EDITOR: The tail wagging the dog?
Who is controlling whom in this shocking development? Surely the US can control Israel, its paid dog? Well, it does not look like it.
Leave alone the obvious fact that Washington would like to pretend it cannot control Israel, so is not responsible for its mad dog… apart from the whole set-up being carefully planned over the last few years, and ignited over the last week as the final episode in this western-controlled drama, it is also true that the US does not wholly control Israel. What comes to mind is the Dr. Frankenstein scenario – the US has built its creature of monstrosity over a long period, thinking it is in full control, but the creature has its own ideas and its own priorities… There is no doubt that this is so.
However, it is still amazing that Israel is so successful in directing and highjacking western agendas, especially at times which are as fraught as the current juncture, with the world economy hanging by its teeth from the Eurozone cliff – even at such times, the main western nations are ready to do Israel’s bidding, believing it to be in their interests, a bit like they did in 1956. Good luck to us all.
U.S. military official: We are concerned Israel will not warn us before Iran attack: Haaretz
Senior U.S. military official tells CNN U.S. ‘increasingly vigilant’ over military developments in Iran, Israel; says ‘absolutely’ concerned Israel may attack Iran nuclear facilities.
U.S. officials are concerned that Israel will not warn them before taking military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, a senior U.S. military official said Friday.
The official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the CNN network that although in the past, U.S. officials thought they would receive warning from Israel if it did take military action against Iran, “now that doesn’t seem so ironclad.”
The U.S. is “absolutley” concerned that Israel is preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and this concern is increasing, CNN reported the official as saying.
The U.S. has increased its “watchfulness” of Iran and Israel over the past few weeks, U.S. Central and European Commands, which watch Iranian and Israeli developments respectively, are “increasingly vigilant” at this time, according to the official, and a second military official who also spoke with CNN.
The military official emphasized that the U.S is concerned about the risk a strike against Iran could pose for American troops in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf, according to the CNN report.
The official also said that the U.S. does not intend to follow a military action against Iran, CNN said.
This past week, reports have surfaced regarding Israeli military action against Iran. A senior Israeli official said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran.
On Friday, President Shimon Peres said that he believes Israel and the world may soon take military action against Iran. His comments followed
As the drumbeat of reports about possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities intensified, an International Atomic Energy Agency report, to be released next week is expected to reveal intelligence suggesting Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead and other previously undisclosed details on alleged secret work by Tehran on nuclear arms, diplomats told The Associated Press on Friday.
Iran warns US to avoid clash over nuclear programme: Guardian
Iranian foreign minister says America has ‘lost its wisdom and prudence’ as tensions mount over Tehran’s enrichment efforts
Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and Ian Black
The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said his country was ‘prepared for the worst’. Photograph: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Iran has warned the US not to set the two countries on a collision course over Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, as diplomatic tensions reflected growing concern that the Middle East might be on the verge of new conflict.
The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, spoke amid reports that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has been trying to rally support within his country for an attack.
The Guardian revealed that the UK was advancing contingency plans for joining American forces in a possible air and sea campaign against military bases in Iran.
The revelations led to Nato insisting on Thursday that it would play no part in any military action, and provoked the rebuke from Salehi, who insisted that any attack by either Israel or the US would provoke immediate retaliation. He also accused Washington of recklessness.
“The US has unfortunately lost its wisdom and prudence in dealing with international issues,” he told reporters during a visit to Libya. “Of course we are prepared for the worst, but we hope that they think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran.”
In a separate interview with a Turkish newspaper, Salehi claimed Tehran was ready for war with Israel. “We have been hearing threats from Israel for eight years. Our nation is a united nation … such threats are not new to us,” he said. “We are very sure of ourselves. We can defend our country.”
The pressure on Iran has been building since allegations surfaced of a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. The White House insists Tehran was behind the plot, but the Iranian regime has denied that.
The episode added to US concerns about Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme and the increasing belligerence of its regime. Intelligence suggests that some of the Iranian centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium are being hidden inside a fortified military base in Qom, about 100 miles south-west of Tehran.
The International Atomic Energy Authority will next week deliver its latest bulletin on Iran’s nuclear programme and is expected to provide fresh evidence of covert plans to engineer warheads.
The Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, said to be one of those pushing for an early attack on Iran, was in London on Thursday for talks with David Cameron’s national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, the foreign secretary, William Hague, and the new defence secretary, Philip Hammond.
Hague said the meeting had given them a chance to discuss “shared concerns such as … the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme”. Downing Street said “all options are on the table” for dealing with Iran unless it truly abandons any plans to arm itself with nuclear weapons.
Though Britain says its policy on the issue has not changed, the Guardian disclosed that British military planners were now having to turn contingency plans into practical steps, such as considering when to deploy Royal Navy submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles to the region, in case Barack Obama bows to pressure to launch missile strikes against Iranian bases.
Although Iran has insisted it is only developing nuclear energy, Whitehall officials believe the regime will have hidden all it needs to build weapons inside fortified compounds within 12 months – adding a sense of urgency to diplomatic efforts.
The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called for political and diplomatic efforts to resolve the growing crisis. He insisted that Nato would not be drawn into any military action.
“Let me stress that Nato has no intention whatsoever to intervene in Iran, and Nato is not engaged as an alliance in the Iran question,” he said.
Villy Søvndal, the new Danish foreign minister,said he could not see any circumstances in which his country would join a military effort against Iran, as it had done in Libya and Afghanistan. “The difference between Libya and Iran is that I could never imagine a UN resolution behind a military attack on Iran. There would be no regional backup. That would be one of the most impossible military missions.
“Of course, you can bomb some buildings and equipment and maybe you could delay for a period of one or two years. But I can no see any situation in which Denmark would participate. It would produce so much instability … you could also end in a situation where you strengthen the present Iranian regime.”
In Israel, the row over whether to launch strikes against Iran continued, with Netanyahu reportedly ordering an investigation into alleged leaks of plans to attack nuclear facilities.
According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida, the main suspects are the former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet, respectively Israel’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Netanyahu is said to believe that the two chiefs, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, wanted to disrupt plans being drawn up by him and Barak to hit Iranian nuclear sites.
Both Dagan and Diskin oppose military action against Iran unless all other options – primarily international diplomatic pressure and perhaps sabotage – have been exhausted.
In January the recently retired Dagan, a hawk when he was running the Mossad, called an attack on Iran “the stupidest idea” he had ever heard. The Kuwaiti newspaper has a track record of running stories based on apparently high-level leaks from Israeli officials.
Even well-informed Israeli observers admit to being confused about what is going on behind the scenes.
“It seems that only Netanyahu and Barak know, and maybe even they haven’t decided,” said Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, both respected writers for the newspaper Haaretz.
“While many people say Netanyahu and Barak are conducting sophisticated psychological warfare and don’t intend to launch a military operation, top officials … are still afraid.”
The debate in Israel intensified further on Wednesday when Israel test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions have already started a war with west – a covert one: Guardian
A secret campaign of surveillance, sabotage, cyberattacks and assassinations has slowed but not stopped Tehran’s programme
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The covert war on Iran’s nuclear programme was launched in earnest by George Bush in 2007. It is a fair assumption that the western powers had been trying their best to spy on the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Iranian revolution, but the 2007 “presidential finding” put those efforts on a new footing.
Bush asked Congress to approve $400m for a programme of support for rebel ethnic groups, as well as intelligence gathering and sabotage of the nuclear programme. Part of that effort involved slipping defective parts such as centrifuge components into the black market supply to Iran, designed to blow apart while in operation and in so doing bring down all the centrifuges in the vicinity. The UK, Germany, France and Israel are said to have been involved in similar efforts. Meanwhile, western intelligence agencies stepped up their attempt to infiltrate the programme, seeking to recruit Iranian scientists when they travelled abroad.
That espionage effort appears to have paid dividends. In 2009, the US, British and French intelligence agencies were able to confirm that extensive excavations at Fordow, a Revolutionary Guard base near the Shia theological centre of Qom, were a secret uranium enrichment plant under construction. The digging had been seen by satellites, but only human sources could identify its purpose. Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy were able to reveal Fordow’s existence at the UN general assembly in September 2009, a diplomatic setback to Iran. Russia, which had been Iran’s principal protector on the world stage, was furious with Tehran at having been taken by surprise.
It is harder to gauge the impact of sabotage. Olli Heinonen, the former chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: “I never saw any direct evidence of sabotage. We could see that they had breakages but it was hard to say if those were the result of their own technical problems or sabotage. I suspect a little of both.”
Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, complained to the press in 2006 about sabotage but vowed that Iran would overcome the challenge by making more of the centrifuges and other components itself.
But it was impossible to make everything at home. The computer systems which run the centrifuge operations in Natanz, supplied by the German engineering firm Siemens, were targeted last year by a computer worm called Stuxnet, reportedly created as a joint venture by US and Israeli intelligence. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad conceded that Stuxnet had caused damage, and last November, Iranian scientists were forced to suspend enrichment to rectify the problem. A few days later, however, the centrifuges were working once more.
The black operations have not been confined to hardware and computer systems. They have also targeted Iran’s scientists. In July 2009, an Iranian nuclear expert called Shahram Amiri vanished while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. A year later, he surfaced in the US claiming he had been abducted by American agents, and in July 2010 he returned to a hero’s welcome in Tehran.
US officials said he had been a willing defector who had been paid $5m for his help, but who had since had a mysterious change of heart. There have since been claims Amiri had been an Iranian double agent all along. The truth is unclear.
Other attempts to remove Iran’s scientists have been blunter and bloodier.
Starting in January 2010, there were a series of attacks in Tehran on Iranian physicists with links to the nuclear programme. The first target was Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a physicist and lecturer at the Imam Hussein university, run by the Revolutionary Guards. He was on his way to work when a bomb fixed to a motorbike parked outside his house exploded and killed him instantly.
In November that year, assassins on motorbikes targeted two Iranian scientists simultaneously as they were stuck in morning traffic. In both cases, the killers drove up alongside their targets’ cars and stuck bombs to the side. Majid Shahriari, a scientist at the atomic energy organisation, who had co-authored a paper on neutron diffusion in a nuclear reactor, was killed.
The other target, Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani, suspected by western officials of being a central figure in experiments on building a nuclear warhead, was only injured. Three months later he was promoted to the leadership of the nuclear programme.
A third scientist, Darioush Rezaeinejad, was killed in an attack in July this year, when gunmen on motorbikes shot him in a street in east Tehran. He was initially described in the Iranian media as a “nuclear scientist”, but the government later denied he had any involvement in the programme.
Iran has blamed the attacks on the Israeli secret service, Mossad, and in August sentenced an Iranian, Majid Jamali-Fashi, to death for his alleged involvement in the Ali Mohammadi killing. He had confessed to being part of a hit-team trained in Israel, but it appeared likely he had made the confession under torture.
Despite the millions spent, stalled machines and deaths of leading scientists, Iran has steadily built up its stockpile of enriched uranium to 4.5 tonnes – enough for four nuclear bombs if it was further refined to weapons-grade purity. At most, the covert war has slowed the rate of progress, but it has not stopped it.