Exclusive: Iran, Syria, Lebanon on military alert over US Gulf movements and Isr

[VandeWiel]

Een spagaat in de berichtgeving. Zou de druk op Iran opgevoerd worden met indirecte (be-)dreiging om ze tot samenwerking te dwingen? Dit is in ieder geval een spel op hoog niveau.

U.S. contacts Iran for Iraqi security plan

Published: April 7, 2008 at 2:53 PM

TEHRAN, April 7 (UPI) -- A spokesman for the Iranian foreign minister said Monday Tehran received a request from the United States to discuss restoring peace in Iraq.

The spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said Tehran received the request Monday through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which deals with U.S. diplomatic channels to Iran.

"We have received a new request by American officials in a formal note for the holding of negotiations on the Iraqi developments and we are looking into the case," Hosseini said.

Mohsen al-Hakim, son of the head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council's Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, told an Iranian news service U.S. officials issued a request to hold a new round of talks following the cancellation of an earlier meeting, al-Alam television network reported.

Hosseini said Iranian interest in Iraq remains strong following the invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces in 2003.

"The priority for the Islamic Republic of Iran is for security and stability in Iraq and it will do everything to reach these objectives," he added.

An Iraqi delegation traveled to Iran in March to meet with Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr to broker a cease-fire between Shiite militias and Iraqi national security forces in Basra.


bron:http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Emerging_Threats/
Briefing/2008/04/07/us_contacts_iran_for_iraqi_security_plan/8914/print_view/

[VandeWiel]

JERUSALEM (AFP) — An Israeli government minister warned on Monday that Israel would respond to any Iranian attack by destroying that country, public radio reported.

"An Iranian attack against Israel would trigger a tough reaction that would lead to the destruction of the Iranian nation," National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said in remarks of rare virulence.

"Iranians are aware of our strength but continue to provoke us by arming their Syrian allies and Hezbollah," he said during a meeting at his ministry.

Ben-Eliezer, a member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet, stressed however that the Iranians were unlikely to attack as "they understand the meaning of such an act".

Last month, Defence Minister Ehud Barak told visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney that "no option" would be ruled out in Israel's bid to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Israel, along with its ally the United States and other Western powers, accuses Iran of pursuing the development of a nuclear bomb under the guise of its civilian nuclear programme -- a charge Tehran denies.

Israel considers Iran its top enemy following repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.

Ben-Eliezer also stressed that an ongoing five-day home front defence exercise was not meant to threaten Israel's neighbours, but stressed that "the scenarios considered in the exercise could be reality tomorrow".

He said Israel could one day find itself in a situation in which hundreds of rockets rain down on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
"Nowhere would be safe from Syrian and Hezbollah rockets," Ben-Eliezer said.

The scenario for Monday's drill had Israel coming under simultaneous attack from Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in the north and from Palestinian militants in Gaza to the south.

The exercise, which started on Sunday, comes amid media reports of heightened tensions along Israel's heavily guarded border with Syria and just days after Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora put his armed forces on alert.

Bron toegevoegd: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j659KQWTRiLRyWq4QWMJe-bS2u8w

[VandeWiel]

National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Monday, April 7: "An Iranian strike on Israel would result in an Israeli response that would devastate the Iranian nation." On a visit to the national defense exercise's situation room, Ben-Eliezer also warned: "An Initial strike on Israel would see hundreds of missiles hit us... all of Israel will be within range of Syrian and Hizballah missiles."

DEBKAfile's military sources note: In all of its 60 years, no Israeli leader has ever threatened to destroy another nation, however belligerent - even when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

His words directly contradict the soothing statements made by prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak that the defense exercise is in no way intended as a threat or an escalation of war tensions.

The minister's wild rhetoric, apparently off the top of his head, could be interpreted as a threat of Israeli nuclear retaliation to a potential Iranian attack.

Ben Eliezer continued in slightly more measured tones when he said: The Iranians won't be rushing to attack Israel because they are well aware of our strength, but they bait us by providing weapons to Syria and Hizballah, which we need to deal with."
Our sources point out that thus far, Israel has never directly addressed any of the three perils.

In Tehran foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Husseini advised the states in the region to closely watch the Israeli exercise, which he described as "provocative" and aimed at boosting the army's morale.


Bron toegevoegd: http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5171

[paul1011]

Hoe moeilijk het ook te geloven is.......ik vertrouw er maar op dat de VS niet zo "dom" zal zijn om in de laatste maanden van de Bush administration nog even het lontje aan te steken in het Midden Oosten. Ondanks dat een harde feit is dat de strijdende Iraakse partijen geholpen worden door de o.a. Iran.

Zou een klap voor de VS worden bovenop de erfenis waar de democraten straks mee verder moeten.

Het zou me anders niks verbazen als dit een manier is om de Bush-agenda zo ver mogeljk voorbij zijn ambtstermijn te verschuiven. Zeg maar als "cadeautje" aan de volgende president. Mocht dat McCain worden dan zal hij er nog blij mee zijn ook. "Look mom, my own war"

[Ros]

Hoe moeilijk het ook te geloven is.......ik vertrouw er maar op dat de VS niet zo "dom" zal zijn om in de laatste maanden van de Bush administration nog even het lontje aan te steken in het Midden Oosten. Ondanks dat een harde feit is dat de strijdende Iraakse partijen geholpen worden door de o.a. Iran.

Zou een klap voor de VS worden bovenop de erfenis waar de democraten straks mee verder moeten.

[VandeWiel]

Petraeus Testimony Next Week Will Signal Iran Attack

by Paul Craig Roberts     
http://www.opednews.com

April 5, 2008.  Today the London Telegraph reported that "British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.  A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian militiary facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment." 

The neocon lacky Petraeus has had his script  written for him by Cheney, and Petraeus together with neocon warmonger Ryan Crocker, the US governor of the Green Zone in Baghdad, will present Congress next Tuesday and Wednesday with the lies, for which the road has been well paved by neocon propagandists such as Kimberly Kagan, that "the US must recognize that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq."

Don't expect Congress to do anything except to egg on the attack.  On April 3 the International Herald Tribune reported that senators and representatives have made millions of dollars from their investments in defense companies totaling $196 million.  Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is already on board with the attack on Iran.  The London Telegraph quotes Skelton: "Iran is the bull in the china shop.  In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military."

All Skelton knows is what the war criminal Bush regime tells him.  If Iran really does have all these connections, then it behooves Washington to cease threatening Iran and to make nice with Iran in order to stabilize Iraq and extract the US from the nightmare.

Reporting from Tehran on April 4, Reuters quotes Mohsen Hakim, whose father, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, an ally of the Maliki US puppet government in Iraq:  "Tehran, by using its positive influence on the Iraqi nation, paved the way for the return of peace to Iraq and the new situation is the result of Iran's efforts."   

Instead of thanking Iran and working with Iran diplomatically to restore stability to Iraq, the Bush regime intends to expand the nightmare with a military attack on Iran.  Ryan Crocker was quick to dispute Hakim's report that Iran had used its influence to end the fighting in Basra.  Crocker alleged that Iran had started the fighting.  The absurdity of Crocker's claim is obvious as even the neocon US media reported that the fighting in Basra was started by the US and Maliki in an effort to clear out the Shi'ite al-Sadr militia.  Most experts saw the attack on al-Sadr for what it was:  an effort to remove a potential threat to the US supply line from Kuwait in the event of a US attack on Iran. 

Crocker alleges that the rockets dropping on the Green Zone during the Basra fighting were made in 2007 in Iran.  As should be obvious even to disengaged Americans, if Iran were to arm the Iraqi insurgency, the insurgents would have modern weapons to counter US helicopter gunships and heavy tanks.  The insurgents have no such weapons.  The neocon lie that Iran is the cause of the Iraqi insurgency is just another Bush regime lie like the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and connections to al Qaeda and the lie that the Taliban in Afghanistan attacked the US. 

The Bush regime will tell any lie and orchestrate any event in order to "finish the job" in the Middle East.

"Finishing the job" means to destroy the ability of Iraq, Iran, and Syria to provide support for the Palestinians and for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression.  With Iraq and Iran in turmoil, Syria might simply give up and become another American client state.  With Iraq and Iran in turmoil, Israel can steal the rest of the West Bank along with the water resources in southern Lebanon.  That is what "the war on terror" is really about. 

The entire world knows this.  Consequently, the US and Israel are essentially isolated.  The US can only count on the support that it can bribe and pay for. 

At the NATO-Russian summit in Bucharest, Romania, on April 4, Russian President Putin said: "No one can seriously think that Iran would dare attack the U.S.  Instead of pushing Iran into a corner, it would be far more sensible to think together how to help Iran become more predictable and transparent." 

Of course it would, but that is not what the warmonger Bush regime wants. 

Perhaps the British government has derailed the plot to attack Iran by leaking in advance to the London Telegraph the disinformation Cheney has prepared for Petraeus and Crocker to deliver to the complicit US Congress next Tuesday and Wednesday.  On the other hand, the US puppet media is likely to bury the real story and to trumpet Petraeus claims that Iran has, in effect, already declared war on the US by sending weapons to kill US troops in Iraq. 

By next Thursday we will know from how the Petraeus-Crocker dog and pony show plays in the US Congress and media whether the Bush Regime will commit yet another war crime by attacking Iran.

bron: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_paul_cra_080405_petraeus_testimony_n.htm

[VandeWiel]

Een aantal verontrustende berichten de laatste uren:

Exclusive: Iran, Syria, Lebanon on military alert over US Gulf movements and Israel's home defense drill
April 6, 2008, 12:09 PM (GMT+02:00)


USS Abraham Lincoln heads to Persian Gulf

According to British media, the US is set to attack Iranian military facilities. DEBKAfile's military sources add that the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Force is heading for the Persian Gulf.

War tensions in the Middle East have shot up - not only over the signals flashing between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, but also on the US-Iranian front in Iraq in the wake of rising in violence around the Basra conflagration.

Tuesday, April 8, US Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus and ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, will stress in their report to Congress that Iran is waging war on America in Iraq, say sources in Washington, London and Baghdad.

This emerged strongly last week, when US intelligence learned that Iran had intervened directly in the Iraqi government's crackdown on renegade militias in Basra and southern Iraq, by directing and provisioning those militias through the Revolutionary Guards' al Qods Brigades.

Official sources in London predict that Iran's intervention against the American effort to stabilize Iraq may well prompt a US attack on the military installations in Iran which are orchestrating the interference.

Gen. Petraeus is on record as accusing Iran of being the source of the daily rocket bombardment of Baghdad's Green Zone, seat of government and US diplomatic and military headquarters.

DEBKAfile's military sources report that Moscow has dropped its two nickels into the rising war alarm. In the last two weeks, Russian military and intelligence officials have been leaking claims of intensified American military movements around Iranian shores.
Iran is certain to come up in Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin's farewell talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi Sunday, along with other controversial business, such as Moscow's objections to NATO's eastern expansion and US missile shield in East Europe.
Saturday, US defense secretary Robert Gates turned up in Oman, the site of big American air bases, for talks with Sultan Qaboos. He then flew straight back to Washington. While Gates insisted to correspondents aboard his plane that the US is committed to a diplomatic solution for Iran's covert nuclear program, the surpise visit struck sparks in the already fraught regional atmosphere, particularly as it followed on the heels of US Vice President Dick Cheney's talks in Oman two weeks ago.

DEBKAfile's Middle East sources sum up how Tehran and Damascus read these events and the picture they have built up of Washington's intentions as combined with Israel's military steps:

1. US is preparing to attack the Iranian military installations linked to subversion in Iraq. The operation will widen out into strikes on the Islamic Republic's suspect nuclear sites.
2. Israel will use the chance for a concurrent attack on Israel.
3. Israel will attack Hizballah's strongholds in Lebanon.
4. A broad, coordinated US-Israeli offensive will be mounted against Iran, Syria and Hizballah.

Iran and Syria view Israel's four-day home defense exercise against missile attack, conventional or non-conventional, beginning Sunday, as setting the stage for these attacks.

Both believe Washington and Jerusalem are in close military step. Neither is reassured by soothing statements from prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Barak that Israel does not seek violent confrontation - especially when the US administration is withholding all comment. Hence the high state of preparedness ordered by the jittery governments in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut.

bron: http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5168