Who Wants War With Iran?

[John81]

Who Wants War With Iran?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday - January 20, 2011

On Sept. 21, 1976, as his car rounded Sheridan Circle on Embassy Row, former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier was assassinated by car bomb. Ronni Moffitt, a 25-year-old American women who worked with Letelier at the leftist Institute for Policy Studies, died with him.

Michael Townley, an ex-CIA asset in the hire of Chile's intelligence agency, confessed to using anti-Castro Cubans to murder Letelier, in what was regarded as an act of terrorism on U.S. soil.

Which raises a question: Are not the murders of four Iranian scientists associated with that nation's nuclear program, by the attachment of bombs to their cars in Tehran, also acts of terrorism?

Had the Stalin- or Khrushchev-era Soviets done this to four U.S. scientists in Washington, would we not have regarded it as acts of terrorism and war?

Iran has accused the United States and Israel of murder. But Hillary Clinton emphatically denied any U.S. complicity: "I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran."

"The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this," added National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, "We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this."

Victoria Nuland, Clinton's spokeswoman at State, denounced "any assassination or attack on an innocent person, and we express our sympathies to the family."

The assassinated scientist was a supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility that hosts regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. If Iran is building a bomb, it is not at Natanz.

U.S. denial of involvement leaves Mossad as the prime suspect. Israel has not denied it, and this comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-Israeli relations.

In Foreign Policy magazine, author and historian Mark Perry, claiming CIA documentation, alleges that Mossad agents in London posed as CIA agents and contacted Jundallah, a terrorist group, to bribe and recruit them to engage in acts of terror inside Iran.

Jundallah has conducted attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan province, killing government officials, soldiers, and women and children.

According to Perry, when George W. Bush learned of the Mossad agents posing as CIA while recruiting terrorists, he "went totally ballistic."

Yet Meir Dagan, head of Mossad at the time, denies it, and, ironically, has called any Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities "the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

Who is telling the truth? We do not know for sure.

What we do know is that "Bibi" Netanyahu is desperate to have the United States launch air and missile strikes to stop Teheran from becoming the world's ninth nuclear power. And he is echoed not only by U.S. neocons, but GOP candidates save Ron Paul.

Nor should we be surprised.

To bring America into its war with Germany, Winston Churchill set up William Stephenson, "A Man Called Intrepid," with hundreds of agents in New York to engage in everything from bribery to blackmail of U.S. senators to get the United States to enter the war and pull England's chestnuts out of the fire.

This is what desperate countries do.

And while America First kept us out of the European war until Adolf Hitler invaded Russia, ensuring that Russians, not Americans, died in the millions to defeat him, eventually America was maneuvered into war.

Whoever is assassinating these Iranian scientists, be it homegrown Iranian terrorists, Jundallah at the instigation of Israel, or Mossad, the objective is clear: Enrage the Iranians so they strike out at America, provoking a U.S.-Iranian war.

Is such a war in America's interests? Consider.

While U.S. air and naval power would prevail, Iranian civilians would die, as some of their nuclear facilities are in populated areas. Moreover, we cannot kill the nuclear knowledge Iran has gained. Thus we would only set back their nuclear program by several years. And a bloodied and beaten Iran would then go all-out for a bomb.

The regime, behind which its people would rally, would emerge even more entrenched. U.S. bombing did not cause Germans to remove Hitler or Japanese to depose their emperor. And we lack the ground troops to invade and occupy a country three times the size of Iraq.

All U.S. ships, including carriers in that bathtub the Persian Gulf, would be at risk from shore-based anti-ship missiles and the hundreds of missile boats in Iran's navy. Any sea battle would send oil prices to $200 and $300 a barrel. There goes the eurozone.

Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shia of the Saudi oil fields and Bahrain, home port to the Fifth Fleet, and Iranian agents in Afghanistan and Iraq could set the region aflame.

As America started up the road to Baghdad in 2003, Gen. David Petraeus is said to have asked, "Tell me how this ends."

Before some agent provocateur pushes us into war with Iran, Congress should debate the wisdom of authorizing President Obama, or anyone else, to take America into her fifth war in a generation in the Middle and Near East.



SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/who-wants-war-with-iran-4991

[John81]

Defense Secretary admits Iran not pursuing a nuclear weapon

by Joel McDurmon on Jan 17, 2012

It was likely a lapse of protocol, but Panetta let it slip: Iran is in fact not trying to develop a nuclear weapon. CBS reports,
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlined some red lines when it comes to Iran in an interview on “Face the Nation” Sunday, saying the U.S. would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon or to block the Strait of Hormuz, which is a key passageway for oil from the Middle East.
“Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.”
There it is, plain and simple for the whole world to hear. Of course, that tidbit of information may not help the cause of those who wish for yet another interventionist war. Panetta quickly recovered, and nearly contradicted himself in the process:
But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us,” Panetta told “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer. “And our red line to Iran is to not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.”
The pro-war crowd cannot barely bring themselves to report the fact. Despite the Defense Secretary’s clear words ”not trying to develop,” here’s how Fox News spun the story:
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step.
It seems to me that “laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons” would fall under “trying to develop nuclear weapons,” but that’s exactly the opposite of what Panetta said. It seems like there’s a considerable amount of semantics on all sides here.

Edited January 20, 2012 by John81

[JerryNumbers]

Would it not be nice to know the truth, yet I feel we will not have ti, only guesses, & speculation.

[John81]

The truth is we can't always know for certain what another country is or isn't doing. However, a nuclear commission has reported Iran is not trying to develope a nuclear bomb and no one has been able to refute their report. The American secretary of defense says they are not trying to make a nuke.

Even with these statements there are yet many who want to bomb Iran or even go to war with Iran. This is very similar to the rush to war with Iraq because of the Weapons of Mass Destruction they were supposed to have, but didn't.

Meanwhile, someone is murdering Iranian scientists (most likely either Israelis, Americans or British spy agencies are responsible). Does it do our cause any good to condemn acts of terrorism while conducting the same?

[JerryNumbers]

The truth is we can't always know for certain what another country is or isn't doing. However, a nuclear commission has reported Iran is not trying to develope a nuclear bomb and no one has been able to refute their report. The American secretary of defense says they are not trying to make a nuke.

Even with these statements there are yet many who want to bomb Iran or even go to war with Iran. This is very similar to the rush to war with Iraq because of the Weapons of Mass Destruction they were supposed to have, but didn't.

Meanwhile, someone is murdering Iranian scientists (most likely either Israelis, Americans or British spy agencies are responsible). Does it do our cause any good to condemn acts of terrorism while conducting the same?

That is true, & we cannot be sure of those that tell us what another country is or isn't doing, for they will always speak in a manner to promote their agenda.

There was a time when we thought that we could trust what our government stated, yet we have learned that they did not deserve that trust.

Which just further proves the Bible is true & we live in a world filled with fallen humans.