MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Iran’

Does Trump Have Control of His Government, or Is It His Government? – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on May 9, 2019

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/05/07/does-trump-have-control-of-his-government-or-is-it-his-government/

Paul Craig Roberts

I smell a rat.  John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser or, more correctly, Israel’s agent, has assembled a team consisting of himself, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Emirati crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman. These men are Iran’s four worst enemies.

The purpose of the team is to produce a false flag event that will provide an excuse for Washington to attack Iran.  As the Israelis are the most competent member of this team, the speculation is that Israel will shoot down an American aircraft or attack a US Navy vessel, and Washington will have the presstitute media blame it on Iran.  In other words, a revival of the Northwoods Project that the US Joint Chiefs presented to President Kennedy in hopes of setting up a US invasion of Cuba.

The plot seems already to have been set in motion. Both Bolton and acting Pentagon secretary Patrick Shanahan have announced their detection of a “credible threat by Iranian regime forces. We call on the Iranian regime to cease all provocation. We will hold the Iranian regime accountable for any attack on US forces or our interests.”

To be clear, the “threat” and the “provocation” are not identified.  But they are somehow happening even though no news services and no governments anywhere in the world, excepting Washington, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are aware of the “escalatory action from the Iranians.”

Bolton has sent an aircraft carrier strike group and bomber taskforce to quell the unidentified “threat.”

It turns out that the Iranian threat to America was uncovered by—you guessed it—Israel…

CNN furthered the false flag event by quoting “unnamed officials” confirming that the US had “specific and credible” intelligence that Iranian forces were targeting US forces.

Here we go again. Sounds exactly like “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” etc., etc., etc…

Possibly Russia, China, and Europe will not be misled by Washington’s ploy and will stick with Iran, as war with Iran is in no one’s interest except the rulers of Israel and Saudi Arabia…

Success breeds success.  If the Russian and Chinese governments do not have sufficient awareness of reality to let the warmongers in Washington know that there will be NO attack on Iran, Russia will be next, and then it will be isolated China’s turn.  Russia and China cannot escape Washington’s hegemony by allowing it to succeed.

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Obama peace

 

 

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John Bolton is the problem | Spectator USA

Posted by M. C. on May 8, 2019

If any of John Bolton’s current military ventures trigger a confrontation with an alliance of Russian, Iranian, Chinese or even Turkish military power, on the Richelieu model President Donald Trump, not John Bolton, will be thrown under the bus.

https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/

Thanks in large part to John Bolton, America, the global cop, is back on the beat. This time it’s the Caribbean and the Persian Gulf in a near-simultaneous demonstration of resolve.

For Bolton, President’s Trump national security adviser, Venezuela is an exceptionally appealing target. Juan Guaidó, the democratic socialist who is Washington’s choice to lead Venezuela is dutifully following Bolton’s script asking for US military intervention to install him and his followers in power.

Why not? Venezuela harbors a few hundred Russian Special Operations Soldiers and at least 2,000-3,000 Cubans. Crushing the pathetic Venezuelan Armed Forces would be another exercise in clubbing baby seals on the Iraq or Afghan model.

Venezuela might also be the last place on the planet where a carrier battle group can sit just offshore in support of a marine amphibious assault. Against any capable opponent these operations would end quickly, far out to sea, in volleys of precision guided missiles and submarine attacks, but Venezuela is naked in the face of US military power. At most, Venezuela offers the potential for a low-level civil war launched from the interior on the Afghan model.

True, Moscow could escalate horizontally meaning that Russian forces could provoke an incident in the Baltic Littoral, particularly in Estonia where large numbers of Russians legally reside. In Ukraine, Russian air and ground forces could move suddenly to seize Odessa and establish a Russian military presence on the Romanian border. Putin, after all, plays chess, not checkers. But that’s not likely, is it?

Iran’s economy is reportedly on the verge of collapse. Iran is in a deep recession and inflation is running at about 40 percent, yet Iran still presents a threat to its neighbors serious enough in Bolton’s words to warrant ‘maximum pressure’ to suppress Iran’s appetite for war — the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force.

Why not? Iran’s defensive capabilities are modest, though still robust enough to sink a few ships and damage a carrier. If provoked, Tehran may simply conclude it has nothing to lose, but it’s not Iran’s capabilities that worry US military planners.

Russia is very unlikely to tolerate an American military intervention against Iran. US forces already sit on Russia’s borders and routinely sail close to Russia in the Baltic, the Black Sea and the North Pacific.

Iran may well be Putin’s line in the sand. Moscow’s space-based assets would share intelligence with Tehran. Russian ground, air defense and aerospace forces would move rapidly into northern Iran. Russian submarines would show up in short order in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.

Beijing is equally unlikely to sit still given its dependence on Iran’s role in developing China’s ‘One belt, One Road initiative.’ It’s already done so. The unmanned aircraft diverted to Iranian control did not find its way into Iranian hands without Chinese assistance.

How fascinating it would be to sit in the Oval Office when Bolton explains these unanticipated developments to President Trump, who ran on none of this? Senior advisers like Bolton who urge presidents to initiate military action always express confidence that the opponent, especially, a weak opponent, will back down, or, at most, put up weak resistance…

If any of John Bolton’s current military ventures trigger a confrontation with an alliance of Russian, Iranian, Chinese or even Turkish military power, on the Richelieu model President Donald Trump, not John Bolton, will be thrown under the bus. John Bolton will just shrug his shoulders as he did after the Iraq debacle and say, ‘Intervention was still the right call.’ He’ll simply return to his old job at the American Enterprise Institute, Foundation for the Defense of Democracy or another of the many neocon-friendly think tanks…

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John Bolton Named As Trump’s National Security Adviser ...

 

 

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Pompeo Lies, Cheats, and Steals – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 3, 2019

Also, denying a country income ultimately hurts ordinary people much more than it does those who make the decisions. One recalls the famous Madeleine Albright line about killing 500,000 Iraqi children through malnutrition and disease brought about by sanctions as “being worth it.”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/05/phil-giraldi/pompeo-lies-cheats-and-steals-but-hes-still-a-good-christian/

By

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently recounted to an audience at Texas A&M University that when he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency he was responsible for “lying, cheating and stealing” to benefit the United States. “Like we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

The Secretary made the comment with a grin, noting that when he was a cadet at West Point he subscribed to the Academy honor code, which stated that “You will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do.” The largely student audience clearly appreciated and irony and laughed and applauded, though it is not clear what they made of the “glory of the American experiment.” The normally humorless Pompeo was suggesting ironically that yesterday’s Pompeo would be required to turn today’s Pompeo into the appropriate authorities for lying and also conniving at high crimes and misdemeanors while at the Agency…

Pompeo has personally assured both the Venezuelans and Iranians that “all options are on the table,” while also arming the Ukrainians and warning the Russians to get out of Caracas or else face the consequences. And it is a good thing that he has now learned how to lie as he does so when he keeps insisting that the Iranians are the leading state sponsors of terrorism or that the Saudis are fighting a just war in Yemen.

And then there is the ethical dimension. Read the rest of this entry »

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Israeli Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/05/eric-margolis/israeli-pot-calls-iran-kettle-black/

Netanyahu repeatedly warned the world about Iran’s alleged nuclear arsenal while making no mention at all of Israel’s own large, secret nuclear arsenal, which is believed to comprise of over 100 warheads, perhaps even several hundred, that can be delivered by aircraft, missiles and submarines. Every Mideast nation can be hit by Israeli nukes as well as Russia, which some experts say is or was on Israel’s target list.

Trump, of course, made no mention of the awkward fact that Israel had stolen much of its nuclear technology and uranium from the United States, sometimes with the connivance of very senior US government officials. France, that paragon of world peace, had the rest…

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The Unintended Consequences of Actions and Policies – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 6, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/02/karen-kwiatkowski/commentary-the-unintended-consequences-of-actions-and-policies/

By 

The Northern Virginia Daily

Sometimes, important and interesting things come out of Washington, and small things can have major impacts. One of these is President Trump’s proposal to decriminalize homosexuality around the world.

What is fascinating about this proposal – and what is fascinating about government in general – are the unintended consequences of policies and actions. In this case, we can hope there are many.

The neoconservative busybodies in the White House and in Congress wish to make war on Iran (we won’t), and this is especially urgent as they feel they have Venezuela in the bag (they don’t).

The administration’s proposal to decriminalize homosexuality and eliminate the state-directed mistreatment of homosexuals is designed to help demonize Iran and to a lesser extent Russia. This fits in the neoconservative foreign policy agenda well, and also adds to a large body of evidence that the Russian government (which worked well with the Clintons, in terms of relations and uranium sales) has no serious investment in Donald Trump as president… Read the rest of this entry »

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The CIA’s Masterful Use of Fake News

Posted by M. C. on February 7, 2019

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cias-masterful-use-of-fake-news/

Joel Whitney

In early 1954, writing in the magazine Encounter, F.R. Allemann slammed the ex-prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, for alleged abuses. In a “Letter from Teheran” titled “Persia: Land of Unrealities,” Allemann referred to Mosaddegh’s aborted term as a “pseudo-revolutionary pseudo-dictatorship” and claimed Mosaddegh could only cram laws through Iran’s Parliament by summoning thugs to street protests—that is, through demagoguery.

Allemann depicted Mosaddegh’s rallies as “terror campaign[s] of the political-religious secret societies” whose vocal support gave only the impression of a genuine mass movement. Lest the London-based magazine’s white, European readership miss these subtle cues to revile the out-of-office politician, Allemann, a Swiss journalist, offered his readers a buffet of Orientalist buzzwords. Rather than a rational leader elected by his people, Mosaddegh instead was a charismatic “dervish,” and “nobody was more inclined toward Munchausen escapades [like those of Mosaddegh’s incumbency] than the Oriental in general and the Persian in particular.”

Decades later, one must ask, where were Encounter’s fact-checkers? Read the rest of this entry »

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On Iran, the Neocons Are No Ronald Reagan | The American Conservative

Posted by M. C. on August 14, 2018

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/on-iran-the-neocons-are-no-ronald-reagan/

By BARBARA SLAVIN

In their pursuit of a policy of maximum pressure on Iran, America’s neoconservatives have pushed a nostalgic narrative: the Trump administration can bring down Iran’s theocracy the way that the Reagan administration helped defeat and dissolve the Soviet Union.

This comparison has been advanced by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which promotes draconian sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Its arguments figured prominently in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent speechat the Reagan library in which he asserted that Iran is still a revolutionary regime “committed to spreading the revolution to other countries, by force if necessary.”… Read the rest of this entry »

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VIPS to Trump:  Intel on Iran Could be CATASTROPHIC – Consortiumnews

Posted by M. C. on August 2, 2018

VIPS to Trump:  Intel on Iran Could be CATASTROPHIC

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: 
Intelligence on Iran Fails the Smell Test

Mr. President:

As the George W. Bush administration revved up to attack Iraq 15 years ago, we could see no compelling reason for war.  We decided, though, to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt on the chance he had been sandbagged by Vice President Dick Cheney and others.  We chose to allow for the possibility that he actually believed the “intelligence” that Colin Powell presented to the UN as providing “irrefutable and undeniable” proof of WMD in Iraq and a “sinister nexus” between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

To us in VIPS it was clear, however, that the “intelligence” Powell adduced was bogus.  Thus, that same afternoon (Feb. 5, 2003) we prepared and sent to President Bush a Memorandum like this one, urging him to seek counsel beyond the “circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”… Read the rest of this entry »

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CIA Plots Iran Coup – Partners With Terrorist Group

Posted by M. C. on July 15, 2018

The CIA planted the Shah in power in ’53. That resulted in the capture of the US embassy. Now the CIA wants to put the MEK in power in Iran. After close to 70 years you would think the CIA would learn interventionism does not work. But then that would mean a lot of people would be out of work.

MEK was a terrorist group until Killary took them off the list and congress could accept their money. Did I mention MEK money? Follow the money. Money.

RP tells us these people never forget interventions. Like when we shot down their passenger plane. Do you remember? If so when was the last time you heard about it on lamestream media?

The US national security establishment, along with neocons and many US politicians, believe they have settled on who should run Iran after the CIA overthrows its current government. They’ve settled on an organization that for more than 15 years was on the US terrorism list as the best vehicle to bring democracy to Iran. What could go wrong…?

 

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US Bellicosity – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 27, 2018

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/05/patrick-j-buchanan/is-us-bellicosity-backfiring/

By

U.S. threats to crush Iran and North Korea may yet work, but as of now neither Tehran nor Pyongyang appears to be intimidated.

Repeated references by NSC adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence to the “Libya model” for denuclearization of North Korea just helped sink the Singapore summit of President Trump and Kim Jong Un. To North Korea, the Libya model means the overthrow and murder of Libya strongman Col. Gadhafi, after he surrendered his WMD. Read the rest of this entry »

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