Iran

The Beast revealed: US celebrates Iranian General’s death at ISIS hands

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This website sends its deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of General Hossein Hamedani.
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, October 10, 2015
Land Destroyer 10 October 2015
Hossein-Hamedani

America’s celebration of the death of Iranian General Hossein Hamedani is a call to arms for the entire civilized world. 

The death of a top Iranian military commander in Syria this week has dealt a “psychological blow” to elements backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to a U.S. intelligence official.

Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani was killed outside Aleppo, Syria, where he was advising the Syrian army in its fight against extremists, Iranian state media reported Friday.

CNN also claims:

The United States and Iran both say they are fighting ISIS terrorists, but in practice they have different goals: The United States is supporting rebels trying to oust Assad, while Assad’s close ally Iran became involved to defend his regime.

“I’m not sure it’s the Iranian objective to beat ISIS,” said Gerecht. “I think the primary Iranian objective is to ensure that Assad does not fall.”

The US and Iran indeed both say they are fighting ISIS terrorists. And while the US “accidentally” is supplying ISIS with weapons, fighters, and even fleets of brand new Toyota trucks, Iran has lost a senior commander on the ground who was clearly fighting them face-to-face.
Image: Just another happy coincidence. While the US Treasury dishonestly inquiries into where ISIS has gotten fleets of brand new Toyota trucks, it is a matter of record that the US State Department and the UK have been sending them into Syria since at least as early as 2013,
just ahead of  the “sudden” emergence of ISIS.
.

The loss of General Hamedani also reveals that indeed the Russian-led Syrian-Iranian-Iraqi anti-terror coalition is fighting ISIS in tandem with other terrorist groups – who despite claims by the United States – are ideologically, tactically, strategically, and politically indistinguishable from ISIS itself.

Monster Revealed – A Call to Arms of the Civilized World 

Again, the prophetic words written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article titled, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” must be recalled (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

With a senior Iranian general dead, and ISIS and America’s “rebels” who are obviously also ISIS edging in on the Syrian government, the world should now finally see clearly what was planned as early as 2007 and what many have suspected since the beginning of Russia’s recent intervention in the conflict is now unfolding completely in the open. The United States and its regional allies have created this force of mass-murdering terror to intentionally direct against its enemies.

The death of General Hossein Hamedani and America’s celebratory mood in its wake is a call to arms ofthe entire civilized world. Stop the US and it’s now transparent, naked evil in Syria now – shoulder-to-shoulder with the Russian-Syrian-Iranian-Iraqi coalition – or fight them by yourself inevitably in the future.

America Finds its “Power Move” to Counter Russia 

The next step for Russia and Syria’s allies, including Iran and China, is clear. This will not stop in Syria – it is clearly aimed next at Iran, and then beyond. Full-scale intervention by Iran and a sizable commitment by China will be necessary to block Washington’s next move – a counterstroke hastily planned and hoped to deter, disrupt, and completely displace Russia’s goal of ending the conflict and restoring Syria’s stability.
Revealed in the Washington Post’s article, “US abandons Pentagon’s failed rebel-building effort in Syria,” it was reported that (emphasis added):

The Obama administration is overhauling its approach to fighting the Islamic State in Syria, abandoning a failed Pentagon effort to build a new ground force of moderate rebels and instead partnering with established rebel groups, officials said Friday.

Washington Post reveals transparently that American support of “rebels” in Syria is aimed not at ISIS, but admittedly at the Syrian government. It reported (emphasis added):

The change also reflects growing concern in the Obama administration that Russia’s intervention has complicated the Syrian battlefield and given new life to President Bashar Assad. Russian airstrikes have raised questions about whether and how the U.S. would protect rebel groups it is working with if they are hit by Russian bombs. 

Meanwhile, the CIA has since 2013 trained some 10,000 rebels to fight Assad’s forces. Those groups have made significant progress against strongholds of the Alawites, Assad’s sect, but are now under Russian bombardment. The covert CIA program is the only way the U.S. is taking on Assad militarily.

It is obvious that among that number of 10,000 is Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra which operates precisely in the areas described by the Washington Post, toward precisely the same objectives stated in the article.
Despite the Washington Post’s claims that the US goal is to “defeat” ISIS, it is clear that these terrorists backed by Washington are not fighting ISIS – admittedly so – as both CNN and the Washington Post have stated clearly, their aim is to remove the Syrian government from power. That also happens to be ISIS’ goal – one which has manifested itself in the death of Iranian General Hamedani.
The “shift” in logistical terms is meaningless – since any and every available amount of money, weapons, and fighters has already been fed by the US and its allies into Al Qaeda’s ranks since the conflict began – but the shift rhetorically is important. It signals America’s attempt to introduce direct military support for Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front and other assorted terrorist groups on the ground to counter and ultimately defeat Russian, Syrian, and Iranian efforts. This will also leave virtually no capable force on the battlefield to counter ISIS – which was the plan all along.The US hopes that this “power move” – the abominable assault with terrorists on a coalition demonstrably attempting to fight Al Qaeda and ISIS in the region – will force Russia to the negotiating table. However, Russia can do nothing of the sort. With the death of General Hamedani so clearly benefiting the United States – the conflict is of a clear existential nature. Failure to stop these terrorists in Syria and they are headed next to Iran, then through the Caucasus Mountains into Russia – and as far as China is concerned – across Central Asia and into its vast Xinjiang region.In hindsight, looking at a map in the 1930′s at Nazi Germany’s extraterritorial transgressions would have made it clear what was being done and what was soon to follow. With the United States and its allies devastating the nations of Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and with Iran and Lebanon next on the list – with the US already supporting terrorist groups in China’s Xinjiang region and threatening Russia itself with isolation, destabilization, and regime change, the lines have been clearly drawn and the stage set by Wall Street, Washington, London, and Brussels for a catastrophic confrontation it has left the world with no choice but to face.
Copyright © Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer, 2015
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-beast-revealed-us-celebrates-iranian-generals-death-at-isis-hands/5481199?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
NOTE:  The Twitter post by John McCain is from 2011.

Argo vs. Waking up in Tehran — what happened in 1979? Hollywood propaganda vs. historical reality

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The book Waking Up in Tehran by Margot Lachlan White, which David Swanson describes as a “magnificent modern epic”, was apparently never published. What happened to her and the book? It is not hard to imagine the pressure from Israel and the United States to make sure it did not see the light of day, especially in light of the experiences she describes. There are a few reviews online and a podcast interview.

It’s more timely than ever to get this book published and/or posted online.

Posted on War is a Crime.org, January 11, 2013
Waking up in Tehran
by David Swanson

According to one theory, U.S.-Iranian relations began around November 1979 when a crowd of irrational religious nutcases violently seized the U.S. embassy in Iran, took the employees hostage, tortured them, and held them until scared into freeing them by the arrival of a new sheriff in Washington, a man named Ronald Reagan.  From that day to this, according to this popular theory, Iran has been run by a bunch of subhuman lunatics with whom rational people couldn’t really talk if they wanted to.  These monsters only understand force.  And they have been moments away from developing and using nuclear weapons against us for decades now.  Moments away, I tell you!

According to another theory — a quaint little notion that I like to refer to as “verifiable history” — the CIA, operating out of that U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1953, maliciously and illegally overthrew a relatively democratic and liberal parliamentary government, and with it the 1951 Time magazine man of the year Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, because Mossadegh insisted that Iran’s oil wealth enrich Iranians rather than foreign corporations.  The CIA installed a dictatorship run by the Shah of Iran who quickly became a major source of profits for U.S. weapons makers, and his nation a testing ground for surveillance techniques and human rights abuses.  The U.S. government encouraged the Shah’s development of a nuclear energy program.  But the Shah impoverished and alienated the people of Iran, including hundreds of thousands educated abroad.  A secular pro-democracy revolution nonviolently overthrew the Shah in January 1979, but it was a revolution without a leader or a plan for governing.  It was co-opted by rightwing religious forces led by a man who pretended briefly to favor democratic reform.  The U.S. government, operating out of the same embassy despised by many in Iran since 1953, explored possible means of keeping the Shah in power, but some in the CIA worked to facilitate what they saw as the second best option: a theocracy that would substitute religious fanaticism and oppression for populist and nationalist demands.  When the U.S. embassy was taken over by an unarmed crowd the next November, immediately following the public announcement of the Shah’s arrival in the United States, and with fears of another U.S.-led coup widespread in Tehran, a sit-in planned for two or three days was co-opted, as the whole revolution had been, by mullahs with connections to the CIA and an extremely anti-democratic agenda.  They later made a deal with U.S. Republicans, as Robert Parry and others have well documented, to keep the hostage crisis going until Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan.  Reagan’s government secretly renewed weapons sales to the new Iranian dictatorship despite its public anti-American stance and with no more concern for its religious fervor than for that of future al Qaeda leaders who would spend the 1980s fighting the Soviets with U.S. weapons in Afghanistan.  At the same time, the Reagan administration made similarly profitable deals with Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq, which had launched a war on Iran and continued it with U.S. support through the length of the Reagan presidency.  The mad military investment in the United States that took off with Reagan and again with George W. Bush, and which continues to this day, has made the nation of Iran — which asserts its serious independence from U.S. rule — a target of threatened war and actual sanctions and terrorism.

Ben Affleck was asked by Rolling Stone magazine, “What do you think the Iranians’ reaction is gonna be?” to Affleck’s movie Argo, which depicts a side-story about six embassy employees who, in 1979, avoided being taken hostage.  Affleck, mixing bits of truth and mythology, just as in the movie itself, replied:

“Who the FUCK knows – who knows if their reaction is going to be anything? This is still the same Stalinist, oppressive regime that was in place when the hostages were taken. There was no rhyme or reason to this action. What’s interesting is that people later figured out that Khomeini just used the hostages to consolidate power internally and marginalize the moderates and everyone in America was going, ‘What the fuck’s wrong with these people?’ You know, ‘What do they want from us?’ It was because it wasn’t about us. It was about Khomeini holding on to power and being able to say to his political opponents, of which he had many, ‘You’re either with us or you’re with the Americans’ – which is, of course, a tactic that works really well. That revolution was a students’ revolution. There were students and communists and secularists and merchants and Islamists, it’s just that Khomeini fucking slowly took it for himself.”

The takeover of the embassy is an action virtually no one would advocate in retrospect, but asserting that it lacked rhyme or reason requires willful ignorance of Iranian-U.S. relations.  Claiming that nobody knew what the hostage-takers wanted requires erasing from history their very clear demands for the Shah to be returned to stand trial, for Iranian money in U.S. banks to be returned to Iran, and for the United States to commit to never again interfering in Iranian politics.  In fact, not only were those demands clearly made, but they are almost indisputably reasonable demands.  A dictator guilty of murder, torture, and countless other abuses should have stood trial, and should have been extradited to do so, as required by treaty.  Money belonging to the Iranian government under a dictatorship should have been returned to a new Iranian government, not pocketed by a U.S. bank.  And for one nation to agree not to interfere in another’s politics is merely to agree to compliance with the most fundamental requirement of legal international relations.

Argo devotes its first 2 minutes or so to the 1953 background of the 1979 drama.  Blink and you’ll miss it, as I’m betting most viewers do.  For a richer understanding of what was happening in Iran in the late 1970s and early 1980s I have a better recommendation than watching Argo.  For a truly magnificent modern epic I strongly encourage getting a hold of the forthcoming masterpiece by M. Lachlan White, titled Waking Up in Tehran: Love and Intrigue in Revolutionary Iran, due to be published this spring.  Weighing in at well over 300,000 words, or about 100,000 more than Moby Dick, Waking Up in Tehran is the memoir of Margot White, an American human rights activist who became an ally of pro-democracy Iranian student groups in 1977, traveled to Iran, supported the revolution, met with the hostage-takers in the embassy, became a public figure, worked with the Kurdish resistance when the new regime attacked the Kurds for being infidels, married an Iranian, and was at home with her husband in Tehran when armed representatives of the government finally banged on the door.  I’m not going to give away what happened next.  This book will transport you into the world of a gripping novel, but you’ll emerge with a political, cultural, and even linguistic education.  This is an action-adventure that would, in fact, make an excellent movie — or even a film trilogy.  It’s also an historical document.

There are sections in which White relates conversations with her friends and colleagues in Iran, including their speculations as to who was behind what government intrigue.  A few of these speculations strike me as in need of more serious support.  They also strike me as helpful in understanding the viewpoints of Iranians at the time.  Had I edited this book I might have framed them a little differently, but I wouldn’t have left them out.  I wouldn’t have left anything out.  This is a several-hundred-page love letter from a woman to her husband and from an activist to humanity.  It is intensely romantic and as honest as cold steel.  It starts in 1977.

Continue reading →

Christian Science Monitor: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said that Israel should be “wiped off the map”

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In honor of Persian New Year, here is a 2012 article from the mainstream American news.

From the Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

Iran’s nuclear program: 4 things you probably didn’t know

Tensions over Iran‘s nuclear program, which some in Israel and the US say is meant to produce nuclear weapons, continue to run high in the West. Most recently in a Iranian New Year’s sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei promised that Iran would respond “on the same level” as any attack against it.  But even as Israeli and Iranian officials take turns rattling their sabers, several key points remain misunderstood.  Do the US and Israel believe that Iran has a nuclear weapons program?  Did President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really promise to “wipe Israel off the map”?  The answers may surprise you.

By Arthur Bright, Correspondent posted June 8, 2012 at 2:11 pm EDT

1.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”

One frequently proffered explanation for why a war with Iran is needed is because President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants Israel “wiped off the map,” and that with a nuclear weapon, he could.  But some argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statement was mistranslated from less incidiary language.

Ahmadinejad’s alleged condemnation of Israel came at a “World Without Zionism” conference in Tehran in Oct. 2005, in which he was quoted by an English-language Iranian news site as saying “Israel must be wiped off the map.”  But as several analyses of the original Farsi statement show, this appears to be a mistranslation.

Arash Norouzi of the Mossadegh Project noted in 2007 that Ahmadinejad “never… uttered the words ‘map,’ ‘wipe out,’ or even ‘Israel'” in his statement.  Rather, he argued, the translation should have been that “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”  (Both The Washington Post and The Atlantic came up with similarly variant translations.)

This is a key difference, Mr. Norouzi argued, because Ahmadinejad used the “vanish from the page of time” idiom elsewhere in his speech: when describing the governments of the Shah of Iran, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein.  While war and revolution were involved in the three regimes’ collapse, none of them, Norouzi argued, were “wiped off the map.”  Rather, they underwent regime change.  This suggests in turn, he said, that Ahmadinejad was calling for regime change in Israel, not nuclear genocide.  Juan Cole, another critic of the speech’s translation, compared Ahmadinejad’s statement to Reagan-era calls for the end of the Soviet Union.

Critics note that the translation is a matter of semantics and that regardless, they show Ahmadinejad’s hostility to Israel.  Ahmadinejad did not help the case for mistranslation when in subsequent interviews he refused to clarify whether he truly meant that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth.  But the ambiguity of the words and the indications from context suggest that “wiped off the map” is not the best translation for his statement.

2.Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.

Whatever words Ahmadinejad used to describe his attitude towards Israel, it is undeniable that he is not the true leader of Iran.  That role is filled by the country’s supreme leader and foremost religious figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  Mr. Khamenei’s words are highly influential among religious Shiites –thus making his 2005 fatwa against nuclear weapons a significant factor in discussing Iran’s nuclear program.

A fatwa is a ruling on Islamic law issued by a recognized religious figure.  While generally nonbinding, fatwas have influence among the faithful, and fatwas issued by Iran’s supreme leader have more influence than most in Iran, both politically and religiously.  So when on Aug. 9, 2005, Khamenei issued a fatwa against the production and use of nuclear weapons, it was not simply a sermon – it carried political weight.  As Jamil Maidan Flores wrote in a commentary last week for the Jakarta Globe, “Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa on nuclear weapons does count for something. He issued it as the supreme spiritual and temporal leader of Iran, and as a marja, a holy man. The fatwa should be binding to all Iranian Shiites, and most binding of all to he himself who issued it.”  Khamenei has repeated his commitment to the fatwa many times since. Most recently, in February he called having nuclear weapons a “sin.”

But there is another Shiite religious concept, that of taghiyeh, which “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ” author Hooman Majd translates as “dissimulation.” A byproduct of the early years of Shia’s split from the Sunni mainstream, taghiyeh allows Shiites to lie in order to avoid death.  Mr. Flores notes that taghiyeh could be a factor in Khamenei’s fatwa on nuclear weapons, if somehow lying about development of such weapons would protect Shiites.  But Mr. Majd notes that taghiyeh is meant only for the purpose of lying about one’s religion to avoid death – which is not the case here – and adds that neither Khamenei nor the former supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, ever to anyone’s knowledge made use of taghiyeh.

3.Iran has a legitimate need for more energy, which is driving its nuclear efforts.

Iran has always insisted that its nuclear research was for peaceful purposes only: to provide more energy to a growing Iran.  In all the debate over the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons, it is easy to overlook the fact that Iran does indeed need more power, power which nuclear plants could provide.

While Iran is a major supplier of both oil – it is the fourth largest producer in the world according to the CIA’s World Factbook – it is also a major consumer.  The Green Party of Iran (an environmental party not to be confused with the Green Movement behind the 2009 presidential protests) estimated in 2000 that Iran ranked second only to the US in gasoline consumption.  But despite Iran’s huge oil production, it lacks the facilities to refine it into gasoline, forcing it to import a barrel of oil for every eight it exports.  According to Majd, some Iranians blame their lack of refining infrastructure on Western sanctions.

Iran is also the world’s fifth largest producer of natural gas globally according to the CIA’s World Factbook.  But it consumed 137.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2010, almost as much natural gas as it produced that year. (Editor’s note: This sentence was revised to correctly reflect Iran’s natural gas production in 2010.)

4.The US and Israel both say Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

It is perhaps the most important fact that is often ignored in the debate over war with Iran: Both US and Israeli intelligence agree that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Just last month, National Intelligence Agency Director James Clapper wrote in a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee that “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons… should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

When asked in a hearing by Sen. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan to confirm that “Iran has not yet decided to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Clapper did so, saying “That is the intelligence community’s assessment …,” and he reiterated that he has doubts about whether Iran is attempting to create a nuclear weapon when pressed further by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R) of South Carolina.  Gen. Roland Burgess of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who also appeared at the hearing, agreed with Clapper’s assessment.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made statements even more to the point than Clapper’s in January.  In the January 8 edition of CBS‘s Face the Nation, Mr. Panetta said flat out, “Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.”

Israeli intelligence also does not believe that Iran is currently pursuing a nuclear weapon.  In January, Haaretz reported that Israel believes Iran “has not yet decided whether to translate [its efforts to improve its nuclear power] capabilities into a nuclear weapon – or, more specifically, a nuclear warhead mounted atop a missile.”  That same month, Israeli military intelligence chief Gen. Aviv Kochavi told a Knesset hearing that Iran is not working on building a nuclear bomb, reported Agence France-Presse.

Reposted under Fair Use Rules.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0608/Iran-s-nuclear-program-4-things-you-probably-didn-t-know/President-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-never-said-that-Israel-should-be-wiped-off-the-map.

Happy Equinox, March 20-21; Happy Persian New Year – Nowruz

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Today is one of the four powerful days in the year, the solstices and the equinoxes. There are two equinoxes – spring and autumn. In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the Spring Equinox. In the Southern Hemisphere, today is the Fall Equinox.

On these days, there is balance between day and night. From ancient times, cultures celebrated these important days. Fortunately, some cultures and people throughout the Earth still celebrate these days as powerful times for creating change and aligning with the Earth and her values.

In Iran, they mark their new year by this date. The new year has various spellings in western script, including Nowruz, NoRuz, NoRooz. One of the ancient themes of Nowruz is the triumph of good over evil. This is what the Earth and its people need. Nothing could be more timely or more important to direct our hearts and prayers to creating that today.

The exact moment of the equinox occurs:

March 20, 22:45 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time)

March 20, 6:45 PM EDT          Washington, DC

March 20, 3:45 PM PDT          San Francisco, CA

March 21, 2:45 AM MSK        Moscow, Russia

March 21, 3:15 AM IRST         Tehran, Iran

March 21, 8:45 AM JST           Tokyo, Japan

 

For more times, use the time conversion tool at

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

The relationship between Washington and ISIS: the evidence

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The UN peacekeeping force based in the occupied Golan has reported its observations of Israel’s Defence Forces ‘interacting with’ al Nusra fighters at the border. At the same time, Israeli arms have been found with the extremist groups, in both Syria and Iraq. In November 2014 members of the Druze minority in the Golan protested against Israel’s hospital support for al Nusra and ISIS fighters. This in turn led to questions by the Israeli media, as to whether ‘ Israel does, in fact, hospitalize members of al-Nusra and Daesh [ISIS]‘.

From Global Research, March 8, 2015
by Prof. Tim Anderson

obama-isis

Reports that US and British aircraft carrying arms to ISIS have been shot down by Iraqi forces have been met with shock and denial in western countries. Few in the Middle East doubt that Washington is playing a ‘double game’ with its proxy armies in Syria, but some key myths remain important amongst the significantly more ignorant western audiences.

A central myth is that Washington now arms ‘moderate Syrian rebels’, to both overthrow the Syrian Government and supposedly defeat the ‘extremist rebels’. This claim became more important in 2014, when the rationale of US aggression against Syria shifted from ‘humanitarian intervention’ to a renewal of Bush’s ‘war on terror’.

A distinct controversy is whether the al Qaeda styled groups (especially Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS) have been generated as a sort of organic reaction to the repeated US interventions, or whether they are actually paid agents of Washington.

Certainly, prominent ISIS leaders were held in US prisons. ISIS leader, Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) is said to have been held for between one and two years at Camp Bucca in Iraq. In 2006, as al-Baghdadi and others were released, the Bush administration announced its plan for a ‘New Middle East’, a plan which would employ sectarian violence as part of a process of ‘creative destruction’ in the region.

According to Seymour Hersh’s 2007 article, ‘The Redirection’, the US would make use of ‘moderate Sunni states’, not least the Saudis, to ‘contain’ the Shia gains in Iraq brought about by the 2003 US invasion. These ‘moderate Sunni’ forces would carry out clandestine operations to weaken Iran and Hezbollah, key enemies of Israel. This brought the Saudis and Israel closer, as both fear Iran.

While there have been claims that the ISIS ‘caliph’ al-Baghdadi is a CIA or Mossad trained agent, these have not yet been well backed up. There are certainly grounds for suspicion, but independent evidence is important, in the context of a supposed US ‘war’ against ISIS . So what is the broader evidence on Washington’s covert links with ISIS? Continue reading →

Leading the anti-ISIL war: Iraq finds Iran a preferable ally

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From Farsi News Agency, March 6, 2015

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq’s regular army is liberating Tikrit without Pentagon involvement and without any consultation with the US administration.

It is one of the biggest offensives yet against the terrorist group of ISIL, and Iraq isn’t going it alone. Iran is taking a key role in the offensive, backed by allied Sunni-Shia forces, artillery and air power. With the liberation of Tikrit going well, the US is still on the outside looking in, leaving the Pentagon complaining that Iran is taking their role as leader of the anti-ISIL war.

This has further irritated US officials, admitting that the Iraqis did not inform them in advance of the operation and have yet to request assistance. To do some damage control, they are now claiming that the battle could have a sectarian tenor – despite the fact that “allied Sunni-Shia irregular troops” have taken the lead!

Credible reports indicate Iranian military advisers are coordinating the attacks and helping them to operate artillery, rocket-launcher systems and surveillance drones. It’s all the reason why US Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says Iran’s involvement is a positive thing…

Still, those who destabilised the region for nefarious reasons and ignited the powder keg of sectarianism should take note:

1. Sunni and Shia irregular troops are fighting together to liberate Tikrit, which is a Sunni-dominated town. Repeat, Sunni and Shia volunteer forces are sacrificing their lives to help liberate a Sunni-dominated area. This is not a sectarian battle or proxy warfare to assert hegemony over neighbors. It’s a battle against ISIL and its evil ideology. Else, Iran would have never bothered to take the lead.

2. Under a special political arrangement, good governance is the ensuing strategy. Once the allied forces evict the death cult, a local government will be formed to involve all the inhabitants of the city, regardless of their ethnic, religious and ideological differences. They will control and manage their areas while the army and allied forces continue their next push: Liberation of Mosul. The large-scale progress will not result in sectarianism.

3. For those who claim it is not the military but the political consequences of the fighting that worry them, it suffices to remind that the Iraqi government and parliament comprise of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians and representatives. Subsequently, liberation is not dead on arrival as the central government has begun promoting good governance. The liberated cities and towns will accept rule by a central government. This is not a long shot.

Indeed, the Iraqis have what it takes to liberate their country and enhance democratic governance and human rights, particularly when it comes to promoting Sunni-Shia participation in security, encouraging transparency and accountability, and addressing reform and leadership.

As for those who cannot stand the idea that Iran is now the leader of the anti-ISIL war, the message is this: Iran is now the leader of the anti-ISIL war and there is little Washington can do to influence the course of events.

Iran has become the preeminent strategic player in the region to the increasing disadvantage of the US and its allies. And it is not just Iraq that finds Iran a preferable ally. Syria also finds Iran a preferable ally, which means the liberation of Iraq will be followed by the liberation of Syria.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931215000915

CIA carried out terrorist bombing in Syria’s capital; why are they claiming it now?

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By Richard Becker
Liberation News, February 4, 2015

The news that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency carried out a meticulously planned terrorist car bombing in Damascus, Syria, in February 2008 appeared on the front page of the Jan. 31, 2015, Washington Post. It was an outrageous action in the capital of a sovereign state. By all definitions, a state-sponsored car bombing in the capital city of another nation is defined as terrorism.

It doesn’t take much imagination to picture what the U.S. response would be if the scenario were reversed and such an attack took place in Washington, D.C. At the very least, bombs and missiles would fall like rain on Syria.

That the CIA would carry out such an act is hardly a surprise. In its near-seven decades’ existence, the CIA has been responsible for the murder of millions and the destruction of scores of progressive movements and governments in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

Virtually every progressive leader in the countries liberated from colonialism or neo-colonialism in the post-World War II era has been targeted for assassination by the CIA at one time or another. From Vietnam to Haiti to Afghanistan and beyond, U.S. clients who had outlived their usefulness in the eyes of Washington were set up for elimination.

CIA engineered or assisted coups in Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Iraq, Indonesia, Greece, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and more, and brought to power regimes that used extreme brutality in the interests of U.S. corporations and local elites.

Organized in 1947, the agency’s first coup was in newly independent Syria just two years later. Its bloody trail confirms that the CIA is the deadliest terrorist organization in the world, bar none.

What was unusual about the 2008 assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, Imad Mughniyah, was the public revelation that the CIA, in partnership with Israel’s Mossad secret service, had carried it out.

While the CIA formally declined comment on the story, the sources for the article were past and present CIA officials, something unthinkable unless approved from inside the agency.

Standard CIA practice has long been to refuse to comment on its coups and murders—and for good reason. Regardless of whether they are “signed off on” by the president or any other U.S. official, all are blatant violations of international and U.S. domestic laws. Agency officials seek to maintain a “window of deniability” to protect themselves from possible future legal consequences.

Why, then, did the agency break with its usual practice of treating such an operation as classified and instead boast through the mass media of the assassination?

Targeting Hezbollah to derail Iran negotiations

The Post report followed two weeks after an Israeli air attack that killed six members of Hezbollah, including Jihad Mughniyah, son of Imad Mughniyah, and a high-ranking Iranian officer inside Syria. Both Hezbollah and Iran have been supporting the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria against the armed opposition, led by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Hezbollah responded to the Jan. 18 air assault by destroying an Israeli tank in the Shebaa Farms region, the last part of Lebanon still under Israeli occupation. Hezbollah played a key role in the Lebanese resistance that drove Israel out of much of Lebanese territory it occupied in 1982-2000. In 2006, it fought the powerful, U.S.-backed Israeli army to a standstill in a month-long war.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven wounded in Shebaa Farms. Israeli shelling killed a Spanish soldier who was part of the UN “peacekeeping” force in southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah leadership made it clear that their response was a limited one.

The Jan. 18 attack in Syria was a clear provocation, intended to draw a Hezbollah reaction. So, too, was the Post article. The aim of both was to push Hezbollah – as an ally of Iran — toward stronger retaliation.

The publication of the Post story should be understood as a form of taunting Hezbollah by elements in the U.S. establishment who are seeking a pretext for subverting the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Talal Atrissi, a Lebanese political commentator reportedly close to Hezbollah, said of the leaked CIA report on the 2008 assassination: “The leak is meant to undermine the talks, and that benefits Israel because it opposes these negotiations.”

A Lebanese professor at the American University in Beirut, Imad Salamey, pointed to the psychological warfare aspect of the Post report: “Your [Hezbollah’s] leadership has been targeted by the United States, so what do you do?”

The negotiations with Iran are at a critical stage, with late March set as the deadline to reach an agreement. There is a major division in U.S. ruling-class political circles over the negotiations.

While the Obama administration and its allies are seeking an agreement that they believe would weaken Iran, an opposing faction wants to scuttle the negotiations and impose even harsher sanctions.

Iran has stated that additional sanctions would mean an end to the negotiating process. Such an outcome could well lead to a new U.S. or U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, something that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as many in Washington clearly desire.

On Jan. 21, in a highly unusual breach of bourgeois protocol, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner invited the rabidly anti-Iranian Netanyahu to lecture a Joint Session of Congress on Mar. 3 on the so-called “danger” from Iran and in support of imposing even tighter sanctions on that country. Boehner’s invitation was made without consultation with the administration.

Protests calling for “No New War Against Iran,” “End the Colonial Occupation of Palestine, “ and “End All U.S. Aid to Israel” are being planned to coincide with Netanyahu’s appearance before Congress on Mar. 3.

Source:

CIA carried out terrorist bombing in Syria’s capital — Why are they claiming it now?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-carried-out-terrorist-bombing-in-syrias-capital-why-are-they-claiming-it-now/5429775