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George Bush's Samson Option
By Stephen Lendman
http://www.rense.com/general75/samson.htm

The Samson Option is terminology used to explain Israel's intention to
use its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate defense strategy if its leaders
feel threatened enough to think they have no alternative. It comes
from the biblical Samson said to have used his great strength to bring
down the pillars of a Philistine temple, downing its roof and killing
himself and thousands of Philistine tormentors. It's a strategy saying
if you try killing me, we'll all die together, or put another way,
we'll all go together when we go. Richard Wagner had his apocalyptic
version in the last of his four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen -
Gotterdammerung, or Twilight of the Gods based on Norse mythology
referring to a prophesied war of the Gods resulting in the end of the
world.

The Bush Doctrine isn't that extreme, and it's not the intent of this
essay to suggest its unintended consequences may turn out that way
even though the threat it may is real if they start firing off enough
nukes like they're king-sized hand grenades. The Doctrine refers to
the administration's foreign policy first aired by George Bush in his
commencement speech to the West Point graduating class in June, 2002.
It was later formalized in The National Security Strategy of
September, 2002 and updated in more extreme form in early 2006 that
makes for scary reading not recommended at bedtime. It mentions Iran
in it 16 times stating: "We may face no greater challenge from a
single country than from Iran" while failing to acknowledge what Pogo
said about us on an Earth Day poster in 1970 and in a 1972 book titled
- "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us."

The updated NSS details an "imperial grand strategy" with new language
more belligerent than the original version that was intended to be a
declaration of preemptive or preventive war against any country or
force the administration claims threatens our national security. It
followed from our Nuclear Policy Review of December, 2001 claiming a
unilateral right to declare and wage future wars using first strike
nuclear weapons that in enough numbers potentially can destroy all
planetary life, save maybe some resilient roaches and bacteria. In
still other national security documents, the administration intends
being ready by maintaining total control over all land, surface and
sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information
systems with enough overwhelming power to defeat any potential
challengers using all weapons in the arsenal, including those nukes
masquerading as king-sized grenades.

The doctrine got its baptism in Afghganistan right after the 9/11
attacks and before the 2002 NSS was released. It then played out in
real time "shock and awe" force (without nukes) in Iraq that seemed to
work like a charm until it didn't. That brings us to today and an
administration feeling cornered by failure and needing to change the
subject and get a victory in the face of major defeat or at least buy
enough time to run out the clock on its tenure so a new administration
can take over and deal with the mess left over. It'll be king-sized if
the audible war drums now beating are for real.

Enter Iran to play dual roles for the Bush administration plus the
same one always center stage when strategic resources are at stake.
It's the designated target to pull George Bush's Middle East fat out
of the fire and fulfill our 28 year commitment to regime change in the
country since its 1979 revolution ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi whom we
installed to replace democratically elected prime minister Mohammed
Mossadegh in 1953 in the CIA's first-ever go at regime change. Those
events began and ended the same way - violently, but if George Bush
proceeds as he's now threatening, they'll seem like tempest-in-teapot
prologues to the main event ahead looking like full scale war large
enough to engulf the whole region and entire Muslim world with it.

CIA's assessment is blunt. If the US attacks Iran, Southern Shia Iraq
will light up like a candle and explode uncontrollably throughout the
country. CIA ought to know and likely concluded big trouble won't just
be in Iraq, Shia Islam and the Middle East. It may show up anywhere
including a neighborhood near you but not to express reconciliation
and friendship.

Washington's other motive is no mystery to anyone knowing why we
attacked and now occupy Iraq. It had nothing to do with nonexistent
weapons and everything to do with removing a leader unwilling to
accept our imperial management rules whose country happens to have the
fourth largest and easily accessible proven oil reserves in the world
we want to control. The joke goes - how did our oil end up under his
sand. The same is true for Iran and has since 1979. The country's
leaders reject our rules, and it too has easily accessible oil
reserves that are the world's third largest behind Saudi Arabia and
Canada (including the country's heavy reserves). Further, both
countries have vast untapped more of them adding to their allure and
Washington's determination to control them alone to have veto power
over who gets access.

If the US attacks Iran, all bets are off on what's to come. The echoes
of Waterloo could turn George Bush's Middle East adventurism into his
inadvertent Samson option by expanding the Iraq conflict to a regional
one with impossible to predict consequences that won't be good for
Western interests and especially US ones. It will inflame the region
and produce a tsunami of Shia rage and solidarity enough to inflame
and unite the whole Muslim world in fierce opposition to America, its
culture and people. It may irrevocably transform the region making it
unwelcome for decades or longer to anything Western that only arrives
for what it can take and doesn't take no for an answer.

It's backlash may also affect the administration and its party as
unintended fallout from an ill-conceived adventure gone sour and
beyond repair. And it may have further unintended consequences as well
- the painful blowback kind from angry people striking back in
catastrophic payback ways far harsher than ever before. It could be a
dirty bomb or two detonated in one more US cities or a nuclear reactor
core meltdown from sabotage or attack releasing lethal radiation in
amounts great enough to make downwind areas from it forever
uninhabitable. Imagine a nightmarish vision of New York or Chicago
(surrounded by 11 aging nuclear power plants) as ghost towns, their
structures intact but unfit to be occupied.

There is a macabre bright side, however, once past the onslaught if it
comes and its aftermath. In six years, the Bush administration
achieved the near-impossible. It made the US a pariah state alienating
the whole Muslim world and vast numbers more everywhere including
growing numbers at home with George Bush's approval rating at numbers
approaching the lowest ever for a US president. Its policies of
permanent war on the world, repression at home, entrenched corruption,
worship of wealth and privilege, and indifference to human needs and
the people he was elected to serve already destroyed any notion the
country is a model democratic state or that Bush and his neocon
fanatics should be governing it. Their imperial arrogance accelerated
the country's fading global hegemony well advanced since the 1970s and
likely irreversible. They buried the nation's influence and dominance
in Iraq's smoldering sands and Afghanistan's rubble that are now both
graveyards for US ambitions in those regions and beyond.

Attacking Iran will just make things far worse. It would be a
fanatical "hail Mary" act of insanity that by one definition is
repeating the same mistakes, expecting different results. It has no
more chance of success than our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And if nuclear weapons are used, including so-called low-yield ones,
it will be an appalling crime against humanity and catastrophic event
potentially affecting millions in the region by radiation poisoning
alone. If it happens, it will irreversibly weaken US influence and
credibility everywhere accelerating our decline even faster toward
second-class status and loss of world leadership already hanging by a
thread. It could also be a potentially lethal blow to the benefits of
"Western civilization" always arriving through the barrel of a gun and
thuggish heel of a colonizer's boot with the US having the biggest
barrels and largest shoe sizes.

Key US players know the risks and want our losses cut before it's too
late to act. They want an end to war, not more of it in a
strategically vital world region too important to lose while fearing
it's likely too late. The National Intelligence Estimate supports them
believing the war in Iraq is unwinnable, transforming the country into
a pro-American state impossible, and the president's notion of victory
illusory. George Bush ignores its assessment and presses on.

Reports by Seymour Hersh and others now say the administration wants
to weaken the Bashir Assad-led Syrian government's alliance with Iran
and further undermine Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon and the region
by funding Sunni extremist groups with known ties to al-Queda in
what's called a "redirection program." It's the brainchild of Dick
Cheney/Elliott Abrams (of Iran-Contra notoriety)/Zalmay
Khalilzad/Condi Rice/Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan/Israeli elements &
Co. with CIA's hands are all over it covertly beyond Congress' reach.
It includes a larger effort, with Saudi help, to fund and unleash
Sunni extremist elements against Tehran at the same time Washington is
preparing to include Iran and Syria in regional discussions on the
situation in Iraq. It proves again duplicity and shameless hypocrisy
are never in short supply in Washington. They're only topped by the
neocon leadership's crazed strategy to make a hopeless Middle East
debacle catastrophic.

The Concocted Myth of Iran's Threat

The ancient Persian empire became Iran on March 21, 1935. From that
time till now, Iran obeyed international law, never occupied a foreign
territory, and never threatened or attacked another state beyond
occasional border skirmishes over unsettled disputes of the kinds
other nations engage in that are far short of all out wars. It only
had full-scale conflict defensively after Saddam Hussein launched a
full-scale invasion in September, 1980 backed, equipped and
financially aided by Washington that included supplying chemical and
biological weapon precursors and crucial intelligence on Iranian field
positions and force strength.

The conflict became known as the Iran-Iraq war. It lasted till August,
1988 over which time a million or more people died, countless numbers
more were wounded and displaced, with America all the while inciting
both sides to keep up the killing. It hoped to destroy both countries
and then move in to pick up the pieces like it's been trying to do
since in the Middle East and elsewhere with growing difficulty as not
everyone likes our rules and some are even bold enough to renounce
them.

Iran became a major US adversary after its 1979 revolution established
the Islamic Republic in February, 1980. Since then, the two countries
have had no diplomatic ties and relations between them have been
frosty and uncertain at best with Washington only interested in
normalization on its usual one-way dictated terms. They're the same
kinds offered other developing states - we're "boss," surrender your
sovereignty to ours, and accede to neoliberal market-based rules made
in Washington that aren't negotiable. Iran refuses so it's public
enemy number one topping the US target queue for regime change. Rule
by extremist mullahs and reactors aren't the problems. They're just
pretexts like all the phony intelligence about Iran destabilizing Iraq
discussed below.

Despite a hopeless quagmire in Iraq, the Bush administration seems
focused on further escalation notwithstanding the danger,
near-impossible chance of success, and mounting opposition and anger
to its agenda in the homeland. It's coming from the public on Iraq and
even the Congress with some there getting twitchy enough to voice
concern, though still far short of acting as they can and should with
too many there twitching to fight, not quit. It's also heard in the
highest ranks of power from both parties first circulated in the Jim
Baker-led Iraq Study Group that reported its rumor-leaked findings
December 6. It represented a clear rejection of Bush administration
Iraq policies gone sour, a proposed rescue plan and effort to save his
family name, and a scheme to restore US Middle East dominance, fast
slipping away, and near past the point of no return by now from which
there's likely none.

Despite its clout, its recommendations went unheeded, especially
regarding engaging Iran and Syria to help bail Bush's Middle East fat
out of its self-made fire. And nothing's changed in the wake of
Washington's agreeing to include those countries' officials in initial
and follow-up discussions on Iraq's security along with members of the
Arab League, Organization of Islamic Unity, G 8 countries, and five
permanent members of the Security Council.

The decision represents no softening of the US's position, and the
administration likely will use the talks to repeat unproved claims
Iranian elements support anti-American forces in Iraq, continue
refusing broader diplomatic discussions unless Tehran stops enriching
uranium which it won't nor should it be forced to or be punished for,
and keep negotiating the way it always does - making ultimatums and
accepting no compromise, meaning nothing will be resolved and tensions
will only be further heightened. And if anyone doubts that's how
things will unfold, the New York Times was front and center spelling
it out. It reported any US discussions involving Iran and Syria won't
be "from a position of weakness (so the administration intends)
ratcheting up the confrontational talk (to show) the United States was
in more of a driver's seat" and not planning to negotiate in good
faith. No surprise.

The Bush administration's rejectionism has even deeper roots going
back at least to a 2003 "grand bargain" offer from Iran - unreported,
of course, in the corporate media. It was approved by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former President Mohammad Khatami and former
Foreign Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Former Bush National Security
Council official Flynt Leverett revealed it calling it a "serious
proposal (he knew from multiple sources) went all the way up to former
Secretary of State Colin Powell (who) 'couldn't sell it at the White
House.' " It was part of a six year Bush administration pattern of
rejecting all Iranian overtures with responses of ultimatums, threats
and Washington-style bullying all framed to send the same message.
Washington wants nothing less than regime change and may go to war for
it.

Fast forward to today and the largely unreported testimony of former
Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee February 1. He
highlighted it in an op ed piece in the Los Angeles Times February 11
calling "The war in Iraq....a historic strategic and moral calamity
undertaken under false assumptions.... undermining America's global
legitimacy (and) tarnishing America's moral credentials. (It's) driven
by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional
instability." It's too bad he ignored the most damning fact of all -
the Iraq and Afghan wars are both acts of illegal aggression the
Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme international crime" and Nazis
convicted of it were hanged. Don't expect a hint of that from a
spear-carrying member of the empire in good standing.

Brzezinski did say the conflict is ominous for the national interest,
and if the country stays bogged down in Iraq it's on track for a
"likely head-on conflict with Iran and much of the Islamic world." He
believes if it happens it will mean a "spreading and deepening
(protracted) quagmire lasting 20 years or more and eventually ranging
across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (causing) pervasive
popular antagonism" and plunging the US into growing political
isolation. He stated a "plausible scenario (for war with Iran) might
be "some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act (real or otherwise)
blamed on Iran."

Brzezinski represents powerful interests using him as their
influential spokesman. They want an end to policies gone sour they see
harming "the national interest" meaning their own. He and they want "a
significant change in direction" with a strategy to "end the
occupation of Iraq" with a serious US commitment to "shape a regional
security dialogue that includes all Iraq's neighbors including Iran
and Syria and other major Muslim countries like Egypt and Pakistan."
He's calling for an unambiguous "determination to leave Iraq in a
reasonably short period of time," and believes the US should "activate
a credible and energetic effort (to end the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict without which) nationalist and fundamentalist passions (will
eventually doom) any Arab regime (perceived supporting) US regional
hegemony." Brzezinski sounded alarmist about the Bush administration's
hostile intentions toward Iran, and his implications are clear.
Washington's agenda is ominous and threatening the national interest.
He denounced the scheme and pressed Congress to engage Iran, not
attack it. His message so far is unheeded.

Brzezinski's influential voice was joined by Russian President
Vladimir Putin's addressing the international security conference in
Munich February 10. He stunned listeners with his harsh frankness
accusing the US of endangering the world pursuing policies aimed at
making it "one single master (in a) unipolar world." He went on saying
"It has nothing in common with democracy (and the people) teaching us
democracy (but) don't want to learn it themselves." He continued that
US policy "overstepped its national borders in every way....in the
economic, political and cultural policies it imposes on other
nations."

He claimed the US is responsible for "a greater and greater disdain
for the principles of international law (and) no one can feel that
international law is like a stone wall that will protect them." He
also accused the US of stimulating "an arms race (in an environment
where) peace is not so reliable." He added "Unilateral actions have
not resolved conflicts but have made them worse," and force should
only be used when authorized as international law requires by the UN
Security Council. He sounded an alarm gone unheard in the West that
"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force -
military force.... that is plunging the world into an abyss of
permanent conflicts (and) Finding a political settlement....becomes
impossible." He further warned about the use of "space (or) high tech
weapons" with implications of a new cold war, nuclear arms race and
frightening possibility of devastating nuclear war that was
unthinkable before the age of George Bush.

The Dominant Media React

As President of a major world power, Putin's comments went out to the
world getting broad coverage, if only for a day or so, while
Brzezinski's were largely and shamelessly ignored by the corrupted
corporate media still carrying the administration's water and
trumpeting its phony claims like verifiable gospel. It happened on
February 11 in the New York Times as reported by correspondent James
Glanz. His column breathed the scantiest hints of skepticism that
smacked of the same kind of Judith Miller-type journalism about WMDs
helping take the country to war with Iraq in 2003. He said the US
military showed "their first public evidence of the contentious
assertion that Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some
of the most lethal weapons in the war....used to kill more than 170
Americans in the past three years" with only hints about its
reliability or the source presenting it having none.

He cited senior defense officials in Baghdad February 11 displaying
"an array of mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades with visible
serial numbers (claimed to be directly linked) to Iranian arms
factories." Without credible proof, they said "Iranian leaders had
authorized smuggling those weapons into Iraq for use against Americans
(basing their judgment) on general intelligence assessments (of the
same kind used to justify attacking Iraq, meaning phony ones.) The
specious Times report reeked of innuendos for what it lacked in hard
proof about lethal weapons. They could have come from any source,
manufactured anywhere, including by Pentagon contractors easily able
to duplicate anything scattered around the country and on Iraqi
streets for years after the Iranian conflict and now used by
resistance fighters or anyone else who has them.

Typical Times saber rattling was at it again after Bush's inept
February 14 news conference trumpeting his claim Iran was sending
weapons to Iraq to undermine security and kill Americans while never
looking more pathetic and awkward doing it. In "Times talk," reporters
Stolberg and Santora stated "Mr. Bush's remarks amounted to his most
specific accusation to date that Iran was undermining security in
Iraq....(and he) dismissed as 'preposterous' the contention by some
skeptics that the United States was drawing unwarranted conclusions
about Iran's role." They barely questioned the president's nonsensical
claim he's certain "the (paramilitary) Quds Force, a part of the
government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D's that have harmed
our troops" that has as much credibility as those WMDs we had to fear
along with that "mushroom shaped cloud" we couldn't afford to wait to
see before acting.

Facts On the Ground Trump the Propaganda

Revealed facts on the ground in Iraq belie all Pentagon and
administration phony assertions along with their shameless daily
echoing on the Times front pages. The military couldn't even get its
evidence straight in presenting an 81mm mortar shell Iran doesn't
make, and the ones shown the media had fake markings in English for a
Farsi-speaking country. It's also inconceivable Shia Iran would be
fighting Iraq's Shia government it's allied with and aids. The US has
been fighting an anti-Iranian Sunni resistance largely in al-Anbar
province and the most violent parts of Baghdad. It stretches
credibility to imagine Iran is arming its enemy that denounces Iraq's
dominant Shia puppet government as a US pawn.

That hardly deters Washington claiming further solid evidence Iranian
agents are involved in what the State Department calls "networks"
(meaning Iranians) working with individuals and groups in Iraq sent
there by the Iranian government without a shred of evidence to prove
it. Even General Peter Pace, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman,
dismisses the claim as unproved and further said during a February
trip to the Pacific region there is "zero" chance of a US war with
Iran.

He may be echoing the kind of sentiment the London Times reported
February 25 that "highly placed defence and intelligence sources (say)
Some of America's most senior commanders are prepared to resign (in
protest) if the White House orders a military strike against Iran."
The paper calls this type of high-level internal dissent unprecedented
signifying great distaste and misgivings in the Pentagon for an attack
on Iran. That's a sentiment even its Joint Chiefs Chairman may share
as well as the six retired generals (and likely others) who publicly
denounced the Pentagon's handling of the Iraq war last spring and the
administration's incompetence overall.

Nonetheless, preparations for war go on that veteran journalist
Seymour Hersh again wrote about in late February in the New Yorker
magazine. According to Hersh's informed sources: "The Pentagon is
continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on
Iran....at the direction of the President. (It includes) a contingency
plan...that can be implemented (in) 24 hours....The Iran planning
group (is assigned) to identify targets in Iran that may be involved
in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq (on top of its previous focus
to destroy) Iran's nuclear facilities and possible regime change."
Hersh's report supplements others, like one from BBC, saying the US
military is planning an all out "shock and awe" blitzkrieg on the
country's nuclear facilities, military and infrastructure that may
come in the spring that's now just days away.

A clear sign of that possibility is the huge naval buildup in the Gulf
and Eastern Mediterranean with two heavily equipped and armed carrier
groups in theater and a reported third en route either to replace one
there or add to it. The combined task force in place is a formidable
assemblage of 50 or more warships with nuclear weapons, hundreds of
planes and contingents of Marines and Navy personnel.

The buildup is part of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan
for preemptive nuclear war specifically targeting Iran and North
Korea. Earlier, Dick Cheney originated the idea when he served as GHW
Bush's Defense Secretary in the early 1990s. Rumsfeld picked up the
scheme in 2004 as authorized by the 2002 National Security Strategy
proclaiming an official doctrine of preemptive or preventive war for
the first time. From it he approved a top secret "Interim Global
Strike Alert Order" for military readiness against hostile countries
that included the nuclear option. He drew on CONPLAN
(contingency/concept plan) 8022 completed in November 2003 detailing a
plan to preemptively strike targets anywhere in the world judged a
national security threat including hardened structures using tactical
so-called low-yield nuclear bunker busters with Iran the apparent
first target of choice. The Omaha-based US Strategic Command
(StratCom) would run any operation if undertaken as it's the command
center for the country's nuclear deterrent and overseas the military's
nuclear arsenal.

All military branches have ready battle plans to implement against
Iran under the name TIRANNT for Theater Iran Near Term. If an attack
order comes, it can be launched from the assembled Naval task force in
the region and/or by long-range US-based bombers and other warplanes
and missiles strategically based in locations like Diego Garcia and
elsewhere within striking distance of Iranian targets. It will be able
to assault Iran round the clock for weeks against a claimed number of
1500 nuclear-related sites located at 18 main locations in the
country. Also designated are thousands of strategic military and
civilian targets including vital infrastructure, industrial sites,
air, naval and ground force bases, missile facilities and always
command-and-control centers with possible help from Israeli warplanes
that might, in fact, initiate an attack with US forces then joining in
to support their regional partner.

That kind of devious scheme could persuade Congress to go along never
wanting to offend the Israeli Lobby that's been spoiling for a fight
with Iran for years and now may get it horrifically with unimaginable
consequences. They'll affect Israel and the US alike as well as
spillover to unstable countries in the region like the Saudis,
Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese and may be unsettling enough to
unseat sitting rulers and governments replacing them with the kinds of
fundamentalist regimes not likely to welcome US presence or influence
in the region and intending to do something about it.

The Bush Roadmap to War with Iran

Reports circulated as early as last year and in 2005 that the Bush
administration signed off on a "shock and awe" attack against Iran to
destroy its perfectly legal commercial nuclear program that may
involve using so-called "mini-nuke robust earth penetrator
bunker-buster" weapons that won't be "mini" in their catastrophic
effects if indeed used. These are powerful dangerous weapons. They can
be made to any desired potency, would likely be from one-third to
two-thirds as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb that destroyed an entire
city, but could have far greater explosive capability that potentially
will be catastrophic to the area struck and well beyond by radiation
contamination alone.

Pentagon false and misleading reports about them claim they're "safe
for civilians" because they penetrate the earth and explode
underground. Test results prove otherwise showing when released from
40,000 feet a B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator burrowed about 20 feet
in the soil for a pre-explosion depth able to produce intense fallout
over the area struck that's unremediable and would result in enough
permanent surface contamination to be unsafe for human habitation.
Nonetheless, weapons able to cause a nuclear holocaust are cleared for
use real time along with conventional ones if a "shock and awe" attack
is ordered against Iran or any other nation on the false and
misleading pretext of protecting the national security only threatened
by a rogue leadership at home willing to risk catastrophic mass
destruction in pursuit of its insane and unachieveable imperial aims.

Not surprisingly, we have an eager partner in Israel straining at the
leash to fulfill its long-term agenda to attack Iran alone (possible
but doubtful) or along with its US ally that keeps getting reinforced
by bellicose statements by its high officials like the one reported
February 13 by ultra-right wing Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor
Lieberman. He commented in a radio interview that if necessary "We
will have to face the Iranians alone, because Israel cannot remain
with its arms folded, waiting for Iran to develop non-conventional
(nuclear) weapons." Officials like Lieberman, current Israeli prime
minister Ehud Olmert and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are
dangerous men on the far right allied with others in government and
the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) all dripping war talk that must be
taken seriously from a nation dedicated to conflict and never shy
about striking the first all out aggressive blow.

The same theme comes from a report published February 11 that
vice-president Cheney's national security advisor, John Hannah (who
replaced Lewis Libby just convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury
and lying to the FBI), speaking for the Bush administration, considers
2007 "the year of Iran" saying a US attack is a real possibility.
Hannah played a key role in the run-up to the Iraq war having written
the first draft of Colin Powell's infamous pre-war speech to the
Security Council citing bogus evidence. He also played a lead role
putting out phony pre-war intelligence from Iraqi exiles. Now he's at
the seat of power and must be taken seriously, especially since his
boss barely disguises his aggressive posturing for war against the
Iranian state he's wanted for 15 years or more.

They're both part of the high-level propaganda messaging similar to
the lead-up to the Iraq war. It's aim is instill fear to make the
administration's case that Iran poses serious threat enough to justify
military action against it. It follows UN Resolutions 1696 in July
demanding Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31, which it
didn't, and 1737 in December imposing limited sanctions on Iran for
not abiding by what the Security Council demanded in July. A second
deadline passed putting the Iranian matter back in the Security
Council to consider new sanctions be imposed and ratcheting things
closer to a US attack as further events unfold.

And so the beat goes on with US oil reserves being stockpiled, Iranian
diplomats apprehended in Iraq, the Pentagon and Israeli forces
scheming together, the US military buildup in the Gulf and Eastern
Mediterranean continuing, US ground forces moved to the Iran-Iraq
border, Patriot missiles strategically installed in Israel and
neighboring Arab states, a "surge" of up to 50,000 additional troops
planned, and a change of commanders on the ground in Iraq made
replacing less hawkish ones with others supporting the Bush war
strategy.

They're part of the new Pentagon team under Defense Secretary Robert
Gates who told the Senate Armed Services Committee the military needs
to prepare for large-scale operations against countries like Russia,
China, North Korea and Iran that reaffirms the administration's
commitment to its "long war" Dick Cheney said won't end in our
lifetime, but may end up shortening it. Clearly Iran is the next
planned target, the dominant media echoes the threat, and Congress is
just a talking-shop like always posturing as the gathering storm in
the Gulf intensifies.

Published reports, citing credible sources, point to an attack on Iran
by April by an administration on total expanded war footing with the
president spoiling for a fight by goading Iran to react in response to
his order to "seek out and destroy" (supposed) Iranian "networks" in
Iraq. Bush minced no words in a radio interview saying "If Iran
escalates its military action in Iraq (even though there's none)....we
will respond firmly." Other officials joined the jingoistic chorus
accusing Iran of involvement in sectarian violence practically
signaling an upcoming attack that easily could follow a manufactured
pretext if Iran fails to provide one on its own which it won't. It's
never hard to do, and the infamous trumped up Gulf of Tonkin one in
August, 1964 shows how easy it is to fool the public and get Congress
to go along.

Iran could save us the trouble by responding to US provocations going
on now for months by illegally flying unmanned aerial surveillance
drones across its airspace and secretly placing special forces
reconnaissance teams on the ground "to collect targeting data and to
establish contact with anti-government ethnic minority groups"
according to an earlier report by Seymour Hersh. So far, Iran hasn't
taken the bait even though it knows what's happening and reportedly
downed one or more intruding aircraft it has every legal right to do
but is treading dangerously against an adversary looking for any
pretext to pounce. It's leaders also knew what Washington was up to
after being made a charter member of Bush's "Axis of Evil." In that
status, it's blamed for the administration's failure in Iraq with
false claims of arming the resistance and inciting violence.

War on Iran may, in fact, have already started, and two bombings in
Southeastern Iranian Zahedan bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan the
week of February 12 may have been one of its volleys. Arrests were
made and a video seized according to provincial police chief Brigadier
General Mohammad Ghafari. From it he claims the "rebels (have an)
attachment to opposition groups and some countries' intelligence
services such as America and Britain." An unnamed Iranian official
also told the Islamic Republic News Agency one of those arrested
confessed he was trained by English speakers, and the attack was part
of US plans to provoke internal unrest.

While none of this conclusively proves US involvement, there's no
secret Washington wants regime change, is actively stirring up
internal ethnic and political opposition toward it, and reportedly is
working with exiled Iranian leaders including the Mujahideen el-Khalq
(MEK) Iranian opposition guerrilla cult the US State Department lists
as a terrorist organization, but not apparently when it's on our side.

Full-scale war on Iran may just be a concocted terrorist attack away
from starting the "shock and awe." There's no secret what's planned
and none whatever that doing it will be another unprovoked,
unwarranted act of preemptive illegal aggression only the US and
Israel support. It's also no secret Iran is no pushover. It's no match
for US and/or Israeli power, but it's got powerful weapons one writer
says are "unstoppable" like Russian-built SS-N-22 Sunburn Missiles and
more advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhont anti-ship ones designed to sink a US
carrier that's a formidable weapon of war but not invulnerable. Iran
also has Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems and NATO-made Exocet
and Chinese Silkworm anti-ship missiles that pack a punch and can sink
our ships when launced from land, surface ships or submarines along
with 300 or more warplanes, and a large ground force estimated at
around 350,000.

US engaging Iran may now hinge on resolving the Washington power
struggle between Bush administration neocons and more practical
trilateralist types in the camp of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jim Baker, and
other powerful Washington figures including the president's father.
It's also up to Congress to decide which side it's on and whether it
will act or watch from the sidelines and risk nuclear war and its
fallout. It may not be long finding out how events will unfold. Just
the kind and level of rhetorical noise will tell who's winning with
congressional inaction and media complicity so far giving the hawks a
big advantage. Haven't we seen this script before, and isn't the
likely ending clear, except this time the stakes are far greater and
so is the risk to everyone on both sides.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstep...@sbcglobal.net.

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namaste;
bodhi
http://psychedelictourist.blogspot.com