US President Barack Obama is busy aligning Middle East allies with the next US steps on Iran. Contributing to the mounting sense in Washington of an approaching US-Iranian confrontation, the Pentagon is substantially building up its combat power around Iran, stationing nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait – two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit – and keeping two aircraft carriers the region. The USS Carl Vinson, the USS John Stennis which was to have returned to home base and their strike groups will stay in the Arabian Sea.
Iran is caught up in the same pre-war swirl of activity. Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani spent two days in Ankara this week. But Turkish leaders failed in their bid to sell their good offices as brokers for averting the expected collision between Tehran and the West. Before flying out of Ankara Friday, Jan. 13, Larijani commented: “We have different ways of doing things.”
debkafile’s Iranian sources quote the Iranian official as telling his hosts that his country is prepared to take on any military aggressors. One of the responses weighed in Tehran to meet the rising military pressure might be an open declaration of Iran as a nuclear power. By accepting a visit by IAEA inspectors on Jan. 28 – to investigate charges that Iran is running a clandestine nuclear bomb program – Tehran may be moving toward that irreversible admission – or possibly its first nuclear test.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 528 disclosed exclusively on Nov. 25, 2011 that Iran may soon publicize its attainment of a nuclear weapon, a step still being debated intensely at the highest levels of the Islamic regime in Tehran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will make the ultimate decision, is very much in favor of facing the world as a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic. He calculates that this fait accompli has a good change of warding off a Western and/or Israeli military attack.
Thursday night, Jan. 12, President Obama put in a call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss coordinating US and Israeli moves for a military operation against Iran, which many US media believe to be imminent.
The New York Times wrote Friday under the caption: Dangerous Tension with Iran, “Many officials, experts and commentators increasingly expect some kind of military confrontation.”
Obama had similar conversations with other Middle East leaders this week. The and Saudi and Qatari foreign ministers, Prince Saud al-Faisal and Sheikh Hamad al-Thani, spent two days on Jan. 10-11 in Washington talking to the US president. The contents of their talks were kept under tight wraps. Friday, British premier David Cameron suddenly turned up in Riyadh for talks with Saudi King Abdullah and Crown Prince Nayef.
Discussions on military preparations centering on Iran inevitably concern the need for urgent action to halt the unending carnage in Syria, Iran’s close ally.
Thursday, the Russian National Security Adviser Nikolai Patrushev, one of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s closest advisers, said ominously: “We are receiving information that NATO members and some Persian Gulf States working under the ‘Libyan scenario’ intend to move from indirect intervention in Syria to direct military intervention.”
Moscow has consistently spoken out against any foreign intervention in the Syrian conflict – or even tough UN sanctions.
Russia’s NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin has suggested more than once that the West would use a military adventure in Syria as the jumping-off point for an attack on Iran.
Another sign that Syria is under the military eye of the West came from an indiscreet comment Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz made Tuesday, Jan. 10 in a briefing to a Knesset panel. Israel, he said, is preparing to absorb members of Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect after his downfall.
He later detracted his words. debkafile disclose that the context of the general’s comment was Israeli preparations to establish a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan border to shelter Alawites fleeing the vengeance of their compatriots.
Turkey too has gone back to talking about setting up in northern Syria a Turkish buffer zone for refugees and anti-Assad dissidents.
Further fueling the war scare, two helmeted bombers on a motorbike assassinated the Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment center, in central Tehran Wednesday. Friday, Ayatollah Khamenei accused the United States and Israel of a CIA-Mossad master plan, which Iranian sources claimed bore the title “Red Windows” and focused on training Iranian dissidents for hit and sabotage operations in Iran.
1953:
CIA helps remove Iranian democrat Mohammad Mossadegh from power as punishment for nationalizing the country’s oil. The Shah is put back on the throne. Massive repression of all opposition, but the mosques cannot be shut. Their doors stya open and they become centres of resistance to the regime.
1958:
In Order to prevent a general election, which it fears might produce a nationalist government, the CIA/DIA authorize first military coup in Pakistan. A decade of military rule leads ultimately to the break up of the country in 1971.
1964:
US Ambassador Lincoln Gordon masterminds plot for military take-over in Brazil. President Joao Goulart goes into exile; a slogan appears of a Rio de Janeiro wall: “No Middlemen! Lincoln for President!” widespread arrests and torture of leftists and trades-union militants.
1967
CIA operative watch as a captured prisoner is shot dead by machine-gun bullets in Bolivia. His name is Che Guevara.
1973:
Us authorizes General Pinochet’s military coup in Chile. Elected president Salvador Allende is killed defending himself. Mass arrests and killings of Between 6,000 and 10,000 members of socialist and communist parties, peasant organizations and other left groups are “disappeared”.
1975:
US authorizes Indonesian invasion of East Timor to pre-empt national independence after Portuguese withdrawal. By 1989, the occupying armies will kill over 200,000 Timorese, imprison several thousand, institute a form of slave labour, and loot the country.
1975:
US supports military coup in Argentina. General Videla declares that the enemy is within and the country must be purified.
1979:
Closer links established with new Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain, who is armed and supported during the war with Iran, in the course of which he used chemical weapons against a Kurdish village. Close relations continue till 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
1982:
US marines invade and occupy the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, whose Head of State (the Queen of England) is irked that she was not informed. Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz arrives on the island and announces: “At first sight I realized that this island could be a splendid real estate project.”
1990:
The Gulf War: US Air force sent for a training mission including a “turkey shoot” to destroy an army in total retreat; destruction of Iraq’s social infrastructure; systematic attack on Iraqi people via a criminal UN regime.
1999:
Nato war against Yugoslavia
2002:
US-Spanish backed coup attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Chavez has won seven different elections and referendums, despite the opposition of the private TV networks and a large part of the press. The coup fails because of opposition from soldiers and the poor.
2002:
US Invasion of Afghanistan
2003:
US-British invasion and occupation of Iraq
2005-2006:
Attacks inside of Pakistan killing civilians
In 2005, a mere 216 Pakistanis were reported killed. In 2006, 907 Pakistanis died; in 2007, 3,448; in 2008, 7,997. By 2009, the total number of victims in just five years came to more than 25,000.
These are value target for Iran testing Chinese-build C802 or DF-21
When America wants to play war, nothing can stop it. The reasons for going to war can be created, from WMDs in Iraq, to OBL in Afghanistan, Talibans in Pakistan, Arab Spring in North Africa and the latest is Iran developing a nuclear weapon etc etc. Even if Iran becomes a nuclear power, so what. Why should only the US, EU and Israel be so threatened.
MAV
Sweden
This article has the same flavor of US/ISRAEL propaganda mechanism. Sad we have to hear such repeated messages “watch my lips!” that filled the world screens during the Iraqi War, and now pointing to Iran!! How many more innocent humans have to die to satisfy some greedy political “bast*rds” who hide behind their luxury offices when the dirty work is delegated to the brainwashed military who were inplanted with a “Patriotic Bug”. Look around you and see what were the results achieved in Iraq, Egypt, Libya??? Total anarchy… The danger is not Iran, its the players of the war drums… May God help us all if we are led to an unwanted WWIII…
Hmmm
As of last week our Secretary of Defense publicly stated that Iran does NOT have a nuclear weapons program. The international community has had inspectors inside and all over Iran for the last 5 years. Those inspectors have repeatedly found NOTHING illegal.(isreal refuses to allow inspectors in to check their nuclear weapons program) Iran signatory of the nuclear non proliferation treaty (which israel refuses to sign) In short Iran is NOT A NUCLEAR THREAT TO ANYONE.
this author states “Tehran may be moving toward that irreversible admission – or possibly its first nuclear test.” Buddy you a a bald face liar. You are a war monger of the most vile sort. I do hope you have already enlisted and and are sitting in the middle east waiting to fight for israel imperialism. Because they only reason the US wil attack Iran is to allow israel to take over the middle east. Iran is NOT as threat in any way to the US.