fuTuRe sHOcK

Mexico is completely out of control. When the US financial system collapses leaving US cities and states broke and without paid law enforcement, Mexican gangs will start to make their way further and further inside US territory and pull the same stunts here with virtual impunity.

Masked gunmen opened fire and tossed a grenade at a Mexican television station as it aired its nightly newscast Tuesday, leaving behind a message warning the station about its coverage of drug gangs. No injuries were reported in the assault on the Televisa network’s studio in the northern city of Monterrey. It was the latest in a series of attacks on journalists covering drug cartels in Mexico. Televisa Monterrey director Francisco Cobo said the masked gunmen arrived in two pickup trucks and opened fire during the station’s evening newscast.

Two news anchors asked for police help on the air. The assailants left a message outside the station that read: “Stop reporting only about us, also report about the narco-officials. This is a warning,” Cobo told the El Universal newspaper. The attack comes as drug cartels wage bloody battles over turf and smuggling routes. The gangs have been known to kill journalists who report drug violence. Officials say at least 5,300 people died in Mexico in drug-related slayings in 2008.
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Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that the number of civilians injured and killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking the population.

For the past three decades, Israel has charted a course that invites its own destruction by relying on two risky propositions: first, that it could extend its security perimeter beyond the reach of a devastating missile attack, and second, that it could permanently control the political debate inside its crucial ally, the United States. If Israel continues to engender hatred across the Muslim world – and thus feeds the growth of Islamic extremism – eventually some radical government or group will get hold of a missile or some other means of delivering a payload against Tel Aviv that would wreak mass devastation. In that event, Israel would almost surely turn to its sophisticated nuclear arsenal and launch a massive retaliatory strike. But to what end? Whatever counter-devastation could be delivered, it would not solve the strategic dilemma facing Israel. Indeed, retaliation would likely make matters worse by engendering even a stronger determination among Muslims to eliminate whatever would be left of Israel. The situation might even be beyond the military power of the United States to set right. More…

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India may consider “precision” strikes inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir if its neighbor doesn’t cooperate in controlling terrorists, a U.S. private intelligence company said. “Indian military operations against targets in Pakistan have in fact been prepared and await the signal to go forward,” Austin, Texas-based Stratfor said in a report today, without providing details of its source of information. Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors rose last month after terrorists killed 164 people in attacks targeting Mumbai’s main railway station, two five-star hotels, a Jewish center and a hospital. India blamed the attacks on “elements” in Pakistan, which then demanded evidence to support the accusation. India is unlikely to risk war by escalating the situation, an analyst said. More…

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Aviation Week reports “Senior U.S. government officials independently confirm that Iran is now “on contract” for the Russian SA-20 strategic SAM system, irrespective of Kremlin protestations to the contrary. Tehran’s deployment of such a system would mark a step-up in capability, and considerably improve the country’s ability to defend its controversial nuclear facilities where the West remains concerned that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. “The Iranians are on contract for SA-20,” says a government official. “We’ve got a huge set of challenges in the future that we’ve never had (before). We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security because our operations over the last 20 years involved complete air dominance and we’ve been free to operate in all domains,” he adds.

“The proliferation of so-called double-digit surface-to-air missile systems - such as the Almaz Antey SA-20 (S-300PMU1/S-300PMU2) - poses an increasing threat to non-stealthy aircraft, and will force changes in tactics and operational planning. The SA-20 has an engagement envelope of up to 150 kilometers; and Iran may be signed up for the S-300PMU-2 variant of the system. Russia could use Belorussia as the route for a sale, allowing it to deny any direct involvement, says a U.S. official.

“Still, it would likely take the Iranian armed forces some time, as much as 22 months, to become proficient in the operation of the SA-20. However, any deal would almost certainly cover training support of the system in the interim.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iran will never halt its nuclear work and expects the United States to change its “failed” carrot-and-stick approach to solving the atomic row with Tehran as Iran’s rocket arsenal tripled in 2008 and recently test fired a Nasr-2 missile in response to Newt Gingrich’s suggestion that Israel set deadline to attack Iran as Israel prepares options for an Iranian strike without US permission.

Unnamed US intelligence officials told the American ABC network they had warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack “from the sea against hotels and business centres in Mumbai”. One intelligence official even mentioned specific targets, including the Taj hotel, the TV news service said. According to the CNN network, Indian sources confirmed that US officials warned them twice of a possible attack on Mumbai. More

Also See: Indian Media Warned of Attacks In September

Pieced together from interviews with dozens of witnesses and officials, this account of the three days of the battle for Mumbai shows just how a small but ruthless group of skilled militants, attacking multiple targets in quick succession, managed to bring one of the world’s largest cities to its knees. The human toll — currently at 174 fatalities, including nine terrorists — was exacerbated by the Indian authorities’ lack of preparedness for such a major attack. But the chain of events also points to just how vulnerable any major city can be to this type of urban warfare. More

Iran reports testing a new long-range surface-to-surface missile (Sejil) with a range of 1200 miles just days after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps tested another new missile, the Samen, near the Iraqi border. Meanwhile, a former Israeli military general claims “Israeli armed forces have the ‘right capabilities’ to launch a successful strike against Iran. “[A strike] is not the end of the game. Then, we should follow it up with a viable, sustainable military operation to target the facilities [serving] the regime’s interests, and not allow the regime to rehabilitate itself.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned Iran on Thursday it was taking a dangerous gamble in seeking to develop nuclear weapons because one day its arch-foe Israel could strike. Fears of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities have risen since Israel staged an air force exercise in June which was reported to be a simulation of a strike against Iran. More

Source: Press TV
The Islamic Republic says a surprise attack on Iran is impossible as the country’s Armed Forces are fully prepared for all scenarios. The US and Israel have long threatened to launch military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities should the country continue with its uranium enrichment program. Iran has warned that the country’s Armed Forces have fully monitored the US army’s combat methods, its weaknesses and strong points, and are therefore fully capable of countering US tactics.

“We know the strategies the enemy might employ for a surprise attack and we have also readied special tactics of our own to give the enemy a surprise response far greater than they could ever imagine,” Deputy Army Commander Brigadier General Abdul-Rahim Mousavi said Saturday. Brig. Gen. Mousavi added that all the country’s military capabilities had not been unveiled yet and said Iran has ‘important’ defensive equipment, which will significantly impact the course of events in case of an attack. The commander cautioned that the enemy must learn to differentiate between ‘having the power to attack’ and ‘willing an attack.’

The remarks came after Israeli lawmaker Ephraim Sneh said the opportunity to find a non-military solution to halt Iran’s nuclear program would cease within 18 to 24 months, adding that Israel is preparing a contingency plan to attack Iran. The Islamic Republic, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), says that diplomacy is the only practical approach for clarifying the civilian nature of its nuclear program. Iran, however, has warned that it would not hesitate to target the heart of Israel and 32 US bases in the region should the country come under attack.

Hiedeh Farmani in Tehran
Source: couriermail
A SENIOR military commander warned today that any attack on Iran would start a new world war, as Tehran pressed on with its controversial nuclear drive despite the risk of further UN sanctions. “Any aggression against Iran will start a world war,” deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.

Iran is under international pressure to halt uranium enrichment, a process which lies at the core of fears about Iran’s nuclear program as it can make nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atom bomb. “The unrestrained greed of the US leadership and global Zionism… is gradually leading the world to the edge of a precipice,” Brig Jazayeri said, citing the unrest in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Georgia. “It is evident that if such a challenge occurs, the fake and artificial regimes will be eliminated before anything.” Iran does not recognise Israel, which is often described by officials in Tehran as a “fake regime” and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has provoked international outrage saying it should be wiped off the map.

The US and its staunch ally Israel, the region’s sole if undeclared nuclear-armed nation, accuse Iran of seeking atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran, a leading OPEC member, has vehemently denied the allegations, insisting its only wants to provide electricity for a growing population when its reserves of fossil fuels run out. The US has never ruled out military action against Iran over its defiance of international demands for an enrichment freeze, but so far is pursuing the diplomatic route. Iran has repeatedly vowed a crushing response to any attacks and has flexed military muscles in recent years by holding war games and showing off an array of home-grown weaponry including ballistic missiles. Another top military commander said Iran was prepared to “take the enemies off-guard” and would unveil more weapons in case of an attack.

“Some of the equipment of our armed forces have been announced but there are important things hidden whose effect would be shown on the day (of any attack),” deputy army commander Abdolrahim Mousavi told Fars news agency. “Offensives are part of the strategy of defence and if a country confines itself to its borders it has set a limit and eliminated part of its capability.” During war games in July which stoked international concern, aides to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Iran would target US bases and US ships in the Gulf as well as Israel if it was attacked. Iran also test-fired its Shahab-3 missile which it says puts Israel within range.

In recent months, several Israeli politicians have talked of the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities to avoid any possibility of Tehran acquiring an atomic weapon. Iran has repeatedly said it has no intention of halting enrichment despite three sets of UN Security Council sanctions and US and EU sanctions on its banking system. Iran insists it has a right to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is currently operating about 4000 uranium enrichment centrifuges and installing several thousand more.

However, the country’s first Russian-built nuclear power plant is yet to come online. The Islamic republic risks further sanctions for failing to give a clear response to an incentives package offered in June by six world powers in return for a halt to the sensitive work. World powers offered to start pre-negotiations with Iran during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and in return face no further sanctions. The offer by permanent Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany included trade incentives and help with a civilian nuclear program.

The United States is in a huge foreign policy muddle in the Middle East. It wants to dominate and control Iran but requires the support of the world community to accomplish its aims. Diplomacy and sanctions require only a low level of support. On the other hand, to launch a military attack or green-light one by Israel, the United States needs far more backing. This support does not appear to exist, and recent U.S. foreign policy actions are eroding that support even further. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on August 13 that the United States refused to give the go-ahead to Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in talks between Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Could it be that the Bush administration finally knows when it is licked?

Israeli officials acknowledge that it would be difficult to launch such an attack without approval from Russia, China, and India, something that the United States would have to lobby those nations to achieve. The chances at present are extremely slim that any of the three will acquiesce. U.S. condemnation of Russia’s military action to defend the breakaway region of South Ossetia, combined with the determination of the Bush administration to install missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, virtually guarantee that Russia will not do anything to help the United States foment more violence in its neighborhood.

Beijing owns much of the U.S. debt, continues to be one of Tehran’s largest trade partners, and is not about to be dictated to by Washington. India has defied the United States by entering into a pipeline deal with Iran. Exhaustive three-year nuclear treaty negotiations between the United States and India are utterly stalled. If the treaty is not presented to Congress in September, it will be dead. More

WARSAW, Poland
An agreement that will allow the United States to install a missile defense battery in Poland exposes the ex-communist nation to an attack, a Russian general said Friday. Poland and the United States struck a deal on Thursday to deepen military ties and place a missile interceptor base in Poland. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff told reporters Friday that the agreement exacerbates U.S.-Russian relations that are already tense because of fighting between Georgian and Russian forces. He said the deal “cannot go unpunished.” And in the strongest threat Russia has issued in reaction to plans to put elements of a missile defense system in former Soviet satellite nations, the Interfax news agency quoted Nogovitsyn as saying Poland was risking attack. “Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Interfax quoted Nogovitsyn as saying. More

Source: Globalresearch
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has warned millions of radio listeners that the United States is heading into an illegal attack on Iran, stating his amazement at members of Congress who have openly voiced support for a criminal nuclear strike. “If we do (attack) it is going to be a disaster,” the congressman told the Alex Jones radio show. “I was astounded to see on one of the networks the other day that the debate was not are we going to attack, but are we going to attack before or after the election?” Paul continued. Paul recently voiced concern over House Congressional Resolution 362 which he has dubbed a “virtual Iran war resolution.” “If that comes up it is demanding that the president [put in place] an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran, and punish any country or any business group around the world if they trade with Iran,” Paul told listeners. Experts have predicted gas will rise to $6 per gallon if the resolution passes. Paul believes that may happen anyway, just by anticipation. “The frightening thing is they say they are taking no options off the table, even nuclear first strike,” Paul said. Paul believes from talking with his contacts in and around Congress that a strike on Iran has already been green-lighted.

ABC News
Obama told the caucus, according to an attendee, “Nobody said this to me directly but I get the feeling from my talks that if the sanctions don’t work Israel is going to strike Iran.” Others in the room recall this as well. The notion that Israel is preparing for such an action against Iran’s myriad nuclear facilities is not new, with conjecture heating up in May after an Israeli military exercise featuring 150 aircraft flying almost a thousand miles over the Mediterranean Sea in what was seen as a dress rehearsal for an air strike. More

Last week, after hitting $146 a barrel, the price of crude oil took a sudden, two-day, $9 plunge, based in part on comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that an attack on Iran was unlikely and on a mid-Atlantic turn north by Bertha, the season’s first significant hurricane, away from the oil-rig- and refinery-rich Gulf of Mexico. It was just long enough for pundits to wonder, hesitantly and somewhat wistfully, whether the global economic bad weather had finally hit the oil market, and whether lowered demand meant that a new (downward) trend was on the way. That was, of course, before the Iranians started lobbing missiles, and traders got edgy about a promised weeklong strike at Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras, and the kidnapping of at least one foreign oil worker in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. By Friday, the “trend” was toast, and the price of a barrel of crude had briefly crested above $147.

Get used to it. As Middle Eastern (which means “oil”) expert Dilip Hiro indicates, we’ve definitively entered the era of “no relief in sight,” and there’s no turning back now. The author of a vivid history of oil in our world, Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World’s Vanishing Oil Resources, Hiro considers why the present oil shock can’t be compared to the three shocks that preceded it and then explores just where the planet is likely to look in the medium term for energy (and global warming) relief. More

IRAN has warned it will “set fire” to Israel and US forces in response to any attack over its nuclear drive, as the world’s leading industrial powers told Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment. Leaders of the Group of Eight nations at a summit in Japan today urged Iran to fully comply with UN Security Council resolutions “in particular to suspend all enrichment-related activities”. They also urged Tehran to respond positively to a new package by six major powers aimed at bringing an end to the five-year-old nuclear standoff which has led to a string of sanctions against Iran. The United States and its top regional ally Israel have never ruled out military action against Iran over its nuclear drive, which the West fears could be aimed at building an atomic bomb. There has been concern a strike could be imminent after it emerged Israel had carried out manoeuvres in Greece that were effectively practice runs for a potential strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. More

WASHINGTON, (IPS) - New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favour of U.S. strikes against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to the U.S. and Israel and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such weapons at all. The new arguments contradict Israel’s official argument that it faces an “existential threat” from an Islamic extremist Iranian regime determined to get nuclear weapons. They suggest that Israel, which already has as many as 200 nuclear weapons, views Iran from the position of the dominant power in the region rather than as the weaker state in the relationship.

The existence of a sharp imbalance of power in favour of Israel and the United States is the main premise of a recent analysis by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) suggesting that a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is feasible. Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Centre on Science and International Affairs, has also urged war against Iran on such a power imbalance. All three have close ties to the Israeli government. WINEP has long promoted policies favoured by Israel, and its founding director, Martin Indyk, was previously research director of the leading pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Freilich is a former Israeli deputy national security adviser.

These analysts, all of whom are pushing for a U.S., rather than an Israeli attack, argue that Iran’s power to retaliate for a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities is quite limited. Equally significant, they also emphasise that Iran is a rational actor that would have to count the high costs of retaliation. That conclusion stands in sharp contrast to the official Israeli line that Iran cannot be deterred because of its alleged apocalyptic Islamic viewpoint on war with Israel. More

Bernard Weiner
The question is not whether Iran will be attacked, but by whom and whether the bombing will commence within the next several months or shortly after the November election. The U.S. for many months has made bellicose noises about thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions with force — complete with a virtual repeat of its pre-war propaganda campaign prior to “shock&awe” against Iraq. Israel is reported to have just carried out a military exercise practicing for an attack on Iran. Iran is letting it be known how destructive and unconventional its retaliation would be if it is bombed. What is going on?

Though one can decry it, at least one can understand why Israel, just a short missile flight from Iran, might want to take “pre-emptive” action against that country were it to possess nuclear-weapons capabilities. But what’s driving the neocons in the White House to push so insistently for an attack on Iran? It seems clear that Cheney and Bush want Iran’s nascent civilian nuclear program taken out now before it could become operational in a military sense five or ten years down the road. If this is true, why would the Administration have wanted to attack Iraq? More

ABC News—Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world. A senior defense official told ABC News there is an “increasing likelihood” that Israel will carry out such an attack, a move that likely would prompt Iranian retaliation against, not just Israel, but against the United States as well. The official identified two “red lines” that could trigger an Israeli offensive. The first is tied to when Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility produces enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. According to the latest U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments, that is likely to happen sometime in 2009, and could happen by the end of this year. More

Iran on Sunday dismissed reports that Israel had been practicing for air strikes against its nuclear drive as “psychological operations” but warned of a limitless response to any attack. The New York Times on Friday cited US officials as saying that a major Israeli military exercise over Greece earlier this month appeared to be a dry run for a potential strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. “It seems that a series of psychological operations have been taken to intimidate the Islamic republic and force it to renounce its absolute and legitimate right” to nuclear power, Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said.

“But Iran will not be intimidated by these threats and will not renounce its right,” he added, quoted by the Fars news agency. An official with the Greek air force’s central command confirmed the substance of the report, stating that it had taken part in “joint training exercises” with Israel off the Mediterranean island of Crete. “Iran will not begin any conflict but will punish any aggressor with force. With determination and using all the options — without limit in time and space — we will give a destructive response to any hostile action,” Najar said. His comments came after the UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned on Saturday that an attack on Iran would turn the region into a “ball of fire.” More

Peter Symonds
The visit by US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen to Israel yesterday is one more indication that the two countries are actively discussing a military strike on Iran. Mullen’s trip followed news that the Israeli air force carried out a major exercise earlier this month involving 100 fighter jets, backed by midair fuel tankers and rescue helicopters, flying some 1,500 kilometres westward over the Mediterranean Sea—roughly the same distance as eastward from Israel to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Mullen’s trip was only the second by a joint chiefs chairman to Israel in more than a decade. Last December Mullen also visited Israel in the wake of an unprovoked attack last September by Israeli warplanes on a building in northern Syria. In April, the Bush administration authorised a CIA briefing, which claimed, on the basis of limited evidence, that Syria had been constructing a nuclear reactor at the site with the assistance of North Korea.

Few details of Mullen’s latest trip are available, but Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell did acknowledge that Iran was at the top of the agenda. “Obviously, when Chairman Mullen goes to Israel and speaks with the Israelis, they will no doubt discuss the threat posed by Iran, as we discuss it in this building, in other buildings in town,” he said.

Two other top US military officers were also in Israel this week. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead met with his Israeli counterpart, as did General William Wallace, commander of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command. Roughead’s presence is particularly significant, as the US navy would be central in countering any Iranian retaliation in the Persian Gulf following an Israeli strike. More

jpost.com
Israel is likely to attack Iran in the time between the November presidential election in the US and the inauguration of the new president, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the Daily Telegraph in an interview published Tuesday. However, Bolton said he did not believe the US would take part in such a strike. “It’s clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility,” he said. “I don’t think it’s serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don’t think it’s in the cards.”

“The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defenses,” Bolton said. “They’re also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgment is they would not want to do anything before our election because there’s no telling what impact it could have on the election.” More

Global Research
It’s no secret that the U.S. is currently putting the finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking Iranian nuclear and military facilities. With our ground forces stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of the most likely scenarios involve a ground invasion. Not that this administration wouldn’t prefer to march into the seat of Shiite Islam behind a solid, moving line of M1 Abrams tanks and proclaim the country for democracy. The fact is that even the President knows we can’t pull that off any more so he and the neo-cons will have to settle for Shock and Awe Lite.

If we invade Iran this year it will be done using hundreds of sorties by carrier based aircraft already stationed in the Persian Gulf and from land based aircraft located in Iraq and Qatar. They will strike the known nuclear facilities located in and around Tehran and the rest of the country as well as bases containing major units of the Iranian military, anti-aircraft installations and units of the Revolutionary Guard (a separate and potent Iranian para-military organization).

Will this military action stop Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Probably not. It will probably not even destroy all of their nuclear research facilities, the most sensitive of which are known to be underground, protected by tons of earth and reinforced concrete and steel designed to survive almost all attacks using conventional munitions. The Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard will most likely survive as well, although they will suffer significant casualties and major bases and command centers will undoubtedly be destroyed. However, since Iran has both a functioning Air Force, Navy (including submarines) and modern anti-aircraft capabilities, U.S. fighter-bombers will suffer casualties as well. This will not be a “Cake Walk” as with the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the Iraqi Army simply melted away and the Iraqi Air Force never even launched a single aircraft.

Not even close. More

Patrick Martin
A senior adviser to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, in the course of an interview with Fortune magazine made public Monday, declared that a new terrorist attack like September 11, 2001 would be good for his candidate’s electoral prospects. Such an event “certainly would be a big advantage to him,” declared Charles R. Black Jr., in a comment that even the monthly business magazine felt compelled to describe as “startling.”

Black added that the assassination last December of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, while “unfortunate,” had given McCain a boost in the final days before the New Hampshire primary, by focusing public attention on a major international crisis. “His knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us,” Black said. More

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn’t want to wait for a new administration. “The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize,” Oren said. “Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran.” Israel’s message is simple: If you don’t, we will. Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone.

“Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers,” Oren said. “The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.” The U.S. with its stealth bombers and cruise missiles has a much greater capability. Vice President Cheney is said to favor a strike, but both Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates are opposed to an attack which could touch off a third war in the region. U.S. intelligence estimates Iran won’t be able to build a weapon until sometime early in the next decade. But Israel is operating on a much shorter timetable. More

By Ray McGovern
Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox – in the form of air and missile attacks – begin. This time it will be largely the Air Force’s show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind: “We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House.” More

The Telegraph
The United Nations nuclear watchdog has warned that a military strike on Iran to prevent it developing atomic weapons would turn the region into a “fireball”. Mohamed ElBaradei said unilateral military action, which has not been ruled out by Israel or the US, would push the Islamic republic into a “crash course” of developing nuclear weapons and threatened to resign if an attack took place.

“What I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger,” said Mr ElBaradei. “If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time … it would make me unable to continue my work.” “A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything,” the International Atomic Energy Agency director general said. “It would turn the region into a fireball.”

Sources at the Pentagon and other US government agencies have confirmed that Israel recently carried out a full rehearsal of an air assault on Iran’s nuclear sites. The exercise, was said to have involved as many as 100 warplanes and its target in the eastern Mediterranean was 900 miles from Israel, roughly the same distance as Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz. More

BBC
Israel has carried out an exercise that appears to have been a rehearsal for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, US officials have told the New York Times. More than 100 Israeli fighter jets took part in manoeuvres over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece in the first week of June, US officials said. Iran insists its programme is peaceful, but Israel sees Iran’s development of the technology as a serious threat. Tehran is defying a demand from the UN that it stop the enrichment of uranium. The UN Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran over the issue in March 2008. There has been a lot of sabre-rattling about Iran recently and the Israeli military exercise appears to have been yet another strong message to Tehran, the BBC’s Kim Ghattas reports from Washington. More

BBC News
Footage from a video camera handed out by an Israeli human rights group appears to show Jewish settlers beating up Palestinians in the West Bank. An elderly shepherd, his wife and a nephew said they were attacked by four masked men for allowing their animals to graze near the settlement of Susia. The rights group, B’Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks. A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way. So far, no-one has been arrested. More

TIME
If the U.S. or Israel so much as drops a bomb on one of its reactors or its military training camps, Iran will shut down Gulf oil exports by launching a barrage of Chinese Silkworm missiles on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and Arab oil facilities. In the worst case scenario, seventeen million barrels of oil would come off world markets. One oil speculator told me that oil would hit $200 a barrel within minutes. But Iran’s official news agency, Fars, puts it at $300 a barrel. I asked him if Iran is right, what does that mean?

“Four dollar a gallon of gasoline only reflects $100 oil because the refiners’ margins are squeezed,” he said. “At $300, you have $12 a gallon of gasoline and riots in Newark, Los Angeles, Harlem, Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas.” The Iranians truly believe they have us hostage in Iraq—our supply lines, the acquiescence of the Shi’a in the occupation. It would all change in an instant, though, especially if we were to borrow Iraq to attack Iran. The way Fars put it: “In Iraq, fighters would rise up in solidarity with each other and begin … making the Tet Offensive in 1968 Vietnam.” More

We had the military analyst story by the NYTimes, then the plethora of defensive reactions by those thin-skinned pundits like Couric, Brian Williams, and Chris Matthews, all defending themselves against McClellan’s criticisms of the “liberal media” and how they acted as “deferential, complicit enablers” of the administration’s “propaganda” leading up to the Iraq war. Where are they Now that we’re inches from a war in Iran?

mediachannel
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, struck a glum note when asked about the possibility of preemptively striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I actually am very hopeful that we don’t get into a position where we have to get into a conflict,” Mullen responded, according to Reuters. “It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world.”

But on May 20, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Mullen sounded far more combative. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the US designated a terrorist organization in 2007, is “directly jeopardiz[ing]” peace in Iraq, said Mullen, according to the Associated Press (AP). And then: “Restraint in our response does not signal lack of resolve or capability to defend ourselves against threats.”

The AP report on Mullen’s congressional testimony didn’t note his change in rhetoric. Neither did the New York Times, which made only passing reference to Mullen’s testimony. (The Times story, which focused on the Jerusalem Post’s claim that the US plans to attack Iran this year, was buried on A13.) And the May 21 Washington Post didn’t mention Mullen’s testimony at all. More

Where is the outrage?
The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a U.S. Navy intelligence ship, USS Liberty, in international waters about 12.5 nautical miles (23 km) from the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, north of El Arish, by Israeli fighter planes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967.

It occurred during the Six-Day War, a conflict between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The Israeli attack killed 34 U.S. servicemen and wounded at least 173. The attack was the second deadliest against a U.S. Naval vessel since the end of World War II, surpassed only by the Iraqi Exocet missile attack on the USS Stark on May 17, 1987, and marked the single greatest loss of life by the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Also see: VIDEO: Phil Tourney’s speech, USS Liberty survivor, at the No More Wars for Israel Conference

Israel doesn’t really want to attack Iran or they wouldn’t announce it; nevertheless, it’s unavoidable now. Israel will never allow Iran nuclear capability. Global war will hinge on the reactions of China and Russia.

JERUSALEM, June 6 (Reuters) - An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s deputies said on Friday. “If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

“Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable,” said the former army chief who has also been defence minister. It was the most explicit threat yet against Iran from a member of Olmert’s government, which, like the Bush administration, has preferred to hint at force as a last resort should U.N. Security Council sanctions be deemed a dead end. More

Press TV
FORMER German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer says Israel is planning to attack Iran in the near future over its nuclear program. He wrote a piece that appeared in today’s Daily Star, an English-language Lebanese newspaper, arguing that President Bush’s recent visit to the Middle East was a precursor to a war against Iran.

“The Middle East is drifting toward a new great confrontation in 2008. Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin,” he said. Fischer said Bush’s speech during his address to the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, this month indicated a coming Israeli-US attack on Iran’s nuclear program. “He (Bush) seemed to be planning, together with Israel, to end the Iranian nuclear program — and to do so by military, rather than by diplomatic, means….

Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of a nuclear Iran and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won’t stand by and wait for matters to take their course,” Fischer said. Fischer was German’s top diplomat from 1998 to 2005 and is a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.