THE IMPENDING INVASION OF IRAN

For months I have been noting but generally ignoring all the notices of an impending invasion of Iran. Many months ago, I even gave a little talk on the question of whether or not such an invasion was likely. My conclusion was that I wasn’t seeing strong enough evidence to conclude that it was. I’ve always reserved a little spot in my thinking for the possibility that it would become a reality, though, and now it looks to me like the pressure for it is building to the boiling point.

What convinced me? – The fact that Israel has now begun a public push for it. For a long time now, Israel and the US have been joined at the hip. In the early years of Israel’s existence their cause was glorified, and no one I knew questioned that position. The more I understand about the middle-East, however, the more I come to wonder how much influence the western world’s interest in establishing control in the middle-East had over Britain’s decision to hand part of Palestine over to the transient Jews who first settled the land we know as Israel. It had certainly become to hot for the Brits, so they undoubtedly saw some advantage to having a grateful population in a new nation as an ally in the region. Wish I knew more about that. Maybe I ought to do some research!!

At any rate, it is certainly clear that these days the US and Israel are joined at the hip and marching in lockstep on middle-Eastern policy. When Israel wanted us to settle Iraq down, we (thanks to the neo-cons) complied by invading. When we wanted to settle Lebanon down by taking on Hezbollah, Israel complied by standing in for us to avoid alarming the whole region over widening US aggression.

Now we have reached a point where both countries are openly pressing for invading Iran, and that’s what has my knees knocking.

For months, it was just BushCo who were rattling their swords and shaking the bushes trying to stir up sentiment for expanding the war into Iran. dick Cheney has been pushing for it publicly for at least two years. Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has played into his hands several times with his stupidly defiant rhetoric, and his country’s insistence on continuing a nuclear development program without allowing complete monitoring by the international community hasn’t helped.

The end result is that people in the US largely perceive Iran as a dangerous enemy – just as they saw Saddam Hussein as a dangerous enemy. Throw in the John Wayne attitude of BushCo’s backers and you have a formula that certainly could give rise to an invasion.

There is no question that BushCo has long been ratcheting up the pressure for an invasion, but Israel has now come out for it, too, and that is the impetus that makes me fear that it may soon become a reality. Here are some of the notices I have received lately that make me tend to believe that:
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'Unavoidable' attack on Iran looms, says Israeli minister 06 Jun 2008
An Israeli minister has said an attack on Iran's nuclear sites will be "unavoidable" if Tehran refuses to halt its alleged weapons programme. In the most explicit threat yet by a member of Ehud Olmert's government, Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister, said the hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "would disappear before Israel does".

'The window of opportunity is closing.' Mofaz sees Israeli attack on Iran 06 Jun 2008 Israel will attack Iran if international diplomacy fails to rein in Tehran's nuclear program, Shaul Mofaz said. "If Iran presses ahead with its plan to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The window of opportunity is closing," the Israeli transportation minister, a former defense chief, told Yediot Acharonot on Friday. "The sanctions are not effective. To stop the Iranian nuclear program, an attack is inevitable."

Boogeyman Iran messing up US-Iraq pact
Posted By Travis Sharp to Iraq Insider at 6/06/2008 11:30:00 AM EST
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said yesterday that recent Iranian criticism of the potential U.S.-Iraq long-term security agreement is "deliberately intended to make the negotiation difficult."

Watch out for the scary Iranian boogeyman!

Crocker's Iran-blame-gaming might make sense if Iraqis really wanted the pact to go through and it was only Iranian meddling that was obstructing negotiations. But that is assuredly not the case.
• Iraqi civil society groups oppose the agreement.
• The majority of the Iraqi Parliament opposes the agreement.
• Moqtada al Sadr opposes the agreement. While some U.S. officials consider him a thug, let's not pretend that he is not an extremely influential actor in Iraq. Even Petraeus has taken to referring to al Sadr with the honorific term sayyid.
• Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim opposes the pact.

The letter from the Iraqi Parliament released this week by Rep. Bill Delahunt was not only signed by Shiites, some of whom may legitimately be sympathetic to Iran. Signatories included representatives aligned with parties that have Sunni members, such as the National Dialogue Front, Iraqi Accord Front (Al-Tawafuq), and Iraqi National List. Members of the Kurdish block also signed the letter.

Hey Crocker: Does Iran exercise magical mind control over Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds? You know, the Sunnis and Kurds who are deathly afraid of Iranian encroachment into their country.

Does Crocker think it possible that maybe, just maybe, Iraqis are capable of thinking for themselves, and oppose the U.S.-Iraq pact on its merits? It seems the Bush administration has so internalized the concept that America knows what's best for the people of Iraq that it no longer sees Iraqis as sovereign individuals capable of making rational decisions.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: If the WMD boogeyman was the "one reason everyone could agree on" in the buildup to the Iraq invasion, Iran has become the new boogeyman of choice for this administration.
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The pact that Travis Sharp is referring to in the last article has been the subject of this blog for the past week, and represents, I believe, a major sticking point in the craw of the entire middle-East. If the US succeeds in forcing it through, the situation inside Iraq will worsen as more and more sects pull away from the puppet government BushCo has created there. At the same time Iran, Syria and perhaps others will up their defenses in the belief that the US will act on the permission the pact gives us to use Iraq as a platform for launching attacks on other countries.

If the pact doesn’t go through I think it will be essential for the UN to step in with peace-keeping forces to replace US influence. If that doesn’t happen, watch for heightened sectarianism, increased Iranian influence and the rise of more conservative Islamic figureheads with the end result being a militaristic, fundamental Islamic government.

In any case, it is hard to believe that BushCo’s objectives of a permanent Amerikan presence in Iraq and the spread of their brand of democracy throughout the region will ever come to pass. BushCo’s cause may be lost, but we can’t count on the neo-cons to accept that loss, fold their tents and get the hell out of Dodge.
The one thing you can be sure of is that they will continue goose stepping with Israel towards an explosive clash with Iran. Heading that off at the pass may be the biggest challenge for our new president – provided we don’t invade before the election.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle