July 2, 2010

U.S./Israel Attack on Iran Nears

Pray for the people of Iran, and the Middle East. And curse the war criminals and barbarians in the United States and Israel to hell. They are instigating an indefensible war.

There is no "good side" in this war. The victors will either be tyrants of whatever country, or the people of whatever country. Freedom, or slavery. In the best outcome, the rule of law prevails, and there is global liberty; also, Iran's tyrants will be prosecuted, and hanged by the Iranian people at end of the war; and the tyrants of America and Israel will be prosecuted, and hanged as well.

Asia Times: Weather clears for a US strike on Iran (July 3, 2010)

By Victor Kotsev

War drums are beating in the Middle East. In a short time, the United States has increased the number of its carrier strike groups opposite Iran to three, and reports are raining down of a tightening ring of American and Israeli concentrations all around the Islamic Republic. On the diplomatic front, the Israelis are unusually concerned about their international image (for example, making concessions in Gaza) while their top officials - including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself - are shuttling between Jerusalem and Washington.

Everybody in the region is restless. Turkey is making spectacular diplomatic pirouettes. Egypt is quietly seething, and Saudi Arabia less quietly so. Jordan's king had ruefully predicted war if no peace was achieved by the summer [1], and summer has now come. Syria and Lebanon are positioning themselves to weather the coming storm [2]. Yemen is in disarray. Russia, China, India, and a host of other powers are vying to make the best of the fracas. The Iranian regime itself appears to be digging in for a fight.

By most accounts, a cataclysm is approaching. The situation, according to analyst Tony Badran, is "arguably similar to the one immediately preceding the 1967 Arab-Israeli war". Some very detailed analyses of the technical details of an Israeli strike on Iran are also available, such as David Moon's Asia Times Online story "The anatomy of an attack on Iran" [3]. An Israeli expedition into Iran may well take this course; however, at this point it seems very likely that if a strike occurs, it will involve Israel and the US acting in tandem.

Continued. . .

Asia Times:
The anatomy of an attack on Iran (July 1, 2010)

By David Moon

In mid-June, Hugh Tomlinson in the Times of London wrote that the government of Saudi Arabia conferred on Israel the "green light" for use of its airspace for an attack on Iran. This revelation was said to be conventional wisdom inside the Saudi military. Tomlinson also quoted an unnamed United States military source stating to the effect that the US Department of State and the Defense Department had both said "grace" over this arrangement. The Saudis and Israelis immediately denied the report, while US officials made no specific comments on the subject. The silence and denials nixed further media speculation.

First reported in the Times of London in July 2009 and referred to again in Tomlinson's recent article is word of a supposed meeting between Israel's Mossad chief Meir Dagan and unnamed Saudi intelligence leaders to discuss such an arrangement that both governments denied then and now.

Continued. . .