The Fanonite

Gareth Porter of the excellent Inter Press Service with the latest in the Israel Lobby’s campaign to nudge US towards another war. You can hear Porter discuss his article on Antiwar Radio here:

Also see this interview with him from The Real News: ‘US House Res. 362 suggests the use of force with new bill’

Let me note here that I used to be a regular listener of Democracy Now and several other Leftist news programs. I am no more. It has been clear for some time now that the Israel Lobby and its neocon spearhead are the only entities pushing for war, yet you wouldn’t hear it said once. Even when statements have been made to that effect, such as Seymour Hersh’s comment on DN that ‘Jewish money’ was behind the war drive, Amy Goodman made a point not to pursue the point. These days I mostly turn to IPS for its excellent analysts (Porter, Khody Akhavi and the indispensable Jim Lobe), Antiwar.com, the Real News Network and Counterpunch for reliable news and commentary.

New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favor of U.S. strikes against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to the U.S. and Israel and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such weapons at all.

The new arguments contradict Israel’s official argument that it faces an “existential threat” from an Islamic extremist Iranian regime determined to get nuclear weapons. They suggest that Israel, which already has as many as 200 nuclear weapons, views Iran from the position of the dominant power in the region rather than as the weaker state in the relationship.

The existence of a sharp imbalance of power in favor of Israel and the United States is the main premise of a recent analysis by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) suggesting that a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is feasible. Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center on Science and International Affairs, has also urged war against Iran on such a power imbalance.

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‘The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran,’ reports Seymour M. Hersh. You can also hear him speak about this here:

As Alexander Cockburn points out, however, none of this is news. This story had already been broken by Andrew Cockburn on Counterpunch a few months back.

Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded “the coherence of military strategy,” one general says.

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

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Scott Ritter lifts the veil on David Albright, another dubious operator.

I am a former U.N. weapons inspector. I started my work with the United Nations in September 1991, and between that date and my resignation in August 1998, I participated in over 30 inspections, 14 as chief inspector. The United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, was the organization mandated by the Security Council with the implementation of its resolutions requiring Iraq to be disarmed of its weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities. While UNSCOM oversaw the areas of chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missiles, it shared the nuclear file with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. As such, UNSCOM, through a small cell of nuclear experts on loan from the various national weapons laboratories, would coordinate with the nuclear safeguards inspectors from the IAEA, organized into an “Action Team” dedicated to the Iraq nuclear disarmament problem. UNSCOM maintained political control of the process, insofar as its executive chairman was the only one authorized to approve a given inspection mission. At first, the IAEA and UNSCOM shared the technical oversight of the inspection process, but soon this was transferred completely to the IAEA’s Action Team, and UNSCOM’s nuclear staff assumed more of an advisory and liaison function.

In August 1992 I began cooperating closely with IAEA’s Action Team, traveling to Vienna, where the IAEA maintained its headquarters. The IAEA had in its possession a huge cache of documents seized from Iraq during a series of inspections in the summer of 1991 and, together with other U.N. inspectors, I was able to gain access to these documents for the purpose of extracting any information which might relate to UNSCOM’s non-nuclear mission. These documents proved to be very valuable in that regard, and a strong working relationship was developed. Over the coming years I frequently traveled to Vienna, where I came to know the members of the IAEA Action Team as friends and dedicated professionals. Whether poring over documents, examining bits and pieces of equipment (the IAEA kept a sample of an Iraqi nuclear centrifuge in its office) or ruminating about the difficult political situation that was Iraq over wine and cheese on a Friday afternoon, I became familiar with the core team of experts who composed the IAEA Action Team.

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Obama, McCain and the world

Cheney blocked talks with Iran

Against attack on Iran

The failure by Barack Obama to chart another course in the Middle East, to defy the Israel lobby and to denounce the Bush administration’s inexorable march toward a conflict with Iran is a failure to challenge the collective insanity that has gripped the political leadership in the United States and Israel.

Obama, in a miscalculation that will have grave consequences, has given his blessing to the widening circle of violence and abuse of the Palestinians by Israel and, most dangerously, to those in the Bush White House and Jerusalem now plotting a war against Iran. He illustrates how the lust for power is morally corrosive. And while he may win the White House, by the time he takes power he will be trapped in George Bush’s alternative reality.

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to stay the hand of Israel, which is building more settlements-including a new plan to put 800 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem-and imposing draconian measures to physically break the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. We need, most of all, to prevent a war with Iran.

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The AIPAC circus continues, and today it was Barack Obama singing for his money. According to CNN: ‘Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel lobbying group, Obama said, “Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”‘ And he is supposed to be the voice of ‘moderation’!

Here is more coverage from the excellent Real News Network.

Report says Olmert will try to convince Bush to ignore NIE report that said Iran has no nuke weapons. More here.

Aijaz Ahmad traces the power of AIPAC to the “Reagan Revolution”. More here.

Chris Hedges at the LA Times Festival of Books answers a question regarding Mearsheimer and Walt and the firing of Admiral Fallon. (Thanks Ann)

Drumbeats of War?

McCain: Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons poses an unacceptable risk, a danger we cannot allow. McCain’s calls for sanctions are meant to weaken Iran in case of war

More here.

…and the Line-Up is Hawkish, reports Jim Lobe, the finest US investigative journalist. (Also see the related commentary by Pepe Escobar).

Monday morning marks the formal opening of the annual three-day policy conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which, according to AIPAC’s press announcement of the event, is “consistently ranked as the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill.” You can expect a strong focus on Iran and a very hawkish line towards same. The press release makes the point that “ALL three remaining Presidential candidates, ALL four leaders of Congress… AS WELL AS Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will address the conference. (Emphasis in the original.) So much for the argument that AIPAC really isn’t as powerful as its critics, like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, claim.

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“It looks like a wonderful film, it’s getting great notices, but be careful: you might start considering the Iranian people human beings.” Stephen Colbert

More of Marjane | Persepolis Trailer

For a far superior, though less hilarious, interview with Marjane Satrapi follow this link to Link TV.  Where she explains that education through art, culture and literature is the true paths to human achievement, enhancement and change.  A proposition for a better world which is the very antithesis of the US doctrine: she defines her work as fighting ignorance, a weapon of mass construction.