TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY : Should Israel take out Iranian nuclear weapons sites in retaliation for Iran's supplying Hezbollah?
By John B. Quigley
The answer is NO
COLUMBUS, Ohio - One of the more persistent rumors in the Middle East is that Israel may bomb Iran's nuclear power facility. And that the United States would give Israel a wink and a nod.
Israel's invasion of Lebanon has moved the rumors from the back burner to the front. One theory of Israel's motive in Lebanon is that it wants to provoke Iran into action that would provide a pretext for going after Iran's nuclear facility. Whereas President Bush points his finger at Syria for Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, Israel points its finger at Iran.
For the United States, Iran is perceived as even more of a threat than previously because of our own invasion of Iraq and the consequent rise to power of the Shities in Iraq. That development has given Shites' Iran new stature in the region.
One awkward aspect for Israel is that it itself has nuclear weaponry at its Dimona facility and refuses to acknowledge it to the international community. Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, so it is not under the inspection obligations that it accuses Iran of violating. Of any country, Israel has the shakiest grounds for criticizing Iran.
Iran would have more grounds to take out Dimona than would Israel to take out Iran's facility. Not that that would be lawful, either. But the rationale would be more plausible. ...
>>> Continued@ Grand Forks Herald
30 Jul 2006
28 Jul 2006
Empire: war and propaganda
John Pilger
July 2006
The US role in supporting Israeli's military assault on Lebanon falls into a pattern of imperial tyranny, where history is rewritten to suit America�s needs while Europe stands cravenly by. John Pilger provides a personal assessment from Washington.
The words "invasion" and "controversial" make only fleeting appearances; there is no hint that the "great mission" has overseen, since 1945, the attempted overthrow of 50 governments, many of them democracies, along with the crushing of popular movements struggling against tyranny and the bombing of 30 countries, causing the loss of countless lives. In central America, in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan's arming and training of gangster-armies saw off 300,000 people; in Guatemala, this was described by the UN as genocide. No word of this is uttered in the Grotto. Indeed, thanks to such displays, Americans can venerate war, comforted by the crimes of others and knowing nothing about their own. ...
>>> Continued @ New Statesman
20 Jul 2006
Mideast Conflict Boosts Chances of Iran-US Showdown
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jul 19 (IPS)
The week-old Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is likely to boost the chances of U.S. military action against Iran, according to a number of regional experts who see a broad consensus among the U.S. political elite that the ongoing hostilities are part of a broader offensive being waged by Tehran against Washington across the region.
While Israel-centred neo-conservatives have been the most aggressive in arguing that Hezbollah's Jul. 12 cross-border attack could only have been carried out with Iran's approval, if not encouragement, that view has been largely accepted and echoed by the mainstream media, as well as other key political factions, including liberal internationalists identified with the Democratic Party.
As was the case with Iraq, the only dissenters among the policy elite are the foreign policy "realists", who argue that this administration, in particular, has made a series of disastrous policy errors in the Middle East -- especially by providing virtually unconditional support for Israel and invading Iraq. They also include regional specialists like Norton, who maintain that the depiction of Hezbollah, for example, as a mere proxy for Iran -- let alone the notion that Tehran was behind the Jul. 12 attack -- is a dangerous misreading of a much more complex reality. These forces have been arguing for some time that Washington should engage Iran directly on the full range of issues -- from Tehran's nuclear programme to regional security -- that divide. But the current crisis, and Israel's and the neo-conservatives' success in blaming Iran for it, is likely to make this argument a more difficult sell. �
>>> Continued @ IPS
WASHINGTON, Jul 19 (IPS)
The week-old Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is likely to boost the chances of U.S. military action against Iran, according to a number of regional experts who see a broad consensus among the U.S. political elite that the ongoing hostilities are part of a broader offensive being waged by Tehran against Washington across the region.
While Israel-centred neo-conservatives have been the most aggressive in arguing that Hezbollah's Jul. 12 cross-border attack could only have been carried out with Iran's approval, if not encouragement, that view has been largely accepted and echoed by the mainstream media, as well as other key political factions, including liberal internationalists identified with the Democratic Party.
As was the case with Iraq, the only dissenters among the policy elite are the foreign policy "realists", who argue that this administration, in particular, has made a series of disastrous policy errors in the Middle East -- especially by providing virtually unconditional support for Israel and invading Iraq. They also include regional specialists like Norton, who maintain that the depiction of Hezbollah, for example, as a mere proxy for Iran -- let alone the notion that Tehran was behind the Jul. 12 attack -- is a dangerous misreading of a much more complex reality. These forces have been arguing for some time that Washington should engage Iran directly on the full range of issues -- from Tehran's nuclear programme to regional security -- that divide. But the current crisis, and Israel's and the neo-conservatives' success in blaming Iran for it, is likely to make this argument a more difficult sell. �
>>> Continued @ IPS
US hawks smell blood
By Jim Lobe
07/19/06 "IPS" -- -- WASHINGTON
- Seeing a major opportunity to regain influence lost as a result of setbacks in Iraq, prominent neo-conservatives are calling for unconditional US support for Israel's military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon and "regime change" in Syria and Iran, as well as possible US attacks on Tehran's nuclear facilities in retaliation for its support of Hezbollah.
In a Weekly Standard column titled "Our war", editor William Kristol called Iran "the prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war", which, he argued, should be considered part of "the global struggle against radical Islamism". He complained that Washington recently had done a "poor job of standing up and weakening Syria and Iran" and called on President George W Bush to fly directly from the "silly [Group of Eight] summit in St Petersburg ... to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies". "This is our war, too," said Kristol, who was also a founder and co-chairman of the recently lapsed Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Echoed Larry Kudlow, a neo-conservative commentator, at the Standard's right-wing competitor, the National Review: "All of us in the free world owe Israel an enormous thank-you for defending freedom, democracy and security against the Iranian cat's-paw wholly owned terrorist subsidiaries Hezbollah and Hamas. ...
>>> Continued @ IPS
>>> Continued @ IPS
Jim Lobe is the Washington bureau chief for Inter Press Service.
18 Jul 2006
U.S. must change its thinking on Iran
Trudy Rubin
As battles raged last week between Israel and Islamist groups in Gaza and Lebanon, my mind flashed back to a conversation I had with a senior Iranian official in May.
"The United States has problems in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Afghanistan," he said. "Iran is the one who can help (in all those places). The United States needs Iran's help, not confrontation."
When I asked what would happen if tensions between Washington and Tehran over Iran's nuclear program led to a U.S. military attack on Iran, the official swiftly replied: "I don't think the United States is in a position to think like that." The message was clear: You Americans need us if you want to stabilize the region. But if you threaten us, we can make things much, much worse.
Flash forward to the outbreak of Mideast violence in recent days.
I recalled the Iranian's warning when fighters from the Iranian-backed groups Hamas and Hezbollah made separate incursions across Israel's southern and northern border, within two weeks of each other, to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Their timing was telling, just before the G-8 conference of the world's top industrial democracies in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the question of whether to push for U.N. sanctions against Iran was at the top of the agenda.
Suddenly, the G-8 agenda shifted from how the world community might press Iran to freeze its suspect nuclear program to how to prevent new Mideast wars from exploding.
Iran was delivering a warning to Washington via proxies, without firing a gun. ...
>>> Continued @ Centre Daily Times
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers can write to her by e-mail at trubin@phillynews.com.
A Proxy War against Iran
By: Adam LeBor
Putting aside the arguments over the rights and wrongs of Israel's bombardment of Lebanon in response to Hizbollah's missile attacks, I think it's worth taking a sideways step to analyse the west's overall response to the new crisis.
The G8's even-handed approach and failure to condemn Israel's actions seems to me indicative that something important is going behind the scenes, which the mainstream media are missing. Call it a new realism, or a realisation that the struggle against Hamas and Hizbollah is also part of the war on terror. Either way, it appears that the west has apparently more or less given a green light to Israel to try and destroy Hizbollah's mini-state in southern Lebanon.
The real reason why, I think, is Iran.
Iran - and Syria - supply much of Hizbollah's weapons, and provide political support for the Shiite milita. Iranian revolutionary guards train Hizbollah fighters. Israeli military sources confirm that the Israeli boat hit last Friday off the coast of Lebanon was struck by a high-tec shore-to-sea C-802 missile, suppled by Iran, according to the Middle East analyst Tom Gross(http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000759.html).
>>> Continued @ Harry's Place
Putting aside the arguments over the rights and wrongs of Israel's bombardment of Lebanon in response to Hizbollah's missile attacks, I think it's worth taking a sideways step to analyse the west's overall response to the new crisis.
The G8's even-handed approach and failure to condemn Israel's actions seems to me indicative that something important is going behind the scenes, which the mainstream media are missing. Call it a new realism, or a realisation that the struggle against Hamas and Hizbollah is also part of the war on terror. Either way, it appears that the west has apparently more or less given a green light to Israel to try and destroy Hizbollah's mini-state in southern Lebanon.
The real reason why, I think, is Iran.
Iran - and Syria - supply much of Hizbollah's weapons, and provide political support for the Shiite milita. Iranian revolutionary guards train Hizbollah fighters. Israeli military sources confirm that the Israeli boat hit last Friday off the coast of Lebanon was struck by a high-tec shore-to-sea C-802 missile, suppled by Iran, according to the Middle East analyst Tom Gross(http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000759.html).
>>> Continued @ Harry's Place
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