Skip to main content

The hawks who want war with Iran are working overtime

Last week's cyberattack on an Iranian nuclear facility, reportedly by Israeli intelligence, is the latest gambit from the coalition of Israeli leaders, Christian fundamentalists, and hawkish Washington neocons who want to block a US return to the Iran nuclear agreement. If they're successful, millions of ordinary Iranians suffering under draconian sanctions will pay the price.
 
by Ariel Gold/Medea Benjamin  

Just as talks between the United States and Iran were taking place last week in Vienna, a cyberattack was carried out on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. Reports are that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, was behind the attack that blacked out the facility just one day after Tehran launched new advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges, and as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in Israel speaking about the United States’ “enduring and ironclad” commitment to the Jewish state.

This is the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on Iran designed to scuttle negotiations. Last summer, a number of explosions attributed to Israel broke out across Iran, including a fire at the Natanz site. These took place while US elections were in full swing and Biden was promising that if elected, he would return the United States to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) that Trump withdrew from in 2018. In November 2020, Israeli operatives assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist in the city of Absard outside Tehran. Had Iran responded, the United States might have been dragged into an all-out war.

Israeli officials have also directly lobbied the US Congress to quash the deal. In 2015, Netanyahu traveled to Washington, DC in 2015 to address a joint session of Congress in an attempt to uncut Obama’s original negotiations. This time, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen will be traveling to Washington to meet with top White House and US intelligence officials, and he hopes with Biden directly, to convince the administration that Iran has been concealing details about its nuclear program and therefore can’t be trusted. This is indeed ironic coming from a country that, unlike Iran, actually has nuclear weapons and refuses to disclose any information about its program.

Like Israel, the powerful US lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is trying to convince Biden not to go back into the JCPOA. Last month, they organized bipartisan letters in the House and Senate, urging the Biden administration to insist on an expanded deal that included missiles, human rights, and Iran’s activities in the region. Since Tehran has been clear that an expanded or amended deal is a nonstarter, such “advice” was an attempt to quash talks.

The neoconservative think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which worked inside the Trump administration during and after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, has been relentlessly pushing for war with Iran. After the United States recklessly assassinated Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz gloated, tweeting that the death of Soleimani was “more consequential than the killing of [Osama] #BinLaden”; and on April 11, the same day as the Natanz blackout, former CIA officer and FDD fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht, speaking on CNN, voiced disappointment that Trump hadn’t taken the United States and Iran into an all-out war.

Another group against a deal with Iran is Christians United for Israel (CUFI), one of the most powerful pro-Israel voices in the United States. In March 2021, CUFI urged the Senate not to confirm Colin Kahl for a top policy position at the Pentagon, claiming, “Kahl is a serial Iran appeaser” who “helped advance the disastrous Iran nuclear accord.” In response to the blackout at Natanz, they cheered Netanyahu, tweeting “‘Battling Iran is a colossal mission,’ Netanyahu says following blackout at Iranian nuclear plant.

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which the United States had previously designated as a terrorist organization and is known for assassinations and bombings it has carried out, is virulently opposed to US-Iran diplomacy. In March 2021, a number of US Senators attended a virtual event organized by the MEK-aligned Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) calling for continued US sanctions and “bringing down the regime.” Senator Bob Menendez, the powerful chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was among several Democrats in attendance.

The opponents of the Iran deal are trying to keep in place the draconian wall of sanctions that the Trump administration imposed precisely to make it more difficult for a future US administration to rejoin the JCPOA. But these sanctions are causing immense suffering for ordinary Iranians, including runaway inflation and skyrocketing food and medicine prices. According to the UN, they contributed to the government’s “inadequate and opaque” response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit Iran particularly hard.

While “successful” in inflicting harm on the Iranian people, the sanctions have failed to broaden the terms of the talks, led the nation to increase its uranium enrichment, negatively impacted the human rights situation, and put the United States and Iran on the brink of an all-out war on multiple occasions.

That’s why so many people in Iran, and those who care about them, have been encouraged by this new round of diplomatic engagement. But Israel, AIPAC, CUFI, FDD, MEK, Menendez, and the like are probably instead hoping that Iran carries out the revenge that Iranian officials have called for in response to the Natanz blackout. But as the saboteurs of diplomacy hope for a violent escalation, let’s keep in mind — and hope Iran agrees — that the best revenge would be a revived JCPOA.

Source, links:


Related:
 
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Oct. 7 Reports Implode: Beheaded Babies, NY Times Scandal, & More

Glenn Greenwald    

Israel’s Descent Into Madness & the Holocaust Comparison

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany and associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, to discuss Israel’s descent into genocidal fascism. Prof. Amar addresses whether it’s useful to make Holocaust and Nazi comparisons and the real reason behind the West’s unshakeable loyalty attitude when it comes to Israel’s barbarism.   

Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

globinfo freexchange   As the genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is about to be completed with an act of unprecedented brutality by the Zionists and butcher Netanyahu through the bombardment of about 1.4 million civilians in Rafah, it seems that they have already set their next primary goal. Which, in short, is to grab the natural gas resources off shore Gaza, together with their US imperialist buddies whose contribution to the genocide has been undoubtedly critical.     As already reported , in 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub. At that moment in time, that is 2022, Russian oil and gas were sanctioned.

Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland Ends Her Reign: Exposing a Catastrophic Career

Glenn Greenwald    

Τυχαία γεγονότα στην τριτοκοσμική μπανανία των Βαλκανίων

failed evolution   1) Συμβαίνει το μεγαλύτερο σιδηροδρομικό δυστύχημα στην ιστορία της χώρας. 2) Γίνεται αστραπιαία επιχείρηση μοντάζ των συνομιλιών του σταθμάρχη από μηχανισμό του καθεστώτος, πριν ακόμα φτάσει στα χέρια των αρχών, προκειμένου να αποδοθεί η τραγωδία αποκλειστικά σε ανθρώπινο λάθος και να βγουν από το κάδρο οι πολιτικές ευθύνες ανώτατων κυβερνητικών αξιωματούχων. 3) Αναπαράγεται το παραποιημένο υλικό αστραπιαία από ναυαρχίδα της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας. 4) Τοποθετείται επικεφαλής στην επιτροπή-παρωδία πρωτοπαλίκαρο του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη που εργάζονταν παλιά στην ίδια αυτή ναυαρχίδα. 5) Η επιτροπή κλείνει άρον-άρον την υπόθεση αποκλείοντας ουσιώδεις μάρτυρες που είχαν προειδοποιήσει επανειλημμένα τον αρμόδιο υπουργό για τον κίνδυνο μεγάλου δυστυχήματος. Σταματάει έτσι και η όποια σε βάθος διερεύνηση για την τσιμεντοποίηση του χώρου και την απόπειρα συγκάλυψης της τραγωδίας.  

Το σκάσιμο της φούσκας Μητσοτάκη με νέα επίσημη χρεοκοπία και οριστικό τέλος της μεταπολίτευσης

του system failure   Τα αποτελέσματα των εκλογών της 25ης Ιουνίου ήταν λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενα όσον αφορά τις πρώτες θέσεις με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης κάλπης του Μαίου. Αν συμπεριλάβουμε και το ποσοστό της αναμενόμενης αποχής, δεν μας έδωσαν κάποια ιδιαίτερη έκπληξη. Αυτό όμως που φαίνεται να αιφνιδίασε ακόμα και το συστημικό κατεστημένο, είναι η είσοδος των δύο υπερσυντηρητικών, ακροδεξιών κομμάτων Νίκη και Σπαρτιάτες, με το τελευταίο να έχει ξεκάθαρες διασυνδέσεις με τον πρώην Χρυσαυγίτη, Ηλία Κασιδιάρη. Παρά τη μεγάλη νίκη Μητσοτάκη, οι μιντιακοί ινστρούχτορες της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας εμφανίστηκαν σε γενικές γραμμές "μουδιασμένοι" και αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το συστημικό κατεστημένο (δηλαδή τα μεγάλα οικονομικά συμφέροντα που ελέγχουν και το σύνολο των μεγάλων ΜΜΕ πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας), πέτυχε μόνο έναν από τους τέσσερις μεγάλους στόχους που είχε θέσει εξ'αρχής. Μιλώντας με ποδοσφαιρικούς όρους, ουσιαστικά έχασε με σκορ 3-1.   Ο μεγάλος στόχος πο

The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - A Lesson From History   The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West. Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried

How the CIA oversees the Ukraine proxy war on Russia

Geopolitical Economy Report   Several reports in mainstream US media outlets show how the CIA has helped to direct the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and played a role in causing the conflict in the first place. Ben Norton examines the evidence.   Related: Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

The Invasion of Gaza's Resources Begins: Jared Kushner, the EU, Egypt & US

Richard Medhurst   Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son in law who previously tried to steal land in the Middle East from Arabs has said that Israel should empty the Gaza strip of civilians. He said that " Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable ". He then proceeded to suggest ethnic cleansing: " move the people out and clean it [Gaza] up " Simultaneously, the transfer of billions of dollars from the European Union (7.4b EUR), the International Monetery Fund ($8b) and the United Arab Emirates ($32b) to Egypt: an attempt to buy Sisi's silence perhaps? The United States is also shipping 1000 troops and a firm "Fogbow", owned by a former CIA officer and USMC veteran, in order to build a pier in Gaza. These events do not seem like a coincidence. Medhurst explains why this relates to theft of gas and building of a canal in Gaza.   Related: Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

Israel Carries Out Most Sadistic Massacre, Opens Fire On Gaza Aid Convoy

Richard Medhurst