Israel reassures West: No Iran attack in 2008

TEL AVIV — Israel has signaled the U.S. and other allies that air operations to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities are not imminent.

(The planned war is about Regime Change. Period. The LIES being spread by these warmongering Extremists and the compliant corporate media are simply their weak attempt at concealing the illegal nature of their conspiracy.)

Israeli leaders have sent messages to several Western countries that ruled out an attack on Teheran in 2008. Israel told the governments of Britain, France and the United States that the Zionist state would allow for yet another diplomatic effort to halt Iran's uranium enrichment program.

(The 'Diplomacy Canard' was employed during the run-up to the illegal attack on Iraq. Iran's program of power generation is not the issue. Israel and its co-conspirators have fabricated the illusion of a crisis with the sole purpose of feigning a 'justification' for again comitting "The Supreme International Crime, the Crime Against Peace". But nobody's falling for it.)

"There has been alarm in some capitals that Israel will attack Iran over the next few months or even weeks," an Israeli official said.

The official said the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to wait until France assumes the presidency of the European Union in July. France, he said, was expected to lead a European drive to expand sanctions on Teheran.

(Which raises an interesting question. Have the Paris Police shelved their investigation into documents it uncovered which showed that Sarkozy is an Israeli "Sayan", or foreign agent?)

Over the last few weeks, the United States has raised the prospect of an Israeli air strike on Iran in 2008. Bush administration officials, particularly those from the Defense Department, said an Israel Air Force exercise in the Aegean Sea in June was meant to practice a massive air strike on Iran. The exercise, conducted with Greece, was said to have included more than 100 Israeli aircraft, including F-15s, F-16s and KC-130 air refueling tankers.

"The international community must not allow Iran to go nuclear," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

(Why not?)

The U.S. intelligence community was said to have assessed that the Israeli air exercise concluded basic preparations for an attack on Iran. The intelligence community determined that the exercise demonstrated the feasibility of a massive Israeli air strike at a range of about 1,600 kilometers.

(The strike, however, is about starting their planned war and occupation, not about any fictional "nuclear threat".)

But the Israeli official said the air force exercise did not reflect plans to attack Iran. He said most of the exercise focused on search-and-rescue as well as mid-air refueling.

"There will not be any operation in 2008," the official said. "An operation such as this must be coordinated — at least with the United States."

Britain and France have become concerned over the prospect of an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran. Britain has issued an alert to its embassy in Bahrain of an imminent U.S. confrontation with Teheran.

(Where is the Antiwar Movement? Have Britons lost control of their Government?)

On June 30, U.S. Fifth Fleet commander Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff warned that Iran would not be allowed to block Gulf shipping. Cosgriff, responding to Iranian threats to halt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, said this would constitute an "act of war."

(No, it would be a reaction to the 'belligerence' of the Extremists plotting to attack Iran. But this statement demonstrates the desperation of these War Criminals to start another illegal war.)

"I cannot imagine, given the critical nature of that body of water, that the international community would not be outraged should Iran or any entity move to restrict the freedom of navigation," Cosgriff told a news conference at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama. "They are not going to be allowed to do so. It would be an act of war. In a tight oil market, the international community would respond vigorously to that."

(The 'oil market' is being artificially manipulated, by Western companies. Both Britain and the US have, over the past two years, demonstrated their willingness and ability to fake such events.)

On Tuesday, the U.S. television network, ABC News, reported that Israel could strike Iran's nuclear facilities in late 2008. ABC quoted a senior Pentagon official as reporting an "increasing likelihood" that Israel would attack Iran once it produced enough highly-enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear weapon.

(Which wouldn't occur for at least a decade, and only if Iran greatly increased its small and inefficient process, a move which would be immediately evident to the myriad eyes intently watching Iran's every move.)

"The Israelis are interested in such publications," Israel Television military analyst Yoav Limor said. "It tells the international community: 'Stop me.'"

A senior Israeli security source said the military was not ready to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.

(These don't exist, so of course, this would be impossible ... What an irresponsible report, and more evidence of the media acting as a willing stooge for these Sociopaths ...)

The source told the Israeli daily Maariv that the military, weakened by an inadequate budget, was incapable of a sustained strike.

(This is irrelevant, since the US has already signed an agreement which says the US military will collaborate with Israel, even if Israel is the Aggressor. People throughout the world, however, should note that Russia has signed similar agreements with Iran ...)

"Years of neglect, and cancellation of projects and budgets, have left us without strategic ability for effective attack," the Israeli source was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

ABC quoted the Pentagon official as saying that Israel also wants to stage the operation before Iran acquires the SA-20, or S-400 air and missile defense system from Russia. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran could acquire the S-400 Triumf over the next few months.

"The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point," the official was quoted as saying. "We are in the window of vulnerability."

 http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_israel0292_07_02.asp

The alternative to an Israeli attack on Iran
By Shlomo Ben-Ami and Trita Parsi
Wed Jul 2, 4:00 AM ET

Washington and Jerusalem - Is war between Israel and Iran inevitable?

To listen to Iran's radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Israel's Iranian-born transportation minister Shaul Mofaz, or even recent reports that Israel carried out a major military training mission over the Mediterranean to rehearse an attack on Iran, you might be left with that impression.

Mr. Mofaz's comments last month indicating he would attack Iran didn't help perceptions either. The immediate effect of his statement was a record increase in oil prices – giving Mofaz's Iranian nemeses a windfall of several million dollars.

(But TRILLIONS to the Bush family, and the rest of the Israeli and American career politician-warmongers who draw massive profits from the manipulation of the energy market.)

Mofaz and Mr. Ahmadinejad are wrong. Israel and Iran are not destined to be enemies, nor does the military option present a real way out of the current impasse. In reality, it doesn't offer a solution at all.

(But there is no crisis. Israel and the US engineered this illusion, so that they would appear to be responding to it, rather than starting another illegal and unnecessary war.)

Logistical challenges of hitting Iran's nuclear facilities and regional consequences of war aside, military strikes wouldn't destroy any potential clandestine facilities in Iran nor Iran's knowledge of the enrichment process.

(No, because these do not exist. But the plan is simply to start the war these War Criminals planned before being installed to power.)

Even the most successful bombing raid would leave Iran with some nuclear capability. At best, proponents of this option admit, bombing would set back the program five years. During that time the expectation is that the Iranian people miraculously would unseat the country's ruling clergy and dismantle the nuclear program permanently.

(And Iraqis were to greet their 'liberators' in the streets with flowers ...)

This unjustified expectation underlines a central flaw in the outlook of both Jerusalem and Washington: the tendency to treat the risks and repercussions of military operations with extreme optimism, while treating the diplomacy challenges with extreme skepticism.

(They don't believe this BS. It's the LIE they peddle to hide their true intentions. Such LIES betray the Utter Contempt in which they hold the world ... This is but one signal that these men are Sociopaths.  http://www.hare.com This is the real threat we face.)

A much more probable scenario: Tehran would use the attack to invoke Article 10 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and withdraw from the treaty altogether.

(No, they would respond to this Aggression, and the war the Israeli and Israeli-American Extremists are trying so desperately to start would be on.)

This article gives each party the right to withdraw if it decides that extraordinary events "have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country." Iran would cease all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, expel all UN inspectors, and by that, deprive the international community of much-needed transparency and insight.

More ominously, the attack could prompt the Iranian leadership to make the crucial decision to seek an actual nuclear bomb and not just the capability to build one, while accentuating Iran's role as a power against the status quo.

(Iran's program of nuclear power does NOT give them the ability to create a bomb.)

Consequently, a successful bombing campaign by either the US or Israel would simply guarantee a nuclear armed and vengeful Iran five years down the road. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said recently that if Iran left the NPT, it could build a nuclear weapon within a year.

(That's not exactly what he said ...)

To make matters worse, any military attack would reduce rather than increase the likelihood of a democratic takeover. As unpopular as the Iranian government is, the expectation that a secular democratic government would emerge in the aftermath of a bombing campaign is wildly optimistic and reminiscent of the Bush administration's miscalculations going into Iraq.

(This wasn't a 'miscalculation'. It was just another of their LIES.)

War with Iran would be the death knell and not the savior of the Iranian democracy movement.

(These Extremists are not interested in 'Democracy'. Bush, PNAC, and the Israeli Extremists loathe the concept, because they know full well that their brand of Neo-Fascism is opposed by the majority.)

Any serious effort to address the Iranian challenge must recognize the true nature of the conflict. There is nothing apocalyptic about the nuclear stand-off or the Israeli-Iranian rivalry. Rather, these are strategically driven conflicts that can be managed and even resolved through the appropriate level of diplomacy.

(No, what you have to understand is that there is NO CRISIS, except for the fact that Fascists in the US and Israel are trying to start another illegal war.)

A give and take is needed between Iran and Israel in which Iran must end its support for violent groups and acknowledge Israel's legitimate security concerns. Israel and the US must accommodate an Iranian role commensurate with its geopolitical weight and use Iran's inclusion into regional political and economic structures to tame Iran's revolutionary impulses.

(Israel and the US must begin to respect and obey the Rule of Law ...)

That said, Israeli-Iranian enmity is not entirely dissociated from the Arab-Israeli dispute.

(Meaning European Zionism's decades-long War against the Palestinians ...)

The latter definitely facilitates and enhances Iran's strategy of regional destabilization.

(The US and Israel are the parties responsible for 'regional destabilization', but most of this is intentionally carried out, in the name of OIL.)

A regional system of security and cooperation in the Middle East cannot be established without an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

(Zionism's beliigerent continuation of its war to eliminate Palestine, and the world communities shameful Appeasement of these Extremists.)

And it is equally important to address the question of nuclear disarmament.

For regional security to be possible it is not only necessary for Iran, Israel, and the US to grant one another minimum levels of recognition, it would also be necessary that Israel discard the notion that the regional order should be based on its nuclear monopoly.

(Its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons - WMD - are not about 'regional order'. It's about making action to stop its race war in Palestine appear to be an impossibility, and effectively place Zionists above the law.)

The real choice in the long run is not between suspension of enrichment or war – it is between a verifiably nuclear-free Middle East or uncontrolled proliferation.

(No, it's a choice between the continued Appeasement of the real belligerent parties - the US and Israel - or some frank discussion about the real threat facing us, and some political will and courage to hold the criminals accountable for their actions.)

• Shlomo Ben-Ami is vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and former foreign minister of Israel. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and author of "Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US."

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080702/cm_csm/yparsi_1

Ex-intelligence official: World expects Israel to bomb Iran

West assumes Israel will hit Iran, (Zionist) State to be blamed in case of global flare-up, ex-intel officer Yossi Kuperwasser says; Tehran believes likelihood of strike on its nuke facilities very low, he says

Roi Mandel Published: 07.01.08, 22:00 / Israel News

The West believes that Israel is aware of the magnitude of the Iranian nuclear threat and assumes that the Jewish state will bomb Iran, ex-IDF intelligence officer Yossi Kuperwasser told Ynet Tuesday.

(The 'west' understands that the 'threat' is entirely fictional, and is nothing more than the "Iraq Treatment", this time being used to start a war against Iran that a relatively small but powerful group of Neo-Fascists planned over a decade ago.)

Kuperwasser, the former head of the IDF's Research and Assessment Division, believes that the Pentagon source's assessment that Israel will likely strike in Iran by the end of the year shows that the West assumes Israel will do the dirty work for it.

(No, this demonstrates that nobody else is foolish enough to start another illegal war against an Arab state.)

"That way, in case of a global flare-up, Israel could be blamed," Kuperwasser says.

(Aside from American politicians aligned with Israeli/Zionist Extremism, Israel is the only state trying to start another unnecessary and disastrous, illegal war.)

The former senior officer, who for many years dealt with (invented) Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, told Ynet the most problematic issue was Tehran's ability to produce industrial quantities of high-grade uranium.

(It does not possess such a capability ...)

"Within a year to a year and a half, the Iranians will have enough uranium for a nuclear bomb," Kuperwasser says. "This is also the American intelligence estimate, which at the time was harshly criticized, and rightfully so. As far as we know, the Iranians have not yet reached this capability…at the same time, they continue their research uninterrupted."

(This is NOT what the NIE said, and this statement is a LIE, wholly unsupported by any form of evidence.)

Turning his attention to the SA-20 aerial defense system purchased by Iran from Russia, Kuperwasser admits that the missile system could make an aerial strike considerably more difficult to carry out.

"This is a missile system that can to protect against missiles and airplanes. The Iranians have another aerial system today, but they view it as inadequate. Clearly, every addition to the aerial defense system may minimize the effectiveness of an aerial strike," he says.

(That's the plan. I'd upgrade, too, if I knew that such people were conspiring to attack my country, completely devoid of any justification.)

'West is sensitive to pain, money'

While the West has increasingly internalized the Iranian nuclear threat, the process has been too slow and insufficient, the former military officer says.

(There is no such threat, and this is why they haven't acted.)

"The West realizes that this is an Iranian challenge to the existing world order, aiming for Islam to enjoy a different status," Kuperwasser says. "Finally people have woken up, but the question is whether officials in the US and Europe realize the gravity at this time. It looks as though everyone is trying to shift the responsibility to someone else, and they believe that ultimately, if nothing changes, Israel will do the job for the West."

(No, they will do it for themselves. Nobody's buying these LIES this time around, regardless of the political processes the Americans and Israelis have succeeded in manipulating throughout 'the West'.)

Kuperwasser says the Iranians are continuing their nuclear project unabated, in the belief that nobody will stand in their way.

(That's because they've done nothing wrong, so nobody should ...)

"Iran realizes that the West is sensitive to pain and money, and won't embark on an operation that would significantly boost oil prices," he says. "Every time the possibility of a military strike is raised, the Revolutionary Guard's commander speaks out and warns against the chaos. They believe that the likelihood of a strike is very low."

"In this poker game, the Iranians are leading at this time," Kuperwasser says. "The pressure should be boosted considerably, and it should be made clear that a military move will be carried out if needed…if the Iranians believe that the West is serious, they will think twice about whether it is worthwhile for them to continue."

(This is not a poker game. We should all fear politicians speaking about warfare as if it's a game ... A game that they won't play themselves, but they'll force their citizens into ...)

 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3562702,00.html