Turkey bust Mossad ring operating against Iranian targets

11 arrested and several are on the run, publishes name and photo of alleged ringleader; incident marks 2nd Israeli spy ring Ankara claims to have disrupted

23 May 2023

Turkish authorities have reportedly arrested 11 people suspected of spying on Iranian targets for Israel.

According to a report Tuesday by the Daily Sabah, which is widely seen as supportive of  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, authorities have identified 15 suspects, 11 of whom were arrested, who allegedly were part of a 23-member ring of operatives.

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization and the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office suspect the 15 used a company that does business in Iran to gather intelligence for Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the newspaper reported.

Authorities are searching for two additional suspects.

The 18-month long investigation initially had focused on 23 individuals, according to Sabah, which said two of the suspects are Turkish citizens.

Authorities are searching for two additional suspects.

The 18-month long investigation initially had focused on 23 individuals, according to Sabah, which said two of the suspects are Turkish citizens.

Unusually, the report included the name of a suspect alleged to be the ring’s leader: Selçuk Küçükkaya. A picture said to be of Küçükkaya shows a bearded, middle-aged man. Sabah said Mossad recruited Küçükkaya through an alleged member of the Gülen movement, an opposition network that Turkey has designated as a terrorist group.

Küçükkaya allegedly met with Mossad agents in Europe, who gave him five test assignments before recruiting him to establish a ring, follow people of interest and transmit to Mossad “the family members of the target persons, phone calls and signal information, bank accounts and assets,” the report said.

A picture published by Turkish media of Selçuk Küçükkaya, an alleged ringleader of a Mossad cell in Turkey on May 23, 2023 (Twitter: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The report described the arrests as part of a broad counterintelligence effort directed not only at Israel, but also at thwarting Russian and Iranian operatives on Turkish soil.

Israel, which rarely comments publicly on Mossad actions, has not reacted to the allegations. The Sabah report did not specify the legal procedures pending in the case of the 11 suspects in custody.

Last year, Turkey also claimed to have broken up a Mossad ring and put 15 people on trial for espionage.

Turkish-Israeli relations, which had been robust both commercially and on security, soured after Erdogan came to power in the early 2000s and have since been through several up and downs.

Ties have been recently been warming, with Jerusalem and Ankara agreeing to restore full diplomatic relations last year.

Erdoğan, head of the pro-Islam AKP party and widely seen in Turkey as a champion of the Palestinian cause, is running for reelection in the second round in Turkey’s presidential race on May 28.

The runoff was scheduled after Erdoğan failed to obtain a 50% majority in the first round on May 14. He is running against opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

No More Arab States Will Normalize Ties With Israel

A senior Emirati policy analyst said Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has “embarrassed” Arab leaders and that no additional states are likely to sign normalization agreements with Israel in the near term.

“The latest government in Israel will not kill the Abraham Accords, the signatories will not pull out, but we will not have other signatories.

We were looking to engage more from the Arab world and the non-Arab world… [but] the latest government is putting everybody off,” Dr. Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, the founder and president of the Emirates Policy Center said at the Herzliya Conference at Israel’s Reichman University.

“My government and the other signatories are embarrassed in front of the Arab people, and they have to say something. And they want a solution for that because they invested heavily in the Abraham Accords,” she added.

One of Netanyahu’s main diplomatic goals is to strike a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, the biggest country in the region, and to expand a regional alliance to buck the influence of Iran.

 

However, his vision suffered a major setback when Tehran and Riyadh agreed in April to a détente after a seven-year halt in diplomatic relations.

“It’s a big loss for Israel when the Saudis side with Iran,” Dr. Ebtesam Al-Ketbi told former lawmaker and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Ksenia Svetlova.

Dr. Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, who is the first female leader of an independent policy think tank in the Gulf, hailed far-reaching cooperation of the “warm peace,” spanning from artificial intelligence to intelligence cooperation.

In this picture released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, right, meets with his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Beijing on April 6.
In this picture released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, right, meets with his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Beijing on April 6.Credit: Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP

“Normalization with Israel will create an arc of prosperity and no more conflict in the region,” she said.

On Monday, Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog were invited by the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Israel to the UN’s international climate conference, which is scheduled for November in Dubai.

It is not yet known which of the two will represent Israel at the conference.

 

Netanyahu had planned to visit the UAE shortly after his government was sworn in, but the visit was postponed to an unknown date after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir went up to the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa Mosque compound in a move widely deemed provocative in the first week of the government’s tenure.

Herzog visited the UAE last year, the first visit by an Israeli president to the country after the signing of the Abraham Accords.

If Netanyahu attends the conference, it will be his first visit to the UAE as prime minister.

Participation in the international climate conference, to which leaders from all over the world will be invited, is fundamentally different from a separate political visit by the prime minister.

Naftali Bennett visited the country twice as prime minister during his one-year term in office, and made another visit to the country as a former prime minister about two months ago.

Iran says reserve discovered in Sea of Oman has 200 tcf of gas

Mossad GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY

A senior official from Iran’s state oil company the NIOC says the gas field discovered n the Sea of Oman has an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet (5.66 trillion cubic meters) of natural gas.

NIOC’s head of exploration operations Mehdi Fakour said on Saturday that the company will release final estimates about the newly-discovered gas field in the Sea of Oman in April.

“Currently, a ship is collecting data in the region and we will be able to declare how much the amount of reserves could increase after initial information and studies are completed in April,” Fakour was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA news agency.

Iran currently sits on the second largest gas reserves in the world. The country is also the third largest global producer of natural gas after the United States and Russia with some 1 billion cubic meters per day of output.

Fakour said the National Iranian Oil Company will spend some $1.5 billion on exploration activities in offshore and onshore regions in the next seven years.

He said the company has also discovered a valuable shale oil reserve in western Loresatn province which he said has a very light grade of crude oil.

US Empire in Freefall – Israel Unstable, EU Coming Unglued

Yemen crisis: What you need to know

apparantly Israel can’t war against Iran without eliminating the Yemen issue.

Following Russia’s announcement of Iran & Argentina’s BRICS membership bids, the alliance president reveals that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, a NATO member, have the same plans

The new BRICS alliance is a mortal threat to the West

UAE and Saudi Arabia joining in BRICS will be game changing

The Russia-Ukraine conflict accelerated a global trend aimed at creating an economic and financial universe parallel to the existing system.

We have in the past highlighted the possibility of the GCC countries joining the BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, whose population together constitute 41 per cent of the world.

These countries also account for 23 per cent of the global economy and 18 per cent of trade, which reflects their relative importance to the global economy as a whole.

Recently, Saudi Arabia applied to join the group, a move warmly welcomed by existing members.

Discussions are also being held about the prospect of the UAE and Turkey joining as well, which will lead to a fundamental change in the global power dynamics and help create a more balanced order.

The likely accession of the three countries means a huge change that will tip the balance in favor of the East.

Saudi Arabia, with its enormous potential in energy, the UAE as a global commercial and financial center, and Turkey, with its location, industrial and technological growth will add significant influence to the group and redistribute power between East and West.

More than tuned to geography

It goes without saying that a stronger BRICS means further dividing the world into two large blocs.

The first will be led by the Western camp, which currently controls the levers of the global economy.

The bloc includes Japan and Australia, while the Eastern power base is formed through the BRICS economies, despite the presence of Brazil in their midst.

This means an intensified geopolitical competition ahead.

The accession of oil-producing countries would mean the group dominates with 31 per cent of global oil production, in itself a dramatic development that will have fundamental effects on international relations.

Simply because the world will see an integration in BRICS the most important producers and consumers of energy.

Further, the presence of key commercial and logistical centers within the group means greater control over global trade.

Israel’s pioneering drones use free-falling bombs, can carry a ton

With its capabilities closely tracked by the global defence industry, Israel has become one of the largest drone operators in the Middle East and a net exporter, according to the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank.

The Israeli officer, not identified in line with military requirements given the sensitivity of the subject, said any sales of bomb-capable drones would be government-to-government, negating the need for publicity.

All the drone munitions are Israeli-made, the officer said, and “come down in free-fall, and can reach the speed of sound”.

Such bombs, unlike the Hellfire missiles sometimes fired by U.S. drones, would not have propulsion systems that generate the tell-tale noise and smoke of fuel afterburners.

The officer declined to give further details on the munitions, saying only that, by design, when an armed drone attacks “no one will hear it, no one will see it coming”.

An example of a drone target could be fast-moving guerrillas, spotted and attacked before they can launch a rocket, other Israeli officials have said.

Yet this would assume enough altitude so that the drones’ propeller engines cannot be clearly heard on the ground.

In winter wars, like Israel’s in Gaza in 2008-2009, the drones have to be flown below the clouds for their targeting cameras to work, meaning they might be audible.

“You lose the element of surprise,” the officer said.

Despite deploying sophisticated armed drones, the majority of Israel’s UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) inventory is unarmed given the main function of intelligence for ground forces, the RUSI think tank said in an online report.

Right Cold War mindsets

The West is attempting to hold onto its historical positions, which it greatly bolstered after World War II, and attempting to resist any change in the structure of the global economy.

At the same time making mistake after mistake by ignoring and failing to take into account the significant changes.

Consequently, it has lost significant supporters who have considerable political and economic clout.

As for the opposing pole, it acts cleverly with an open-mind and equitable interactions with other nations and embracing the dictum of shared interests.

More are likely to join BRICS in years to come if the Western bloc does not alter its antiquated ideologies and practices.

Two opposing economic and financial poles will eventually emerge.

The BRICS states announced the creation of a parallel bank with a $150 billion capital as a competitor to the IMF.

Additionally, the Ukrainian crisis has significantly strengthened economic and trade ties between group members, making them more dependent on one another.

Numerous businesses and institutions withdrew from the markets of the BRICS countries, and export restrictions were put in place on some high-tech goods to Russia and China.

Work towards an equitable global order

An expansion of BRICS may greatly contribute to the establishment of equitable relations based on the interests of many countries rather than on discord between countries in either pole.

All of which requires a thorough understanding of global events and outcomes.

The existing economic system and its components, founded 80 years ago, are no longer feasible owing to massive changes in the economic and geopolitical balance of power, the emergence of new economic powers and the downfall of other.

This truth should be properly understood if the world needs to avoid further conflicts getting in the way of an equitable global order.

‘NYT’ report on stalled Iran deal talks hides Israel’s ongoing sabotage effort

  

It could have been written by Israel’s propaganda apparatus.

The Times whitewashes Israel’s efforts to sabotage the agreement, including by sponsoring murderous attacks inside Iran.

The paper quotes two “experts” without disclosing their pro-Israel bias, while ignoring others who could have told its readers the truth.

Additional slants further distort what is actually happening.

The danger here is far greater than misinformed Times readers.

For years, Israel has been trying to lure the U.S. into attacking Iran, supposedly to damage its nuclear program, a dangerous provocation that sober military experts, including Israelis, say would be ineffective but could lead to another war in the Mideast.

The word “Israel” appears only once in today’s 33-paragraph Times report, and then only in passing.

There’s zero mention of the most recent assassination of an Iranian official inside the country, last month.

Israel is suspected of long carrying out or sponsoring a campaign of sabotage, including the November 2020 killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s atomic energy program. 

Here’s a friendly suggestion to the U.S. State Department: If you are in the middle of delicate negotiations with an adversary, it’s probably not a good idea to allow your ally to murder their citizens and to sabotage their economy.

In today’s article, the Times’s selection of outside experts to quote is comical.

First, Mark Dubowitz, who heads the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which the paper identifies merely as “a think tank that takes a hard line against Iran’s government.”

In fact, the FDD is a front for Israel. By citing it, the Times promotes Israel’s views, while keeping the actual connection hidden. The paper gave Dubowitz a couple of paragraphs to opine.

The paper also handed 3 paragraphs to Dennis Ross, “a Middle East negotiator who has worked for several presidents.”

Veteran Mideast watchers will laugh out loud.

Ross is widely known as the most pro-Israel of all the professional peace processors, and is sometimes called “Israel’s lawyer,” even though he was supposedly employed by the United States.

Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of genuine experts with alternative views about the Iran deal negotiations, including distinguished Iranian-Americans like Trita Parsi and Sina Toossi.

They aren’t hiding, but somehow the Times reporters couldn’t find their phone numbers. (The website for the organization Responsible Statecraft regularly includes valuable comment from them and others.)

There’s more distortion.

The Times does blame Donald Trump for withdrawing from the nuclear deal, but then adds, “After Mr. Trump quit the deal and reimposed sanctions, Iran began violating its terms.”

The words “after” and “began” are doing a lot of extra work there.

Trump pulled the U.S. out in May 2018. Iran continued observing the agreement’s provisions for more than another year, until July 2019.

Then it waited another year, until May 2020, to start enriching uranium beyond what the deal permitted. 

Again, more is at stake here than merely a misled New York Times readership.

Powerful elements within Israel, a country that is ostensibly America’s ally, are trying to trick us into conflict with Iran, a fight that is in no way in our national interest. 

If it breaks out, readers of the most influential newspaper in the country will have no idea why.

State Dept: Despite ‘Setbacks’, Iran Deal Could Be Reached in Days…

For weeks now, the return to the P5+1 Iran nuclear deal has seemed potential any day, and the US State Department is saying that’s still the case, that progress is being made through difficult issues.

The story has been consistent all month, that the deal is imminent, but that some single obstacle has come forward that might slow things up.

The State Department conceded that there have been “recent setbacks,” but that a deal could still happen “within days.”

Terms of the deal are not public, but are built around the 2015 version.

The biggest issue is opposition from Senate Republicans, with 49 of them opposed to the deal despite not having seen the terms yet.

International questions, particularly surrounding the US sanctions on Russia, seem to be getting resolved with a US promise not to sanction any Russian nuclear obligations that arise from the Iran deal.

China and Russia roll out new global financial system

The Eurasian Economic Community (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan + Armenia for certain provisions) and China will create a new global economic and financial system, the foundations of which they will set at the end of March 2022.

This new system should have a reference currency whose rate would be established from a basket of currencies of the founding Member States (therefore dominated by the Chinese yuan).

Say Hello to Russian Gold and Chinese Petroyuan-

It was designed by Sergey Glazyev (photo) and is intended to replace the Bretton Woods system, after Russia’s exclusion as part of the “sanctions” for its operation against the Ukrainian banderites [1].

The emergence of two competing economic and financial systems should bring globalization to a halt and divide the world in two.

Factory of falsehoods

Moshé Machover slams the hypocrisy of an Israeli aggressor state demanding sympathy as a victim state

6.01.2022

At the time of writing, the outcome of the Vienna talks about restoring the Iran nuclear deal – the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapon capability1 – is hanging in the balance.

Should we believe persistent news reports of an ‘unbridgeable gulf’ between the positions of the US (which withdrew from the deal during the Trump presidency) and Iran? Perhaps.

But they could just reflect bargaining postures, as often happens in hard negotiations, which seem to be at the precipice of breakdown before a last-minute agreement.

One thing is sure: Israel, the kibitzer in this political poker game, is doing all it can to prevent any real rapprochement between its US patron and the Iranian bête noire.

Preserving

What are Israel’s real concerns?

Israeli propaganda repeatedly claims that Iran is aiming to achieve capability to produce nuclear weapons, because it intends to annihilate Israel.

Here is a typical example, from an address by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Yad Vashem on Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 15 2015:

Just as the Nazis aspired to crush civilisation and to establish a ‘master race’ to replace it in controlling the world, while annihilating the Jewish people, so too does Iran strive to gain control over the region, from which it would spread further, with the explicit intent of obliterating the Jewish state.

Iran is advancing in two directions: the first is developing the ability to arm itself with nuclear weapons and accumulate a stockpile of ballistic missiles; and the second – exporting the Khomeinist revolution to many countries by heavily using terrorism and taking over large parts of the Middle East.2

This is, of course, sheer nonsense. Iran has neither the intention nor the ability to ‘obliterate’ Israel.

Allegations to the contrary are figments of hasbarah, Israel’s efficient factory of falsehoods.

True, Iranian leaders have occasionally expressed the hope that the Zionist regime would collapse and disappear.

But this is wishful thinking rather than a threat that Iran was going to initiate military action to bring about the demise of Israel, as claimed by the Israel-friendly media.

The most notorious instance of this deliberate falsification involved a statement made on October 26 2005 by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He was quoting the Islamic Republic’s first leader’s expectation that “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.

This was widely misrepresented as a threat to “wipe Israel off the map”.3

Moreover, even if Iran achieves “the ability to arm itself with nuclear weapons”, it would pose no existential danger to Israel.

This was emphatically pointed out by Ephraim Halevy, a former chief of Mossad (Israel’s counterpart of the CIA and MI6).

Addressing a conference held in February 2008 in Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies,

Ephraim Halevy slammed Israeli political leaders for calling Iran’s nuclear threat ‘an existential threat’.

“There is something wrong with informing our enemy that they can bring about our demise,” Halevy said.

“It is also wrong that we inform the world that the moment the Iranians have a nuclear capability there is a countdown to the destruction of the state of Israel.

We are the superpower in the Middle East and it is time that we began behaving like [a] superpower,” he said.4

Of course, Israel is not indifferent to the prospect of Iran achieving nuclear weapon capability.

But its concern is not fear of being ‘obliterated’; rather, it is worry about any erosion, however slight, of its position as hegemonic regional superpower.

This position depends, among other factors, on its being the only Middle Eastern state possessing a nuclear arsenal,5 as well as the only one that has refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

It is by far the most aggressive, expansionist state in the region, operating a prolific policy of assassinations;6 frequent, widely reported bombings in Syria and Lebanon; and attacks at sea on ships carrying Iranian oil.7

This state-terroristic practice depends on its enemies and rivals having no effective means of deterrence, as that would tilt the military balance and diminish Israel’s overwhelming advantage.

Iranian nuclear capability could constitute such a deterrent, albeit not a very serious one.

In fact, a more credible deterrent is Iran’s development of conventional missiles that would exact an unacceptably high price in retaliation for an Israeli attack8 – which is why Israel is lobbying for inclusion of a ban on this development in any revived Iran nuclear deal.

By the way, the same logic applies to Israel’s evident concern about the rather advanced state of missile build-up by Iran’s Lebanese ally, the Hezbollah.

There is no real danger of Hezbollah initiating an aggressive military action against Israel; but its missiles are now a credible deterrent against a repeat of Israel’s extensive, aggressive incursions into Lebanon, or a massive strike against Hezbollah’s patron, the Islamic Republic.

Political concern

However, from the perspective of preserving Israel’s absolute regional hegemony, the greatest concern is not the purely military one.

It is political. In his lecture, from which I have quoted above, Ephraim Halevy went on to say: “Iran’s real goal [is] to turn itself into a regional superpower and reach a ‘state of equality’ with the United States in their diplomatic dealings.”

This is a rather inept way of putting a valid point.

Of course, Iran can never reach a state of equality with the US in diplomatic dealings; but a détente between the global hegemon and the Islamic republic would certainly upgrade the latter’s regional position.

This would imply some erosion of Israel’s regional hegemony, because it is unlikely that as part of the US-Iran deal the latter would acquiesce in Israel’s leading regional dominance (as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have done).

I have repeatedly pointed out that in this respect Israeli interest may diverge from American ones. For example, a year ago I wrote:

I have my own view on the possibility of an arrangement of some sort between the United States and Iran.

Of course, it would depend on many contingencies, but, as the nuclear deal struck by Barack Obama proved, there are circumstances where it is possible for these two states to come to an agreement. In my opinion, Israeli hostility to Iran is more far-reaching than that of the USA. It would be acceptable for the Americans under certain circumstances to strike such an agreement – provided Iran behaved like an obedient client state. That would involve giving Iran some kind of respect as a major power in the Middle East. But Israel would oppose such an arrangement, because Iran is regarded as an obstacle to its own regional hegemony.9

This explains Netanyahu’s vehement efforts to dissuade the US Congress under the Obama administration from signing the 2015 nuclear deal, and his encouragement to Trump to withdraw from the deal (not that Trump needed much encouragement). As several Israeli military commentators pointed out, the US withdrawal left Iran free since 2017 to enrich uranium to a higher concentration, thus coming closer to nuclear weapon capability than while the deal held. Netanyahu’s anti-deal advocacy would indeed have been irrational if his main concern was Iran’s nuclear capability. But it was quite rational, given that his priority was to exacerbate US-Iran relations.

The same logic applies to the Vienna talks. As the well-informed Iranian-American scholar, Trita Parsi, has recently pointed out,

It’s not the nuclear deal that’s the problem for Tel Aviv, but the very idea that Washington and Tehran would reach any detente at all …

[T]he details of the deal are not the real problem. It’s rather the very idea of Washington and Tehran reaching any agreement that not only prevents Iran from developing a bomb, but also reduces US-Iran tensions and lifts sanctions that have prevented Iran from enhancing its regional power …

There is a curious passage in the [New YorkTimes piece [published on December 10]: “American officials believe that so long as Iran has not moved to develop a bomb it does not have a nuclear military program, since it suspended the existing one after 2003. Israeli officials, on the other hand, believe that Iran has continued a clandestine effort to build a bomb since 2003.” If true, has Israel shared that intelligence with Washington?

If so, it has failed to persuade the CIA and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If it hasn’t been shared, why not? And why did the Times choose to publish this rather inflammatory allegation without investigating these very basic – not to say critical – questions?

The moral of the story is this: US and Israeli interests on Iran diplomacy are irreconcilable.

Biden’s efforts to square the circle have predictably failed. Biden must choose whether he will pursue America’s interest or Israel. This should not be a difficult choice.10

Whatever political differences we may have with Parsi, his diagnosis of Israel’s main concerns is correct.

Israel is doing its damnedest to prevent any agreement in Vienna. It resorts to various provocations, including barely veiled threats of taking major unilateral military action.

In my opinion, the probability of such action – an all-out Israeli attack on Iran – is thankfully not high.

There are no signs in Israel of serious military preparations for this scenario, or of fortifying civilian population centres against expected Iranian and Hezbollah retaliation.

However, escalation of the relatively low-level raids and assassinations that have become routine is most probable; and these can get out of control and lead to an unintended major conflagration.

Nuke-free

Meantime, as Akiva Eldar, a senior Israeli political commentator, has recently remarked, what could deflate Israel’s puffed-up bullying posture is a serious proposal for a nuclear demilitarisation of the Middle East. In an article entitled ‘The Iranian threat: no nukes for us – or Israel’,11 he writes:

Over the years we have learned that when a politician or a general declares that “all options are on the table” he is actually referring to a single option – the military option. Supposedly that’s the only option that will remain to Israel if the negotiations with Iran don’t produce a nuclear agreement that satisfies the political leadership in Jerusalem.

… Has anyone read or heard about preparations for the possibility that Iran will announce that it accepts all the restrictions that the United States wants to impose on it; that in addition, it will allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit its nuclear installations without advance warning, and will even agree to extend the treaty by another 15 years – all that, on one condition: that Israel signs exactly the same document?

… As far as is known, the decision-makers in Jerusalem, those who declaim that “all options are on the table”, did not consider the possibility that Iran would pull out the doomsday weapon: an overall agreement for nuclear demilitarisation of the Middle East – including Israel – and acceptance of all the demands. It’s much sexier on television to show helmeted pilots talking about preparations for war.

Akiva Eldar has his tongue firmly in his cheek when warning against this “doomsday weapon”. But the point he is making is serious. We should call for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. Israel will, of course, reject the very idea – as it has done in the past – but it will serve to expose its hypocritical stance of an aggressor demanding sympathy as a victim.

Iran Top Priority for U.S. (?), Israel

Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the DoD’s stated mission is to provide “the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security”

DOD Statement on the Appointment of Benjamin “Benny” Gantz as Minister of Defense in Israel’s 36th Government

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby provided the following readout:

Defense Lloyd J. Austin III congratulates Benjamin “Benny” Gantz on his appointment as the Minister of Defense in Israel’s 36th government today.

Secretary Austin looks forward to continuing the important cooperation and dialogue with Minister Gantz to deepen the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership.

The U.S. commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad.*

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met today with Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin “Benny” Gantz during a closed meeting at the Pentagon.

A top priority for both defense leaders was a shared concern regarding the aggressive actions of the Iranian government.

“We share Israel’s deep concerns about the Iranian government’s destabilizing actions, including its support for terrorism and its missile program, and its alarming nuclear advances,” Austin said in advance of the meeting.

“We are completely aligned in our commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — this is a national security interest of the United States and Israel and the world.”

While Austin said diplomacy is the first tool that should be used to address threats posed by Iran, he said it is not the only tool the U.S. has at its disposal.“The president has made clear that if the policy fails, we are prepared to turn to other options,” Austin said.

“The Department of Defense will continue to work closely with all of our partners throughout the region, including Israel, first and foremost, to ensure that we’re working together to address Iranian threats.

The Promise

We will defend ourselves, we will defend our friends, and we will defend our interests.”

Austin also told the Israeli defense minister that the U.S. remains committed to Israel’s ability to continue to defend itself.

“As you know, the United States remains unwavering in its commitment to Israel’s security, including maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge,” Austin said.

Included in that commitment, Austin said, is a strengthening of U.S./Israel bilateral defense cooperation, with an emphasis on air and missile defense.

Gantz reminded Austin that it is the government of Iran that Israel is at odds with — not the Iranian people.

“They are being held hostage by a tyrannical regime which violates their human rights,” Gantz said.

“Iran is not just a threat to our physical security.

Iran possesses a concrete threat to our way of life, and our shared values.

In its aspirations to become a hegemon, Iran seeks to destroy all traces of freedom, human dignity, and peace in the Middle East and beyond.”

Iran’s nuclear program, Gantz said, is its means to achieving its goals both regionally and globally, and he counts on the United States to ensure it doesn’t advance.

“I am totally confident in the commitment of the administration of the United States as a global power to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” he said.

“The international community, with the United States’ leadership, has an opportunity to act against Iran’s hegemonic aspirations, restore stability, and prevent the oppression of nations across the region.”

Related News Release: Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s Meeting With Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin ‘Benny’ Gantz

Israel and New Friends Hold First Joint Military Drills in “Message” to Iran

The drill come after Israel was moved under US Central Command

The US, the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel are holding joint military exercises in the Red Sea, the US Navy said Thursday.

It marks the first official exercise between Israel and the two Gulf nations and comes just over a year after they normalized relations.

The exercises began on November 1oth and will be held for five days.

“The five-day exercise includes at-sea training aboard amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) focused on visit, board, search and seizure tactics,” the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

One purpose of the US-brokered normalization deals was to further isolate Iran in the region, and the Red Sea exercises are a clear message to Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly floated the idea of creating an anti-Iran NATO-style alliance that includes Israel and the Gulf states in his meeting with President Biden back in August.

The drills also come after the US formally moved Israel under US Central Command’s area of operations.

Previously, Israel fell under US European Command because so many of Washington’s Arab allies did not recognize Israel.

The Trump administration ordered the change in January, and Israel sent a representative to CENTCOM headquarters in October, solidifying the move.

Israel to Attack Iran? Washington Gives the Green Light to the ‘Military Option’

America and Israel partner in all their imperial adventures, in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Some might recall candidate Joe Biden’s pledge to work to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was a multilateral agreement intended to limit Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

The JCPOA was signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, when Biden was Vice President, and was considered one of the only foreign policy successes of his eight years in office.

Other signatories to it were Britain, China, Germany, France, and Russia and it was endorsed by the United Nations.

The agreement included unannounced inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities by the IAEA and, by all accounts, it was working and was a non-proliferation success story.

In return for its cooperation Iran was to receive its considerable assets frozen in banks in the United States and was also to be relieved of the sanctions that had been placed on it by Washington and other governments.

The JCPOA crashed and burned in 2018 when President Donald Trump ordered U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, claiming that Iran was cheating and would surely move to develop a nuclear weapon as soon as the first phase of the agreement was completed.

Trump, whose ignorance on Iran and other international issues was profound, had surrounded himself with a totally Zionist foreign policy team, including members of his own family, and had bought fully into the arguments being made by Israel as well as by Israel Lobby predominantly Jewish groups to include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Trump’s time in office was spent pandering to Israel in every conceivable way, to include recognizing Jerusalem as the country’s capital, granting Israel the green light for creating and expanding illegal settlements on the West Bank and recognizing the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.

Given Trump’s record, most particularly the senseless and against-American-interests abandonment of JCPOA, it almost seemed a breath of fresh air to hear Biden’s fractured English as he committed his administration to doing what he could to rejoin the other countries who were still trying to make the agreement work.

After Biden was actually elected, more or less, he and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken clarified what the U.S. would seek to do to “fix” the agreement by making it stronger in some key areas that had not been part of the original document.

Iran for its part insisted that the agreement did not need any additional caveats and should be a return to the status quo ante, particularly when Blinken and his team made clear that they were thinking of a ban on Iranian ballistic missile development as well as negotiations to end Tehran’s alleged “interference” in the politics of the region.

The interference presumably referred to Iranian support of the Palestinians as well as its role in Syria and Yemen, all of which had earned the hostility of American “friends” Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Israel inevitably stirred the pot by sending a stream of senior officials, to include Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to discuss “the Iranian threat” with Biden and his top officials.

Iranian threat!

Lapid made clear that Israel “reserves the right to act at any given moment, in any way… We know there are moments when nations must use force to protect the world from evil.”

And to be sure, Biden, like Trump, has also made his true sentiments clear by surrounding himself with Zionists.

Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland have filled the three top slots at State Department, all are Jewish and all strong on Israel.

Nuland is a leading neocon. And pending is the appointment of Barbara Leaf, who has been nominated Assistant Secretary to head the State Department’s Near East region.

She is currently the Ruth and Sid Lapidus Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which is an AIPAC spin off and a major component in the Israel Lobby.

That means that a member in good standing of the Israel Lobby would serve as the State Department official overseeing American policy in the Middle East.

At the Pentagon one finds a malleable General Mark Milley, always happy to meet his Israeli counterparts, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, an affirmative action promotion who likewise has become adept at parroting the line “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

And need one mention ardent self-declared Zionists at the top level of the Democratic Party, to include Biden himself, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?

So rejoining the JCPOA over Israel objections was a non-starter from the beginning and was probably only mooted to make Trump look bad.

Indirect talks including both Iran and the U.S. technically have continued in Vienna, though they have been stalled since the end of June.

Trita Parsi has recently learned that Iran sought to make a breakthrough for an agreement by seeking a White House commitment to stick with the plan as long as Biden remains in office.

Biden and Blinken refused and Blinken has recently confirmed that a new deal is unlikely, saying “time is running out.”

And there have been some other new developments.

Israeli officials have been warning for over twenty years that Iran is only one year away from having its own nukes and needs to be stopped, a claim that has begun to sound like a religious mantra repeated over and over, but now they are actually funding the armaments that will be needed to do the job.

Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has repeatedly said the IDF is “accelerating” plans to strike Iran, and Israeli politicians to include former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have regularly been threatening to do whatever must be done to deal with the threat from the Islamic Republic.

Israeli media is reporting that $1.5 billion has been allocated in the current and upcoming budget to buy the American bunker buster bombs that will be needed to destroy the Iranian reactor at Bushehr and its underground research facilities at Natanz.

In the wake of the news about the war funding, there have also been reports that the Israeli Air Force is engaging in what is being described as “intense” drills to simulate attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.

After Israel obtains the 5000 pound bunker buster bombs, it will also need to procure bombers to drop the ordnance, and one suspects that the U.S. Congress will somehow come up with the necessary “military aid” to make that happen.

Tony Blinken has also made clear that the Administration knows what Israel is planning and approves. He met with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on October 13th and said if diplomacy with Iran fails, the U.S. will turn to “other options.”

And yes, he followed that up with the venerable line that “Israel has the right to defend itself and we strongly support that proposition.”

Lapid confirmed that one of Blinken’s “options” was military action.

“I would like to start by repeating what the Secretary of State just said.

Yes, other options are going to be on the table if diplomacy fails.

And by saying other options, I think everybody understands here … what is it that we mean.”

It must be observed that in their discussion of Iran’s nuclear program, Lapid and Blinnken were endorsing an illegal and unprovoked attack to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon that it is apparently not seeking, but which it will surely turn to as a consequence if only to defend itself in the future.

In short, U.S. foreign policy is yet again being held hostage by Israel.

The White House position is clearly and absurdly that an Israeli attack on Iran, considered a war crime by most, is an act of self-defense.

However it turns out, the U.S. will be seen as endorsing the crime and will inevitably be implicated in it, undoubtedly resulting in yet another foreign policy disaster in the Middle East with nothing but grief for the American people.

The simple truth is that Iran has neither threatened nor attacked Israel.

Given that, there is nothing defensive about the actions Israel has already taken in sabotaging Iranian facilities and assassinating scientists, and there would be nothing defensive about direct military attacks either with or without U.S. assistance on Iranian soil.

If Israel chooses to play the fool it is on them and their leaders.

The United States does not have a horse in this race and should butt out, but one doubts if a White House and Congress, firmly controlled by Zionist forces, have either the wisdom or the courage to cut the tie that binds with the Jewish state.

Israeli Provocations; Iranian Patience

Is Israel Sabotaging Itself?

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[You know what, our leaders all work for those bad Jews now.]

Israel keeps attacking and sabotaging Iran; Iran keeps showing restraint.

Israel is running out of patience to stop the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal; Iran keeps showing patience.

In the summer of 2020, Israel sabotaged Iran’s Natanz civilian nuclear enrichment facility.

They have bombed Iran’s allies in Lebanon, and they have bombed their allies in Syria.

Earlier, at the beginning of 2020, Israel and the U.S. assassinated General Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s top military official.

Later, at the end of 2020, General Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s civilian nuclear program, was assassinated.

Each time Israel provoked, Iran showed patience and restraint.

“The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap,” President Hassan Rouhani calmy stated. “They are thinking to create chaos.”

On April 6, the US did what was unthinkable for Israel: they took the first wary steps toward returning to talking to Iran.

Iran had been too smart to fall into the trap, and Israel’s attempts to provoke Iran into destroying its own chances of returning to the international community and to the international nuclear deal had so far failed.

Israeli Provocations; Iranian Patience

So far. So, Israel upped the provocation and made the provocation public to try to force Iran into retaliating and publicly acting against its interest.

On April 11, Israel once again sabotaged the Natanz nuclear facility when they detonated an explosion in the facility that shut down the power that runs the centrifuges that enrich the uranium.

On April 6, not coincidentally the same day the US tentatively returned to the nuclear talks, Israel attacked an Iranian military vessel in the Red Sea.

The ship broke into flames and smoke when a mine that had been attached to it exploded.

Still, Iran did not take the bait, Iran did not retaliate.

On April 24, an Iranian oil tanker was attacked off the coast of Syria.

The ship was hit by what appears to be a drone that came from Lebanese waters.

This time three Syrians, including two crew members, were killed.

Such provocation is not a new Israeli strategy.

It goes back a long time.

When a country shows the maturity not to attack, Israel has often turned to provocation to try to purchase the attack.

Referring to war with Syria, Moshe Dayan, the head of the Israeli Defence Force, once confessed to a reporter, off the record, that Israel deliberately provoked Syria to attack.

He said that Israel would push further and further until Syria responded.

Dayan admitted that Israel had started “more than 80 percent” of the skirmishes with Syria.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett once referred in his diary to “the long chain of false incidents and hostilities we have invented, and the many clashes we have provoked.” Sharett called this “the method of provocation and revenge.”

This time, the provocation wasn’t working.

Iran was still not taking the bait. Iran’s leaders refused to respond to Israel’s sabotage by engaging in retaliations that would simply sabotage their own efforts at squeezing out from under US sanctions and returning to the nuclear talks and to the international community.

Echoing Rouhani’s earlier words, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif continued to explain that the Israelis “want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions…We will not fall into their trap.”

The Talks Go On

Not only did Iran not respond, but they side stepped the Israeli attempt to sabotage the nuclear talks in Vienna by embarrassing the US, by making them look complicit in Israel’s attacks, or alienating Iran, by provoking them into aggression.

Despite concerns that the Natanz attack would trigger Iran’s temper and cause them to walk out of the nuclear discussions, Iran continued to show patience and kept their seat at the talks.

Though a positive result is not a sure thing, the Americans and the Iranians are still talking: at least indirectly.

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani has said, to the dismay of Israel, that “The negotiations have achieved 60 to 70 percent progress.” Rouhani says that they could “reach a conclusion in a little time.”

American sanctions continue to be a road block, and though the US disagrees with the percentage of progress, saying “we have more road ahead of us than in the rearview mirror,” their tone has changed, and even the US describes the talks as having been “positive.”

Israel has taken note of that tone change. Israeli officials told Israeli journalist Barak Ravid that Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat has accused the US of “not showing sufficient consideration of the Israeli government’s position during its Iran diplomacy.”

The US has even recently suggested a willingness to consider lifting sanctions that targeted Iran’s economy, including crucial sanctions on the central bank and oil companies.

A high level Israeli delegation including all of Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi is heading to the White House with instructions from Netanyahu to focus on convincing the Biden administration of Israel’s objections to the US returning to the Iran nuclear deal.

When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether the Israeli delegation would have any effect on the US returning to the nuclear deal, she answered in one word: “No.” As the Israeli acts of sabotage did provoke Iran to retaliate, so they did not sabotage the nuclear talks.

Increased Enrichment

The Israeli attacks also did not sabotage Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

Far from slowing it down, the attacks have sped it up.

As they did in the Obama negotiations, Iran is reversibly increasing their centrifuge capacity as leverage.

In response to the Israeli attack on the Natanz civilian nuclear facility, Iran escalated their program in two ways.

As promised when the Natanz nuclear facility was attacked, the damaged centrifuges have been replaced with more advanced versions.

Though the Israeli sabotage may have temporarily slowed Iranian enrichment, it ultimately accelerated it.

On April 21, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran had installed eight cascades of more advanced centrifuges.

One of those cascades is reportedly enriching uranium to 60%: less than needed to produce a bomb but more than enough to make a statement.

America Rebukes Israel

Perhaps the most striking sign that Israel’s acts of sabotage have gone so far that, this time, they may be sabotaging themselves, rather than moving the States against the Iran talks, the attacks provoked the US to issue a rare rebuke of Israel.

The US informed Israel that they are displeased with the recent Israeli attacks and with Israel’s public boasting about those attacks, expressing concern that those acts could damage the new negotiations with Iran.

Dropping Demands: Has Israel Conceded Failure?

Israel may be seeing the forecast. Even Israel may be seeing the signs that this time they have sabotaged themselves.

Israeli officials have reportedly concluded that they will not be able to pressure the US to significantly strengthen the nuclear agreement.

So, they seem to be backing down on their key demands, including expanding the deal to include Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for Iranian allies like Hezbollah.

Israel seems now to be restricting their demands to the much weaker – and somewhat redundant – demand for greater International Atomic Energy Agency powers to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites.

Saudi Arabia Calls Iran

And in a sign that others may also be recognizing that Israeli attempts to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal have instead sabotaged Israel’s attempts to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal, there are reports of direct talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran having taken place on April 9 in Iraq. T

he talks reportedly involved senior officials.

The talks are potentially interesting because the last time Iraq mediated possible talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in January 2020, the Saudis were motivated, at least in part, by a recognition that they had not succeeded in pushing the US into a war with Iran.

Pursuing more peaceful relations with the Iran was plan B. Perhaps the current talks are a version of plan B that comes with the recognition that Israel has failed to push the US to continue to isolate Iran.

The talks may indicate that, like Israel, Saudi Arabia is recognizing that, in the Israeli promise to sabotage the Iran deal, Israel has this time sabotaged themselves.

“Death by a thousand cuts” for Iran—or Israel?

How do you evaluate Bennett’s comment about Iran, the “a death by a thousand cuts strategy”?

By blathering about “death by a thousand cuts” (Israeli PM )Bennett is tacitly admitting that he doesn’t have a strategy.

Since Biden won’t go along with Israel’s plans for a major war in the region, the Israelis have no choice but to keep doing what they’re already doing.

They are going to just keep harassing Iran the way they always have.

If they escalate their harassment, Iran will of course escalate its retaliation.

So Bennett’s slogan “death by a thousand cuts” is a way of disguising Israel’s strategic failure for an Israeli domestic audience.

He is implying that the ongoing Israeli policy, small-time harassment, will somehow succeed in the future, even though it never has in the past.

That of course is not true; the policy will continue to fail. But Bennett has to put an optimistic spin on the situation for political reasons.

What reasons have forced Israel to change its strategy?

Israel is facing the reality that its post-2001 strategy of trying to orchestrate a US war on Iran will not be successful any time soon, if ever.

Since the Zionist-inspired Israeli-assisted neoconservative coup d’état of September 11, 2001, Israel has intended to hijack the US military to overthrow its regional enemies in general and Iran in particular.

When Gen. Wesley Clark revealed that the real purpose of 9/11 was to “overthrow seven countries in five years,” he explained that the last and most important country on the list was Iran.

In 2007 the Israelis were close to their objective of dragging the US into a war on Iran.

But Gwenyth Todd, an advisor to the Admiral in charge of the US 5th Fleet in Bahrain, alerted the State Department to a neocon plan to stage an attack on US ships in the Gulf and blame Iran-backed Bahraini Shia forces.

Though she was forced to flee for her life, Todd succeeded in derailing the false flag attempt and the planned US attack on Iran.

Again during the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo era, the Israelis once again nearly succeeded in inciting a US-Iran war.

Their agents in the Trump Administration, Kushner, Bolton, and Pompeo, had dialed up tensions.

The assassination of General Soleimani nearly triggered the war Israel wanted. Iran’s devastating but fortunately non-lethal retaliation managed to deter Trump and derail Israel’s hoped-for US attack on Iran.

Today, with risk-averse Biden in the White House and the US in full retreat from empire after its crushing defeat in Afghanistan, Israel recognizes that its chances of tricking the US into going to war against Iran are essentially zero.

How do you see the United States’ role in the Israel’s new strategy?

The US will continue to verbally and materially support Israel, as it always has.

Rich Zionist Jews dominate the US media and financial sectors, and provide about half of the bribes to politicians (euphemistically known as “campaign contributions”) that fuel the ultra-corrupt US political system.

So even though many middle-class Jews and other liberal Americans are gravitating away from Israel and toward support for the Palestinians, the domination of the heights of power by billionaire and multi-millionaire Zionist Jews ensures that the US will continue to undermine its own interests by throwing away its money and reputation propping up the Zionist entity for the foreseeable future.

But the US defeat in Afghanistan has dramatically lowered the already-low probability that the US could be tricked into fighting a major war against Iran for Israel.

Instead it will support Israel’s continued acts of small-scale terrorism against Iran, including cyber-terrorism, sabotage of energy infrastructure, and so on.

This policy, of course, is not in the US interest.

The Americans would do much better for themselves by cutting off aid to Israel and befriending Iran.

But that cannot happen for domestic political reasons.

What do you suppose Iran will do to neutralize the Israelis’ new plot?

Iran will undoubtedly continue with its policy of steadfast patience in the face of provocation, inflicting limited, proportionate retaliation for Israeli attacks.

It will not give the Israelis any hope of arranging a dramatic incident aimed at changing the US and international reluctance to support major escalation against Iran.

Like China vis-a-vis the US, Iran gets stronger every year in its face-off with Israel.

Iran’s and Hezbollah’s ever-improving, ever-more-numerous rockets are becoming an ever-more-effective deterrent to Zionist adventurism.

And the slow erosion of US power in the region works to the advantage of independent Iran, and against countries that are dependent on the US, above all Israel.

In the short term, Iran will defy Zionist and American plots and send fuel and other relief to suffering Lebanon.

Israel cannot stop those shipments, because they are a vital interest for Lebanon and any attempt to stop them would be met by Hezbollah rockets.

By continually countering the Zionists’ anti-Iran moves, and drawing red lines where necessary, Iran will outlast Israel. In the end, it will be the Zionist entity that dies the “death of 1000 cuts.”

How Iran’s Missile Strategy has Rewritten the Rules of Middle Eastern Wars

Iran has built an extraordinary military alliance stretching from Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen that missile by missile has changed the rules of war in the Middle East

 

by Kevin Barrett

On Nov. 12, 2011, an explosion was heard across Tehran.

Within hours, the Iranian press reported that 14 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, popularly known as “the father of the Iranian missile,” had died in an accident at the Shahid Modarres base, 30 miles outside the city.

At the funeral, attended by the religious, civilian and military leaders of the Islamic Republic, the bereaved wept.

An IRGC general attributed Iran’s military deterrence and its “self-sufficiency” to Moghaddam, while Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, credited him with “filling Palestinian hands with missiles instead of stones to strike these arrogant terrorists.”

The mourners doubted Moghaddam and the other IRGC officers had died accidentally but had instead been killed in an Israeli attack, one of a string of recent political assassinations aimed at the heart of Iran’s security state.

Days before his death, Moghaddam, who headed the IRGC’s missile division, had ordered missile test results duplicated and stored in secret locations owing to a fivefold increase in explosions at key security sites in the previous year.

While the epitaph on his gravestone in Tehran reads “Here Lies a Man Who Wanted to Destroy Israel,” it is safe to assume Moghaddam knew his enemies would likely get to him first.

Although Tehran still struggles to deter so-called gray zone attacks by Israel such as assassinations and sabotage, its missile program, built from scratch by Moghaddam, has successfully deterred the airstrikes regularly threatened by Israel.

It has also deterred the United States from carrying out airstrikes, particularly during the first term of then-President George W. Bush, with U.S. forces occupying neighboring Iraq.

In the decade before his death, Moghaddam was involved as much in strengthening Iran’s missile defense and counterstrike system as he was in integrating Hezbollah’s defense into Iran’s own program, training a cadre of Lebanese engineers.

“Knowledge cannot be bombed,” he said, giving voice to Iran’s policy not only of supplying missiles but also, crucially, sharing know-how to sustain the deterrence.

Today, the balance of power is broadly equal; for the U.S. or Israel to launch a war against Iran or Lebanon is almost politically unthinkable.

“The Iranians and Lebanese Hezbollah now have a really deadly reconnaissance strike complex,” explained Michael Knights of the Washington Institute.

“They can absolutely wreck the infrastructure, lifestyle and economic functioning of their close enemies.”

Of course, the reverse is also true, but Iran’s strategy is not suicide, despite Moghaddam’s epitaph, but to stabilize the Resistance, an alliance of nations opposed to the U.S. security constellation of the Middle East: Iran, most of Shia Iraq, the Syrian state and Hezbollah.

This Resistance sees Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as part of an increasingly unstable American empire, whose power needs to be checked.

Yet Tehran’s goal goes further than merely maintaining a balance of power with its enemies or ending their influence in the region.

Instead, Iran believes it is offering an alternative to the crumbling U.S. version of modernity, sustained, at least in theory, by multibillion-dollar defense industries. Iran’s military-industrial complex is the tip of the iceberg of a wider political project.

The Tehran-Beirut alliance has brought Hamas in Gaza and Yemen’s al-Houthi fighters into the Resistance, training their engineers and smuggling components to produce Moghaddam’s designs.

Over the past decade, the Tehran-Beirut alliance has brought Hamas in Gaza and Yemen’s al-Houthi fighters into the Resistance, training their engineers and smuggling components to produce Moghaddam’s designs.

This military cooperation supports allies but also bolsters Tehran’s own deterrence against Israel and Saudi Arabia by having missiles placed on their more vulnerable southern borders.

“With blood, sand and love, they are sent, built and launched,” is how the rank-and-file IRGC refer to the emerging military-industrial complex of the Resistance…

Belligerent “Israel” Threatens World Peace After Afghanistan

What Israel would ideally like to see happen is for the US to issue a credible military threat against Iran.

Based on the threats from Israel in recent days, it could be that this is the direction Israel is once again headed.

It wants to get Iranians to think it is preparing an attack, but no less important is getting the world and specifically Biden to think that scenes of Israeli fighter jets flying to Iran is a realistic option.

Everyone knows their part. Gantz and Kohavi are making the threats, Lapid is working the diplomats, and Bennett is trying to get Biden on board.

Israel Instructs Biden Not to Lift Trump-era ICC Sanctions

“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.” — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon*

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged United States President Joe Biden not to lift sanctions imposed on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials by the administration of former President Donald Trump, according to a report by Axios.

The Biden administration had pledged to “thoroughly review” the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, which had accused the Hague-based tribunal of infringing on US sovereignty by authorising an investigation into alleged war crimes by the US forces in Afghanistan.

Israel has increased pressure on the ICC following its ruling in early February that the court’s jurisdiction extends to the occupied Palestinian territories, paving the way for it to open investigations into war crimes committed by both Israelis and Palestinians, according to the report.

Israel and the US were quick to condemn the court’s announcement, with Israel accusing the court of “pure anti-Semitism” and the US saying it had “serious concerns” about the court’s decision and adding that it was reviewing the ruling.

Neither ally is party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, and both have sought to shield their citizens from prosecution in the court.

Washington, however, has supported and engaged with the court in various forms since it began operations in 2002.

The fight over the court’s jurisdiction has presented an early challenge for the Biden administration, which is seeking to re-engage in multilateral organizations.

Israel, meanwhile, has reportedly urged allies to pressure ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, one of the officials currently under US sanctions, no to move forward with any investigation involving Israelis.

On February 13, British lawyer Karim Khan was elected as the next prosecutor of the ICC to replace Bensouda, who retires in June. Khan, 50, led a United Nations probe into atrocities by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

Axios reported that Israeli diplomats are urging US officials to keep the sanctions as leverage and that the issue was also raised during a call between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Israeli counterpart Gabriel Ashkenazi.

Source: Al Jazeera

How ‘IsraHell is shaping Biden’s Iran policy

First published … March 10, 2021

While Joe Biden the candidate wanted to quickly normalize relations with Iran and re-enter the JCPOA, Joe Biden the president has, as the developments that have happened so far, deviated from his stated course of action.

To a large extent, Biden has appropriated Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy and has refused to lift sanctions on Iran and simply make the US a part of the Iran nuclear deal.

To a significant extent, this dramatic change in policy, while not completely surprising for the Iranians, is a result of the way Israel is pushing the Biden administration away from reconciliation and normalisation.

In fact, a crucial reason for Biden’s appropriation of Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy is the way the Israelis have very quickly implanted their own discourse vis-à-vis Iran in the mindset of the Biden administration.

Echoing what the Israelis have been saying for years, Anthony Blinken recently remarked that Iran was only “weeks” or “months” away from making a bomb.

Blinken and constituents

Although there is a huge difference between having the capacity to build a bomb and actually building and using a bomb, the US sees this [doubtful] proximity to building a bomb as a crucial factor that has made the Biden administration change its plans from re-joining the JCPOA to emphasising renegotiations. It has led it to refuse to lift sanctions.

The hard-line position that the Biden administration has taken feeds directly into the Israeli narrative.

What Blinken said matches perfectly with what Israeli officials have also recently claimed.

According to a recent assessment issued by Israel’s Militray Intelligence Directorate, “Iran may be up to two years away from making a nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so.”

The report further says that Iran’s current enrichment level brings it closer to various “breakout” estimates about how quickly it could enrich uranium to 90%, and also begin to build better missiles and a weapons system that might lead to a nuclear weapon.

For Israel, therefore, it is of utmost importance that the US remains focused on the “violations” that Iran has committed by enriching uranium beyond the limits imposed by the JCPOA.

A recent report of The Jerusalem Post thus sums Israel’s current approach.

It says, “What is important for Israel is that the brinkmanship continue, and that Iran’s violations and Israel’s concerns continue to be recognized.

For that to happen, it is also important for close US-Israel cooperation and discussion in order to prevent nuclear proliferation by the Tehran regime.”

The report refers to an IDF intelligence officer Maj.-Gen. Tamir Heiman who said in a briefing on the IDF assessment that Iran is at an unprecedented low point and is “battered, but on its feet,” following actions carried out by Israel and the US.

Tehran is banking on the Biden administration for some breathing room. It is incumbent on the US – and Israel – to make sure that is not allowed to happen for nothing.”

Now, the fact that the Biden administration has refused to take a step back and lift its sanctions to pave the way for the US’ re-entry shows how closely the US and Israel are already coordinating their policies vis-à-vis Iran.

The Biden administration’s announcement that the US would not re-join the agreement or even lift sanctions unless Iran halts enrichment dovetails perfectly with what Netanyahu had said just before the US elections.

To quote him, “There can be no going back to the previous nuclear agreement. We must stick to an uncompromising policy of ensuring that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons.”

The Biden’s administration’s capitulation to Israel’s uncompromising policy vis-à-vis Iran has led Iran to stick to its own path. An official Iranian statement released on February 28 said that:

“the way forward is quite clear. The US must end its illegal and unilateral sanctions and return to its JCPOA commitments.

This issue neither needs negotiation, nor a resolution by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Islamic Republic of Iran will respond to actions with action and just in the same way that it will return to its JCPOA commitments as sanctions are removed…”

The hardening of US and Iranian position serves Israeli interests in the best possible way. An unresolved nuclear power tussle in the Middle East would keep Israel at the centre stage of regional politics.

Given Israel’s recent rapprochement with the UAE and other Gulf states, tensions in the Gulf would not only reinforce Israel’s direct security ties with these Gulf states, but the scenario could very well make other Gulf states join The Abraham Accords.

Tensions with Iran, therefore, could allow Israel to establish itself as the new regional hegemon.

Israel has already got supporters in the form of not only the UAE but Saudi Arabia as well.

They have both stated that they would be open to a deal only if it went well beyond the previous one. According to them, any deal, in addition to putting limits on Iran’s nuclear program, must include provisions aimed at reversing Iran’s ballistic missile program, ending its “meddling” in other countries and the militias it supports in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.

Israel, as it stands, is already leading the Gulf states in lobbying the US for an agreement that not only limits Iran’s nuclear program, but also curtails its national power potential in many other ways.

As some reports in the US mainstream media show, the Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, and a team of experts will soon travel to Washington to brief senior American officials about what they see as the threats still posed by Iran, hoping to persuade the US to hold out for harsher restrictions on Iran in any deal.

Iran, on the other hand, is unlikely to change its position vis-à-vis any new deal, especially the one that tends to force it into a virtual capitulation.

China and Russia continue to support an unconditional US return to the JCPOA in exchange for Iran’s return to full compliance with the deal.

An unconditional return “is the key to breaking the deadlock,” said Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, in a recent news conference.

But “breaking the deadlock” is not what Israel and its allies in the Gulf are seeking to achieve.

They are pushing the US to adopt a policy that keeps the deadlock alive unless Iran’s power and regional influence can be fully and permanently curtailed.

For the Israelis, the path to Iran’s capitulation demands a US capitulation to Israel first so that they can shape the US policy in a way that best serves their interests. So far, the Israelis have been successful.

israel’s top military chief has ORDERED Biden not to return to the Iran nuclear deaL

Another headline for the same story:
World War 3: Israel military chief orders plans to attack Iran – Biden given ultimatum
ISRAEL is ready to launch an attack on Iran and has warned the US against a return to the Iran nuclear deal. Historically, the israel regime will bait the US regime into war. This Zionist imperialist outpost is like NATO: all the allies must come to it’s aid and support anything israel does. That’s the rule. israel doesn’t ask us.

Israel’s top military chief has said the army is preparing to combat the threat posed by Iran and has ordered US President Joe Biden not to return to the Iran nuclear deal – even if the accord is strengthened.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz told Fox News that the Israeli military is updating its plans to strike Iran’s nuclear program and is prepared to act independently.

United States is only superpower in the world and it gives billions of aids to Israel every year. it is easy to believe U.S. is the boss of Israel. However, israel is doing what ever they want in the middle east. We are trapped in Iraq and now there is Iran. And they opens a new front in Lebannon and bomb that little country to hell.

Gantz falsely portrayed Iran’s recent steps to advance its civilian nuclear program as the Islamic Republic racing to develop a bomb, something he said Israel would stop.

“If the world stops them before, it’s very much good.

But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves,” he said.

Gantz cited nuclear activity that Iran is willing to quickly reverse if the US lifts sanctions and returns to the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

But Gantz, like most Israeli officials, is opposed to a revival of the agreement.

Israeli officials have been making veiled threats about attacking Iran if President Biden rejoins the JCPOA.

Other incidents in the region that are being blamed on Iran are causing some to fear that Israel might be preparing an attack sooner rather than later.

Without providing evidence for the claim, Israel blamed Iran for an explosion on an Israeli-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman that happened last week.

No crew members were hurt, and the ship was back at sea a few days after the incident.

When asked about possible retaliation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “striking at” Iran throughout the region.

On Wednesday, Israel blamed Iran for another incident in the region.

Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel claimed Iran was responsible for a large oil spill that hit Israel last month.

Surprisingly, Israeli military and intelligence officials doubted Gamliel’s claim, as did other officials in the Environmental Protection Ministry.

Regardless of whether Iran was responsible or not, Israel could be planning a strike against the Islamic Republic over the two incidents.

Sources told Business Insider that the Biden administration and its European allies are fearing that Israel is planning a “substantial” attack on Iran.

‘israel’ Blames Iran for Vessel Attack

Israeli’s defense minister Benny Gantz said an initial assessment found Iran was responsible for the explosion.

Of course!

28 Feb 2021

Emirati officials did not immediately acknowledge or respond to requests for comment on the vessel docking in the country.

The blast on the ship, a Bahamian-flagged roll-on, roll-off vehicle cargo vessel, recalled a string of attacks on foreign oil tankers in 2019 that the US Navy blamed on Iran.

Tehran denied any role in the suspected assaults, which happened near the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil chokepoint.

On Saturday, Israeli’s defence minister Benny Gantz said an initial assessment found Iran was responsible for the explosion.

Gilad Erdan, Israeli ambassador to the US and United Nations, told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday “it was no secret that the Iranians are trying to harm Israeli targets”, adding the explosion on the ship bore the hallmarks of other Iranian attacks.

Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli defence officials flew to Dubai on Saturday to investigate the incident.

‘Espionage’ mission

The Helios Ray discharged cars at various ports in the Gulf before making its way out of the Middle East towards Singapore.

The blast hit as the ship was sailing from the Saudi port Dammam out of the Gulf of Oman, forcing it to turn to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for inspection.

Iranian authorities have not publicly commented on the ship.

The country’s hardline Kayhan daily, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alleged the Helios Ray was “possibly” on an “espionage” mission in the region, without offering any evidence to support the claim.

The Sunday report speculated the ship may have been “trapped in an ambush by a branch of resistance axis”, referring to Iranian proxies in the region.

Iran also has blamed Israel for a recent series of attacks, including a mysterious explosion last summer that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at its Natanz nuclear facility and the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian scientist who founded Iran’s military nuclear programme two decades ago.

Iran’s repeated vows to avenge Fakhrizadeh’s killing have raised alarms in Israel, particularly as the Gulf sees an increase in traffic from Israel following its normalisation deals with the UAE and Bahrain.

Source : News Agencies

U.S. stands by demand Iran return to nuclear deal before U.S. does

The insistence that the US will reenter the JCPOA only after Iran resumes full compliance has been met with disbelief in Tehran. It makes no sense for the government that violated all of its commitments to make demands of one of the governments that is still a party to the agreement, and by refusing to rejoin the agreement first Biden is jeopardizing the agreement’s survival for no good reason. And they are tacking on more bullshit for a ‘new’ deal. I’m sure ‘Israel’ helped with that.

The White House later issued a statement saying that Biden “affirmed his personal history of steadfast commitment to’ Israel’s security’ and conveyed his intent to strengthen all aspects of the U.S.-Israel partnership, including our strong defense cooperation.”

Listening to Blinken here,there are strings attached. He doesn’t even sound hopeful, because it’s bullshit.

The White House later issued a statement saying that Biden “affirmed his personal history of steadfast commitment to Israel’s security and conveyed his intent to strengthen all aspects of the U.S.-Israel partnership, including our strong defense cooperation.”

 

Iran Foreign Minister Tells Biden US ‘Violated’ Nuclear Deal, So It Is US ‘That Has to Return’

While U.S. President Joe Biden insisted Sunday that Tehran must halt its uranium enrichment program before the U.S. rejoins the Iran nuclear deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif countered that it was former President Donald Trump who abandoned the agreement and deprived Iranians of food and medicine—and therefore the onus is on Washington to bring the U.S. back into compliance with the pact by lifting all sanctions on Iran.

“The sooner the current administration returns to international obligations, the sooner it can start rebuilding its reputation across the globe.”
—Javad Zarif, Iranian Foreign Minister

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has demanded that Tehran adhere to the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) before the U.S. does. When asked by CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell on Sunday if the U.S. will “lift sanctions first in order to get back to the negotiating table,” Biden responded curtly: “No.” And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday reiterated that “it’s really up to Iran to come back.”

But Zarif made the case that “it was the United States that left the deal [and] it was the United States that violated the deal” in 2018 when Trump withdrew from the agreement and imposed sanctions on Iran. “So it is for the United States to return to the deal to implement its obligations.”

“Iran never left the deal,” Zarif told CNN host Fareed Zakaria on Sunday. “Iran is in the deal. Iran has reduced some of its commitments, in line with the deal,” he said, referring to Iran’s decision to resume uranium enrichment—though well below levels required to develop nuclear weapons— after the U.S. breached the agreement by reinstating sanctions.

“The way to go back to full compliance, on the part of Iran, is for the United States, which has totally left the deal, to come back and implement its obligations,” Iran’s foreign minister added. “Now it’s clear, it’s a decision that President Biden and his advisers need to [m]ake. Whether they want to break with the failed policies of President Trump, or whether they want to build on his failures.”

“If they want to build on his failures” Zarif warned, “they will only get failure as a result.”

According to Zarif, Iran has “a statutory requirement to reduce the presence of U.N. inspectors… somewhere around February 21,” at which point “you will not see the additional protocol implemented in Iran,” a reference to Tehran’s plan to expel United Nations nuclear inspectors if the U.S. does not lift sanctions in the next two weeks.

When you withdraw from Syria because you say you want to bring the troops home but then assassinate an Iranian general while he’s abroad.

“That doesn’t mean the window [for diplomacy] is fully shut,” Zarif added, stressing that “if the United States and its partners return to the deal, return to full compliance, Iran will reverse its actions. All the actions we are taking are reversible.”

“But obviously,” Iran’s top diplomat noted, “it would be much simpler if the United States decided to make good on its commitments earlier rather than later. And it is good for the United States’ reputation because President Trump not only destroyed the reputation of the United States domestically but he destroyed the reputation of the United States internationally.”

Emphasizing that an “international agreement is not a revolving door” enabling one party “to simply come and go as they please,” Zarif said that “the United States must make it clear and must give guarantees to Iran and other members of the deal that the behavior of President Trump will not be repeated because the international community has suffered enough from the lawlessness of somebody who acts on a whim.”

Psaki on Monday claimed that “if Iran comes into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States will do the same, and then use that as a platform to build a larger and stronger agreement that also addresses other areas of concern.”

“The entire nuclear deal is non-negotiable because it was fully negotiated. We need to implement something that we negotiated.”
—Zarif

With respect to U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s previously stated desire to make negotiating limitations on Iran’s ballistic missile program a precondition for U.S. reentry into the deal, Zarif said that Sullivan, who was part of the Obama team that negotiated the JCPOA in 2015, “should know better.”

According to Zarif, “It was because of the United States’ inability to address its own military sales to our region, hundreds of billions of dollars of military sales… going to the countries that are committing genocide and war crimes in Yemen and elsewhere” that restricting Iran’s ballistic missile program was not on the negotiating table more than five years ago.

“We agreed on what to deal with and what not to deal with,” added Zarif. “The United States cannot base its policy on ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.'”

Stressing that “we do not buy the horse twice,” Zarif clarified that “the entire nuclear deal is non-negotiable because it was fully negotiated. We need to implement something that we negotiated.”

Iran’s foreign minister continued:

Put yourselves in our shoes. You agreed to a deal. You agreed to give and take. You agreed to sacrifice certain demands that you had because you agreed not to deal with certain issues…

We waited for five years. The United States did not implement the deal, but we did implement the deal. And we did fulfill our promises, and we are going to fulfill our promises again if the United States fulfills its promises…

We agreed on the JCPOA. The United States should start making good on its promises that it violated for four very, very long years for Iranians.

“The sooner… the current administration returns to… international obligations,” said Zarif, “the sooner it can start rebuilding its reputation across the globe.”

US shows off nuclear-capable B-52 bombers on Iran’s doorstep

The US Air Force has published footage of its B-52 Stratofortress nuclear-capable bombers flying over the Persian Gulf in what was described as a mission showcasing America’s “global reach capability.”

The mission that saw B-52s flying non-stop from the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana was conducted on Wednesday, just a week after President Joe Biden’s inauguration. During their flyover of the Gulf, the American bombers were accompanied by US Navy and US Marines’ fighters as well as Saudi Air Force jets.

A video released by the US Army Central Command on Saturday shows at least two bombers in the skies of the Middle East accompanied by a total of four American and Saudi fighter jets.

The “defensive” mission was aimed at “strengthening partnerships” and demonstrating the US military’s ability to “deploy airpower anywhere in the world to deter potential aggression,” the US Air Forces Central said in a series of Twitter posts.

The US military did not explicitly mention Iran in its statements but some media still said it might have been a signal to the Islamic Republic amid ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Relations between the two nations became increasingly hostile under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.

Under the Trump administration, the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed all previously lifted sanctions against Iran as well as introduced new ones, vowing to bring Iranian oil exports to “zero.”

In January 2020, the US assassinated a high-ranking Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a targeted drone strike during his visit to Iraq, further leading to a spike in tensions between Washington and Tehran.

The Biden administration has so far demonstrated a more reserved attitude toward Tehran and repeatedly signaled the US’ intention to return to the nuclear deal.

However, the Wednesday flight also showed that Washington apparently is not ready to abandon such demonstrations of force when it comes to its adversaries, particularly in the Middle East.

Earlier, Tehran urged Biden to return to the deal and lift all sanctions imposed during Trump’s time in office, adding that only after that would it return to its own commitments under the agreement related to the uranium-enrichment levels and the limits on the stock of enriched uranium Iran can possess.

Also on rt.com Tehran says Biden administration must remove crippling sanctions if they want Iran to cut enhanced enrichment program

Israel warns Biden against reviving the Iran nuclear deal

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Holds 45-Second Silence in U.N. Speech on Make a GIF
Aviv Kohavi said the Biden administration should not return to JCPOA

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said on Tuesday that he ordered the military to draw up new plans to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

He also warned the new Biden administration against reviving the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

“I have ordered the IDF to prepare a number of operational plans, in addition to the existing ones,” Kohavi said. “We are studying these plans and we will develop them over the next year.”

Kohavi’s comments are just the latest threatening comments towards Iran from Israeli officials. Earlier this month, an Israeli minister from the Likud party said Israel will have to attack Iran if the Biden administration returns to the JCPOA.

Warning against a revival of the JCPOA in his comments on Tuesday, Kohavi said the new administration should not let up the pressure that the Trump administration left on Iran in the form of crippling economic sanctions.

“These pressures must continue. No matter what happens. Anything that releases that pressure gives them oxygen gives them air and will allow them to continue to violate the current agreement,” he said.

Kohavi, like most Israeli officials, warned that Iran is racing to develop a nuclear weapon.

He cited Iran’s recent decision to increase uranium enrichment to 20 percent as an example of this.

But uranium enriched at 20 percent has a civilian purpose. It is used to make fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor, a facility built by the US in the 1960s that can make medical isotopes.

The Iranians only recently decided to increase enrichment to 20 percent as a response to the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the prominent Iranian scientist who was killed in an apparent Israeli plot.

Iran has also made it clear that they will return to compliance with the JCPOA if the US lifts sanctions.

Returning to compliance means reducing uranium enrichment and other violations of the deal that Kohavi cited as reasons to plan an attack on Iran.

Pentagon arming the Talibans

The Pentagon is still going after the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy

Officially the Pentagon is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but according to the Washington Post [1], it is secretly arming them, professedly to help them fight ISIS (aka Daesh), another official enemy of the United States.

At the same time, however, numerous testimonies from several countries of the “Greater Middle East” reveal that the very same Pentagon, who is officially fighting ISIS there, is covertly arming it.

These facts prove that the Pentagon is still going after the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy: to provoke “endless wars” aiming to deprive all states in the “Greater Middle East” of the ability to stand up against financial imperialism.

War may be a racket, as General Smedley Butler claimed long ago, but who cares these days since business is booming?

And let’s add to such profits a few other all-American motivations. Start with the fact that, in some curious sense, war is in the American bloodstream.

As former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges once put it, “War is a force that gives us meaning.”

Report: Israel’s Military Drawing Up Plans to Strike Iran

Historically, we Americans are a violent people who have invested much in a self-image of toughness now being displayed across the “global battlespace.” (Hence all the talk in this country not about our soldiers but about our “warriors.”)

As the bumper stickers I see regularly where I live say: “God, guns, & guts made America free.” To make the world freer, why not export all three?

CHANEL” – Vietnam Anti-War Poster Project

Add in, as well, the issue of political credibility. No president wants to appear weak and in the United States of the last many decades, pulling back from a war has been the definition of weakness.

No one — certainly not Donald Trump — wants to be known as the president who “lost” Afghanistan or Iraq.

As was true of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the Vietnam years, so in this century fear of electoral defeat has helped prolong the country’s hopeless wars.

Generals, too, have their own fears of defeat, fears that drive them to escalate conflicts (call it the urge to surge) and even to advocate for the use of nuclear weapons, as General William Westmoreland did in 1968 during the Vietnam War.

Washington’s own deeply embedded illusions and deceptions also serve to generate and perpetuate its wars.

Lauding our troops as “freedom fighters” for peace and prosperity, presidents like George W. Bush have waged a set of brutal wars in the name of spreading democracy and a better way of life.

The trouble is: incessant war doesn’t spread democracy — though in the twenty-first century we’ve learned that it does spread terror groups — it kills it.

At the same time, our leaders, military and civilian, have given us a false picture of the nature of the wars they’re fighting.

They continue to present the US military and its vaunted “smart” weaponry as a precision surgical instrument capable of targeting and destroying the cancer of terrorism, especially of the radical Islamic variety.

Despite the hoopla about them, however, those precision instruments of war turn out to be blunt indeed, leading to the widespread killing of innocents, the massive displacement of people across America’s war zones, and floods of refugees who have, in turn, helped spark the rise of the populist right in lands otherwise still at peace.

Lurking behind the incessant warfare of this century is another belief, particularly ascendant in the Trump White House: that big militaries and expensive weaponry represent “investments” in a better future — as if the Pentagon were the Bank of America or Wall Street.

Steroidal military spending continues to be sold as a key to creating jobs and maintaining America’s competitive edge, as if war were America’s primary business. (And perhaps it is!)

Those who facilitate enormous military budgets and frequent conflicts abroad still earn special praise here.

Consider, for example, Senator John McCain’s rapturous final sendoff, including the way arms maker Lockheed Martin lauded him as an American hero supposedly tough and demanding when it came to military contractors. (And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.)

Put all of this together and what you’re likely to come up with is the American version of George Orwell’s famed formulation in his novel 1984: “war is peace.”
The War the Pentagon Knew How to Win

READ MORE…

Hello Biden: A War With Iran Predicted

Since the days of the Tower of Babel, there has been no defilement in the world like the defilement of Zionism. ~Rabbi Yehuda Greenwald

Terrorist acts, economic sabotage and the nuclear threat all violate the Charter of the United Nations, but Israel is the only member state of that organization that does not to abide by its rules, and has not done so for three quarters of a century.

The designation of regular Americans, who exercised their right to protest on Capitol Hill, as “Domestic Terrorists”, along with Biden’s plan to introduce a “Domestic Terrorism” bill or Patriot Act 2.0, seems to be in preparation prior to bombing Iran and thereby cowering the opposition and preventing “right-wingers” (aka the millions upon millions who voted for Trump and are against such a war) from protesting in mass.

“And as the inevitable companion to Patriot Act 2.0, there will be war overseas,” predicts Pepe Escobar.

So prepare for a possible war with Iran under Biden. A war that could start by hitting Syria first. And since Syria and Iran have a mutual defense pact, Iran would be dragged in, followed by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

All in all, the ultimate target is Iran, the head of the axis of resistance against Apartheid Israel’s destructive expansion in the Middle East.

How Can “Israel” Find Peace?

This building [of the Holy Land] is nothing but destruction… but such a group is very dangerous to the Jewish people, and we must stay as far as possible from them… Worse than all of the above is Zionism and their shekels that they give to strengthen the sinners in Jerusalem, who anger G-d in His palace and His city.

Satan himself disguises himself at the head of the Zionist organization.

(Mishkenos Haro’im volume 6)

Report: Israel Plotting How to Sabotage Biden’s Return to Iran Deal

Israel’s PM and defense minister at odds over Biden’s Iran policy

With the incoming Biden administration expected to return to diplomacy with Iran, Israeli officials are working on ways to sabotage a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

An Israeli source told Bloomberg that Israeli officials are weighing their options and deciding between a public crusade against the JCPOA or a quieter strategy through behind-the-scenes engagement with the Biden administration. In the coming weeks, Israel is expected to send a stream of envoys to Washington to discuss the JCPOA.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have made their opposition to Biden’s known. Reports from Israeli media said Netanyahu is at odds with Defense Minister Benny Gantz over handling Biden’s Iran policy.

Netanyahu is looking to box Gantz out of Iran talks with the Biden administration. Gantz was set to take over as prime minister in November 2021 as part of a power-sharing deal between his Blue and White party and Netanyahu’s Likud. But the coalition collapsed, and Israelis are heading back to the polls for another election in March.

The upcoming election could cause Netanyahu to move hard and fast against Biden’s attempts at diplomacy with Iran. Considering he likely signed off on the November assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an aggressive move is not out of the question for Netanyahu.

Any hardline moves from Netanyahu could impede Biden’s plans. It might require Biden to take a strong public stance against Netanyahu and Israel early in his administration.