URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to what Seymour Hersh mentioned

URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to

what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf

Blitzer on CNN this morning):

Here is the transcript of what Seymour Hersch said on Wolf Blitzer's

'Late Edition' broadcast earlier today (Sunday) in the USA (can watch

such via the video link included at:

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Seymour_Hersh_War_with_Iran_will_0930.html

):

CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0709/30/le.01.html

Interview With Seymour Hersh; Interview With Hoshyar Zebari

Aired September 30, 2007 - 11:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND

MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: It's 11 a.m. here in Washington, 8 a.m. in Los

Angeles, 6 p.m. in Baghdad. Whenever you're watching from around the

world, thanks very much for joining us for "Late Edition."

As the rhetoric between the United States and Iran ratchets up over

Iran's nuclear ambitions and its involvement in Iraq, so do the

questions about whether a U.S.-led military confrontation between the

two countries is inevitable. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Seymour Hersh has an article in new issue of The New Yorker magazine.

It's entitled "Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plans for

Iran."

Seymour Hersh is here in our studio. Sy, thanks very much for coming

in.

SEYMOUR HERSH, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: Sure.

BLITZER: I want get to the article in a second. But I want to show the

viewers the cover of The New Yorker magazine, and we'll put it up on

the screen. You can see it right there.

I guess it's fair to say it's Ahmadinejad with, what, a Senator Larry

Craig kind of pose in a men's room, tapping toes. What was the theory

behind this cover going after Ahmadinejad like this right now?

HERSH: You're asking me about a New Yorker cover? You might as well

ask me about a Rembrandt. The only thing I can say is, I don't think

Ahmadinejad's going to be coming back to New York very soon. It was a

rough trip.

BLITZER: It was a rough trip. And I guess in part that cover is

motivated by his statement, there are no gay people, there are no

homosexuals in Iran, a statement that was obviously ridiculed around

the world.

HERSH: Yes. That's a fair guess.

BLITZER: All right. let's talk a little about your article entitled

"Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran." I want to play

for you a clip of what the president, President Bush, said back on

August 28th in Reno, Nevada. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The attacks on our bases and our troops by

Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the past few months,

despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in

Iraq.

I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized

our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous

activities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You cite that among many other statements as, what,

escalating the rhetoric coming out of Washington right now. What's

going on?

HERSH: Well, they've changed their rhetoric, really. The name of the

game used to be, they're a nuclear threat. Iran is going to have a

bomb soon. We have to do it.

Sort of the same game we had before the war in Iraq. And what's

happened is in the last few months, they've come to the realization

that they're not selling it. It isn't working. The American people

aren't worried about Iran as a nuclear threat, certainly as they were

about Iraq. There's some skepticism. So they switched, really.

BLITZER: Is it just a public relations tactic or, as the

administration maintains, there is evidence, they say, of extensive

Iranian involvement in fueling this sectarian violence in Iraq.

HERSH: Absolutely, as far as their concerned, the Iranians are deeply

involved in the killing of Americans and coalition British Forces. And

it's also fair to say it's not -- we don't know whether Iran is really

trying to get a bomb or not.

But the fact is, there's no evidence. And the White House has come to

terms finally with the idea that it's the American community's pretty

much total consensus that they're five years at least away. They're

not getting any...

BLITZER: From getting a nuclear bomb.

HERSH: Absolutely. They're going nowhere with their research, despite

the braggadocio. So the White House has shifted.

Instead of trying to sell it, not only to the American people but to

its allies, the notion of a massive bombing against the

infrastructure, what they call counterproliferation against the

infrastructure of the Iraqi bomb, hitting the various facilities we

know that exist, instead they're now decided they're going to hit the

Iranians, payback for hitting us.

They're going to hit the Revolutionary Guard headquarters and

facilities. They're going to tone down the bombing. They're going to

shift it. It's going to be more surgical. It's going to be much more

limited.

BLITZER: Airstrikes. Let me read to you from your article: "During a

secure video conference that took place early this summer, the

president told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, that he was

thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the

British were on board. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran

to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution."

And you see that as a change in the U.S. strategy?

HERSH: Well, the strategy is, it's a targeting change. We're

threatening Iran. We've been doing it constantly. But instead of

saying to the American people, instead of saying internally it's going

to be about nuclear weapons, it's now going to be about getting the

guys that are killing our boys.

We're going to hit the border facilities, the facilities inside Iraq

we think are training terrorists. We're going to hit the facilities we

think are supplying some of the explosive devices into Iraq. This is

the administration's position.

BLITZER: And this would be air power, what you're saying, cruise

missiles or surgical airstrikes, is that what you're saying?

HERSH: Of course. A lot of cruise missiles, a lot of surgical

airstrikes. You also have to go on the ground because you've got to

suppress their anti-air defenses. You've got to make sure you, as

somebody said to me, a path in, a path out.

And one of the problems with all of this, of course, is that inside

the intelligence community, the notion that Iran is doing as much as

the president says is not accepted. I mean, there's a great debate

about how deeply involved Iran really is.

BLITZER: In what's going on in Iraq?

HERSH: Yes.

BLITZER: Let me read again from the article. This is what you write:

"I was repeatedly cautioned in interviews that the president has yet

to issue the 'execute order' that would be required for a military

operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But

there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack

planning."

I want you to explain what you mean. What does that mean, an increase

in the tempo?

HERSH: Well, publicly, they've castigated the Revolutionary Guards.

The language is increasing, just as you heard the president say to the

-- last August in the clip you showed.

On the inside, the CIA has really been ramping up very hard. There's

something called the Iranian Operations Group. We had the same kind of

a group for the Iraqi war. Before the war in Iraq, we had an

operations group. It's suddenly exploding in manpower. And they've

been going around, just dragging a dozen people here, a dozen there.

They built it up into a large, large operational group.

I'm told also, I didn't write this in the article, I'm told that the

National Security Council inside the White House is focused much more

on attacking Iran and what's going on in Iran than it has been before.

There's been a significant increase on the inside. BLITZER: On the so-

called military option. Here's what the White House press secretary

Dana Perino told us: "The president believes this issue can be solved

diplomatically. And the administration is working with the

international community through the United Nations Security Council,

plus Germany, to bring diplomatic measures to bear on Iran to put an

end to its enrichment and reprocessing activities."

HERSH: At the same time, as I write in this article, they've been

pitching this new idea of hitting the Revolutionary Guards, more

limited, more surgical, more carefully drawn up, planned attack. And

where, for example, the Brits, who were very hostile to the idea of a

thousand points of lights, bombing, all the heavy air force coming and

bombing the nuclear facilities, it takes a lot of bombs. Many of them

are underground.

The Brits are interested in this idea. There's been expressions of

interest from Australia, other countries. The Israelis, of course,

have gone bananas. They're very upset about the idea of not going.

If you're going into Iran, the Israeli position is very firm. They

want us to go. And they want us to hit hard. You do not, as somebody,

an Israeli, told me, if you run into a lion, you either shoot it or

ignore it. You don't pluck out its eyebrows.

Going in and taking out the Revolutionary Guards and not taking out

the nuclear facilities for the Israelis is a non-starter. But that's

the plan. The plan is to be more surgical, more careful and they're

getting some of their allies on board.

BLITZER: And here's what also you write. You say, "Now the emphasis is

on surgical strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran

and elsewhere, which the administration claims have been the source of

attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a

counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as

counterterrorism."

And there's obviously different kinds of military moves you deal with

fighting terrorism as opposed to proliferation, nuclear weapons, for

example.

HERSH: Absolutely. And you can also sell counterterror. It's more

logical. You can say to people, the American people, we're only

hitting those people that we think are trying to hit our boys and the

coalition forces. And so that seems to be more sensible.

Because the White House thinks they can actually pitch this, this

would actually work. In other words, you can do a bombing and not have

the world scream at us and also get the British on board.

BLITZER: Let me also read this line: "A Pentagon consultant on

counterterrorism told me that if the bombing campaign took place, it

would be accompanied by a series of what he called 'short, sharp

incursions' by American Special Forces units into suspected Iranian

training sites. He said, quote, 'Cheney is devoted to this, no

question.'" So it wouldn't just be airstrikes. You're saying there

would be limited ground strikes as well, involving U.S. Special

Operations Forces?

HERSH: We've got Special Operation Forces on the border right now,

championing to go in there. They're in Waziristan too. They want to go

into go look for bin Laden. We've got a lot of very competent,

aggressive Special Forces guys that want to go in. And it's going to

be touch and go. I think -- I don't know what's going to happen.

If we do go in, you're going to have to go in on the ground, not only

to get the camps with the Special Forces, the Iranians have a lot of

antiaircraft missiles along the coast that are dug in. And you

probably get to them from air, so you might have to send Marines in to

go blow them up one by one. You don't want these guys shooting down

your airplanes.

BLITZER: Now, you've been writing about this possibility of a U.S.

military strike on Iran for some time.

HERSH: A year-and-a-half.

BLITZER: It hasn't happened yet but you're convinced before the

president leaves office it might happen?

HERSH: Oh, well, there's no -- that's easy. I don't know. What I do

know -- what I do know -- is he wants to do something. He will not

leave Iran in a position to be a nuclear power, in a position to be

the threat.

And the other point that's made in the article, one of the other

points is, the White House understands that the world perceives Iran

as the winner of the American sort of colossal failure we've had in

Iraq. I mean, the screw-up in Iraq has put Iran in enormous power

because the Shiites in the south of Iraq are very close to their

needs.

BLITZER: And one new element in all of this -- you mentioned the

British on board, the Australians -- but France, the new government of

President Sarkozy, the new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who was

here last week on "Late Edition," they're sounding a lot different

than their predecessors, President Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.

HERSH: Absolutely. They're very tough. The French really believe the

Iranians are very close to a bomb, and they see that as an issue. But

it's also interesting because my friends who -- there are people --

the French also are communicating they are not in favor of a strike.

So the more -- they're the loudest on the outside. They're making a

lot of noise about we must do something politically. They're putting a

lot of pressure on the Iranians. I think the French would very much

like to see the Iranians get serious.

But they're not serious in talks at this point, from our point of

view, because until they agree to give up developing enriched uranium,

as far as we're concerned, we're not going to deal with them.

BLITZER: "Target Iran: Why the Administration is Redefining its Case

Against Tehran." Seymour Hersh is the reporter writing in the new

issue of the New Yorker Magazine. Sy, thanks for coming in.

HERSH: Glad to be here.

Hersh: 'War with Iran will be about protecting the troops in Iraq'

09/30/2007 @ 12:51 pm

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Seymour_Hersh_War_with_Iran_will_0930.html

Filed by Greg Wasserstrom

The only thing different about the Bush Administration's rhetoric

about Iran and statements made Iraq before the US invasion in 2003 are

the words chosen, says journalist Seymour Hersh.

Advertisement

"They've changed their rhetoric, really. The name of the game used to

be nuclear threat," Hersh said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf

Blitzer, adding a moment later, "They've come to the realization that

it's not selling, it isn't working. The American people aren't worried

about Iran as a nuclear threat certainly as they were about Iraq. So

they've switched, really."

The Bush Administration is all but set to authorize a campaign of

limited, surgical airstrikes against Iranian targets, Hersh reports in

the New Yorker's latest edition. In his piece, Hersh writes, "During a

secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the

President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was

thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the

British 'were on board'... Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell

Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American

retribution."

The sites in Iran being targeted however, reflect the change in the

White House selling of armed conflict with Iran.

"Instead of... hitting the various [nuclear] facilities we know that

exist, instead they're going to hit the Iranians as payback for

hitting us [in Iraq]," Hersh told Blitzer in the CNN interview.

Such targets, Hersh says, would include Iran's Revolutionary Guard

headquarters and other sites of Iran's alleged support for the

insurgency in Iraq.

Hersh does not seem to think that direct conflict with Iran is

inevitable however. He writes: "I was repeatedly cautioned, in

interviews, that the President has yet to issue the "execute order"

that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such

an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant

increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior

officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And

two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late

summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the

Iranian Operations Group."

Those statements were echoed in the piece by former National Security

Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. "'A lot depends on how stupid the

Iranians will be,' Brzezinski told me. 'Will they cool off Ahmadinejad

and tone down their language?' The Bush Administration, by charging

that Iran was interfering in Iraq, was aiming 'to paint it as 'We're

responding to what is an intolerable situation,'' Brzezinski said.

'This time, unlike the attack in Iraq, we're going to play the victim.

The name of our game seems to be to get the Iranians to overplay their

hand.'"

READ HERSH'S FULL ARTICLE AT THIS LINK.

VIDEO FROM LATE EDITION, BROADCAST SEPTEMBER 30, 2007

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Annals of National Security

Shifting Targets

The Administration's plan for Iran.

by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh

--------------------------------------------------------------

('JINSA John') Bolton calls for bombing of Iran (for Israel)

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tory2007/story/0,,2180555,00.html

Ros Taylor

Sunday September 30, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

John Bolton: 'I think we have to look at a limited strike against

their nuclear facilities.' Photograph Win McNamee/Getty Images.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory

delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with

Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike

on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord

(Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-

back" from the west.

"I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but

I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is.

"Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of

military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against

their nuclear facilities."

He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove

the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad.

"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at

regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the

clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."

The fact that intelligence about Iran's nuclear activity was partial

should not be used as an excuse not to act, Mr Bolton insisted.

"Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction." He asked how

the British government would respond if terrorists exploded a nuclear

device at home. "'It's only Manchester?' ... Responding after they're

used is unacceptable."

Mr Bolton, now a fellow at the conservative thinktank the American

Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book called

Surrender is Not an Option, was applauded by delegates when he

described the UN as "fundamentally irrelevant".

Defending the decision to invade Iraq, he mocked the Foreign Office's

"softly softly" approach to Iran's imprisonment of 15 British sailors

accused of straying into Iranian waters in April this year.

They were released after Mr Ahmadinejad announced he was making a

"gift" to the British people. "They [iran] got no response from the UK

or the US. If you were the Iranian leader, what conclusion do you

draw?"

Mr Bolton said he did not really want "to get into the specifics of

your own internal politics here" and made no comment on David

Cameron's foreign policy. But he said that Gordon Brown's performance

under pressure had not been tested and he hoped that Britain would not

withdraw from Iraq.

"There is too much of a view in Europe that you have passed beyond

history," Mr Bolton told delegates. "That everything can be worked out

by negotiation ... Democrats or Republicans, we [Americans] don't see

it that way."

However, he praised the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his

forthright criticism of Iran in recent weeks.

Raising the spectre of George Bush's "axis of evil", Mr Bolton said

that Kim Jong-il's regime in North Korea was akin to a "prison camp"

and that he would "sell anything to anyone".

Those who thought North Korea would give up its nuclear capability

voluntarily were wrong, he said.

The regime had made similar promises during the past decade. Only

reunification between North and South Korea could resolve the problem.

That could be achieved "if China were to get serious" and cut off fuel

supplies to Mr Kim, but the country feared a reunited Korea.

Mr Bolton told an inquiring delegate that he was not and had never

been a neoconservative: "I'm not even a Reagan conservative. I'm a

[barry] Goldwater conservative. They [neocons] have somewhat - I would

say excessively - Wilsonian views about the benefits of democracy."

However, the threat to world peace did not come from neoconservatives

but from the perception that "we have passed beyond history", he

said.

The meeting was organised by the Global Strategy Forum, of which Lord

Ancram is chairman. Earlier this month, the former Conservative deputy

leader criticised the direction in which David Cameron was taking the

party and for "trashing" its Thatcherite heritage.

------------------------------------------------------

Bolton was (and I assume still is) associated with JINSA (Jewish

Institute for National Security Affairs) as Brit MP (and former Father

of the Commons) Tam Dalyell even conveyed that JINSA had too much

influence on the Bush regime (see the articles linked at the following

of the following URL):

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/13/179248

-----------------------------------------------------------

Read more about JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security) via the

UPI article which is at the beginning of the following URL about the

Mearsheimer & Walt book

(http://www.israellobbybook.com):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=49800

---------------------------------------------------------------

Colin Powell even conveyed that the 'JINSA crowd' was in control of

the Pentagon for Washington Post correspondent Karen DeYoung's bio

book about him (simply look up 'JINSA/Jewish Institute for National

Security Affairs' in the index) as Cheney has been associated with

JINSA (and PNAC as well) as Fisk conveyed via http://tinyurl.com/2poj3o

for the London Independent:

A War for Israel: Colin Powell Seems to Think So:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=61128

-----------------------------------------------------------

Teflon Alliance with Israel:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=79679

---------------------------------------------------------------

What World War III

May Look Like

http://tinyurl.com/yqpapa

------------------------------------------------------------------

Meet the "Whack Iran" Lobby

Exiles peddling shaky intelligence, advocacy groups pressing for

regime change, neocons bent on remaking the Middle East. Sound

familiar?

Daniel Schulman

October 06 , 2006

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/09/iran.html

Exiles peddling back-channel intelligence, upstart advocacy groups

pressing for regime change, administration hawks intent on remaking

the Middle East-the scene in Washington is looking eerily familiar as

the Iran standoff grows more tense. Instead of Ahmad Chalabi, we have

the likes of Iran-Contra arms-dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. A new Iran

directorate inside the Pentagon features some of the same people who

brought you the Iraq intel-cherrypicking operation at the Office of

Special Plans. Whether calling for outright regime change or pushing

"democracy promotion" initiatives to undermine the Iranian government,

an expanding cast of characters has emerged to promote confrontation

between the U.S. and Iran. What follows is an abridged list of the

individuals and organizations agitating to bring down the mullahs.

Abram Shulsky

An acolyte of political philosopher Leo Strauss, one of the

intellectual forbears of the neoconservative movement and an advocate

of the "noble lie,"-the notion that deception is morally acceptable

when used by a wise, but misunderstood elite--Shulsky headed the

Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which trafficked in faulty

intelligence on Iraq (including information from Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi

National Congress) and circumvented the CIA to "stovepipe" WMD

intelligence directly to the White House. As Laura Rozen reported in

the Los Angeles Times in May, Shulsky, along with two former OSP

staffers, John Trigilio and Ladan Archin, is now involved with the

Pentagon's Iran directorate. Already there are fears that the office

has become a conduit for Iranian expatriate and one-time arms dealer

Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iran-Contra figure whom the CIA deemed a

fabricator as far back as 1984. In a 1999 paper called "Leo Strauss

and the World of Intelligence," co-authored with the American

Enterprise Institute's Gary Schmitt, Shulsky writes that "Strauss's

view certainly alerts one to the possibility that political life may

be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is

the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the

expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is

the exception."

Elizabeth Cheney

The vice president's eldest daughter's official title is Vice

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern

Affairs; in that capacity, Cheney, until her maternity leave earlier

this year, oversaw the State Department's Iran-Syria Operations Group,

whose mission is to aggressively push democracy promotion campaigns.

Sometimes referred to as the agency's "democracy czar," Cheney had no

Middle East assignments before being appointed to her current post,

which involves launching a $85 million democracy promotion/propaganda

campaign targeting Iran. At Foggy Bottom, she "has not shied away from

throwing her weight around," according to the American Prospect, and

has been said to operate a "shadow Middle East policy." She rarely

speaks publicly or grants interviews; in an appearance at the Foreign

Policy Association in 2005, she called Iran "the world's leading

sponsor of terror. No word on when and in what capacity Cheney will

return from her leave.

David Wurmser

Long before being recruited to the Pentagon from the American

Enterprise Institute following September 11, Wurmser was one of the

loudest voices calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster. During the 1990s

he co-authored a strategy paper-intended as advice to then-Israeli

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-with a string of neoconservatives

including Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and his wife, Meyrav, a Middle

East policy wonk at the Hudson Institute. It suggested "removing

Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq... as a means of foiling Syria's

regional ambitions" and advancing Israel's. As Mother Jones reported,

Wurmser was also the "founding participant of the unnamed, secret

intelligence unit at the Pentagon, set up in Feith's office, which

would be the nucleus of the Defense Department's Iraq disinformation

campaign that was established within weeks of the attacks in New York

and Washington." He served as an assistant to John Bolton at the State

Department before becoming one of the Vice President's Middle East

advisors. Less than two weeks after September 11, Wurmser described

discontent within Iran as "a strategic opportunity" for the U.S.

Elliott Abrams

Since his return to public service after pleading guilty to two

misdemeanor counts for withholding information from Congress as it

probed the Iran-Contra scandal (he was later pardoned by President

George H. W. Bush), Abrams has been a key player in shaping the Bush

administration's Middle East agenda. In 2005, he was tapped as deputy

national security adviser and is now responsible for pushing the

administration's reform agenda in the Middle East. A founding member

of the neocon think tank Project for the New American Century, Abrams

joined Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeldin signing a 1998 letter to

Bill Clinton urging regime change in Iraq. Abrams has written that

"our military strength and willingness to use it will remain a key

factor in our ability to promote peace."

Michael Ledeen

>From his perch at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen

has long advocated toppling the Iranian regime. Criticizing U.S.

policy toward Iran in March, he wrote, "Iran has been at war with us

for 27 years, and we have discussed every imaginable subject with

them. We have gained nothing, because there is nothing to be gained by

talking with an enemy who thinks he is winning.... If this

administration were true to its announced principles, we would be

actively supporting democratic revolution in Iran, but we do not seem

to be serious about doing that." In the mid-1980s, Ledeen played a

part in Iran-Contra by arranging meetings between the U.S. and his

close friend Manucher Ghorbanifar; in 2001, he rekindled that

relationship when he set up a meeting in Rome between Ghorbanifar and

two Pentagon officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to talk about

regime change.

Manucher Ghorbanifar

Though Manucher Ghorbanifar has failed a CIA-administered lie detector

test and the agency has issued not one but two "burn notices" warning

field agents against using him, he continues to have the ear of

neocons within the Pentagon. He has claimed, among other things, that

there was an Iranian plot afoot to attack U.S. soldiers in

Afghanistan, that Tehran was planning attacks against the U.S., and

that weapons-grade uranium had been smuggled into Iran from Iraq.

Ghorbanifar, via a middleman, is also alleged to be the source behind

Congressman Curt Weldon's more outlandish claims about the Iranian

threat to the U.S., which he compiled in his 2005 book Countdown to

Terror. As Laura Rozen reported recently in Mother Jones, "Weldon's

main source, a mysterious Iranian whom the congressman code-names

'Ali,' is, in fact, Ghorbanifar's longtime business partner and

personal secretary, Fereidoun Mahdavi.... Mahdavi, in turn, told me that

the information he gave Weldon came from Ghorbanifar, who appears to

have used him as a kind of cutout - a vehicle for laundering

intelligence." This same Ghorbanifar associate told Rozen in late

September that Ghorbanifar "is again giving his information to

Washington. He implied that U.S. officials call him up frequently."

Committee on the Present Danger

First formed in 1950 as a lobby to alert the nation to the Soviet

menace and revived in 1976, the committee was resurrected for a third

time in 2004, its mission to "educate free people everywhere about the

threat posed by global radical Islamist and fascist terrorist

movements" and to support "policies aimed at winning the global war

against terrorism and the movements and ideologies that drive it." Co-

chaired by former CIA director James Woolsey and former Secretary of

State George Shultz - Senators Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl are honorary

co-chairs - the committee is packed with academics and former

government officials who share hawkish perspectives and a particular

fixation on Iran. One of the committee's first actions upon re-forming

was to release a policy paper advocating "non-violent" regime change

in Iran.

Iran Policy Committee

Directed by former CIA officer Clare Lopez, the IPC's membership

includes former military and intelligence officials who believe that

the U.S. should pursue a "third alternative" on Iran (the first and

second being diplomacy or pre-emptive military action). While leaving

both military and diplomatic options on the table, IPC advocates

propping up the Iranian opposition to "facilitate regime change."

Among its favored dissident factions are the militant group MEK and

its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. But in

order for the U.S. to enter direct talks with these groups, as the IPC

has suggested, the State Department will first have to remove them

from its roster of foreign terrorist organizations - a move the IPC is

actively lobbying for.

Foundation for Democracy in Iran

Co-founded in 1995 by investigative journalist and activist Kenneth

Timmerman, the Foundation is among the oldest of a constellation of

advocacy groups -- including the now defunct Coalition for Democracy

in Iran established by Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and former AIPAC

director Morris Amitay - that have sprung up to push a hard line on

Iran. "We are not in a political debate with this regime," Timmerman

has said. "We are in the business of overthrowing them." Timmerman's

group, like the Iran Policy Committee, supports aiding Iranian

opposition groups to bring down the regime. Timmerman, according to

his Web site, is also working with the families of 9/11 victims to put

together a class action suit against the Iranian government "because

of its direct, material involvement in the al Qaeda plot to attack

America."

Daniel Schulman is a Mother Jones investigative fellow.

-------------------------------------------------------------

http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2558296.ece

Sarah Baxter, Washington

ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged

President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire

nuclear weapons.

Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement

who has joined Rudolph Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as a

senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush

late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives

at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile

casualties in the past year.

Karl Rove, who was still serving in the White House as Bush's deputy

chief of staff, took notes. But the meeting, which lasted 45 minutes,

was not logged on the president's schedule.

"I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities

and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz,

77, in an interview with The Sunday Times.

"I laid out the worst-case scenario - bombing Iran - versus the worst-

case consequences of allowing the Iranians to get the bomb."

He also told Bush: "You have the awesome responsibility to prevent

another holocaust. You're the only one with the guts to do it." The

president looked very solemn, Podhoretz said.

For the most part Bush simply listened, although he and Rove both

laughed when Podhoretz mentioned giving "futility its chance", a

phrase used by his fellow neoconservative, Robert Kagan, about the

usefulness of pursuing United Nations sanctions against Iran.

"He gave not the slightest indication of whether he agreed with me,

but he listened very intently," Podhoretz said.

He is convinced, however, that "George Bush will not leave office with

Iran having acquired a nuclear weapon or having passed the point of no

return" - a reference to the Iranians' acquisition of sufficient

technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

"The president has said several times that he will be in the

historical dock if he allows Iran to get the bomb. He believes that if

we wait for threats to fully materialise, we'll have waited too long -

something I agree with 100%," Podhoretz said The question of how to

stop Iran has acquired renewed urgency after Mahmoud Ahma-dinejad, the

Iranian president, declared at the United Nations last week that the

dispute over his country's nuclear programme was now "closed".

He added that Iran would disregard any sanctions imposed by "arrogant

powers" for pursuing peaceful nuclear energy.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said flatly: "Everyone knows that

this programme has military aims." However, his call for stronger

sanctions against Iran was ignored in favour of further delays.

The UN security council, facing deadlock with Russia and China, agreed

on Friday to give Iran until November to answer questions from the

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear

programme.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a controversial opposition

group that first revealed the existence of the Natanz uranium

enrichment plant, claimed last week that Iran was fooling the IAEA by

constructing a secret underground military facility three miles south

of Natanz under a granite mountain.

Kayhan, one of the most influential pro-regime newspapers in Iran,

hinted in a recent editorial entitled "Why there won't be a war" that

there are more nuclear projects than have been disclosed. "Are Iran's

nuclear installations confined only to those places which have been

declared?" it asked.

"Can America be sure that if it destroys these it will have eradicated

the whole of Iran's nuclear programme, or at least set it back for a

long time?"

The paper, which is edited by Hossein Shariatmadari, a senior member

of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and a close adviser of Ayatollah

Ali Khame-nei, Iran's spiritual leader, concluded that the

"hullaballoo" about American military action was "psychological

warfare aimed only at frightening us".

The editorial touched on several sore points, as US military and

intelligence sources admit that not all Iran's suspected nuclear

facilities have been identified and others may be buried almost

impenetrably deep in mountainous areas of the country.

Admiral William Fallon, US commander in the Middle East, said last

week that the "constant drumbeat of war is not helpful". But he added

that the pressure on Iran would continue: "We have a very, very robust

capability in the region, especially in comparison to Iran. That is

one of the things people might like to keep in mind."

Podhoretz told Bush that he thought America could strike Iran

militarily without nuclear weaponry. "I'm against using nuclear

weapons and I don't think they are necessary," he said. He believes

the British response to Iran's seizure of Royal Navy hostages last

spring will have convinced Tehran's leaders that they will be able to

act with even greater impunity if they became a nuclear power.

Podhoretz has laid out his views in a new book, World War IV: The Long

Struggle Against Islamofascism. He believes that it has a good deal in

common with the cold war, an ideological battle lasting 42 years,

which he describes as world war three.

"The key to understanding what is happening is to see it as a

successor to the previous totalitarian challenge to our civilisation,"

he said.

Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are merely different fronts of the same

long war, he believes.

Podhoretz, who described himself as a neoconservative before the term

was invented, has seen the movement develop from a small band of

"dissident intellectuals" to one of the intellectual forces behind

Ronald Reagan and, later, the war in Iraq.

Along the way, key people such as "Scooter" Libby, the senior aide to

Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Paul Wolfo-witz, the former World

Bank president, have fallen from grace. "Some of us have been picked

off and others have lost heart," Podhoretz said.

However, neoconservatives are helping to shape the foreign policy of

Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner for the White House, who said in

London recently that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.

Podhoretz has already explained his theory about Islamofascism to the

former New York mayor. "He doesn't call it world war four, but I know

he thinks it is," Podhoretz said.

Watch the video

During the CNN Republican Presidential Debate, Giuliani said he would

use nuclear weapons to destroy Iranian nuclear power (June 2007)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

One can read more about Podhoretz and his Neoconservatism (which is a

Jewish movement even if not all Jews support it) via the 'Thinking

about Neoconservatism' and 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement'

pieces which are linked near the top of the following URL:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606

-----------------------------------------------------------

New book challenges US support for Israel

http://tinyurl.com/3ay3wg

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Joseph A. Palermo

Senate Urges Bush to Attack Iran

Posted September 27, 2007 | 06:51 PM (EST)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/senate-urges-bush-to-atta_b_66223.html

Yesterday, Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton (NY), Chuck Schumer

(NY), Bob Menendez (NJ), Barbara Mikulski (MD), and Ben Cardin (MD)

all voted in favor of the "Kyl-Lieberman Iran Amendment." This piece

of legislation actually encourages the practitioner of cowboy

diplomacy, George W. Bush, to be even more belligerent in his foreign

policy. The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment passed by a vote of 76 to 22.

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it, and Barack Obama missed the

vote.

The amendment states: "The United States should designate Iran's

Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist

organization . . . and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on

the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists."

Kyl-Lieberman is the first step in providing Congressional legitimacy

for military action against Iran. The 76 to 22 vote, which also had

the support of Majority Leader Harry Reid, codifies U.S. Iran policy

and comes very close to sounding like a declaration of war.

Designating a four decades old military branch of a sovereign state a

"foreign terrorist organization" is an extreme step that is only

necessary or useful if there are plans "on the table" to do something

about it.

The U.S. troops in Iraq are not considered "foreign." The U.S. calls

those Iraqis who are resisting occupation "terrorists." Now a segment

of the Iranian armed forces is being labeled a terrorist organization.

Such a step is tantamount to a foreign government designating the U.S.

Marines a "foreign terrorist organization."

The Democratic Senate is playing right into the hands of those neo-

cons and crazies who think a military strike against Iran will improve

the situation in the Middle East. On the contrary, it will magnify the

current disaster in Iraq tenfold.

If the Senate and the Neo-Cons convince Bush to strike Iran they will

be sparking a real war with a nation that can fight back. With its 70

million people, high literacy rate, key geographic location, level of

economic development, and its control of a significant share of the

world's oil production, Iran is a nation that could cause quite a stir

if Bush is dim-witted enough to go down that terrible road.

I can envision a scenario where the United States launches a sustained

set of air raids against most of the infrastructure of Iran,

specifically targeting the "nuclear facilities" that are widely

dispersed throughout the country. The Democrats in Congress will be

jumping through hoops like well-trained circus dogs as they vote for

resolutions and give speeches validating the aggression. And then

we're off to the races in another illegal war against a nation that

has not attacked us.

Iran accounts for about 4 percent of the world's daily oil production,

and will surely shut off the spigots if it is attacked sending the

price of oil skyward. (Iran's ally Venezuela might follow suit.)

Petroleum analysts estimate that the world runs only about a 2 percent

excess capacity of oil production, which could mean an instant drop to

a negative world supply if Iran chooses to stop pumping. This

reduction in output alone could wreak havoc with global energy

markets.

Iran might also take the step of disrupting the oil production of

neighboring Gulf States through missile attacks on their oil

infrastructure and sabotage. The world production of oil could then

drop to a negative 10 percent or more, and the price could shoot up

even higher. The American people, who consume more oil per capita than

any people on earth, will be waiting in long lines to fill up our

tanks as we did during the Iranian revolution in 1978-79. Ordinary

Americans don't only get the privilege of paying for the costs of the

missiles and ordnance Bush will throw at Iran, but we also get the

honor of paying triple the amount for a gallon of gas while we are

queued up at the pump.

The Iranian silkworm missiles, supplied by China, (which recently

signed a $100 billion oil and gas deal with Iran), will rip through

the shipping of the Persian Gulf. Explosions of undetermined origin

will rake through the oil platforms and infrastructure of the Gulf

States. Iraq's civil war will reach a new intensity. And bombs will go

off throughout the region wreaking havoc with the smooth transport of

oil.

The Iranians and their allies in the Gulf will cause trouble in the

Straights of Hormuz where 40 percent of the world's oil passes. They

will turn the Gulf into a garbage dump of damaged ships and flaming

oil dereks. Russia and China will supply arms to Iran and the conflict

will continue, like Iraq, for as long as the United States tries to

impose its will on the region through brute force.

They will also probably have agents blow up U.S. embassies and other

targets all over the world. The war will be the most destabilizing the

Persian Gulf has ever seen.

Compounded with the financial strains of the $600 billion Iraq

occupation, the new war with Iran will run the risk of bankrupting the

United States. China might cash in some of its $1 trillion in U.S.

treasury bonds and exchange them for Euros. The value of the dollar

could then be suddenly devalued. The life savings of millions of

Americans could be threatened as the dollar tanks, and interest rates

shoot up when the central banks try to entice foreigners' to hang on

to their dollars to stop the hemorrhaging. And this devaluing of the

dollar could occur in an environment of hyperinflation because the

high price of oil will drive up the costs of everything.

So let's not let those narrow interests who seek another wider war in

the Middle East prevail. They don't really know what they're getting

themselves into.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

War with Iran real risk according to former CIA operative :

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=71055

NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL@yahoo.com wrote:

> URGENT: British on board with coming air strikes on Iran (according to

> what Seymour Hersh mentioned in the following interview with Wolf

> Blitzer on CNN this morning):

This is not surprising. The surprising fact is that France is now fed up

with Iran's bad-faith effort at negotiating and is willing to take

military action.

>

>

> Here is the transcript of what Seymour Hersch said on Wolf Blitzer's

> 'Late Edition' broadcast earlier today (Sunday) in the USA (can watch

> such via the video link included at:

> http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Seymour_Hersh_War_with_Iran_will_0930.html

> ):

>

> CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER

>

> http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0709/30/le.01.html

>

> Interview With Seymour Hersh; Interview With Hoshyar Zebari

> Aired September 30, 2007 - 11:00 ET

> THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND

> MAY BE UPDATED.

>

> WOLF BLITZER, HOST: It's 11 a.m. here in Washington, 8 a.m. in Los

> Angeles, 6 p.m. in Baghdad. Whenever you're watching from around the

> world, thanks very much for joining us for "Late Edition."

> As the rhetoric between the United States and Iran ratchets up over

> Iran's nuclear ambitions and its involvement in Iraq, so do the

> questions about whether a U.S.-led military confrontation between the

> two countries is inevitable. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

> Seymour Hersh has an article in new issue of The New Yorker magazine.

> It's entitled "Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plans for

> Iran."

>

> Seymour Hersh is here in our studio. Sy, thanks very much for coming

> in.

>

> SEYMOUR HERSH, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: Sure.

>

> BLITZER: I want get to the article in a second. But I want to show the

> viewers the cover of The New Yorker magazine, and we'll put it up on

> the screen. You can see it right there.

>

> I guess it's fair to say it's Ahmadinejad with, what, a Senator Larry

> Craig kind of pose in a men's room, tapping toes. What was the theory

> behind this cover going after Ahmadinejad like this right now?

>

> HERSH: You're asking me about a New Yorker cover? You might as well

> ask me about a Rembrandt. The only thing I can say is, I don't think

> Ahmadinejad's going to be coming back to New York very soon. It was a

> rough trip.

>

> BLITZER: It was a rough trip. And I guess in part that cover is

> motivated by his statement, there are no gay people, there are no

> homosexuals in Iran, a statement that was obviously ridiculed around

> the world.

>

> HERSH: Yes. That's a fair guess.

>

> BLITZER: All right. let's talk a little about your article entitled

> "Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran." I want to play

> for you a clip of what the president, President Bush, said back on

> August 28th in Reno, Nevada. Listen to this.

>

> (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

>

> PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The attacks on our bases and our troops by

> Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the past few months,

> despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in

> Iraq.

>

> I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized

> our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous

> activities.

>

> (END VIDEO CLIP)

>

> BLITZER: You cite that among many other statements as, what,

> escalating the rhetoric coming out of Washington right now. What's

> going on?

>

> HERSH: Well, they've changed their rhetoric, really. The name of the

> game used to be, they're a nuclear threat. Iran is going to have a

> bomb soon. We have to do it.

>

> Sort of the same game we had before the war in Iraq. And what's

> happened is in the last few months, they've come to the realization

> that they're not selling it. It isn't working. The American people

> aren't worried about Iran as a nuclear threat, certainly as they were

> about Iraq. There's some skepticism. So they switched, really.

>

> BLITZER: Is it just a public relations tactic or, as the

> administration maintains, there is evidence, they say, of extensive

> Iranian involvement in fueling this sectarian violence in Iraq.

>

> HERSH: Absolutely, as far as their concerned, the Iranians are deeply

> involved in the killing of Americans and coalition British Forces. And

> it's also fair to say it's not -- we don't know whether Iran is really

> trying to get a bomb or not.

>

> But the fact is, there's no evidence. And the White House has come to

> terms finally with the idea that it's the American community's pretty

> much total consensus that they're five years at least away. They're

> not getting any...

>

> BLITZER: From getting a nuclear bomb.

>

> HERSH: Absolutely. They're going nowhere with their research, despite

> the braggadocio. So the White House has shifted.

>

> Instead of trying to sell it, not only to the American people but to

> its allies, the notion of a massive bombing against the

> infrastructure, what they call counterproliferation against the

> infrastructure of the Iraqi bomb, hitting the various facilities we

> know that exist, instead they're now decided they're going to hit the

> Iranians, payback for hitting us.

>

> They're going to hit the Revolutionary Guard headquarters and

> facilities. They're going to tone down the bombing. They're going to

> shift it. It's going to be more surgical. It's going to be much more

> limited.

>

> BLITZER: Airstrikes. Let me read to you from your article: "During a

> secure video conference that took place early this summer, the

> president told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, that he was

> thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the

> British were on board. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran

> to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution."

>

> And you see that as a change in the U.S. strategy?

>

> HERSH: Well, the strategy is, it's a targeting change. We're

> threatening Iran. We've been doing it constantly. But instead of

> saying to the American people, instead of saying internally it's going

> to be about nuclear weapons, it's now going to be about getting the

> guys that are killing our boys.

>

> We're going to hit the border facilities, the facilities inside Iraq

> we think are training terrorists. We're going to hit the facilities we

> think are supplying some of the explosive devices into Iraq. This is

> the administration's position.

>

> BLITZER: And this would be air power, what you're saying, cruise

> missiles or surgical airstrikes, is that what you're saying?

>

> HERSH: Of course. A lot of cruise missiles, a lot of surgical

> airstrikes. You also have to go on the ground because you've got to

> suppress their anti-air defenses. You've got to make sure you, as

> somebody said to me, a path in, a path out.

>

> And one of the problems with all of this, of course, is that inside

> the intelligence community, the notion that Iran is doing as much as

> the president says is not accepted. I mean, there's a great debate

> about how deeply involved Iran really is.

>

> BLITZER: In what's going on in Iraq?

>

> HERSH: Yes.

>

> BLITZER: Let me read again from the article. This is what you write:

> "I was repeatedly cautioned in interviews that the president has yet

> to issue the 'execute order' that would be required for a military

> operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But

> there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack

> planning."

>

> I want you to explain what you mean. What does that mean, an increase

> in the tempo?

>

> HERSH: Well, publicly, they've castigated the Revolutionary Guards.

> The language is increasing, just as you heard the president say to the

> -- last August in the clip you showed.

>

> On the inside, the CIA has really been ramping up very hard. There's

> something called the Iranian Operations Group. We had the same kind of

> a group for the Iraqi war. Before the war in Iraq, we had an

> operations group. It's suddenly exploding in manpower. And they've

> been going around, just dragging a dozen people here, a dozen there.

> They built it up into a large, large operational group.

>

> I'm told also, I didn't write this in the article, I'm told that the

> National Security Council inside the White House is focused much more

> on attacking Iran and what's going on in Iran than it has been before.

> There's been a significant increase on the inside. BLITZER: On the so-

> called military option. Here's what the White House press secretary

> Dana Perino told us: "The president believes this issue can be solved

> diplomatically. And the administration is working with the

> international community through the United Nations Security Council,

> plus Germany, to bring diplomatic measures to bear on Iran to put an

> end to its enrichment and reprocessing activities."

>

> HERSH: At the same time, as I write in this article, they've been

> pitching this new idea of hitting the Revolutionary Guards, more

> limited, more surgical, more carefully drawn up, planned attack. And

> where, for example, the Brits, who were very hostile to the idea of a

> thousand points of lights, bombing, all the heavy air force coming and

> bombing the nuclear facilities, it takes a lot of bombs. Many of them

> are underground.

>

> The Brits are interested in this idea. There's been expressions of

> interest from Australia, other countries. The Israelis, of course,

> have gone bananas. They're very upset about the idea of not going.

>

> If you're going into Iran, the Israeli position is very firm. They

> want us to go. And they want us to hit hard. You do not, as somebody,

> an Israeli, told me, if you run into a lion, you either shoot it or

> ignore it. You don't pluck out its eyebrows.

>

> Going in and taking out the Revolutionary Guards and not taking out

> the nuclear facilities for the Israelis is a non-starter. But that's

> the plan. The plan is to be more surgical, more careful and they're

> getting some of their allies on board.

>

> BLITZER: And here's what also you write. You say, "Now the emphasis is

> on surgical strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran

> and elsewhere, which the administration claims have been the source of

> attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a

> counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as

> counterterrorism."

>

> And there's obviously different kinds of military moves you deal with

> fighting terrorism as opposed to proliferation, nuclear weapons, for

> example.

>

> HERSH: Absolutely. And you can also sell counterterror. It's more

> logical. You can say to people, the American people, we're only

> hitting those people that we think are trying to hit our boys and the

> coalition forces. And so that seems to be more sensible.

>

> Because the White House thinks they can actually pitch this, this

> would actually work. In other words, you can do a bombing and not have

> the world scream at us and also get the British on board.

>

> BLITZER: Let me also read this line: "A Pentagon consultant on

> counterterrorism told me that if the bombing campaign took place, it

> would be accompanied by a series of what he called 'short, sharp

> incursions' by American Special Forces units into suspected Iranian

> training sites. He said, quote, 'Cheney is devoted to this, no

> question.'" So it wouldn't just be airstrikes. You're saying there

> would be limited ground strikes as well, involving U.S. Special

> Operations Forces?

>

> HERSH: We've got Special Operation Forces on the border right now,

> championing to go in there. They're in Waziristan too. They want to go

> into go look for bin Laden. We've got a lot of very competent,

> aggressive Special Forces guys that want to go in. And it's going to

> be touch and go. I think -- I don't know what's going to happen.

>

> If we do go in, you're going to have to go in on the ground, not only

> to get the camps with the Special Forces, the Iranians have a lot of

> antiaircraft missiles along the coast that are dug in. And you

> probably get to them from air, so you might have to send Marines in to

> go blow them up one by one. You don't want these guys shooting down

> your airplanes.

>

> BLITZER: Now, you've been writing about this possibility of a U.S.

> military strike on Iran for some time.

>

> HERSH: A year-and-a-half.

>

> BLITZER: It hasn't happened yet but you're convinced before the

> president leaves office it might happen?

>

> HERSH: Oh, well, there's no -- that's easy. I don't know. What I do

> know -- what I do know -- is he wants to do something. He will not

> leave Iran in a position to be a nuclear power, in a position to be

> the threat.

>

> And the other point that's made in the article, one of the other

> points is, the White House understands that the world perceives Iran

> as the winner of the American sort of colossal failure we've had in

> Iraq. I mean, the screw-up in Iraq has put Iran in enormous power

> because the Shiites in the south of Iraq are very close to their

> needs.

>

> BLITZER: And one new element in all of this -- you mentioned the

> British on board, the Australians -- but France, the new government of

> President Sarkozy, the new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who was

> here last week on "Late Edition," they're sounding a lot different

> than their predecessors, President Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.

>

> HERSH: Absolutely. They're very tough. The French really believe the

> Iranians are very close to a bomb, and they see that as an issue. But

> it's also interesting because my friends who -- there are people --

> the French also are communicating they are not in favor of a strike.

>

> So the more -- they're the loudest on the outside. They're making a

> lot of noise about we must do something politically. They're putting a

> lot of pressure on the Iranians. I think the French would very much

> like to see the Iranians get serious.

>

> But they're not serious in talks at this point, from our point of

> view, because until they agree to give up developing enriched uranium,

> as far as we're concerned, we're not going to deal with them.

>

> BLITZER: "Target Iran: Why the Administration is Redefining its Case

> Against Tehran." Seymour Hersh is the reporter writing in the new

> issue of the New Yorker Magazine. Sy, thanks for coming in.

>

> HERSH: Glad to be here.

>

>

> Hersh: 'War with Iran will be about protecting the troops in Iraq'

> 09/30/2007 @ 12:51 pm

>

> http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Seymour_Hersh_War_with_Iran_will_0930.html

>

> Filed by Greg Wasserstrom

>

> The only thing different about the Bush Administration's rhetoric

> about Iran and statements made Iraq before the US invasion in 2003 are

> the words chosen, says journalist Seymour Hersh.

> Advertisement

> "They've changed their rhetoric, really. The name of the game used to

> be nuclear threat," Hersh said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf

> Blitzer, adding a moment later, "They've come to the realization that

> it's not selling, it isn't working. The American people aren't worried

> about Iran as a nuclear threat certainly as they were about Iraq. So

> they've switched, really."

> The Bush Administration is all but set to authorize a campaign of

> limited, surgical airstrikes against Iranian targets, Hersh reports in

> the New Yorker's latest edition. In his piece, Hersh writes, "During a

> secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the

> President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was

> thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the

> British 'were on board'... Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell

> Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American

> retribution."

> The sites in Iran being targeted however, reflect the change in the

> White House selling of armed conflict with Iran.

> "Instead of... hitting the various [nuclear] facilities we know that

> exist, instead they're going to hit the Iranians as payback for

> hitting us [in Iraq]," Hersh told Blitzer in the CNN interview.

> Such targets, Hersh says, would include Iran's Revolutionary Guard

> headquarters and other sites of Iran's alleged support for the

> insurgency in Iraq.

> Hersh does not seem to think that direct conflict with Iran is

> inevitable however. He writes: "I was repeatedly cautioned, in

> interviews, that the President has yet to issue the "execute order"

> that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such

> an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant

> increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior

> officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare

> Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And

> two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late

> summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the

> Iranian Operations Group."

> Those statements were echoed in the piece by former National Security

> Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. "'A lot depends on how stupid the

> Iranians will be,' Brzezinski told me. 'Will they cool off Ahmadinejad

> and tone down their language?' The Bush Administration, by charging

> that Iran was interfering in Iraq, was aiming 'to paint it as 'We're

> responding to what is an intolerable situation,'' Brzezinski said.

> 'This time, unlike the attack in Iraq, we're going to play the victim.

> The name of our game seems to be to get the Iranians to overplay their

> hand.'"

> READ HERSH'S FULL ARTICLE AT THIS LINK.

> VIDEO FROM LATE EDITION, BROADCAST SEPTEMBER 30, 2007

>

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

>

> Annals of National Security

> Shifting Targets

> The Administration's plan for Iran.

>

> by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007

>

> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------

>

> ('JINSA John') Bolton calls for bombing of Iran (for Israel)

>

> http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tory2007/story/0,,2180555,00.html

>

> Ros Taylor

> Sunday September 30, 2007

> Guardian Unlimited

> John Bolton: 'I think we have to look at a limited strike against

> their nuclear facilities.' Photograph Win McNamee/Getty Images.

> John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory

> delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with

> Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike

> on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

> Mr Bolton, who was addressing a fringe meeting organised by Lord

> (Michael) Ancram, said that the Iranian president, Mahmoud

> Ahmadinejad, was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-

> back" from the west.

> "I don't think the use of military force is an attractive option, but

> I would tell you I don't know what the alternative is.

> "Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of

> military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against

> their nuclear facilities."

> He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove

> the "source of the problem", Mr Ahmadinejad.

> "If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at

> regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the

> clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."

> The fact that intelligence about Iran's nuclear activity was partial

> should not be used as an excuse not to act, Mr Bolton insisted.

> "Intelligence can be wrong in more than one direction." He asked how

> the British government would respond if terrorists exploded a nuclear

> device at home. "'It's only Manchester?' ... Responding after they're

> used is unacceptable."

> Mr Bolton, now a fellow at the conservative thinktank the American

> Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming book called

> Surrender is Not an Option, was applauded by delegates when he

> described the UN as "fundamentally irrelevant".

> Defending the decision to invade Iraq, he mocked the Foreign Office's

> "softly softly" approach to Iran's imprisonment of 15 British sailors

> accused of straying into Iranian waters in April this year.

> They were released after Mr Ahmadinejad announced he was making a

> "gift" to the British people. "They [iran] got no response from the UK

> or the US. If you were the Iranian leader, what conclusion do you

> draw?"

> Mr Bolton said he did not really want "to get into the specifics of

> your own internal politics here" and made no comment on David

> Cameron's foreign policy. But he said that Gordon Brown's performance

> under pressure had not been tested and he hoped that Britain would not

> withdraw from Iraq.

> "There is too much of a view in Europe that you have passed beyond

> history," Mr Bolton told delegates. "That everything can be worked out

> by negotiation ... Democrats or Republicans, we [Americans] don't see

> it that way."

> However, he praised the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his

> forthright criticism of Iran in recent weeks.

> Raising the spectre of George Bush's "axis of evil", Mr Bolton said

> that Kim Jong-il's regime in North Korea was akin to a "prison camp"

> and that he would "sell anything to anyone".

> Those who thought North Korea would give up its nuclear capability

> voluntarily were wrong, he said.

> The regime had made similar promises during the past decade. Only

> reunification between North and South Korea could resolve the problem.

> That could be achieved "if China were to get serious" and cut off fuel

> supplies to Mr Kim, but the country feared a reunited Korea.

> Mr Bolton told an inquiring delegate that he was not and had never

> been a neoconservative: "I'm not even a Reagan conservative. I'm a

> [barry] Goldwater conservative. They [neocons] have somewhat - I would

> say excessively - Wilsonian views about the benefits of democracy."

> However, the threat to world peace did not come from neoconservatives

> but from the perception that "we have passed beyond history", he

> said.

> The meeting was organised by the Global Strategy Forum, of which Lord

> Ancram is chairman. Earlier this month, the former Conservative deputy

> leader criticised the direction in which David Cameron was taking the

> party and for "trashing" its Thatcherite heritage.

>

> ------------------------------------------------------

>

> Bolton was (and I assume still is) associated with JINSA (Jewish

> Institute for National Security Affairs) as Brit MP (and former Father

> of the Commons) Tam Dalyell even conveyed that JINSA had too much

> influence on the Bush regime (see the articles linked at the following

> of the following URL):

>

> http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/13/179248

>

> -----------------------------------------------------------

>

> Read more about JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security) via the

> UPI article which is at the beginning of the following URL about the

> Mearsheimer & Walt book

> (http://www.israellobbybook.com):

>

> http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=49800

>

> ---------------------------------------------------------------

>

> Colin Powell even conveyed that the 'JINSA crowd' was in control of

> the Pentagon for Washington Post correspondent Karen DeYoung's bio

> book about him (simply look up 'JINSA/Jewish Institute for National

> Security Affairs' in the index) as Cheney has been associated with

> JINSA (and PNAC as well) as Fisk conveyed via http://tinyurl.com/2poj3o

> for the London Independent:

>

> A War for Israel: Colin Powell Seems to Think So:

>

> http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=61128

>

> -----------------------------------------------------------

>

> Teflon Alliance with Israel:

>

> http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=79679

>

> ---------------------------------------------------------------

>

> What World War III

> May Look Like

>

> http://tinyurl.com/yqpapa

>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> Meet the "Whack Iran" Lobby

> Exiles peddling shaky intelligence, advocacy groups pressing for

> regime change, neocons bent on remaking the Middle East. Sound

> familiar?

> Daniel Schulman

> October 06 , 2006

> http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/09/iran.html

> Exiles peddling back-channel intelligence, upstart advocacy groups

> pressing for regime change, administration hawks intent on remaking

> the Middle East-the scene in Washington is looking eerily familiar as

> the Iran standoff grows more tense. Instead of Ahmad Chalabi, we have

> the likes of Iran-Contra arms-dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. A new Iran

> directorate inside the Pentagon features some of the same people who

> brought you the Iraq intel-cherrypicking operation at the Office of

> Special Plans. Whether calling for outright regime change or pushing

> "democracy promotion" initiatives to undermine the Iranian government,

> an expanding cast of characters has emerged to promote confrontation

> between the U.S. and Iran. What follows is an abridged list of the

> individuals and organizations agitating to bring down the mullahs.

> Abram Shulsky

> An acolyte of political philosopher Leo Strauss, one of the

> intellectual forbears of the neoconservative movement and an advocate

> of the "noble lie,"-the notion that deception is morally acceptable

> when used by a wise, but misunderstood elite--Shulsky headed the

> Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which trafficked in faulty

> intelligence on Iraq (including information from Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi

> National Congress) and circumvented the CIA to "stovepipe" WMD

> intelligence directly to the White House. As Laura Rozen reported in

> the Los Angeles Times in May, Shulsky, along with two former OSP

> staffers, John Trigilio and Ladan Archin, is now involved with the

> Pentagon's Iran directorate. Already there are fears that the office

> has become a conduit for Iranian expatriate and one-time arms dealer

> Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iran-Contra figure whom the CIA deemed a

> fabricator as far back as 1984. In a 1999 paper called "Leo Strauss

> and the World of Intelligence," co-authored with the American

> Enterprise Institute's Gary Schmitt, Shulsky writes that "Strauss's

> view certainly alerts one to the possibility that political life may

> be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is

> the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the

> expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is

> the exception."

> Elizabeth Cheney

> The vice president's eldest daughter's official title is Vice

> Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern

> Affairs; in that capacity, Cheney, until her maternity leave earlier

> this year, oversaw the State Department's Iran-Syria Operations Group,

> whose mission is to aggressively push democracy promotion campaigns.

> Sometimes referred to as the agency's "democracy czar," Cheney had no

> Middle East assignments before being appointed to her current post,

> which involves launching a $85 million democracy promotion/propaganda

> campaign targeting Iran. At Foggy Bottom, she "has not shied away from

> throwing her weight around," according to the American Prospect, and

> has been said to operate a "shadow Middle East policy." She rarely

> speaks publicly or grants interviews; in an appearance at the Foreign

> Policy Association in 2005, she called Iran "the world's leading

> sponsor of terror. No word on when and in what capacity Cheney will

> return from her leave.

> David Wurmser

> Long before being recruited to the Pentagon from the American

> Enterprise Institute following September 11, Wurmser was one of the

> loudest voices calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster. During the 1990s

> he co-authored a strategy paper-intended as advice to then-Israeli

> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-with a string of neoconservatives

> including Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and his wife, Meyrav, a Middle

> East policy wonk at the Hudson Institute. It suggested "removing

> Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq... as a means of foiling Syria's

> regional ambitions" and advancing Israel's. As Mother Jones reported,

> Wurmser was also the "founding participant of the unnamed, secret

> intelligence unit at the Pentagon, set up in Feith's office, which

> would be the nucleus of the Defense Department's Iraq disinformation

> campaign that was established within weeks of the attacks in New York

> and Washington." He served as an assistant to John Bolton at the State

> Department before becoming one of the Vice President's Middle East

> advisors. Less than two weeks after September 11, Wurmser described

> discontent within Iran as "a strategic opportunity" for the U.S.

> Elliott Abrams

> Since his return to public service after pleading guilty to two

> misdemeanor counts for withholding information from Congress as it

> probed the Iran-Contra scandal (he was later pardoned by President

> George H. W. Bush), Abrams has been a key player in shaping the Bush

> administration's Middle East agenda. In 2005, he was tapped as deputy

> national security adviser and is now responsible for pushing the

> administration's reform agenda in the Middle East. A founding member

> of the neocon think tank Project for the New American Century, Abrams

> joined Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeldin signing a 1998 letter to

> Bill Clinton urging regime change in Iraq. Abrams has written that

> "our military strength and willingness to use it will remain a key

> factor in our ability to promote peace."

> Michael Ledeen

>>From his perch at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen

> has long advocated toppling the Iranian regime. Criticizing U.S.

> policy toward Iran in March, he wrote, "Iran has been at war with us

> for 27 years, and we have discussed every imaginable subject with

> them. We have gained nothing, because there is nothing to be gained by

> talking with an enemy who thinks he is winning.... If this

> administration were true to its announced principles, we would be

> actively supporting democratic revolution in Iran, but we do not seem

> to be serious about doing that." In the mid-1980s, Ledeen played a

> part in Iran-Contra by arranging meetings between the U.S. and his

> close friend Manucher Ghorbanifar; in 2001, he rekindled that

> relationship when he set up a meeting in Rome between Ghorbanifar and

> two Pentagon officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to talk about

> regime change.

> Manucher Ghorbanifar

> Though Manucher Ghorbanifar has failed a CIA-administered lie detector

> test and the agency has issued not one but two "burn notices" warning

> field agents against using him, he continues to have the ear of

> neocons within the Pentagon. He has claimed, among other things, that

> there was an Iranian plot afoot to attack U.S. soldiers in

> Afghanistan, that Tehran was planning attacks against the U.S., and

> that weapons-grade uranium had been smuggled into Iran from Iraq.

> Ghorbanifar, via a middleman, is also alleged to be the source behind

> Congressman Curt Weldon's more outlandish claims about the Iranian

> threat to the U.S., which he compiled in his 2005 book Countdown to

> Terror. As Laura Rozen reported recently in Mother Jones, "Weldon's

> main source, a mysterious Iranian whom the congressman code-names

> 'Ali,' is, in fact, Ghorbanifar's longtime business partner and

> personal secretary, Fereidoun Mahdavi.... Mahdavi, in turn, told me that

> the information he gave Weldon came from Ghorbanifar, who appears to

> have used him as a kind of cutout - a vehicle for laundering

> intelligence." This same Ghorbanifar associate told Rozen in late

> September that Ghorbanifar "is again giving his information to

> Washington. He implied that U.S. officials call him up frequently."

> Committee on the Present Danger

> First formed in 1950 as a lobby to alert the nation to the Soviet

> menace and revived in 1976, the committee was resurrected for a third

> time in 2004, its mission to "educate free people everywhere about the

> threat posed by global radical Islamist and fascist terrorist

> movements" and to support "policies aimed at winning the global war

> against terrorism and the movements and ideologies that drive it." Co-

> chaired by former CIA director James Woolsey and former Secretary of

> State George Shultz - Senators Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl are honorary

> co-chairs - the committee is packed with academics and former

> government officials who share hawkish perspectives and a particular

> fixation on Iran. One of the committee's first actions upon re-forming

> was to release a policy paper advocating "non-violent" regime change

> in Iran.

> Iran Policy Committee

> Directed by former CIA officer Clare Lopez, the IPC's membership

> includes former military and intelligence officials who believe that

> the U.S. should pursue a "third alternative" on Iran (the first and

> second being diplomacy or pre-emptive military action). While leaving

> both military and diplomatic options on the table, IPC advocates

> propping up the Iranian opposition to "facilitate regime change."

> Among its favored dissident factions are the militant group MEK and

> its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. But in

> order for the U.S. to enter direct talks with these groups, as the IPC

> has suggested, the State Department will first have to remove them

> from its roster of foreign terrorist organizations - a move the IPC is

> actively lobbying for.

> Foundation for Democracy in Iran

> Co-founded in 1995 by investigative journalist and activist Kenneth

> Timmerman, the Foundation is among the oldest of a constellation of

> advocacy groups -- including the now defunct Coalition for Democracy

> in Iran established by Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and former AIPAC

> director Morris Amitay - that have sprung up to push a hard line on

> Iran. "We are not in a political debate with this regime," Timmerman

> has said. "We are in the business of overthrowing them." Timmerman's

> group, like the Iran Policy Committee, supports aiding Iranian

> opposition groups to bring down the regime. Timmerman, according to

> his Web site, is also working with the families of 9/11 victims to put

> together a class action suit against the Iranian government "because

> of its direct, material involvement in the al Qaeda plot to attack

> America."

> Daniel Schulman is a Mother Jones investigative fellow.

>

> -------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

> http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com

>

>

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

> Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran

>

> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2558296.ece

>

> Sarah Baxter, Washington

>

> ONE of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged

> President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire

> nuclear weapons.

> Norman Podhoretz, an intellectual guru of the neoconservative movement

> who has joined Rudolph Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as a

> senior foreign policy adviser, held an unpublicised meeting with Bush

> late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

> The encounter reveals the enduring influence of the neoconservatives

> at the highest reaches of the White House, despite some high-profile

> casualties in the past year.

> Karl Rove, who was still serving in the White House as Bush's deputy

> chief of staff, took notes. But the meeting, which lasted 45 minutes,

> was not logged on the president's schedule.

> "I urged Bush to take action against the Iranian nuclear facilities

> and explained why I thought there was no alternative," said Podhoretz,

> 77, in an interview with The Sunday Times.

> "I laid out the worst-case scenario - bombing Iran - versus the worst-

> case consequences of allowing the Iranians to get the bomb."

> He also told Bush: "You have the awesome responsibility to prevent

> another holocaust. You're the only one with the guts to do it." The

> president looked very solemn, Podhoretz said.

> For the most part Bush simply listened, although he and Rove both

> laughed when Podhoretz mentioned giving "futility its chance", a

> phrase used by his fellow neoconservative, Robert Kagan, about the

> usefulness of pursuing United Nations sanctions against Iran.

> "He gave not the slightest indication of whether he agreed with me,

> but he listened very intently," Podhoretz said.

> He is convinced, however, that "George Bush will not leave office with

> Iran having acquired a nuclear weapon or having passed the point of no

> return" - a reference to the Iranians' acquisition of sufficient

> technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

> "The president has said several times that he will be in the

> historical dock if he allows Iran to get the bomb. He believes that if

> we wait for threats to fully materialise, we'll have waited too long -

> something I agree with 100%," Podhoretz said The question of how to

> stop Iran has acquired renewed urgency after Mahmoud Ahma-dinejad, the

> Iranian president, declared at the United Nations last week that the

> dispute over his country's nuclear programme was now "closed".

> He added that Iran would disregard any sanctions imposed by "arrogant

> powers" for pursuing peaceful nuclear energy.

> President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said flatly: "Everyone knows that

> this programme has military aims." However, his call for stronger

> sanctions against Iran was ignored in favour of further delays.

> The UN security council, facing deadlock with Russia and China, agreed

> on Friday to give Iran until November to answer questions from the

> International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear

> programme.

> The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a controversial opposition

> group that first revealed the existence of the Natanz uranium

> enrichment plant, claimed last week that Iran was fooling the IAEA by

> constructing a secret underground military facility three miles south

> of Natanz under a granite mountain.

> Kayhan, one of the most influential pro-regime newspapers in Iran,

> hinted in a recent editorial entitled "Why there won't be a war" that

> there are more nuclear projects than have been disclosed. "Are Iran's

> nuclear installations confined only to those places which have been

> declared?" it asked.

> "Can America be sure that if it destroys these it will have eradicated

> the whole of Iran's nuclear programme, or at least set it back for a

> long time?"

> The paper, which is edited by Hossein Shariatmadari, a senior member

> of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and a close adviser of Ayatollah

> Ali Khame-nei, Iran's spiritual leader, concluded that the

> "hullaballoo" about American military action was "psychological

> warfare aimed only at frightening us".

> The editorial touched on several sore points, as US military and

> intelligence sources admit that not all Iran's suspected nuclear

> facilities have been identified and others may be buried almost

> impenetrably deep in mountainous areas of the country.

> Admiral William Fallon, US commander in the Middle East, said last

> week that the "constant drumbeat of war is not helpful". But he added

> that the pressure on Iran would continue: "We have a very, very robust

> capability in the region, especially in comparison to Iran. That is

> one of the things people might like to keep in mind."

> Podhoretz told Bush that he thought America could strike Iran

> militarily without nuclear weaponry. "I'm against using nuclear

> weapons and I don't think they are necessary," he said. He believes

> the British response to Iran's seizure of Royal Navy hostages last

> spring will have convinced Tehran's leaders that they will be able to

> act with even greater impunity if they became a nuclear power.

> Podhoretz has laid out his views in a new book, World War IV: The Long

> Struggle Against Islamofascism. He believes that it has a good deal in

> common with the cold war, an ideological battle lasting 42 years,

> which he describes as world war three.

> "The key to understanding what is happening is to see it as a

> successor to the previous totalitarian challenge to our civilisation,"

> he said.

> Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are merely different fronts of the same

> long war, he believes.

> Podhoretz, who described himself as a neoconservative before the term

> was invented, has seen the movement develop from a small band of

> "dissident intellectuals" to one of the intellectual forces behind

> Ronald Reagan and, later, the war in Iraq.

> Along the way, key people such as "Scooter" Libby, the senior aide to

> Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and Paul Wolfo-witz, the former World

> Bank president, have fallen from grace. "Some of us have been picked

> off and others have lost heart," Podhoretz said.

> However, neoconservatives are helping to shape the foreign policy of

> Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner for the White House, who said in

> London recently that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.

> Podhoretz has already explained his theory about Islamofascism to the

> former New York mayor. "He doesn't call it world war four, but I know

> he thinks it is," Podhoretz said.

> Watch the video

> During the CNN Republican Presidential Debate, Giuliani said he would

> use nuclear weapons to destroy Iranian nuclear power (June 2007)

>

> -------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> One can read more about Podhoretz and his Neoconservatism (which is a

> Jewish movement even if not all Jews support it) via the 'Thinking

> about Neoconservatism' and 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement'

> pieces which are linked near the top of the following URL:

>

> http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606

>

> -----------------------------------------------------------

>

> New book challenges US support for Israel

>

> http://tinyurl.com/3ay3wg

>

> -----------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

>

> Joseph A. Palermo

> Senate Urges Bush to Attack Iran

> Posted September 27, 2007 | 06:51 PM (EST)

>

> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/senate-urges-bush-to-atta_b_66223.html

>

>

> Yesterday, Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton (NY), Chuck Schumer

> (NY), Bob Menendez (NJ), Barbara Mikulski (MD), and Ben Cardin (MD)

> all voted in favor of the "Kyl-Lieberman Iran Amendment." This piece

> of legislation actually encourages the practitioner of cowboy

> diplomacy, George W. Bush, to be even more belligerent in his foreign

> policy. The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment passed by a vote of 76 to 22.

> Chris Dodd and Joe Biden voted against it, and Barack Obama missed the

> vote.

>

> The amendment states: "The United States should designate Iran's

> Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist

> organization . . . and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on

> the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists."

>

> Kyl-Lieberman is the first step in providing Congressional legitimacy

> for military action against Iran. The 76 to 22 vote, which also had

> the support of Majority Leader Harry Reid, codifies U.S. Iran policy

> and comes very close to sounding like a declaration of war.

> Designating a four decades old military branch of a sovereign state a

> "foreign terrorist organization" is an extreme step that is only

> necessary or useful if there are plans "on the table" to do something

> about it.

>

> The U.S. troops in Iraq are not considered "foreign." The U.S. calls

> those Iraqis who are resisting occupation "terrorists." Now a segment

> of the Iranian armed forces is being labeled a terrorist organization.

> Such a step is tantamount to a foreign government designating the U.S.

> Marines a "foreign terrorist organization."

>

> The Democratic Senate is playing right into the hands of those neo-

> cons and crazies who think a military strike against Iran will improve

> the situation in the Middle East. On the contrary, it will magnify the

> current disaster in Iraq tenfold.

>

> If the Senate and the Neo-Cons convince Bush to strike Iran they will

> be sparking a real war with a nation that can fight back. With its 70

> million people, high literacy rate, key geographic location, level of

> economic development, and its control of a significant share of the

> world's oil production, Iran is a nation that could cause quite a stir

> if Bush is dim-witted enough to go down that terrible road.

>

>

>

> I can envision a scenario where the United States launches a sustained

> set of air raids against most of the infrastructure of Iran,

> specifically targeting the "nuclear facilities" that are widely

> dispersed throughout the country. The Democrats in Congress will be

> jumping through hoops like well-trained circus dogs as they vote for

> resolutions and give speeches validating the aggression. And then

> we're off to the races in another illegal war against a nation that

> has not attacked us.

>

> Iran accounts for about 4 percent of the world's daily oil production,

> and will surely shut off the spigots if it is attacked sending the

> price of oil skyward. (Iran's ally Venezuela might follow suit.)

> Petroleum analysts estimate that the world runs only about a 2 percent

> excess capacity of oil production, which could mean an instant drop to

> a negative world supply if Iran chooses to stop pumping. This

> reduction in output alone could wreak havoc with global energy

> markets.

>

> Iran might also take the step of disrupting the oil production of

> neighboring Gulf States through missile attacks on their oil

> infrastructure and sabotage. The world production of oil could then

> drop to a negative 10 percent or more, and the price could shoot up

> even higher. The American people, who consume more oil per capita than

> any people on earth, will be waiting in long lines to fill up our

> tanks as we did during the Iranian revolution in 1978-79. Ordinary

> Americans don't only get the privilege of paying for the costs of the

> missiles and ordnance Bush will throw at Iran, but we also get the

> honor of paying triple the amount for a gallon of gas while we are

> queued up at the pump.

>

> The Iranian silkworm missiles, supplied by China, (which recently

> signed a $100 billion oil and gas deal with Iran), will rip through

> the shipping of the Persian Gulf. Explosions of undetermined origin

> will rake through the oil platforms and infrastructure of the Gulf

> States. Iraq's civil war will reach a new intensity. And bombs will go

> off throughout the region wreaking havoc with the smooth transport of

> oil.

>

> The Iranians and their allies in the Gulf will cause trouble in the

> Straights of Hormuz where 40 percent of the world's oil passes. They

> will turn the Gulf into a garbage dump of damaged ships and flaming

> oil dereks. Russia and China will supply arms to Iran and the conflict

> will continue, like Iraq, for as long as the United States tries to

> impose its will on the region through brute force.

>

> They will also probably have agents blow up U.S. embassies and other

> targets all over the world. The war will be the most destabilizing the

> Persian Gulf has ever seen.

> Compounded with the financial strains of the $600 billion Iraq

> occupation, the new war with Iran will run the risk of bankrupting the

> United States. China might cash in some of its $1 trillion in U.S.

> treasury bonds and exchange them for Euros. The value of the dollar

> could then be suddenly devalued. The life savings of millions of

> Americans could be threatened as the dollar tanks, and interest rates

> shoot up when the central banks try to entice foreigners' to hang on

> to their dollars to stop the hemorrhaging. And this devaluing of the

> dollar could occur in an environment of hyperinflation because the

> high price of oil will drive up the costs of everything.

>

> So let's not let those narrow interests who seek another wider war in

> the Middle East prevail. They don't really know what they're getting

> themselves into.

>

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> War with Iran real risk according to former CIA operative :

>

> http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=71055

>