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3. Günter Grass, Israel, and that Poem

Apr-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: “Poetry makes nothing happen” wrote Auden. Günter Grass (who’s he?) seems to have disproved that theory, as his poem criticizing Israel resulted not only in heated debate but got him banished from Israel. Below, the poem itself (we report; you decide) and two Jewish perspectives. Rabbi Rosen’s link is devastating accurate.

* Günter Grass: ‘What Must Be Said’ The Guardian

But why have I kept silent till now?

Because I thought my own origins,

tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,

meant I could not expect Israel, a land

to which I am, and always will be, attached,

to accept this open declaration of the truth.

* Günter the Terrible Uri Avnery Counterpunch

Grass has done the unthinkable: he has openly criticized the State of Israel! And he a German!!!

The reaction was automatic. He was at once branded as an anti-Semite. Not just a run-of-the-mill anti-Semite, but as a crypto-Nazi, who could easily have served as a henchman of Adolf Eichmann! This was shown by the fact that at age 17, near the end of World War II, he was recruited to the Waffen-SS like tens of thousands of others and then – oddly enough – kept the fact hidden for many years. So there you are.

Israeli and German politicians and commentators vied with each other in cursing the writer, with the Germans easily trumping the Israelis. Though our Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, may have garnered the individual championship by declaring Grass persona non grata and banning him from entering Israel for all eternity (at least)….

So what did Grass actually say?

* What Must Be Said: We All Profit from Occupations Rabbi Brant Rosen

There’s been a great deal of analysis written about German writer Gunther Grass’ now-infamous new poem, “What Must Be Said” (in which Grass criticized Israel’s nuclear program as endangering an “already fragile world peace.”) For me, the most astute response by far comes from Mideast historian Mark LeVine, writing in Al-Jazeera.

…These facts are that Israel, however egregious its crimes – and anyone who denies them is either completely ignorant or a moral idiot – is but one cog in a much larger global machine, one that includes too many other cases of occupation, exploitation, and wanton violence to list comprehensively here (we can name a few – Syria, China, Russia, India, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, the Congo, and of course, NATO and the United States – whose oppression, exploitation, and murder of their own or other peoples is a far more concrete “fact” than the potential for mass destruction caused by Israel’s nuclear programme)…

The larger fact is that the global economy is addicted to war, to militarism, oil and the rape of the planet for the minerals and resources that fuel the now globalised culture of hyperconsumption that will doom our descendants to a fate we dare not contemplate. Israel’s gluttony for Palestinian territory, and its willingness to encourage a regional nuclear arms race to keep it, is ultimately no different than the the gluttony for the 60-inch TV, the iPhone/Pad, the cavernous homes and cars, the ability to live at levels of consumption that are only sustainable if most of the world lives in poverty that increasingly defines all our cultures.

Jan. 27th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 4

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: A fine quartet of pieces that arrived too late for last week. We start with a superb War Tard column on just why the US wants to attack Iran, and it’s not about nuclear bombs, but oil. The first piece in a long while that’s made sense of the oncoming war. As always, War Tard does a fine job of looking at strategies. A quick and powerful graph shows the congressional support for PIPA/SOPA the day before and the day after the Internet blackout. Meet the Preppers! A subculture with the slogan, “Armegeddon ready: are you?” And music! The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, and the Thai Elephant Orchestra produce sounds the like of which you’ve never heard. Click on.

* Why The Us Wants To Attack Iran War Tard

Iran is sitting on the fourth largest oil deposit on the planet and has huge reserves of natural gas and that’s a sweet energy prize by any account. It’s kind of like Inca gold and the Spanish Main in the 16th century… everybody wants a piece of the action. …

The interesting player here in all this is China. Though a long way from being a military superpower, its economic power is rising fast, so fast that the US and Europe fear the loss of traditional Western dominance of the global economy. The gaping weakness of the Chinese rise is energy supply. And without a credible naval fleet to protect the flow of spice, the weakness of China gets exposed… Chinese dependence on sea borne oil delivery and their susceptibility to a blockade sometime in our proxy resource war future. What the West really fears here in the global energy game of Risk, is Iran having unfettered control of its own huge energy reserves, selling those reserves outside the dollar to geopolitical rivals (China) and facilitating the rise of a pan Pacific hegemon that could contest Western dominance at some point later this century.

That’s why Iran is in the cross hairs. Their whole nuke program is symbolic of their determination not to play nice in the petro dollar chess game and the question remains, will they get Tomahawked this year because of it?

* How The Internet Blackout Affected Congressional Support For Pipa/Sopa Boing Boing

* Subculture of Americans prepares for civilization’s collapse Reuters

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon. “In an instant, anything can happen,” she told Reuters. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.” Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as “preppers.” Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

…Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a “survival center,” complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon. “I think this economy is about to fall apart,” she said.

* New Music Futility Closet

The 10-member Vienna Vegetable Orchestra plays instruments created entirely from fresh vegetables, including the carrot recorder, the pumpkin tympanum, the zucchini trumpet, and the bean maraca. These must be fashioned anew before each concert, because the old instruments are made into soup.

The Thai Elephant Orchestra, created by American expatriate Richard Lair and Columbia neurologist David Sulzer, improvise on drums, gongs, harmonicas, and sawmill blades. To date they’ve released three CDs.

2. Iran Closeup

Jan-20-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Three interesting points of view on Iran: Wartard argues that the war has already begun, and it’s hard to disagree that killing scientists is an act of war (And would be taken as such by the US if the roles were reversed.) Ex 60 Minutes producer Barry Lando explores the exaggerated stereotypes both sides are holding up, and suggests ignorence rarely leads to optimal results. And Pepe Escobar follows the money, (or in this case the oil), to the far east and notes why the EU and North America’s Iranian sanctions aren’t going to do much.

* In case you didn’t notice, the War on Iran has already begun. Wartard

You won’t hear that said on TV yet though. At least not on US news networks. Those corporate shills need major fireworks before it becomes profitable to switch from diversions to 24hr news coverage of burning nuke sites and Iranian radiation warnings interspersed with commercial breaks for Viagra and Wal Mart. Right now, the biggest military operation of 2012 is still in Phase I. And the corporate media and all the sleazy oligarchy that stand to profit know it’s probably best to instead run 24hr news coverage of the Republican primaries where the US gets to choose which corporate spokesman the Republicans are going to run against Democratic corporate spokesman Obama. That’s democracy these days folks. You know, that thing the US brought to Iraq via heavy armor.

Next up, Iran. All for WMD nukes they don’t even have yet. Reruns of bullshit wars like Iraq would be really boring if the Iran attack wasn’t so goddam scary in the first place. But, no matter, 2012 is an election year and nothing gets presidents re-elected and clears the streets of protesters like a brand spanking new war. This war is becoming viable to the US and only one Republican presidential candidate of nine is even against the idea.

Sure, I’ve written before of the possible repercussions of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuke sites and theorized why Israel wants this Iranian strike beyond preventing the Persians from achieving “theater parity” with the Israelis on the nuke front. I’ve said before the US have been trying to keep the Israelis reined in as far as launching the Iranian air strike solo goes but, it seems, with developments last month and with the way things are panning out in the region, it looks like the Israelis are going to be able to get the US to do the job for them. Or, at the very least, with them.

* Blind Man’s Bluff in the Middle East Barry Lando Counterpunch

What would America or Israel –or any country– do if five of its scientists were assassinated by an enemy power? How would they react if, at the same time, the mightiest country on the planet dispatched its forces towards their borders even as it tightened a blockade to garrote their economy?

Would they kowtow to the demand that they terminate any activities related to the research or development of nuclear weapons [which, of course, both Israel and the U.S. possess]–or lash out in violent reprisal?

A lot of people with important sounding titles pontificate on what lies ahead, but who are they kidding? It’s like we’re watching kids playing around with vials of highly volatile chemicals. No one’s sure when an explosion will come, nor how calamitous might be the chain reactions it ignites.

* Sinking the Petrodollar in the Persian Gulf Pepe Escobar TomDispatch

These unilateral U.S. sanctions are also aimed at Asia. After all, China, India, Japan, and South Korea, together, buy no less than 62% of Iran’s oil exports. With trademark Asian politesse, Japan’s Finance Minister Jun Azumi let Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner know just what a problem Washington is creating for Tokyo, which relies on Iran for 10% of its oil needs. It is pledgingto at least modestly “reduce” that share “as soon as possible” in order to get a Washington exemption from those sanctions, but don’t hold your breath. South Korea has already announced that it will buy 10% of its oil needs from Iran in 2012.

Most important of all, “isolated” Iran happens to be a supreme matter of national security for China, which has already rejected the latest Washington sanctions without a blink. Westerners seem to forget that the Middle Kingdom and Persia have been doing business for almost two millennia. (Does “Silk Road” ring a bell?)The Chinese have already clinched a juicy deal for the development of Iran’s largest oil field, Yadavaran. There’s also the matter of the delivery of Caspian Sea oil from Iran through a pipeline stretching from Kazakhstan to Western China. In fact, Iran already supplies no less than 15% of China’s oil and natural gas. It is now more crucial to China, energy-wise, than the House of Saud is to the U.S., which imports 11% of its oil from Saudi Arabia.

Nov. 18th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 34

Nov-18-2011 | Comments (0)

1. Israel, the US, Iran

Bird’s Eye: We start with a long piece of mine, combining about 20 different sources on Iranian nukes and potential military action. Some was foreshadowed in last week’s Tikkunista, most is new. Two additions, both by Stephen Walt from Foreign Policy: the first looks at why Tehran might not want nuclear weapons; the second finds the “special relationship” between Israel and the USA way too special.

* Nuclear Chicken Peter Marmorek Tikkun Daily Blog

What should the US do? Well, Romney announced this week he would bomb Iran if he felt sanctions weren’t working, and Gringrich agreed. (Cain announced he’ll go a step further and stop China from getting the bomb, but it would be too cruel to say more on that.) So if Israel did bomb Iran, and all the Republican candidates supported Israel, and AIPAC and J-Street supported Israel, what do you think Obama would do?

Yep, me too.

Really the only thing left that we can believe Obama stands for is Obama being president, and abandoning Israel during a major war doesn’t get him that second term. Obama knows the war would be a disaster, but in his mind would it be more of a disaster than losing the election? That’s another reason for Israel to strike before the next election.

Of course it’s not as though Israel and the US had been standing by and idly watching Iran. Within the past two years three top Iranian nuclear scientists have been mysteriously assassinated in Tehran, the Stuxnet virus (a sophisticated computer worm that only targeted Iranian nuclear computers) was released, and yesterday a major blast in Tehran killed 17 people, including the architect of Iran’s missile program. As Wikipedia drily says, “It has been speculated that Israel and the United States may have been involved.” Gee, you think?

* Why Tehran Might NOT Want the Bomb | Stephen M. Walt

Some think the inevitability of Iran’s getting the bomb is a reason to attack them now; for others, it is an argument for turning to robust containment.

I’m against the former and would favor the latter if necessary, but I do not think it is a foregone conclusion that Iran will actually go forward and acquire a nuclear weapons capability. In particular, I can think of two good reasons why a smart Iranian leader would not want to cross the nuclear threshold….

* Is Israel REALLY a “Strategic Asset?” | Stephen M. Walt

Today, Israel is the only country in the world that mainstream U.S. politicians (and most members of the foreign-policy establishment) cannot openly criticize. It is the only country in the world that U.S. presidents cannot pressure in any meaningful way. The United States does not have this sort of relationship with any other country in the world — not with Great Britain, or Japan, or South Korea, or Canada, or France, or Denmark. But it does with Israel, which is a key reason why Israel’s settlements have been expanding for more than forty years, even though every president since Lyndon Johnson has formally opposed such actions. The “special relationship” is also a major reason why the Oslo process failed, and why Barack Obama’s efforts to achieve a viable “two-state solution” have foundered. …So the real question is not whether the United States derives certain benefits from cooperating with Israel, just as it derives benefits from cooperating with other allies. Rather, it is whether the current “special relationship” of unconditional U.S. support is in America’s national interest.

The answer is no.

2. Israel & Iran: Targeting Armegeddon

Nov-11-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Let’s connect the Iranian dots. First a blatant false flag operation targets Iran in the US. Then the head of Mossad says he thinks Bibi is about to attack Iran, and it’s a disastrous idea. A UN atomic energy report says nothing new with Iran, and China and Russia refuse to support further sanctions on Iran, so nothing’s happening there. Then a close advisor to Obama on Middle Eastern Affairs says in a speech that Iran is getting nukes and it’s time for regime change. What might that look like? Fortunately War Tard plays out the games, so we can all see.

* Netanyahu Trying To Persuade Cabinet To Support Attack On Iran Haaretz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran, a senior Israeli official has said. According to the official, there is a “small advantage” in the cabinet for the opponents of such an attack. Netanyahu and Barak recently persuaded Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, to support such a move.

* Former Mossad Chief Seeks To Avert Israeli AttackDer Spiegel

On his last day in office, [Former Mossad chief} Dagan invited Israeli journalists for the first time ever to the Mossad’s headquarters, which has no official address and is not marked on any map. Then he announced that the Iranians would develop a nuclear bomb by the middle of the decade, at the earliest, but only if nothing and no one got in their way. He said it would take an additional three years before Iran developed a nuclear warhead. That would roughly put it in 2018, a date that would seem to make any attack now senseless.

Even if Israel attacked immediately, Dagan argued, it wouldn’t halt Iran’s nuclear program. On the contrary, the Iranians would be more motivated than ever to arm themselves and pursue a military course, while Israel would undoubtedly “pay a terrible, unbearable price.” He said that Iran and Syria, along with Hamas and Hezbollah, the terror militias they financially back, would rain missiles on the country from north to south, killing thousands. “How can we defend ourselves against such an attack?” Dagan asked, adding: “I have no answer to that.”

Israel’s top military censor sat next to Dagan, and when the presentation was over, the official told the journalists that they weren’t allowed to publish anything they’d heard. This time it wasn’t the Mossad chief who had to be protected from the public. Instead, it was the public that had to be protected from the Mossad chief.

* Iran Looks to China, Russia to Break out of US Sanctions Juan Cole Informed Comment

The four rounds of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran are likely about as far as Russia and China are willing to go. The problem is that sanctions on the Iranian financial and banking sector are already so extensive that the only way to go beyond them is to start a boycott of Iranian petroleum and gas. But China simply won’t go along with any such policy. In fact, China increased its petroleum imports from Iran in the first half of 2011 by 50%over the previous year. China took 650,000 barrels a day from Iran last June, making the latter the third biggest supplier, following Saudi Arabia and Angola. China also increased its naphtha imports from Iran by 280% over the previous year! China is now the world’s second-largest petroleum importer, after the United States, and clearly sees imports from Iran as an important part of its energy mix. So China is not voting at the UN to inflict on itself a shortfall of over half a million barrels a day of petroleum

* Opening volleys of major US push for Iran war Mondoweiss

Robert Wexler, former Florida congressman and a key Obama ally on Israel/Palestine issues, was one of the speakers at a Churches for Middle East Peace dinner last night. Wexler is a liberal Zionist, who (correctly) sees Israel’s long term interest in a two state solution, and has taken a lot of flack for defending Obama from attack by the Zionist right. But last night he was terrifying.

He began by saying he didn’t want to spend much time talking about the troubled peace process, about which there was little new to say, but Iran. What followed was a “Oh how it pains me to conclude this” analysis about how the US (not Israel) must launch a military attack on Iran, due to the progress Teheran has made in its nuclear program. Only then, Wexler said, in a line eerily evocative of the the neocons’ “road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad” line of 2002, will Israel feel secure enough to make peace with the Palestinians. Obama faces the choice of going down in history as the president who was on watch while Iran acquired nuclear weapons, or being the one who stopped it…. He closed by calling explicitly for “regime change” in Teheran.

* War Tard: Why Israel wants to attack Iran

The Israeli right wants more territory and they are not going to get it by entering peaceful negotiations with the Palestinians. That strategy is for wimps. All that more peace talks will buy is some good Israeli PR in the minds of a foreign public with the collective memory of a goldfish. And that’s worth jack shit in the regional power play and won’t deliver the needed real estate.

So is total war the solution? Of course it fucking is. It always is for us upright apes. Total war will solve a whole bunch of Israeli problems but start a whole set of new ones for the wider world. By attacking Iran and provoking an Iranian proxy response against Israel, the IDF will finally be able to take care of the settlement problem, Southern Lebanon, Gaza and the Golan Heights once and for all. With next door Syria destabilizing and Egypt out from under their Western controlled pet dictator, now is the time to make a big move on the chessboard. Before it’s too late.

Will they need US support? Sure. But they won’t get that by simply asking. Even if the answer is “no”, Netanyahu knows he can just act and drag the Americans in by default. He knows the Iranian response to an attack will be to use every tactic they’ve got once the pew-pew starts and Natanz is burning. One of those will be mining the Gulf and firing Chinese Silkworm missiles at all those fat oil tankers lumbering off their coast with 40% of world oil supply in their bellies. Oil prices will shoot through the roof overnight, the brittle American and Euro economies will crash dive and the US will be forced into this thing in a big way.

Sure, the Chinese and Russians will be pissed but will they get involved in the shooting and kick start WWIII? Probably not. It’ll be more fun for them to just sit back and watch the death spasms of American superpower. Sure, I’ve said before that WWIII is on the table but the Russkis and Chinese will probably play the waiting game and supply Iran with fucktons of weaponry while issuing a shitload of protests at the UN.

1. Followups

Oct-21-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: The US “false flag” claims to have unearthed an Iranian plot are flagging as they look falser. Outside of people whose jobs depend on taking them seriously, no one believes them, and the more the story unravels the phonier it looks. 00bama further exercises his license to kill; this time the victim is a 16 year old US citizen who, the government claims, was a terrorist. No trial, no evidence, just a dead body. Home of the grave. And a clear and simple bar chart shows the air-conditioning budget in Iraq and Afghanistan to be more than the entire NASA budget.

* The FBI Goes Rogue on Iran NationofChange

The FBI’s approach to “terror prevention” rely on spinning crime scenarios so as to lure unsuspecting “terrorists” into a criminal trap.

The recently announced arrest of the American-Iranian, Mansor Arbsibsiar, a “failed used car salesman turned drug peddler (who has a cousin employed by Iran’s Quds Force, the special operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards) falls neatly into this MO. The U.S. Justice Department alleges that Arbsibsiar planned to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington. At the same time the Department assures us that… “for the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents.” In this case the confidential source was a Drug Enforcement Agency operative, who is himself a convicted felon. According to Gareth Porter, the operative is heard on one of the FBI’s clandestine recording “inducing Arbarsiar to agree to the assassination of the Saudi ambassador.” That is entrapment and it is illegal. The “guides” are FBI agents who are involved in fabricating the crime itself. The result is a guaranteed arrest for the government. As Glenn Greenwald has noted, “nobody can deny its [the Department of Justice] record of excellence in thwarting its own terrorist plots.”

* Obama authorizes assassination of 16-year old U.S Citizen Glen Greenwald Salon

Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen — far from any battlefield and with no due process — it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager’s life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. …Every now and then it’s worth pausing to reflect on how often we talk about the killing of people by the U.S. Literally, the U.S. government is just continuously killing people in multiple countries around the world. Who else does that? Nobody — certainly nowhere near on this scale. The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, for death, including his own citizens; he does it in total secrecy and with no oversight; and this power is not just asserted but routinely exercised. The U.S., over and over, eradicates people’s lives by the dozens from the sky, with bombs, with checkpoint shootings, with night raids — in far more places and far more frequently than any other nation or group on the planet. Those are just facts.

What’s most striking about this is how little effort is needed to induce America’s political and media elites to acquiesce to it. The government need do nothing more than utter empty nationalistic phrases such as “we’re at war” and “Terrorist!” and this unparalleled, endless state violence all becomes instantly justified.

* AC vs NASA

6. That Iran Terrorism Hoax

Oct-14-2011 | Comments (1)

Bird’s Eye: We’re reading fairly unanimous scepticism among serious commentators about the purported Iranian plot, supposedly run by a complete incompetent who was supposed to hire Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. So, as Cicero said, cui bono? (Who gains?) This has all the hallmarks of a false flag operation, designed to demonize Iran… and at a time when the US and Israel, who have jointly assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists, need a scapegoat to deflect huge internal protest. Not just fake, but badly done fake. (Here are some real examples of Middle East terrorism, fwiw)

* Why Obama Needs to Come Clean about the “Iranian Plot” Stephen M. Walt

I don’t know what actually happened here, and I remain open to the possibility that there really was some sort of officially-sanctioned Iranian plot to assassinate foreign ambassadors here on U.S. soil. But the more I think about it, the less plausible whole thing appears. In particular, blowing up buildings in the United States is an act of war, and history shows that the United States is not exactly restrained when it responds to direct attacks on U.S. soil…. Iran’s leaders are not stupid, and surely they would have known that a plot like this ran the risk of triggering a very harsh U.S. response. Given that extraordinary risk, is it plausible to believe they would have entrusted such a sensitive mission to a serial bungler like Ababsiar? If you are going to attack a target in the United States, wouldn’t you send your A Team, instead of Mr. Magoo? Hence the growing skepticism, including the possibility that this might be some sort of “false flag” operation by whatever groups or countries might benefit from further deterioration in U.S.-Iranian relations.

* Wagging the Dog with Iran’s Maxwell Smart Juan Cole Informed Comment

It seems pretty obvious that Arbabsiar is very possibly clinically insane. Here are the top 10 reasons that he cannot be Iran’s answer to 007:

10. Arbabsiar was known in Corpus Christi, Texas, “for being almost comically absent-minded”

9. Possibly as a result of a knife attack in 1982, he suffered from bad short-term memory

8. He was always losing his cell phone

7. He was always misplacing his keys

6. He was always forgetting his briefcase and documents in stores

5. He “was just not organized,” a former business partner remarked

4. As part owner of a used car dealership, he was always losing title deeds to the vehicles

3. Arbabsiar, far from a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim, may have been an alcoholic; his nickname is “Jack” because of his fondness for Jack Daniels whiskey

2. Arbabsiar used to not only drink to excess, but also used pot and went with prostitutes. He once talked loudly in a restaurant about going back to Iran, where he could have an Iranian girl for only $50. He was rude and was thrown out of some establishments.

1. All of his businesses failed one after another

* The “very scary” Iranian Terror plotGlen Greenwald Salon

The ironies here are so self-evident it’s hard to work up the energy to point them out. Outside of Pentagon reporters, Washington Post Editorial Page Editors, and Brookings “scholars,” is there a person on the planet anywhere who can listen with a straight face as drone-addicted U.S. Government officials righteously condemn the evil, illegal act of entering another country to commit an assassination? Does anyone, for instance, have any interest in finding out who is responsible for the spate of serial murders aimed at Iran’s nuclear scientists? Wouldn’t people professing to be so outraged by the idea of entering another country to engage in assassination be eager to get to the bottom of that?

Then there’s the War on Terror irony: our Hated Enemy here (Iran) is a country which had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. Meanwhile, our close ally, the victim on whose behalf we are so outraged (Saudi Arabia), is not only one of the most tyrannical and aggressive regimes on the planet, but produced 15 of the 19 hijackers and had extensive and still-unknown involvement in that attack. If the U.S. is so deeply offended by the involvement of a foreign government in an attack on U.S. soil, it would be looking first to its close friend Saudi Arabia, where “elements of the government” were likely involved in an actual plot rather than a joke of a plot.

2. Iran, Nukes, and Reality: Pick Two of Three

Jun-10-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: You can have Iran and Nukes, as the Rand Corp. this week claimed that Iran was only two months away from The Bomb, in a story picked up and spread far and wee by the National Post (and others of its ilk.) You can have Iran and Reality, as Seymour Hersh, Meir Dagan (former head of Israeli Mossad) and Aviv Kochavi (head of Israeli military intelligence) all examine the Iranian nuclear program, and find no nukes planned. Or you can have Nukes and Reality, as Juan Cole places the Iranian weapons-of-mass-destruction fear-mongering in the context of the one real nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel. But however you strain and twist, there’s no story that has all three elements.

* RAND Corp: Iran 8 Weeks From the Bomb

According to a RAND report, the United States and the world have blown the chance to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Half a year ago, US air strikes and a no-fly zone might have prevented a nuclear bomb in the hands of the martyrdom ideology of Khomeinist Iran. That window has now slammed shut. In about 8 weeks, the RAND report concludes, Iran will have the nuclear material for its first bomb. RAND Corporation’s Gregory S. Jones believes that Iran has produced almost 40 kilograms of uranium enriched near 20% percent. Jones suggests that air strikes can no longer stop Ahmadinejad’s rush to nuclear weapons. [Editor’s note: The Rand Corp also famously said, “the United States has obliged the world to squarely face the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.”]

* Iran’s Nuclear Threat—Real or Not? Seymour Hersh The New Yorker

[Editor’s note: full looonngg story behind $6 firewall; 500+ word excerpt at link]

There’s a large body of evidence, however, including some of America’s most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago—allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state’s military capacities and intentions. The two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003. Yet Iran is heavily invested in nuclear technology. In the past four years, it has tripled the number of centrifuges in operation at its main enrichment facility at Natanz, which is buried deep underground. International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) inspectors have expressed frustration with Iran’s level of coöperation, but have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that enriched uranium has been diverted to an illicit weapons program. In mid-February, Lieutenant General James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, provided the House and Senate intelligence committees with an updated N.I.E. on the Iranian nuclear-weapons program. A previous assessment, issued in 2007, created consternation and anger inside the Bush Administration and in Congress by concluding, “with high confidence,” that Iran had halted its nascent nuclear-weapons program in 2003.

* Dagan, Ofer and Israel’s Growing Iran Credibility Gap Juan Cole Informed Comment

The back story that has emerged in the Israeli press is that Barak, who is a notorious war-monger and adventurist, had gotten Netanyahu’s ear and pressed for a military strike on Iran. Dagan and all the other major security officials stood against this foolhardy plan, and managed to derail it. But Dagan is said to be concerned that virtually all the level heads have gone out of office together, and that Netanyahu and Barak may now be in a position to revive their crazy plan of attacking Iran. Moreover, they may want to attack in September, as a way of creating a crisis that will overshadow Palestinian plans to seek membership in the United Nations. Dagan and other high Israeli security officials appear to believe that Iran has no present nuclear weapons program. That is what Military Intelligence Director, Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, has told the Israeli parliament. Kochavi thinks it unlikely that Iran would start up a military nuclear program….

So to sum up: The former head of Mossad thinks that Netanyahu and Barak are terminally flaky; he and other high officials think Iran has no nuclear weapons program; he thinks an Israeli attack on Iran was and would be “the stupidest thing I have ever heard;” and he and other now-retired security officials think that the 2002 peace agreement offered Israel by the Arab League is the country’s last best chance for integration into the Middle East and security for Israeli citizens.

Cross-posted on rabble.ca, Canada’s voice from the left.

4. Middle East Shifts

Dec-10-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Sadly, Tikkunista was right when we called the Middle East Peace negotiations doomed, a few months ago. So now what happens? We look first at the increasing pressure building on Israel both from within the Middle East, as Iran’s power grows (aside from the nuclear weaponry issue) and from outside, as Brazil, Argentina, and Uraguay all recognize Palestine and the 1967 borders. Then we look at Juan Cole and Stephen Walt, two distinguished commentators, who look at what possibilities remain.

* Leaks Suggest Iran Is Now Winning in the Middle East Juan Cole’s Columns – Truthdig

Iran is winning and Israel is losing. That is the startling conclusion we reach if we consider how things have changed in the Middle East in the two years since most of the WikiLeaks State Department cables about Iran’s regional difficulties were written. Lebanon’s Sunni prime minister, once a virulent critic, quietly made his pilgrimage to the Iranian capital last week. Israeli hopes of separating Syria from Iran have been dashed. Turkey, once a strong ally of Israel, is now seeking better relations with Iran and with Lebanon’s Shiites.

* Argentina Joins Brazil In Recognition Of Palestinian State – Haaretz

Argentina and Uruguay announced Monday that they intend to join Brazil in recognizing an independent Palestinian state, provoking sharp criticism from Israel, French news agency AFP reported. “The Argentine government recognizes Palestine as a free and independent state within the borders defined in 1967,” AFP quoted Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, reading a letter sent by Argentine President Cristina Kirchner wrote to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. Shortly after Argentina’s move, Uruguay announced that it too would recognize a Palestinian state starting from 2011. “Uruguay will surely follow the same path as Argentina in 2011,” Uruguayan deputy foreign minister Roberto Conde told AFP.

* Israelis Jettison Peace Talks Juan Cole

Likely, bad things will now happen, despite Obama’s perpetual optimism… If the Likud-led government won’t negotiate into being a two-state solution, granting a Palestinian state in 22% of the League-of-Nations-defined Palestine, then only three possibilities remain.

1. Israeli colonization could proceed apace, reinforcing an Apartheid in which stateless Palestinians without rights precariously eke out a life under foreign military occupation, while being actively stolen from by a horde of Israeli squatters. While such an Apartheid situation is not stable, it could go on for decades before producing a real blow-up.

2. There could be, willy-nilly, a one-state solution. Apartheid could place so many boycotts and so much opprobrium on Israel that ultimately the welfare and livelihoods of ordinary Israelis would be badly affected. They could react by emigrating, or by voting citizenship for the Palestinians as a means of ending a growing international boycott (something that may only develop gradually over the next two decades).

3. The Palestinians could unilaterally declare a state. This step is being toyed with by Mahmoud Abbas. The plan was probably helped by the declarations during the past week on the part of Brazil and Argentina that they recognized the Palestinian state.

* What’s Plan B in the Middle East? Or Maybe It’s Plan C … D …. E ….?| Stephen M. Walt

The good news is that the Obama administration has withdrawn its humiliating attempt to bribe Israel into accepting a 90-day extension of the (partial) settlement freeze. Not only was this negotiating ploy one of the more degrading moments in the annals of U.S. diplomacy, it also had scant chance of success. To their credit, Obama’s Middle East teams finally figured this out — a few weeks later than most observers — and pulled the plug on the deal. The bad news, however, is that it’s not clear what their next move is. Everyone now realizes that the United States cannot play the role of a fair-minded mediator in this conflict, and the early hopes that Obama would adopt a smarter approach have been repeatedly dashed.

This situation isn’t good for anyone — not the United States, not Israel, and not the Palestinians. It is increasingly likely that a genuine two-state solution isn’t going to be reached, and as I’ve noted before, the United States will be in a very awkward position once mainstream writers and politicians begin to recognize that fact. Once it becomes clear that “two states for two people” just ain’t gonna happen, the United States will have to choose between backing a one-state, binational democracy, embracing ethnic cleansing, or supporting permanent apartheid. Those are the only alternatives to a two-state solution, and no future president will relish having to choose between them. But once the two-state solution is off the table, that is precisely the choice a future President would face.

2. The War on Iran

Dec-03-2010 | Comments (2)

Bird’s Eye: One key revelation in the Wikileaks is the extent to which many Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, front and centre) in the Middle East see Iran as a threat and urge the US to attack it, contrary to what they say in public. Altmuslim explores the hypocrisy of their position. We follow with two pieces that look at the ongoing US/Israeli war against Iran, both through cyber warfare, and acts of terrorism. And we link to a fascinatingly offensive blog, War Tard. Written in the persona of a foul mouthed teenager on 4Chan (reader discretion alert!) the blog looks with considerable insight at how a full out military war against Iran might play out. Short version? Not well.

*WikiLeaks: Exposing the hypocrisy of Muslim governments Altmuslim

The preliminary review of the cables by New York Times and the Guardian reveals the duplicity of many Arab nations on foreign policy, especially in the case of Iran. For example in the past few years, Arab nations have publicly countered Israeli propaganda that Iran is a bigger threat to the world, than the resolution of the Palestinian issue, with claims that the failure to bring a just solution to the Palestinians was the number one issue for Arabs and Muslims. But apparently, privately these same nations have been parroting Bibi Netanyahu’s mantra to the U.S., repeatedly asking the US to bomb Iran and even invade it with ground troops.

The Saudis refer to Iran, a fellow Muslim and “Islamic nation” as “evil” and have requested the U.S. to “cut of the head of the snake”. The same cables also reveal that even now the main financiers of Al Qaeda are Saudi donors. American Presidents, George W. Bush and Barak H. Obama have identified Al Qaeda as the biggest threat to the U.S. and yet they collude with the nation whose citizens are its biggest financiers. Why don’t the Saudis cut off the head of the real snake, Al Qaeda, by arresting and imprisoning its financiers? Most Americans know that fifteen of the nineteen terrorists that attacked the US on September 11, 2001, were Saudis. None were Iranians. A significant number of foreign fighters who joined al Qaeda in Iraq were Saudis. This is a classic case of “the pot calling the kettle black!”

Do not interpret my criticism of Saudi Arabia as support for Iran. Its current leaders are a bunch of thugs who stole governance from their own people by force and made a mockery out of the idea of an Islamic democracy.

* Iranian Computers Under Computer Virus Attack Middle East War and Peace

Alyaee, secretary-general of Iran’s industrial computer servers, including its nuclear facilities control systems, confirmed Saturday, Sept. 25, that 30,000 computers belonging to classified industrial units had been infected and disabled by the malicious Stuxnet virus. This followed [reports] that a clandestine cyber war is being fought against Iran by the United States with elite cyber war units established by Israel. Stuxnet is believed to be the most destructive virus ever devised for attacking major industrial complexes, reactors and infrastructure. The experts say it is beyond the capabilities of private or individual hackers and could have been produced by a high-tech state like America or Israel, or its military cyber specialists….Stuxnet is powerful enough to change an entire environment, he said without elaborating. Not only has it taken control of automatic industrial systems, but has raided them for classified information and transferred the date abroad.

* Attack On Iranian Nuclear Scientists Prompts Hit Squad Claims The Guardian

Tehran today accused the west and Israel of dispatching a hit squad against its atomic programme, after an Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and another injured in co-ordinated attacks. The attackers rode up on motorcycles and stuck bombs to the windows of the scientists’ cars as they were leaving their homes in Tehran on the way to work. Seconds later the bombs detonated….Both men were senior figures in nuclear research. Abbasi, a former Revolutionary Guard, is named in a UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran as working in banned nuclear activities with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the scientist accused by western governments of running a secret nuclear weapons programme…. The attacks were similar to the assassination in January of Masoud Ali Mohammadi, an expert on particle physics, killed by a remote-control bomb strapped to a motorcycle as he was leaving his Tehran home on his way to work.

* My Favorite War that Hasn’t Happened Yet War Tard

Part 1 looks at why a war is likely

The Israelis have 200+ nukes which makes them non ‘invadable’ and gives them regional ‘theatre dominance’ in any potential conflict with their Arab neighbors. If the useless Syrians and Jordanians and Egyptians all tried a rerun of 1967, and, by some stretch of the imagination overran Israel by acting in concert, that would force the Israeli generals’ fingers to the single red button of “win” that wipes out Cairo, Damascus and Amman.

Actually, that’s the crux of the problem for the Israelis and why they don’t like Iran. It’s all about ‘theater dominance’. Iran wants their very own big red button of win…There’s also a time factor built into this equation. The Iranians are probably at most 2 years away from having enough gunk cobbled together to set off their very own big one. If and when they do, Israel will have to play ball and get serious about giving the Palestinians a fair deal. That’s what happens when you lose theater dominance. You end up having to negotiate. …And that’s why Israel will have to decide pretty soon if it’s going to attack. Because theater equalization dawns the second the Iranians detonate their first underground nuke.

And now comes my favourite part of this whole war. The Iranian response.

… Let’s say Natanz is dust and a good many other nuke sites around Iran are seriously damaged, setting back their ‘red button of win’ program five years. How do they respond? If the Iranians want to go full retard they can launch all their Shahab 4s, two stage rockets that can easily reach Tel Aviv accurately, and reign down some serious pain. Hell, if they wanted to get dick waving crazy they could load up the warheads with chemical hell and wipe out hundreds of thousands. But this would merely invite Israel to nuke them back to the stone age. So that’s an unlikely move on their part. The Iranians don’t have an air force capable of launching a reciprocal strike on Israel so what do?

My favourite option if I were an Iranian general? Attack the Saudi oil installation at Ras Tanura, 100 miles across the Persian Gulf from Bushehr. Forty percent of the world’s oil passes through this port daily. Launch everything you have against that, turn those fat naked storage tanks and pipelines into burning wrecks, and suddenly oil goes to three hundred dollars a barrel overnight and now the whole world is involved ….

Every Western nation’s economy will crash fast now that spice flow is hindered. Everyone will be drawn in. And since Iran also happens to be sitting on the 4th largest oil deposit on earth, things are going to happen fast. The Iranians can spam mines into the Persian Gulf just to make sure no tanker can go about its lumbering business. There will be nothing the US Navy or Israelis can do about any of this unless they can track ten thousand speedboats. Obviously the Saudis will be highly pissed but other than some bombing runs there’s nothing they can do to realistically damage the Iranians.

3. Iran: A Nuclear Deal and Sanctions?

May-21-2010 | Comments (2)

Bird’s-Eye: Iran announced a deal with Turkey and Brazil over the nuclear enrichment issue. (Short summary: Turkey enriches Iranian fuel enough for medical use, not enough for bomb). But the US presses on with UN sanction

demands. Why? Maybe because Iran has promised this before, and reneged. Maybe because it isn’t their deal. Maybe to make sure Iran does sign the deal. Let us explain….

* Iran Announces Breakthrough Nuclear Exchange Deal Juan Cole Informed Comment

This deal is virtually the same as the one agreed to by Iran at Geneva last October, on which it promptly reneged. The only difference is that Turkey has been added as a sort of escrow-holder for the Iranian stock of low enriched uranium. Why that change suddenly would make the deal palatable to the hardliners who torpedoed the last such agreement is mysterious…. It is possible that the Iranian leadership, especially top cleric Ali Khamenei, were persuaded by interlocutors such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, who warned that in the absence of such an agreement, Iran would increasingly face crippling international sanctions of the sort that virtually destroyed Iraq. These four countries, called BRIC, have emerged as a second tier of world power after the G7 advanced capitalist parliamentary powers of the West plus Japan, led by the US. Brazil and Turkey engaged in intensive last-minute negotiations with Iran. It would be wise to see this announcement as a preliminary gambit of some sort rather than as a done deal. But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is correct that if it goes through, it puts the ball in the court of the West, especially of Barack Obama and the United States.

* Why the U.S. Should Welcome the Nuclear Deal with Iran | Stephen M. Walt

The first thing to note is that we’ve seen this movie before (or at least, we’ve seen something rather like it), and it remains to be seen whether any uranium will actually change hands. It’s possible that the whole thing is just a subterfuge designed to ward off stricter economic sanctions, and that eventually one of the signatories (most likely Iran) will find a way to wiggle out of the deal.

… Here’s why I think the United States should welcome the deal. The only feasible way out of the current box is via diplomacy, because military force won’t solve the problem for very long, could provoke a major Middle East war, and is more likely to strengthen the clerical regime and make the United States look like a bully with an inexhaustible appetite for attacking Muslim countries. (And having Israel try to do the job wouldn’t help, because we’d be blamed for it anyway). I think George Bush figured that out before he left office, and I think President Obama knows it too.

* “Give Turkey A Chance” Al Jazeera

Brazil and Turkey have growing ambitions in international affairs. Both countries are non-permanent members of the UN Security council who do not have veto power. Turkish officials had been in touch with their US counterparts thoughout negotiations with Iran, a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said. The US and Turkey are strategic allies. “Hillary Clinton [the US Secretary of State] did not want them [Brazil and Turkey] to fail but she never thought they would suceed. So the US went ahead with the sanctions draft,” our correspondent said. ”If Iran signs the letter, then sanctions may not be an option. China might want to give the Brazil-Turkey deal a chance.”

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