An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

[FRED]

An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe
January 4, 2006 (Anatole Kaletsky - Times Online)

Our correspondent on a concerted attempt to confront Iran and Shia Islam

Most people think that the bungled invasion of Iraq, climaxing last week with the bungled execution-assassination of Saddam Hussein, will go down in history as the ultimate symbol of the Bush Administration’s hubris and incompetence. They should think again. With the dawning of a new year, the Bush-Blair partnership is working on an even more horrendous foreign policy disaster.

What now seems to be in preparation at the White House, with the usual unquestioning support from Downing Street, is a Middle Eastern equivalent of the Second World War. The trigger for this all-embracing war would be the formation of a previously unthinkable alliance between America, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Britain, to confront Iran and the rise of the power of Shia Islam.

AntiSpin: What is most interesting about this piece is how the mess that the US and the UK created in Iraq gets conflated with the displomatic mess that Iran's leadership is creating with its neighbors.

Put yourself in Israel's shoes. If you were a country sitting next to a neighbor that is flaunting nuclear proliferation treaties and threatening to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth," what is the proper response for Israel? Sit and wait to see what happens? If Mexico were led by a zealous anti-American president who was developing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe the US off the face of the earth, who would criticize US leadership, no matter how poor its record of execution in the past, for making tactical preparations for engagement while the US still had a military advantage?

The strategic question is, how to constructively de-fang the Iranian leadership.

[Tet]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

Put yourself in Israel's shoes. If you were a country sitting next to a neighbor that is flaunting nuclear proliferation treaties and threatening to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth," what is the proper response for Israel? Sit and wait to see what happens? If Mexico were led by a zealous anti-American president who was developing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe the US off the face of the earth, who would criticize US leadership, no matter how poor its record of execution in the past, for making tactical preparations for engagement while the US still had a military advantage?

The strategic question is, how to constructively de-fang the Iranian leadership.

Israel is the country that hasn't signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Iran signed it. Inspectors are still operating in Iran, meanwhile none are in Israel. Iran has attacked nobody, meanwhile just a few months ago Israel attacks Lebanon. The problem would appear to be more, what happens when Iran has the 20-nuclear power plants completed that Russia has a contract to build and just how much oil does this allow Iran to export? Increased oil exports from Iran is the real nuclear weapon that Israel London and Wall Street are concerned with not nuclear weapons.

[metalman]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

Israel is the country that hasn't signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Iran signed it. Inspectors are still operating in Iran, meanwhile none are in Israel. Iran has attacked nobody, meanwhile just a few months ago Israel attacks Lebanon. The problem would appear to be more, what happens when Iran has the 20-nuclear power plants completed that Russia has a contract to build and just how much oil does this allow Iran to export? Increased oil exports from Iran is the real nuclear weapon that Israel London and Wall Street are concerned with not nuclear weapons.

i've been reading your posts... good stuff. but i have to argue on this one. i guess a lot of people didn't hear about the rockets that were flying out of Lebanon into Israel for weeks before Israel "attacked Israel". guess Israel lost the PR war, on top of losing... or at least not winning... the shooting war.

[Tet]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

i've been reading your posts... good stuff. but i have to argue on this one. i guess a lot of people didn't hear about the rockets that were flying out of Lebanon into Israel for weeks before Israel "attacked Israel". guess Israel lost the PR war, on top of losing... or at least not winning... the shooting war.

Moving a platoon takes 48 hours of planning, moving a Regiment requires over a weeks worth of planning, moving a Brigade requires over a month's worth of planning. These are facts that don't change, now in 48 hours time how many Brigades did Israel have in Lebanon? Israel had this war planned for well over a year there is no mistaking this. Israel over two years prior does everything possible to remove Syrian troops and more importantly Syrian surface to air missiles from the Bakan Valley, this was undeniably prior planning to the summers invasion. Israel certainly doesn't invade if the surface to air missiles are still in Lebanon. Israel continues to hold well over 10K Lebanese civilians to this day from the Lebanon invasion over a decade ago and Israel claims two Israeli troops who there is some dispute whether they were captured in Israel or were captured in Lebanon were the reason for this invasion? That's a farce.

The timing of events is just a matter where one wants to start as far as just who shot who first.

[metalman]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

Moving a platoon takes 48 hours of planning, moving a Regiment requires over a weeks worth of planning, moving a Brigade requires over a month's worth of planning. These are facts that don't change, now in 48 hours time how many Brigades did Israel have in Lebanon? Israel had this war planned for well over a year there is no mistaking this. Israel over two years prior does everything possible to remove Syrian troops and more importantly Syrian surface to air missiles from the Bakan Valley, this was undeniably prior planning to the summers invasion. Israel certainly doesn't invade if the surface to air missiles are still in Lebanon. Israel continues to hold well over 10K Lebanese civilians to this day from the Lebanon invasion over a decade ago and Israel claims two Israeli troops who there is some dispute whether they were captured in Israel or were captured in Lebanon were the reason for this invasion? That's a farce.

The timing of events is just a matter where one wants to start as far as just who shot who first.

peace. you win. i hadn't thought it through that far.

meanwhile, back in iraq...

First Lieutenant Ehren Watada still refuses Iraq deployment orders, calling the war illegal. A six-year prison term could result. Preliminary hearings are set for Thursday.

By the Hot Zone Team, Tue Jan 2, 6:38 PM ET
First Lt. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq. He announced last June his decision not to deploy on the grounds the war is illegal.

Lt. Watada was based at Fort Lewis, Washington, with the Army's 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He has remained on base, thus avoiding charges of desertion.

He does, however, face one count of "missing troop movement" and four counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison.

Watada's court martial is on February 5. A pre-trial hearing is set for January 4, with an added scope of controversy: the Army has ordered two freelance journalists, Sarah Olson and Dahr Jamail, to testify against Lt. Watada at the hearing. Both journalists are fighting the subpoenas.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4350

if we're going to attack Iran, don't we need an event to galvanize the US public behind a draft?

i find globalresearch.ca a good source for credible info i don't see elsewhere...

Russia to sell anti-aircraft weapons to Iran, Syria
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4323

Russia, China, Iran... are we having fun yet?

Iran Manufactures Satellite Rockets
Global Research, January 3, 2007

An Iranian legislative official said that a satellite rocket recently made by Iranian scientists will soon have a lift-off.

Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaoddin Boroujerdi made the remarks in a meeting with a group of religious students and clerics in the city of Qom on Monday.

Also during the meeting, he pointed to Iran's nuclear issue and stressed the need for negotiations as the only way to end the problem.

The MP said that the western countries did not think that Iran could acquire the nuclear fuel production cycle, adding, "Now that we are in desirable conditions, we should continue the path so that they can't bully us any more."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4319

[Tet]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

Peace bro, just trying to share some information, most of which is pretty hard to come across with all this free press we have. Maybe if we paid for the press instead of having it be free we'd be more informed.

Russia to sell anti-aircraft weapons to Iran, Syria
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4323

Russia, China, Iran... are we having fun yet?

Iran Manufactures Satellite Rockets

Some things to note. Russia has a fairly large naval base in Syria. Israel used to like to take their airforce and have their jets buzz the Syrian presidential mansion. These Russian missiles in Syria are very old news and have been in Syria for over a year. Since that time no more Israeli fly overs of the Syrian presidential mansion. To me this brings a big question as to why globalresearch is talking about this today, because this is truly old news.

Russia has a contract to build twenty nuclear power plants in Iran, that's a very large contract by anyone's standards and is currently keeping the Russian nuclear industry from going out of business. Keep in mind everyone in the middle east is very familiar with Israel bombing Iraq's nuclear power plant, part of the Russian contract is to protect these nuclear installations. Russia has their most advanced surface to air missile system the S-300 manned by Russian troops protecting their investment in Iran. You see if one of these nuclear installations gets destroyed, Russia certainly doesn't get to build the balance. Certainly these nuclear installations would already be destroyed without these missile systems.

Iran has been launching satellites for a number of years now, before that Russia would launch them for Iran. Complete satellite coverage of the Persian Gulf, war with Iran would be no picnic and since that's the case, there will be no war with Iran.

[DemonD]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

Moving a platoon takes 48 hours of planning, moving a Regiment requires over a weeks worth of planning, moving a Brigade requires over a month's worth of planning. These are facts that don't change, now in 48 hours time how many Brigades did Israel have in Lebanon? Israel had this war planned for well over a year there is no mistaking this. Israel over two years prior does everything possible to remove Syrian troops and more importantly Syrian surface to air missiles from the Bakan Valley, this was undeniably prior planning to the summers invasion. Israel certainly doesn't invade if the surface to air missiles are still in Lebanon. Israel continues to hold well over 10K Lebanese civilians to this day from the Lebanon invasion over a decade ago and Israel claims two Israeli troops who there is some dispute whether they were captured in Israel or were captured in Lebanon were the reason for this invasion? That's a farce.

The timing of events is just a matter where one wants to start as far as just who shot who first.

Tet, do you have military experience?

What evidence is there of 10k civilian lebanese prisoners are in israel?

What evidence is there that they are civilians, if they are being held?

Israel may have not signed the non-nuclear proliferation treaty, but they have never made it their mission to wipe Iran off the map. Israel is also a capitalistic democracy, whereas most of the other arab states are welfare oil monarchy states.

As far as their military being prepared, if you had people pointing guns at your home, wouldn't you have guns pointing back? Israel, while being a democracy, uses shotgun diplomacy.

If someone is pointing a gun at your house, you point a gun back. Otherwise, the people pointing the guns at you take your house. Just take a look at your 20 dollar bill to see what kind of importance you can gain by taking someone else's house.

[Tet]

Re: An unholy alliance threatening catastrophe

I only ask one question, Qui Bono? Your view of the world will leave you holding certain bags, my view of the world leads me to holding completely different bags. TWT, as to who profits and who is left holding the bag.