention.
I agree with Richard Estes and Patriothere. I regard this whole meme as disinformation. I have always said that the idea of a genuinely unilateral Israeli attack on Iran was pure bluff. It conforms to a pattern frequently seen before, whereby the US pretends to have difficulty in coordinating its plans with Israel. I’m not saying that this implies that the US in fact controls Israeli decision-making, or the reverse; I’m just saying that the appearance of lack of coordination provides useful psychological leverage, analogous to when Israel claims to be unable to control its own extremist settlers in the territories. Whenever you say, “I’m having difficulty holding back these hawks/extremists,” you are improving your bargaining position by adding to the implicit threat. It's what Burroughs called the "tough cop, con cop" strategy.
In any case, there is no need for Israel to attack Iran unilaterally. I'm sure that Israel is able to ensure that the US is, at the very least, committed to the attack before it starts. They might agree to let Israel launch the first strike so that the US can appear to be being dragged in to protect Israel against retaliation. This is just tactics. But my point is that in fact Israel and the US will be fully coordinated in whatever they do. Another important point, in my view, is that I don’t think the attack on Iran can be launched until Syria has been taken out of the picture.
A related point can be made about this report by Max Blumenthal in al-Akhbar of an article in Israel Hayom painting Obama as a wimp without the guts to attack Iran: http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/bibi-connect…
I think that these statements in the Israeli press are a sort of overseas extension of a perennial pattern in western electoral politics, whereby supposedly weak centrist governments alternate with supposedly muscular right-wing ones, and during the period of the supposedly centrist government (in this case, Obama’s) the right wing keeps bashing it for ‘wimpishness’. I feel that this is all just a charade, but that it is significant how the bashing is relayed through the Israeli press.
As an Iranian expat living in Australia (land of convicts and the ignorant) It is amusing to read all your comments which basically considers Israel capable of starting a war with Iran all by itself, but being kept in check by the US.
Israel is a beggar state of cowards. Israel only attacks the weak and powerless. Even though Israel has bitten every single neighbor and then some like feral dogs they have never, ever, fought a war alone.
There are always the Americans and the European stooges to bail Israel out. E even when they were slaughtering helpless Palestinian kids and their parents in their mud-brick homes these cowards had to run to the US for Cluster and Phosphorus Bombs to burn the kids alive. The same weakness prevailed when they attacked Lebanon and got beaten on the head by Hezbollah/Iran. And that, is supposed to be strength?
We Iranians couldn't care less about all the skinny chest beatings of Israel and their stooges in the US and Britain. We are a regional superpower and we will burn every single ship in the Persian Gulf and the Iranian Sea (formerly Arabian) as well as every petroleum and military related infrastructure in the brutal dictatorship fiefdoms of littoral Persian Gulf gluttonous Arabs.
We Iranians also find it amusing how Judeo-Christians in Europe give Nobel Peace Prize to yet another US president just for talking sweet. Only to later show the planet he can give Bush a run for being the dumbest US president in US history, and just as murderous. Then again, just look at how many Israelis have received the so-called peace prize.
Here is a hint for you guys that are genuinely concerned about the US and its Israeli masters along with their subservient British attacking Iran. If they bring 100 ships to the Persian Gulf they are just bluffing, trying to gain some sort of respect after all the humiliation by Iran. They know that would be like bringing a bunch of Chihuahuas in the lions den. If they bring a few CVNs and other support ships and park them in the outskirts of the Iranian Sea (formerly Arabian) or near the Iranian Ocean (formerly Indian), then there is cause for concern.
We Iranians are peaceful and don't want war. However, we are not losing sleep over the typical dastardly of the illegitimate beggar state of Israel and its servants in the US and Britain and their never ending beatings of their skinny chests.
A war with Iran may in fact be the catalyst needed to change the current destructive world order dished out to the world by Israel/US/Britain. If there is a war in Iran preparations have been made to turn the occupy (whatever) into Occupy White House and Occupy the Capitol Building, and to Occupy No. 10.
The most dangerous terrorist creatures on this planet, the Saudis, will be taken prisoners inside their gold-plated toilets, along with the despots in Bahrain, UAE and Qatar (if anything is left of their palaces).
Only a Westerner would think we have been sitting on our hands waiting to be attacked.
"As an Iranian expat living in Australia (land of convicts and the ignorant)". Gratitude must not be a thing that Iranian do well.
When reality and fantasy get intertwined…what you get is pure penis-envy.
Dear Shahriar,
I must disagree with you completely. The fake kings in Saudi Arabia would never stoop so low as to sit on anything less than solid gold.
Land of convicts and ignorant? Oh, my. Which group do you belong to? If neither, maybe you should go and be with your own kind, however you define that. It's not healthy to go and live with an entire population that you are contemptuous of.
This charade sickens me. Everyone in the world knows that Israel and the U.S. are as thick as thieves (which they both are). They plan everything together, right down to the last detail.
They are both imperialists. They are both run by religious fanatics. They both seek to achieve global domination.
They both need to be opposed, to have their teeth pulled, to be treated as rogue nations!
I am Iran, hear me roar…
🙂
But really, you aren't reading the comments carefully enough. Most of us are saying that the idea of a genuinely unilateral Israeli attack on Iran is bluff. This particular site has consistently opposed the idea of any sort of attack on Iran, not least on the grounds that it would produce a catastrophic response. What is curious, though, is that the people who run this site are very reluctant to apply the same logic to the idea of an attack on Syria, which they prefer to present in the same "plucky little democratic rebels resisting a wicked tyrant" way that the mainstream media do.
This site tends to do that. They are plainly and clearly antiwar on the big issues. But on the little side conflicts and developing wars, they tend to take the view of the Wall Street media and the government propaganda too unquestionably.
The MSM spin is definitely that compared to Iran, Syria is a sideshow, and it becomes easier for them to present it as such when a convenient 'Iran crisis' blows up, which certainly happens often enough. But Syria's no sideshow. For a start, it is Russia's only ally on the Mediterranean seaboard. Russia has explcitily accused the US and NATO of organising and arming the Syrian insurrection, and has come extremely close to calling this a casus belli.
This seems like a very blatant attempt to prepare for plausible deniability when Israel inevitably invades, bombs, or otherwise overtly attacks Iran with our assistance or, at the very least, our blessings. There is so much propaganda and misinformation it can make anyone’s head spin, but — ever the cynic — I find the notion that all this posturing is merely a “just in case” scenario extremely unlikely and insulting to the average person’s intelligence. We are so brazen, so unbelievably arrogant…
I read a part of your comments and I noticed that many of you still believe Israel will pick a cat fight with Iran. This is just empty words, words of propaganda to proving how macho they are. I learned during the course of time that Israel including US go to war only against the weaks, those with no military capabilities on the other hand Iran is another unknown ball game otherwise Israel and the US would have done it long long time ago. The fake Zionist state of Israel couldn't win a war against Hezbollah who's only a group of resistance resisting the occupation of Shebaa farms. Secondo US is completely bankrupt, another war will squeeze the Their economy to the point to become a third world country. Iran posseses an extraordinary military capabilities and that's why Israel wouldn't do it. It's a war propaganda in order for them to making money on the back of those stupid Gulf states and to resuming Arms Sales of highly sophisticated military hardware. We're talking about billions and billions of arms deal. Mark my word for it, it will continue this way
What's said is to deceive. Look at the actual actions over a long period if you wish a fairly accurate idea about the over-arching policy of any operation, including usa, and Iran too. The conjectural ideas discussed seldom include any allowance for the possibility of a difference of policy between COG (ministry occult as Bismarck called it) and the above-ground government. This is to say, as some do, that while Barky may wish to avoid a dangerous war, even try to stop it, he may be out of the loop…
Easy solution … Tell Israel clearly and plainly that they are on their own if they start such a war. That the US won't be restocking Israel with fresh missiles and spare parts, and that military aid will be suspended it if occurs. That publicly, really in political self-defense, the US will go on the attack against Israeli aggression.
The US pays the bills. The US has the final say. If they don't use that, then that's a decision too.
Attack Iran = No more welfare checks to Tel Aviv. If Washington doesn't say this publicly and loudly without any reservations, they haven't done all they can to prevent Israel from taking a crack at Iran. In addition, if Washington doesn't say publicly and loudly without any reservations that any Israeli attack will proceed with out any assistance from the US. they're likewise slacking.
Like a poster above, this sounds suspiciously like the underpinnings of 'plausible denial' for the US. It's like the Mob going to a business and telling them that a rival gang might give the owner trouble, and unless he plays ball with the Mob they can't guarantee his safety. Yeah, okay- whatever.
I am doggedly maintaining that all of the multiple stories that have appeared from different directions over the last few days seeming to suggest a US-Israel split are elements in a gigantic deception campaign. My best and simplest argument is that US-Israel (which I still conceive of as fully coordinated, so much so that i would like to call them USrael) are agreed that they have to 'take out' Syria before they can attack Iran. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a man whose writing has never, as far as I know, appeared here but often appears at Global Research, has argued this very cogently. In the final section of this article — http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&… — which is subtitled "Making the Strait of Hormuz Redundant to Weaken Iran?", he uses various alternative oil pipeline logistical schemes to demonstrate that "Washington [is making] efforts to overrun Lebanon and Syria in an attempt to isolate Iran before any possible showdown with Tehran." This is why I keep drawing attention back to Syria.
The racist apartheid state of Israel is desperate to survive, and in provoking a war with Iran, it is only putting itself in a position where it would be forced to use nukes to preserve itself. But in acting to preserve Israel, zionist leaders must also understand that they would be perpetrating a new holocaust in addition to inviting another one against the worlds jews. Westerners may not give a damn about a few thousand dead iranians, but the prospect of millions of people wiped out by a single nuke attack, perhaps on tehran, would be intolerable to the world. Not to mention to the millions of expat Iranians in the US and Europe who are likely to seek revenge against their neighbors for the mass murder of their friends and family back in Iran. All this talk about a war is just the tip of the iceberg.
America and Israel and Britan and the people that allie and sup[port them can not win when Russia,China,North Korea,Pakistan,Syria,Iraq,Afganistan and many others.America and Israel and others if now there on the verg of defeat will launch a nuke that will be meant with a world ending respones.Wake up people I would bet India fights with then and not Israel and America.China and India the 2 of them is like 1 quarter of the worlds citizens.America and Israel have made themselfs hated the world over,America no longer have many friends real friends they see the way they illegaly attack countrys.You really think Japan is great friends with America after Herosima and Nagasiqi in WW2 killing 200000.They do whats best for now they may side with Russia China and South Korea may also.I'm saying every government in the world sees America illegal actions and wars.
I don't understand this essay by Glaser at all. Is the dog wagging the tail, or the tail the dog?
I've come to this conclusion, after a lot of waggling from both ends: the question of ‘which is dog and which is tail’ is wrongly posed, because it assumes that distinct national elites within distinct nation-states confront one another, rather than that transnational elites flow between the nation-states.
That the Us rushes around in a tizzy and provides all sorts of anti missile and anti aircraft missiles to all the Gulf countries in anticipation of an retaliatory attack by Iran, after being attacked by Israel is incredibly stupid. It only encourages the Israelis even more. Now is the time for the Russians to weigh in and declare that since the US is arming everyone, they will now provide S-300 and 400 anti aircraft missiles to Iran. Those big hard-ons the israelis are walking around with will shrivel real quick when they realize they could lose 30 % of their pilots in any attack against Iran. Remember that the Israelis are also Jewish and would want to make a profit out of the war, so the insiders in the US Congress will be tipped along with all the Jewish speculators before any serious action starts. The same thing happened in early 2008 when the Israelis were trying to get Bush to help in an attack against Iran. Unless we see the price of crude shoot up rapidly, there will be no attack.
I'll try again! The Likkudniks know Iran isn't building Nukes even though they make fun of Meir Dagan for raising Hell about their lies. So what's it all about? Is it just to get the free $3 billion worth of military aid per year or show how much political clout they have in the US? That the US runs around the Gulf countries giving out anti missile defense systems would seem to be an encouragement for Israel to attack. If the Russians decide to up the ante and provide S-300 and 400 anti aircraft missiles to Iran, all that macho posturing and testosterone in Israel will have a serious defaltion. I still say, watch the oil markets! The prices jumped in 2008 when the Israelis were egging on Bush to help them with an attack. The insiders of Israel told all the insiders of the US and the prices jumped to almost $150 per barrel. They all made huge profits and the ordinary people had all that money stolen out of their wallets. Ignore all the BS and watch the price of oil. Until it jumps there will be no attack. The Jewish side of the war mongers would want to profit out of a war.
What's worrisome are the recent news stories reporting that Russia is prepared to regard an attack against Teheran by either Israel or the West (meaning the US) as an attack on Moscow — and let's not forget that Russia has occasionally made statements over the past couple of years indicating that they are potentially open to using nuclear weapons despite the probable consequences. The United States needs to make it clear to both Israel and Russia that if Israel chooses to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran and Russia decides to retaliate, the United States cannot afford to come to the aid of Israel and will not do so because of the incredibly volatile nature of such a scenario and the potential for it to escalate to the point of no return. This has nothing to do with being anti-Semitic or anti-Israel and everything to do with self-preservation. Especially after what the United States did to Iran in 1952 — staging a coup, overthrowing the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mossadegh, and reinstalling the Shah (all because Mossadegh wanted Iranians to receive a bigger share of the proceeds from their own oil) — I am opposed to any US military intervention with regard to Iran unless or until they attack us directly. For one thing, of the five countries with the world's largest proven oil reserves, Iran is the only one left which we have not yet befriended or conquered (the other four are Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq, and either Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates depending on which statistics you read). I for one am convinced that all this saber-rattling by the United States (which has been going on for years now) has far more to do with oil than it does with nuclear weapons — didn't we learn anything from the War In Iraq? (If the War In Iraq was truly about weapons of mass destruction and not about oil, then why did we never go after North Korea even though George W. Bush included them in the "Axis Of Evil" — especially given the fact that they actively developed a nuclear weapon while we were busy mucking about in Iraq??) It's high time we start beginning to wean ourselves off oil and make every effort to transition to alternate fuels — the fact that our entire society depends on it is an extremely bad idea, and many of our political difficulties for over the past thirty years have also been directly or indirectly related to oil. We should also consider holding Israel accountable to the same extent that we hold other nations accountable instead of automatically defending them. Let's face it…a nation which can hold off the armies of three different countries attacking on three separate fronts as Israel succeeded in doing during the Six-Day War is anything but weak!
Well, if the Americans were serious about putting Israel on notice they wouldn't be putting boots on the ground there, for whatever reason. They're sacrificial lambs and a convenient excuse to launch further hostilities. Sort of like conveniently leaving all those old battleships lined up to be destroyed in another place and time.
The statement : “Obama will probably learn of the operation from CNN rather than the CIA…” makes me wonder who are our security agencies working for anyway? Have they gone rogue? Have they been usurped or bought off by Israel? Are there ‘moles’ within the CIA? I don’t believe it is possible to do this without some kind of ‘insider trading’ going on, with a kind of ‘cabal’ driving this plot.
Might not Israeli hawk's thinking go: Attack Iran, Iran retaliates and the U. S. has to join the fray on our side because of its declared to be unbreakable alliance with us.
Major thanks for the blog.Much thanks again. Want more.