{"id":216749,"date":"2022-07-18T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=216749"},"modified":"2022-07-16T05:41:27","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T04:41:27","slug":"war-with-iran-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/07\/war-with-iran-2\/","title":{"rendered":"War with Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel, responsible for military fiascos, hundreds of thousands of deaths and innumerable war crimes in the Middle East, are now plotting to attack Iran.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\"\"<\/a>

Biden at Bat – by Mr. Fish<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
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15 Jul 2022 – <\/em>The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia are plotting a war with Iran. The 2015 Iranian nuclear arms accord, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Donald Trump sabotaged<\/a>, does not look like it will be revived.\u00a0 U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is reviewing options to attack if Teheran looks poised to obtain a nuclear weapon and Israel, which opposes U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, carries out military strikes.During his visit to Israel, Biden assured Prime Minister Yair Lapid that the U.S. is \u201cprepared to use all elements of its\u00a0national power<\/a>,\u201d including military force, to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S. function as a troika in the Middle East. The Israeli government has built a close alliance with Saudi Arabia, which produced 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks and has been a prolific sponsor of international terrorism, supporting\u00a0Salafi jihadism<\/a>, the basis of al-Qaeda, and such groups as the Afghanistan\u00a0Taliban<\/a>,\u00a0Lashkar-e-Taiba<\/a>\u00a0(LeT) and the\u00a0Al-Nusra Front<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The three countries worked in tandem to\u00a0back<\/a> the 2013 military coup in Egypt, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew its first democratically elected government. He has\u00a0 imprisoned<\/a> tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists and human rights defenders, on politically motivated charges. The Sisi regime collaborates with Israel by keeping its common border with Gaza closed to Palestinians, trapping them in the\u00a0Gaza strip<\/a>, one of the most densely populated and impoverished places on earth.<\/p>\n

Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has conducted an ongoing campaign of covert attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and nuclear scientists. Four Iranian nuclear scientists were \u00a0assassinated, presumably by Israel<\/a>, between 2010 and 2012. In July 2020, a fire, attributed<\/a> \u00a0to an Israeli bomb, damaged Iran\u2019s Natanz nuclear site. In November 2020, Israel used remote control machine guns to\u00a0assassinate<\/a>\u00a0Iran\u2019s top nuclear scientist.\u00a0 In January 2020, the United States\u00a0assassinated<\/a>\u00a0Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran\u2019s elite Quds Force, along with nine other people including a key figure in the anti-ISIS coalition, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. It used an MQ-9 Reaper to fire missiles into his convoy, near Baghdad\u2019s airport.<\/p>\n

If similar attacks had been carried out by Iranian operatives inside Israel, it would have triggered a war. Only Iran\u2019s decision not to retaliate, beyond\u00a0lobbing about a dozen ballistic missiles<\/a>\u00a0at two military bases in Iraq, prevented a conflagration.<\/p>\n

On July 7, Iran\u00a0informed<\/a>\u00a0The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that\u00a0 it is using IR-6 centrifuges with \u201cmodified subheaders.\u201d The declared purpose of the enrichment process at its underground facility at Fordow is to create uranium isotope enriched up to 20 percent\u2014far below the 90 percent enrichment levels necessary to create weapons-grade uranium.\u00a0Under the JCPOA agreement<\/a>, enrichment levels were capped at 3.67 percent.<\/p>\n

Israel has\u00a0allocated $1.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0for a potential strike against Iran and, during the first week of June, held\u00a0large-scale military exercises<\/a>, including one over the Mediterranean and in the Red Sea, in preparation to attack Iranian nuclear sites using dozens of fighter aircraft, including Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.<\/p>\n

The 2016 Memorandum of Understanding\u00a0 signed by President Barack Obama provides\u00a0a 10-year, $38 billion military package<\/a>\u00a0for Israel.<\/p>\n

Israel and its lobby in the U.S. are working to scuttle\u00a0 negotiations with Iran to monitor its nuclear program. The preparation for war mirrors the Israeli\u00a0pressure<\/a>\u00a0on the U.S. to invade Iraq, one of the worst strategic decisions in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in testimony before the British Iraq war commission, offered this account of his discussions with George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002:<\/p>\n

As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saudi Arabia, which seeks to dominate the Arab world,\u00a0severed ties<\/a>\u00a0with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran was stormed by protesters following\u00a0Riyadh\u2019s execution<\/a>\u00a0of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Saudi Arabia, with Chinese help,\u00a0has built a plant<\/a>\u00a0to process uranium ore and acquired ballistic missiles. Saudi Arabia signed a series of letters in 2017 with the U.S. to purchase weapons totaling $110 billion immediately, and $ 350 billion over the next decade.<\/p>\n

A war with Iran would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.\u00a0 It would spread swiftly throughout the region. The Shiites across the Middle East would see an attack on Iran as a religious war against Shiism. The two million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern province; the Shiite majority in Iraq; and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey would join the fight against the U.S. and Israel.<\/p>\n

Iran would use its Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, rocket and bomb-equipped speedboats and submarines, mines, drones and coastal artillery to shut down the Strait of Hormuz,\u00a0the corridor for<\/a>\u00a020 percent of the world\u2019s oil and liquified gas supply. Oil production facilities in the Persian Gulf would be sabotaged. Iranian oil, which makes up 13 percent of the world\u2019s energy supply, would be taken off the market. Oil would jump to over $500 a barrel and perhaps, as the conflict drags on, to over $750 a barrel. Our petroleum-based economy, already reeling under rising prices because of the sanctions on Russia, would grind to a halt.<\/p>\n

Israel would be hit by Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missiles. Hezbollah\u2019s store of Iranian-supplied rockets that\u00a0allegedly<\/a>\u00a0can reach any part of Israel, including Israel\u2019s nuclear plant at Dimona, would also be deployed. Strikes by Iran and its allies on Israel, as well as on American military installations in the region, would leave hundreds, maybe thousands, dead.<\/p>\n

In 2002, the U.S. military\u00a0conducted<\/a>\u00a0its \u201cmost elaborate war game\u201d ever, costing over $ 250 million. Known as the Millennium Challenge, the exercise was between a Blue Force (the U.S.) and the Red Force (widely considered as a stand-in for Iran). It was meant to validate America\u2019s \u201cmodern, joint-service war-fighting concepts.\u201d It did the opposite. The Red Force, led by retired Marine lieutenant general Paul Van Riper, conducted a swarm of kamikaze suicide boat attacks and destroyed 16 U.S. warships in under 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

When the war game was reset, it\u00a0was rigged<\/a>\u00a0in favor of the Blue Force. The Blue Force was given access to experimental technology \u2013 including that which doesn\u2019t exist such as airborne laser weapons. Meanwhile, the Red Force was told they weren\u2019t allowed to shoot down the Blue Team\u2019s aircraft, had to keep their offensive weapons in the open and could not use chemical weapons. Even then, the Blue Force could not achieve all of its objectives as Riper unleashed a guerrilla insurgency on the occupying forces.<\/p>\n

Why shouldn\u2019t Joe Biden be feted by the murderous regime of Saudi Arabia and the\u00a0apartheid state of Israel<\/a>? He and the U.S. have as much blood on their hands as they do. Yes, in 2018 the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman,\u00a0ordered the assassination<\/a> and dismemberment of my friend and colleague Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>. Yes, Israel assassinated Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh<\/a>. But Washington has more than matched the crimes carried out by Israel and the Saudis, including against journalists.<\/p>\n

The imprisonment of\u00a0Julian Assange<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 who released the\u00a0collateral murder video<\/a>showing U.S. helicopter pilots laughing as they shot to death two Reuters journalists and a group of civilians in Iraq in 2007 \u2013 is designed to\u00a0destroy Assange psychologically and physically<\/a>. The corpses of civilians, including children, piled up by Israel and\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>, who do much of their killing in Gaza and Yemen with U.S. weapons, don\u2019t come close to the hundreds of thousands of dead we have left behind in the two decades of warfare we have perpetrated in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In 1991, a U.S.-led coalition destroyed much of Iraq\u2019s civilian infrastructure, including water treatment facilities resulting in sewage contaminating the country\u2019s drinking water. Then\u00a0followed years<\/a>\u00a0of U.S., U.K. and French airstrikes enforcing a \u201cNo Fly Zone\u201d along with crushing sanctions they\u00a0imposed\u00a0<\/a>via the U.N. From 1991 to 1998, these sanctions alone were\u00a0estimated<\/a>\u00a0to have killed 100,000 to 227,000 Iraqi children under the age of five, although the exact figures have been the subject of much dispute. The U.S. \u201cShock and Awe\u201d bombing campaign of Iraqi urban centers during its subsequent invasion of Iraq in 2003 dropped\u00a0\u00a03,000 bombs<\/a>\u00a0on civilian areas, killing\u00a0over 7,000<\/a>\u00a0noncombatants in the first two months of the war.<\/p>\n

By one estimate<\/a>, the U.S. has been responsible for directly or indirectly killing nearly 20 million people since the end of the Second World War.<\/p>\n

Israel and Saudi Arabia are gangster states. But so is the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are few of them,\u201d Biden, reacting to Democratic lawmakers who have criticized Israel\u2019s treatment of the Palestinians,\u00a0told Israel\u2019s Channel 12 news<\/a>. \u201cI think they\u2019re wrong. I think they\u2019re making a mistake. Israel is a democracy. Israel is our ally. Israel is a friend and I make no apologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The angst about Biden\u2019s not holding the Saudis and the Israelis to account on this visit is risible, as if we have any credibility left that allows us to arbitrate between right and wrong. The idea that Biden and the U.S. are brokers for peace was eviscerated long ago. The U.S. offers shameless support for Israel\u2019s right-wing government, including vetoing U.N. resolutions that censor Israel. It refuses to condition aid on a respect for human rights even as Israel\u00a0launches\u00a0<\/a>repeated\u00a0murderous\u00a0<\/a>assaults against the civilian population in Gaza, labels Palestinian NGOs as terror groups, expands illegal Jewish-only settlements,\u00a0carries out aggressive housing evictions<\/a>\u00a0of Palestinian families and mistreats Palestinian and Arab-American citizens at points of entry and within the Occupied Palestinian Territories.<\/p>\n

The idea that we represent and promote virtue illustrates the self-delusion that accompanies our moral and physical degeneration. The rest of the world, which recoils in repugnance at whom we have become, does not take us seriously. They fear our bombs. But fear is not respect. They no longer envy our hedonistic mass culture, tarnished by mass shootings, social inequality, the decay of our infrastructure, dysfunction and a Grand Guignol-style of politics that has turned civil and political discourse into a tawdry burlesque. America is a grim joke, one about to be made worse when the\u00a0Christian fascists<\/a>, bigots and conspiracy theorists take control of the Congress in the fall, and I expect, the presidency two years later.<\/p>\n

The U.S., along with Israel, makes\u00a0war on Muslims<\/a>\u00a0who, with\u00a0an estimated<\/a>\u00a01.9 billion adherents, comprise\u00a0nearly 25 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the world population. We have turned many in the Muslim world into our enemies. The Muslim world\u00a0does not hate<\/a>\u00a0us for our values.\u00a0It hates<\/a>\u00a0our hypocrisy. It hates our racism, our refusal to honor their political aspirations, our\u00a0lethal attacks<\/a>\u00a0and military occupations and our crippling sanctions. Muslims express\u00a0the rage\u00a0<\/a>felt by Guatemalans, Cubans, Congolese, Brazilians, Argentines, Indonesians, Panamanians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Filipinos, North and South Koreans, Chileans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans \u2013 those Frantz Fanon called \u201cthe wretched of the earth<\/a>.\u201d They too were slaughtered by our high-tech military machine and subjugated, humiliated, forced to accept U.S. hegemony and killed in our clandestine torture centers or by CIA-backed assassins.<\/p>\n

No one is held accountable. The CIA blocked all investigations into its torture program, including\u00a0destroying videotape<\/a>\u00a0evidence of interrogations involving torture and\u00a0classifying<\/a>\u00a0nearly all of the 6,900-page\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that examined the CIA\u2019s post-9\/11 program of detention, torture and other abuse of detainees.<\/p>\n

Biden goes to Saudi Arabia and Israel as a supplicant. As a presidential candidate, he\u00a0called Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cpariah\u201d and vowed to make it \u201cpay the price\u201d for Khashoggi\u2019s murder. But with the rising price of oil, Biden is whitewashing the murder, along with the\u00a0humanitarian disaster<\/a>\u00a0the Saudis have caused in Yemen, imploring the Saudis to increase output, a plea Prince Salman has rejected. Similarly, Biden is weak in Israel, powerless against the expansion of Jewish settlements and assaults on\u00a0Palestinians<\/a>, and unwilling to move the U.S. Embassy back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, a move by the Trump administration that violates international law. Biden\u2019s staff was\u00a0reduced to pleading<\/a>\u00a0with the Israelis not to embarrass him as they did during his\u00a02010 visit<\/a>\u00a0as vice president. During his 2010 visit, Israel announced it was building 1,600 new Jewish-only houses in illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. The Obama White House angrily condemned \u201cthe substance and timing of the announcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can the U.S. bar Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from a\u00a0summit of the Americas<\/a> in Los Angeles and embrace the Saudi regime and the Israeli\u00a0aparatheid state<\/a>? How can it decry the war crimes of Russia and unleash industrial violence on the Mulism world? How can it plead for the 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang, and ignore the\u00a0Palestinians<\/a>? How can it justify another \u201cpreemptive war,\u201d this time against Iran? The duplicity is not lost on most of the world. They know who we are. They know that in our eyes they are\u00a0unworthy<\/a>. Our\u00a0inevitable demise<\/a>\u00a0on the world stage is cheered by the majority of the planet. The tragedy is that, as we go down, we are determined to take so many others down with us.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times,\u00a0where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief. He previously worked overseas for\u00a0<\/em>The Dallas Morning News,\u00a0The Christian Science Monitor, and<\/em> NPR. He used to be the host of the Emmy Award-nominated <\/em>RT America show\u00a0<\/em>On Contact.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2022 Chris Hedges<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – chrishedges.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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