John Baird: "We believe Iran constitutes the greatest threat to peace and security in the world."

By Gerry Caplan, rabble.ca, Jan. 30, 2012

It’s unlikely that Stephen Harper, John Baird, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich have ever heard of Tamir Pardo, Meir Dagan, Amos Yadlin, Gabi Ashkenazi or Yuval Diskin. But it would probably make no difference if they had. After all, Benjamin Netanyahu certainly knows them well and ignores them completely.

So the reckless escalation of aggression against Iran, both physical and rhetorical, continues apace. Presumably the end game is both regime change in Tehran and an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions — admirable, if unrealistic, objectives. Far more plausible is an uncontrollable conflict that will spread throughout the Middle East and from there to, well, no one knows. But it is not wrong to fear the worst, as many knowledgeable observers do.

But those who know least, like the American lunatic fringe (a.k.a. the Republican Party) and the Harper government, are either wilfully ignorant of or indifferent to the logical consequences of their positions.

The Iranians blame the U.S. and Israel for the latest murder of one of the country’s top nuclear scientists, among several other recent acts of sabotage. The U.S. flatly denies the charge, for what it’s worth, while the Israelis barely bother doing so. In fact many Israelis, including those at the top, want to go much further. They want to destroy utterly the entire Iranian nuclear potential and seem bizarrely indifferent to the threat to Israel of Iranian retaliation.

Iran is the convenient next common enemy that conservatives always seem to need. Having run out of communism, terrorism, Islamism, Saddam and Bin Laden, they’ve now fastened on Iran. In the endlessly repeated sound bite of Canada’s foreign affairs minister, John Baird, “We believe Iran constitutes the greatest threat to peace and security in the world.” It’s a spin line, not a serious analysis.

The implications of Mr. Baird’s assertion are spelled out across the border by the Republican presidential candidates. We can be confident that whoever wins the nomination will spend the rest of the campaign pushing the president toward a direct preemptive attack on Iran which he knows is madness.

Which is why Canada has a remarkable opportunity to introduce sanity into this debate and help President Obama find some sensible allies. But sanity and sense, tragically, are not part of the Harper government’s Mideast vocabulary.

As Stephen Harper recently told Peter Mansbridge, “In my judgment, these are people who have a particular, you know, a fanatically religious worldview, and their statements imply to me no hesitation about using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes. And … I think that’s what makes this regime in Iran particularly dangerous.”

Every aspect of Mr. Harper’s position is flawed.

The proposition that Iran is “particularly dangerous,” the greatest threat to world peace and security, flies in the face of reality. To claim Iran is more dangerous than Pakistan requires a complete suspension of thought. To insist that Iran must not get nuclear weapons, which it does not have, while volatile and aggressive Pakistan can keep theirs, beggars understanding.

The proposition that the world does not have to demand de-nuclearization by Russia, China, North Korea — North Korea, for heaven’s sakes! — India, Israel, Britain, France and the U.S., but demands it from Iran, is beyond comprehension. Imagine your reaction if you were an Iranian, even an anti-government Iranian.

The proposition that Iran’s leaders would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons flies in the face of 33 years of evidence since their revolution. Reprehensible as they are, they have never attacked another country.

The proposition that Iran is more dangerous than Israel, which has repeatedly invaded its neighbours and sends saboteurs and death squads around the world to get its enemies, simply ignores reality.

The proposition that Iran is more dangerous than the U.S., which has spent the entire last decade in aggressive wars against Muslim nations, where pressure to add Iran to this list is growing, where a Democratic president sends drones against anyone he deems unsuitable for living and is now openly provoking China with a new aggressive Asia Pacific posture — to ignore this record demands wilful blindness.

Mr. Baird is now off to Israel. Our neophyte Foreign Minister, with all the wisdom offered by spin notes and sound bites — otherwise known as the Harper foreign policy — is about to be swallowed whole by Mr. Netanyahu. Just think of the tales he’ll share privately with Mr. Baird, proving irrevocably that Iran must be bombed this very day, if not sooner.

Unlike their minister and his boss, Canadian Foreign Affairs officials know how dangerous all this is. They know that nothing is better calculated to rally the Iranian people behind their oppressive government than terrorist attacks from outside. They know that Iran will inevitably retaliate, with Israel an obvious target. They know that unceasing threats and sabotage undermine any possibility of eventual negotiations, which is now happening in Afghanistan. They know it will only accelerate Iranian determination to proceed with its nuclear system.

This column began with a list of unfamiliar people. You can be sure they’re not unfamiliar to Mr. Baird’s public servants. They’re among Israel’s intelligence and military establishment who publicly reject Mr. Netanyahu’s insistence that Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel — the real meaning of calling it the most dangerous country in the world.

This is an extraordinary development: public dissent from the director of the Mossad (Tamir Pardo), the retired director (Meir Dagan), the former head of the Israeli military Intelligence Directorate (Amos Yadlin), the former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (Gabi Ashkenazi), and the former head of Shin Bet (Yuval Diskin). Anyone who reads Israeli newspapers knows about it. Former Mossad director Meir Dagan openly calls an attack on Iran “the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” Is John Baird meeting with him this weekend to learn why? Don’t bet on it.

Like the Republican candidates, Stephen Harper and John Baird are hell-bent on a policy that will achieve the exact opposite of its intentions. And like the neo-cons before Iraq, they will pillory anyone who tells them the truth. Remember Taliban Jack?

This article was first published in the Globe and Mail.

Decem­ber 9, 2011: Angered by the UN-caused cholera epidemic that has claimed thousands, Haitians rallied at the UN Sta­bi­liza­tion Mis­sion in Haiti (MINUSTAH) Base at St. Marc. Photo: from a video produced by Nick Strat­ton, Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux. Watch it at http://ijdh.org/archives/24340.

By Paul S. Graham

Two years after an earthquake killed 158,000, the majority of Haitians continue to battle against hunger, disease, homelessness and political repression. Half a million people remain in refugee camps and many thousands who have found other accommodations are living in buildings that have been designated as unsafe and requiring demolition or major repairs.

Clean water is unavailable to almost half the population and sanitation, in the form or latrines, is available to only 34%. It is a formula for disease, and the 2010 cholera outbreak, traced to the criminally negligent sewage disposal practices of UN troops, sick­ened nearly 500,000 peo­ple and killed more than 6,500 oth­ers.

With all of the aid money that has been pouring into Haiti, it would not be unreasonable to expect living conditions to be much better than they are. Journalist Kim Ives, a writer and editor of Haiti Liberté, who spoke on this topic last Thursday at the University of Manitoba, provided this summary:

• $2.4 billion in bilateral relief aid (emergency aid) delivered to date
• $4.5 billion was pledged for bilateral recovery in 2010, 2011 (plus $1 billion for debt relief). As of Dec, 2011, $2.4 billion of that was delivered.
• Donors have dispersed an additional $560 million in recovery assistance.
• An additional $3.1 billion for relief and recovery from NGOs and other private donors. (The largest share of that came from the Red Cross, which raised $1.4 billion; of that, only 50% has been spent. I wonder where the rest went?)
• Cholera treatment funding of $172 million has been promised; $130 million has been disbursed.

Clearly something is wrong. Kim Ives summarized the obstacles to effective aid and reconstruction as follows:

• A weak and under-funded national government,  as a result of two centuries of foreign intervention and plunder
• A large presence of international aid organizations and UN agencies,  accountable, first and foremost, to their donors and home governments
• A right-wing presidency brought to power through an exclusionary and fraudulent electoral process
• A foreign police and military force (MINUSTAH) dating from the 2004 coup d’etat and whose purpose is to preserve the status quo

If you want to know more, watch my video report.

Resources

Canada Haiti Action Network
Winnipeg Haiti Solidarity Group
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
Haiti Liberté

by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Jan. 14, 2012

Triggering a War Pretext Incident: Provoking Iran to “Throw the First Punch”

Is the Obama administration prepared to sacrifice one or more vessels of the Fifth Fleet, resulting in extensive casualties among soldiers and sailors, with a view to mustering public support for a war on Iran on the grounds of self-defense?

As documented by Richard Sanders, the strategy of triggering a war pretext incident has been used throughout American military history.

“Throughout history, war planners have used various forms of deception to trick their enemies. Because public support is so crucial to the process of initiating and waging war, the home population is also subject to deceitful stratagems. The creation of false excuses to justify going to war is a major first step in constructing public support for such deadly ventures. Perhaps the most common pretext for war is an apparently unprovoked enemy attack. Such attacks, however, are often fabricated, incited or deliberately allowed to occur. They are then exploited to arouse widespread public sympathy for the victims, demonize the attackers and build mass support for military “retaliation.”

Like schoolyard bullies who shout ‘He hit me first!’, war planners know that it is irrelevant whether the opponent really did ‘throw the first punch.’ As long as it can be made to appear that the attack was unprovoked, the bully receives license to ‘respond’ with force. Bullies and war planners are experts at taunting, teasing and threatening their opponents. If the enemy cannot be goaded into ‘firing the first shot,’ it is easy enough to lie about what happened. Sometimes, that is sufficient to rationalize a schoolyard beating or a genocidal war.

Such trickery has probably been employed by every military power throughout history. During the Roman empire, “the cause for war” — casus belli — was often invented to conceal the real reasons for war. Over the millennia, although weapons and battle strategies have changed greatly, the deceitful stratagem of using pretext incidents to ignite war has remained remarkably consistent. (See How to Start a War: The American Use of War Pretext Incidents. Global research, January 9, 2012)

Pearl Harbor stands out as the casus belli, the pretext and justification for America’s entry into World War II.

President Roosevelt knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by Japan and did nothing to prevent it. At a November 25 1941 meeting of FDR’s war council, “Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s notes speak of the prevailing consensus:  ‘The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into … firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.’” (See Patrick Buchanan, Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor? Global Research, December 7, 2011).

In the wake of the attack, America was beating the drums of war, while also concealing the fact that “the FDR administration knew, but failed to act”.

“A massive cover-up followed Pearl Harbor a few days later, … when the Chief of Staff ordered a lid put on the affair. ‘Gentlemen,’ he told half a dozen officers, ‘this goes to the grave with us.’” (John Toland, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath, Doubleday, 1982, p. 321).

According to Professor Francis Boyle with reference to the ongoing showdown between the US Navy and Iran in the Persian Gulf: “Once again, it looks to me like what FDR did in 1941 when he sacrificed the Pacific Fleet and its men at Pearl Harbor—except for the carriers—in order to get the USA into World War II despite the fervent desire of the American People and Congress to stay out. Déjà vu all over again. Back to the Future “ (Francis Boyle, January 13, 2011, email communication to author)

In contrast to the events of November 1941, the US Congress in 2012 is broadly supportive of waging a war on Iran and the American people are, as a result of media disinformation, largely unaware of the devastating implications of a US-Israeli attack.  .

Thematic Justifications: Demonizing the Enemy

Apart from the “incident” whereby the enemy is incited to “throw the first punch”, “thematic justifications” are used to demonize the enemy and justify a casus belli. WMD and regime change in the case of Iraq (2003), support to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks in the case of Afghanistan (2001), “regime change” and “democratization” as in the cases of Yugoslavia (1999) and Libya (2011).

The thematic justifications to wage war on Iran include the following:

1. Iran is accused of developing a nuclear weapons program,  2. Iran is a “Rogue State” which defies the “international community” and constitutes a threat to the Western World, 3. Iran wants “to wipe Israel off the map”, 4. Iran is responsible for supporting and abetting the 9/11 terrorist attacks,  5. Iran is an authoritarian and undemocratic country thereby justifying a “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) intervention with a view to instating democracy.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States

In case of a war with Iran, NATO member states as well as NATO partners of the “Mediterranean Dialogue” including the Five GCC Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan would be involved.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have a formidable weapons arsenal  of F-15 combat planes, patriot missiles, Apache helicopters and warships (Made in America), which would be used against Iran on behalf of the US led coalition. (see The Gulf  Military Balance in 2010: An Overview | Center for Strategic and International Studies)

The US has more than 30 military bases and facilities including its naval base in Bahrain, US Central command (CENTCOM) headquarters in Qatar, not to mention its military installations in Pakistan, Turkey and Afghanistan (see maps)

Click for a larger version.

* US military base or facility surrounding Iran

From Washington’s standpoint, Saudi Arabia’s Royal Air Force is meant to act as a proxy for the USAF, operating on the principle of “interoperability”.

Saudi Arabia’s Air Force is equipped with the most advanced combat planes including (among others) the Eurofighter Typhoons, Tornado IDS, F-15 and F-15E Eagle fighters.

In October 2010, Washington announced its largest arms sale in US history, a $60.5 billion purchase by Saudi Arabia. These weapons although acquired by Saudi Arabia are de facto part of a US sponsored weapons arsenal, which is to be used in close coordination and consultation with the Pentagon. Large arms sales were also negotiated in 2010 with the Gulf States.

It should, nonetheless, be emphasised that there is reluctance within the ruling Saudi and Gulf States elites, to actively participating in a regional war, which would inevitably lead to Iranian retaliatory aerial attacks.

Escalation: Towards a Broader Regional War

If aerial attacks were to be launched, Iran would retaliate with missile attacks directed against Israel as well as against US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iran has an advanced Russian S 300 air defense system. It is equipped with medium and long range missile capabilities: The Shahab 3 and Sejjil missiles have a range of  approximately 2,000 km, enabling them to strike targets in Israel. The Ghadr 1 has a range of 1,800 km. (See Haaretz, September 28, 2009)

The war with Iran would not be limited to aerial bombardments. A land war could follow with Turkey playing a strategic military role on behalf of the US-Israel led coalition.

Turkey’s ground forces are of the order of 500,000. Iran’s are of a similar order of magnitude: 465,000 regular forces. Turkish forces would be deployed in border areas with Iran as well as in Northern Syria.

Iran’s Air Force and Navy personnel are respectively of the order of 52,000 and 28,000. (see Table below)

The Revolutionary Guards, which constitute Iran’s elite forces, are of the order of 120,000. Moreover, Iran has a significant paramilitary force of several million men and women called the Basij.

The war would also overflow into Syria (which is an ally of Iran), Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan involving the participation of  Syrian ground forces as well as Hezbollah, which effectively repealed Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon. In recent developments, Iran has increased its military aid to Syria and Lebanon.

In turn, Russia has a naval base in Southern Syria and military cooperation agreements with both Syria and Iran, involving the presence of Russian military advisers.

Russia is deploying warships out of its naval base in Tartus including aircraft carrying missile cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov. “The deployment … follows the US move to station the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group” off the Syrian coastline. (See M. K. Badrakumar, Russia deploying warships in Syria – Indian Punchline, November 21, 2011)

UN Security Council Resolution 1929 (June 2010) had imposed a sanctions regime on Iran which was conducive to a temporary freeze in military cooperation between Iran and Russia, as well as with China. In recent developments, it would appear that military cooperation has de facto resumed following the rebuff by both China and Russia of the December 31, 2011 economic sanctions regime imposed by Washington.

In a scenario of military escalation, Iranian troops and/or Special Forces would cross the border into Afghanistan and Iraq.

From the three existing war theaters: Afghanistan -Pakistan (Af-Pak), Iraq, Palestine, the onslaught of a war on Iran would lead to an integrated regional war.

The entire Middle East-Central Asian region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to China’s Western frontier with Afghanistan and Pakistan would flare up, from the tip of the Arabian Peninsula to the Caspian Sea basin.

The Caucasus and Central Asia: Competing Military Alliances

What would be the involvement of America’s “partners” in the Caucasus, namely Georgia and Azerbaijan? (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Iran War Theater’s “Northern Front”: Azerbaijan and the US Sponsored War on Iran, Global Research, April 9, 2007).

In Azerbaijan, the government has recently distanced itself from Washington, and has turned down its participation in joint military exercises with the US.

The bilateral US-Azerbaijan strategic agreement is said to be stagnating:

“Baku’s desire to not to anger Moscow would seem to preclude any possibility of Azerbaijan hosting a US military facility….” (Azerbaijan: US Military Ties with Baku Are Stagnating – Experts | EurasiaNet.org, April 25, 2011).

In contrast, the Georgian government is directly supporting America’s war effort against Iran. In recent developments, the Pentagon is sponsoring the construction of makeshift US military hospitals in Georgia to be used in the eventuality of a war with Iran. ( Readies for War On Iran: US Builds Military Hospitals in Georgia, Global Research, January 10, 2012)

“These are 20-bed hospitals…It’s an American project. A big war between the US and Iran is beginning in the Persian Gulf. $5 billion was allocated for the construction of these 20-bed military hospitals,” Javelidze said in an interview with Georgian paper Kviris Kronika (News of the Week) … The construction is mainly paid from the American pocket. In addition, airports are being briskly built in Georgia… (Ibid)

What the military hospitals project conveys is that the Pentagon has already established detailed logistics pertaining to the transfer of wounded US servicemen from the Iran battlefield to nearby military hospitals in Georgia. These advanced preparations suggest that war plans are at a very advanced stage and that scenarios pertaining to military casualties have been established.

Military Alliances: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the CSTO

The countervailing military alliance to the US-NATO-Israel axis  is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as the overlapping Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The SCO includes Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. The SCO includes seven former Soviet republics including Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.  Iran has observer status in the SCO.

Uzbekistan withdrew from the NATO sponsored GUUAM military cooperation agreement. In 2005, it formally evicted the US from the Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2 (U.S. Evicted From Air Base In Uzbekistan, Washington Post, July 30, 2005).

Of significance, in the Kyrgyz Republic, the new elected President Almazbek Atambayev (November 2011) stated that he intends to close down the US military base at Manas when the lease expires. (Kyrgyzstan Says United States’ Manas Air Base Will Close – NYTimes.com, November, 1, 2011)

What these developments suggest is that the former Soviet republics of Central Asia have reaffirmed their relationship to Moscow, which in turn has led the consolidation of the SCO-CSTO military bloc.

Global US Military Hegemony. Russia and China

The participation of Russia and China on the side of Iran is already de facto in view of prevailing military cooperation agreements. the transfer of weapons systems and technology to Iran, as well as the presence of Russian military advisers, training personnel, in both Iran and Syria. Moreover, Iran has Observer status in the SCO

Russia and China are fully aware that a war on Iran is a stepping stone towards a broader war. Both countries are targeted by the US and NATO. Russia is threatened on its border with the European Union, with US-NATO AMD targetted at major Russian cities. With the exception of its Northern frontier, China is surrounded by US military bases, from the Korean peninsula to the South China Sea.

Both China and Russia are perceived by Washington as a “Global Threat”. China has been the target of veiled threats by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The recent National Defense Review announced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, envisages an expanded defense budget, with a view to containing Russia and China.

In recent development, Russia newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin has warned Washington and Brussels that “Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,”

Spiralling US Defense Spending: The  Pentagon’s “Big Dog” Ideology

Washington’s objective  is to establish global military dominance. While the “war on terrorism” and the containment of “rogue states” still constitute the official justification and driving force, China and Russia have been tagged in US military and National Security documents as potential enemies:

“… the U.S. military … is seeking to dissuade rising powers, such as China, from challenging U.S. military dominance.” (See Greg Jaffe, Rumsfeld details big military shift in new document, The Wall Street Journal, 11 March 2005)

How does Washington intend to reach its goal of global military hegemony?

Through spiralling defense spending and the continued growth of the US weapons industry, requiring a massive compression of all categories of government expenditure.

Implemented at   the crossroads of the most serious economic crisis in American history, the ongoing increase in defense spending feeds this new undeclared arms race with China and Russia, with vast amounts of tax dollars channelled to America’s defense contractors.

“The stated objective is to make the process of developing advanced weapons systems “so expensive”, that no other power on earth including China and Russia will able to compete or challenge “the Big Dog”, without jeopardizing its civilian economy” Michel Chossudovsky, New Undeclared Arms Race:, Global Research, March 17, 2005)

This “Big Dog” ideology, a term coined by the Pentagon, is a precondition for the “Globalization of War”. It is a diabolical agenda of enhancing America’s killing machine by dismantling social programs and impoverishing people across the US.

“[A]t the core of this strategy is the belief that the US must maintain such a large lead in crucial [military] technologies that growing powers [ Russia, China, Iran] will conclude that it is too expensive for these countries to even think about trying to run with the big dog. They will realize that it is not worth sacrificing their economic growth, said one defense consultant who was hired to draft sections of the document.” (Greg Jaffe, Rumsfeld details big military shift in new document, The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2005)

The Globalization of War: The “Military Roadmap” to World War III   ONLINE INTERACTIVE READER - by Michel Chossudovsky, Finian Cunningham – 2012-01-31 The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.

When War Games Go Live. Preparing to Attack Iran. “Simulating World War III”   - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2012-01-08 With ongoing war games on both sides, armed hostilities between the US-Israel led coalition and Iran are, according to Israeli military analysts, “dangerously close”.

SYRIA: British Special Forces, CIA and MI6 Supporting Armed Insurgency. NATO Intervention Contemplated   - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2012-01-07

THE WAR ON IRAN: The Deployment of Thousands of US Troops to Israel, The Integration of US-Israeli Command Structures   - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2012-01-04

THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: MILITARY CAPABILITIES

Total Population: 77,891,220 [2011]

Available Manpower: 46,247,556 [2011]

Fit for Military Service: 39,556,497 [2011]

Of Military Age: 1,392,483 [2011]

Active Military: 545,000 [2011]

Active Reserve: 650,000 [2011]

LAND ARMY

Total Land Weapons: 12,393

Tanks: 1,793 [2011]

Armoured Personnel Carrier/Infantry Fighting Vehicles (APC/IFV): 1,560 [2011]

Towed Artillery: 1,575 [2011]

SPGs: 865 [2011]

MLRSs: 200 [2011]

Mortars: 5,000 [2011]

Anti Tank (AT) Weapons: 1,400 [2011]

Anti-Aerial (AA) Weapons: 1,701 [2011]

Logistical Vehicles: 12,000

AIR POWER

Total Aircraft: 1,030 [2011]

Helicopters: 357 [2011]

Serviceable Airports: 319 [2011]

NAVAL POWER

Total Navy Ships: 261

Merchant Marine Strength: 74 [2011]

Major Ports & Terminals: 3 Aircraft Carriers: 0 [2011]

Destroyers: 3 [2011]

Submarines: 19 [2011]

Frigates: 5 [2011]

Patrol Craft: 198 [2011]

Mine Warfare Craft: 7 [2011]

Amphibious Assault Craft: 26 [2011]

SOURCES:

http://www.iraniandefence.com/iran-army/

and http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=Iran

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism”(2005). His most recent book is entitled Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011). He has taught as Visiting Professor at universities in Western Europe, South East Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. He has acted as an adviser to governments of developing countries and has worked as a consultant for the several international organizations. Prof. Chossudovsky is a signatory of the Kuala Lumpur declaration to criminalize war and recipient of the Human Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, Germany. He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

Copyright © Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2012

By Press for Truth

The global elite wants a complete takeover of the Middle East. The situation with Iran is being manipulated in an effort to get the West behind their war of aggression in the name of peace and security.

Iran: the Neocons Are At It Again

by Ralph Nader, Counterpunch, Jan. 12, 2012

The same neocons who persuaded George W. Bush and crew to, in Ron Paul’s inimitable words, “lie their way into invading Iraq” in 2003, are beating the drums of war more loudly these days to attack Iran. It is remarkable how many of these war-mongers are former draft dodgers who wanted other Americans to fight the war in Vietnam.

With the exception of Ron Paul, who actually knows the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, the Republican presidential contenders have declared their belligerency toward Iranian officials who they accuse of moving toward nuclear weapons.

The Iranian regime disputes that charge, claiming they are developing the technology for nuclear power and nuclear medicine.

The inspection teams of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) that monitor compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran belongs, have entered Iran numerous times and, while remaining suspicious, have not been able to find that country on the direct road to the Bomb.

While many western and some Arab countries in the Gulf region have condemned Iran’s alleged nuclear arms quest, Israel maintains some 200 ready nuclear weapons and has refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty, thereby avoiding the IAEA inspectors.

Israelis in the know have much to say. Defense minister, Ehud Barak, responded to PBS’s Charlie Rose’s question “If you were Iran wouldn’t you want a nuclear weapon?” with these words:

“Probably, probably. I don’t delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel. They have their history of 4,000 years. They look around and they see the Indians are nuclear. The Chinese are nuclear, Pakistan is nuclear as well as North Korea, not to mention the Russians.”

The Iranian regime, with a national GDP smaller than Massachusetts, is terrified. It is surrounded by powerful adversaries, including the U.S. military on three of its borders. President George W. Bush labeled Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, one of the three “axis of evil,” and Teheran knows what happened to Iraq after that White House assertion. They also know that North Korea inoculated itself from invasion by testing nuclear bombs. And all Iranians remember that the U.S. overthrew their popular elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and installed the dictatorial Shah who ruled tyrannically for the next 27 years.

Recently, Iran has experienced mysterious cyber sabotage, drone violations of its air space, the slaying of its nuclear scientists and the blowing up of its military sites, including a major missile installation. Israeli and American officials are not trying too hard to conceal this low level warfare.

Article continues . . .

Michael T. Clare, Counterpunch, Jan. 10, 2012

Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy “chokepoint” could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk.  With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch — the Geo-Energy Era — in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs.  In 2012 and beyond, energy and conflict will be bound ever more tightly together, lending increasing importance to the key geographical flashpoints in our resource-constrained world.

Take the Strait of Hormuz, already making headlines and shaking energy markets as 2012 begins.  Connecting the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, it lacks imposing geographical features like the Rock of Gibraltar or the Golden Gate Bridge.  In an energy-conscious world, however, it may possess greater strategic significance than any passageway on the planet.  Every day, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, tankers carrying some 17 million barrels of oil — representing 20% of the world’s daily supply — pass through this vital artery.

So last month, when a senior Iranian official threatened to block the strait in response to Washington’s tough new economic sanctions, oil prices instantly soared. While the U.S. military has vowed to keep the strait open, doubts about the safety of future oil shipments and worries about a potentially unending, nerve-jangling crisis involving Washington, Tehran, and Tel Aviv have energy experts predicting high oil prices for months to come, meaning further woes for a slowing global economy.

The Strait of Hormuz is, however, only one of several hot spots where energy, politics, and geography are likely to mix in dangerous ways in 2012 and beyond.  Keep your eye as well on the East and South China Seas, the Caspian Sea basin, and an energy-rich Arctic that is losing its sea ice.  In all of these places, countries are disputing control over the production and transportation of energy, and arguing about national boundaries and/or rights of passage.

In the years to come, the location of energy supplies and of energy supply routes — pipelines, oil ports, and tanker routes — will be pivotal landmarks on the global strategic map.  Key producing areas, like the Persian Gulf, will remain critically important, but so will oil chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca (between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea) and the “sea lines of communication,” or SLOCs (as naval strategists like to call them) connecting producing areas to overseas markets.  More and more, the major powers led by the United States, Russia, and China will restructure their militaries to fight in such locales.

You can already see this in the elaborate Defense Strategic Guidance document, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership,” unveiled at the Pentagon on January 5th by President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.  While envisioning a smaller Army and Marine Corps, it calls for increased emphasis on air and naval capabilities, especially those geared to the protection or control of international energy and trade networks.  Though it tepidly reaffirmed historic American ties to Europe and the Middle East, overwhelming emphasis was placed on bolstering U.S. power in “the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean and South Asia.”

In the new Geo-Energy Era, the control of energy and of its transport to market will lie at the heart of recurring global crises.  This year, keep your eyes on three energy hot spots in particular: the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea, and the Caspian Sea basin.

Article continues . . .

People gather at the site of a powerful explosion that hit the Midan neighborhood in the heart of Damascus on January 6, 2012 as state media said a suicide bomb attack ripped through the Syrian capital, killing or wounding "dozens." (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

A mistaken case for Syrian regime change

By Aisling Byrne, Asia Times, Jan. 5, 2012

“War with Iran is already here,” wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing “the combination of covert warfare and international pressure” being applied to Iran.

Although not mentioned, the “strategic prize” of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. “Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.” [1]

By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-]Assad regime would constitute Iran’s
greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.”

Shortly before, a key official in terms of operationalizing this policy, Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, had stated at a congressional hearing that the US would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the [Syrian] regime until that outcome is achieved”. [2]

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region.

The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” [3] – continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.

A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” [4] (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.

The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. [5] Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show [6], some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an “enemy” state.

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Notes on Afghanistan: The Surge to Withdrawal

by Vijay Prashad, Counterpunch, January 6, 2012

Kabul sprawls like an injured lion. Its population has increased four-fold to 4.5 million over the past ten years. War refugees, fleeing the countryside for the relative safety of the citadel, find themselves in permanent slums (“Kabul Informal Settlements” in the bureaucratic argot). These slums (such as Chamane Babrack, Bagrami, Parwan Du, and Charahi Qambar) sit on hillsides or on the edges of Kabul, bursting with people whose lives have been measurably worsened by the ongoing conflict. The UN’s High Commission on Refugees and the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation squabble over definitions: which family has been displaced by war, and who is an economic migrant. These distinctions mean little to the 5.7 million people who have been displaced by the insecurity occasioned by the ten-year war. A friend who works in one of the UN agencies in Kabul tells me that matters have reached a crisis point. He has used the term “crisis” four times over the past few years.

The idea of Afghanistan as “crisis” has a lineage that stretches back at least to 1818. The British thrived on the idea of Afghanistan as ungovernable, since it gave them license to meddle in its internal affairs under the pretense of establishing governance. The Afghans would have none of it, and even at the high-point of British power, in the 1850s, the Marquess of Dalhousie had to admit that relations between Afghans and the British were as “sullen quiescence on either side, without offence but without goodwill or intercourse.” Intrigue between the powers meant that the Afghans could be disregarded, as they were from the 1810s into the present. Dalhousie’s senior, Lord Ellenborough wrote in his diary in 1829, “I feel confident that we shall have to fight the Russians on the Indus, and I have long had a presentiment that I should meet them there, and gain a great battle. All dreams, but I have had them a long time.” That dream became reality a hundred and fifty years later. The U. S. and the English rushed into action in 1979 when the Soviets invaded, beginning a secret war that created Bin Laden and foisted the Taliban upon the desperate Afghans (the National Archives in Britain released some files this week that reveal details of this secret war). The idea of Afghan anarchy was sufficient for the West to either intervene with force or to disregard the well-being of the people.

That disregard has become catastrophic in itself. The UN reports that most of the 7.3 million Afghans who now rely on emergency food assistance will not be able to access it (largely because pledges to the World Food Program have declined as a consequence of the world credit crisis). Food riots are to be expected in the short term.

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Professional sports and militarism: Tyler Shipley

By Riaz Sayani-Mulji and Ryan Sparrow, rabble.ca, January 5, 2012

On this week’s episode of Progressive Voices, we speak with musician, freelance journalist, and political activist Tyler Shipley on the militarization of the NHL and other sports leagues in North America. The ramifications for Canadian culture and foreign policy are also discussed, followed by The Consumer Good’s song “Hockey Night in Afghanada.”

To listen, click here . . .

By James Corbett, The Corbett Report and Global Research TV

As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again.

To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious.

The term “yellow journalism” was coined to describe the type of sensationalistic, scandal-driven, and often erroneous style of reporting popularized by newspapers like William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. In one of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon, Hearst’s papers widely trumpeted the sinking of the Maine as the work of the Spanish. Whipped into an anti-Spanish frenzy by a daily torrent of stories depicting Spanish forces’ alleged torture and rape of Cubans, and pushed over the edge by the Maine incident, the public welcomed the beginning of the US-Spanish war. Although it is now widely believed that the explosion on the Maine was due to a fire in one of its coal bunkers, the initial lurid reports of Spanish involvement stuck and the nation was led into war.

In many ways, the phrase infamously attributed to Hearst in reply to his illustrator “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,” apocryphal as the story may be, nevertheless perfectly encodes the method by which the public would be led to war time and again through the decades.

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