The Iranian Plot To Assassinate Saudi Arabia's Ambassador To The USA
Wed 12 Oct 2011, 12:23 0 comment(s) Email articleReport AbuseHere is a quicky synopsis at this moent of wahat has happened in this plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the USA:
This plot looks like something right out of a Wilbur Smith or Frederick Forsythe novel. There must be an element of truth to it or a US Federal grand jury indictment would not have been issued.
It's also hard to believe that the Iranians would come to US soil to kill someone and hire Mexican drug cartel people (These groups are very careful to avoid provoking the US into "coming down on them hard.") to set off a terrorist bomb in Washington, DC.
This all brings to mind an event that took place 95 years ago when the Zimmerman telegram between the German foreign ministry and the Mexican government was intercepted by US authorities. The full details of the telegram are below:
Basically the telegram offered Mexico US territory if it came in the war on the side of Germany. This telegram led to US public opinion shifting to the side of the British. It paved the way for the US entry into World War I.
What is going on here is a two-pronged polay on the part of the Obama administration. The first prong is the political reality that President George W. Bush secured reelection by portraying himself as a great man to have during a military and terrorist crisis. President Obama is seeking to be portrayed as this wonderful leader in time of crisis that the country cannot afford to let go. It is also highly probable that the US authorities are getting ready to assist Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. They are getting public opinion on the side of the such an attack by painting a picture of Iran as a blatant terrorist state planning major attacks int he USA.
Gonzalo Lira of the Strategic Planning Group did an in depth analysis predicting such an attack. Please note the cover page of the study below:
Click to enlarge
Introduction:
The world is not Manichæan: To be against one thing does not necessarily mean to be in favor of its opposite. After all, the enemy of my enemy is rarely my friend.
I bring this up because one of the serious problems when discussing anything involving either Israel or Iran today is the confusion about what each of these countries is.
Many people—frankly, ignorant people—identify Israel with “freedom”, and Iran with “tyranny”—or conversely, identify Iran with “devoutness” and Israel with “tyranny”—and then leave it at that: No nuance, no evaluation, no history, no background. No judgment. Often, these ignorant people simply pick one of these countries as if they were picking sides at a basketball game—and then automatically demonize the other country as “the tyrannical enemy”, the evil Other.
But that is the central misperception of the issue: Neither Iran nor Israel is either particularly evil or particularly virtuous. They are simply two countries competing for hegemony in a volatile yet strategically important region of the world.
That is the point of view which will be adopted in this analysis: Both Iran and Israel are two countries competing for regional hegemony, while simultaneously looking after their domestic best interests—
—period.
A war between Israel and Iran has been latent ever since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. And over the past year, there has been a steady drum beat in the media about such a possibility—though in fairness, the drive to war comes more from the side of Israel than Iran.
Jeffrey Goldberg, an influential Israeli-American writer, wrote a front-page article in the September 2010 issue of The Atlantic Monthly called The Point of No Return, claiming that there was a “better than 50% chance” that Israel would pre-emptively attack Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons facilities by July 2011.
Robert Baer, the former CIA operative and acknowledged expert on Middle Eastern affairs, recently predicted that there would be an attack by Israel against Iran by the fall of this year.
The outgoing head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, openly ridiculed the idea of bombing Iran, calling it, “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” Of course, if he really did think it the stupidest thing he’d ever heard—or if it weren’t a widely held belief—he wouldn’t have bothered to use his first public appearance after stepping down as head of Israel’s version of the CIA to pointedly rebuke the idea.
So the possibility of war between these two countries seems to be in the air.
In this Strategic Planning Group Scenario, we are going to discuss the shape of such a war—if one were to come to pass—and the likely economic and political impact such a war would have on the United States and Europe.
This won’t be a discussion of how such a war will be carried out. The only military variable we will analyze is the use of nuclear weapons by Israel, if and when war comes. This Scenario isn’t an exercise in military war-gaming.
Rather, we will analyze in detail the geo-political and macro-economic side of this possible war: How would a war between Iran and Israel—regardless of how it was carried out—affect global politics and finance, with particular attention to the United States and Europe.
As in anything as complex as a possible war between two countries, it’s necessary to bone up on history. Part I discusses the history of Iran and Israel respectively in the post-World War II period, and their current position both internally and with relation to the rest of the world.
Part II discusses the role of Iraq, which I will argue served as a buffer between Israel and Iran, and prevented them—by way of Iraq’s antagonism towards both countries—from open belligerence. Until, that is, the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States. I will argue that the massive American presence in Iraq was the primary factor in creating the conditions for a possible war between Israel and Iran.
Part III game-plays what an Israeli-Iranian war would look like from a military and geo-political perspective. Here, I will analyze each of the possible reactions of the major players on the sideline of this drama: That is, what the U.S., China, India, Europe and the other nations dependent on Persian Gulf oil would do, in the event that war broke out between Iran and Israel, and inevitably Middle Eastern oil shut down. Here I will also discuss what would happen if Israel used nuclear weapons against Iran, and the likely international reaction.
Part IV will analyze the financial and macro-economic consequences of a war between Israel and Iran—which would be considerable. Though it does not supply the U.S. with any oil, Iran is a major oil supplier of China, India and Europe—so any disruption of its oil production would have catastrophic effects on those countries and regions, and as a consequence on the United States. And though Iran supplies less oil as a percentage of global demand than it did in 1979, the world’s economies are in a much weaker position now than they were in December 1978, just before the Oil Shock of ’79—hence a disruption or interruption of Iranian oil might have even greater consequences to the world economies than it did in 1979.
Finally, in the Conclusions section, I will discuss what to do if and when a war between Israeli and Iran takes place. The focus of these conclusions are the effects of this war across various asset classes, and across the various world economies.
Additionally, I include as an Appendix a thought experiment I published back in 2010: What the world looks like from the point of view of Iran.
§ § §
As a necessary side note to this discussion:
I have no horse in this race. I am a Chilean-American, and a Conservative Catholic to boot. I have neither Jewish nor Arab nor Persian nor Muslim roots or family members, and my religious beliefs do not include any sort of notion that either Israel or Iran holds some sort of “sacred position”, or is somehow “blessed by God”. My God doesn’t love one people more than another—He loves us all equally, and He certainly does not care about real estate.
Bottom-line, I could not care less about either country—to me, both Israel and Iran are as emotionally charged as Tasmania and Uganda. My only concern insofar as either Israel or Iran are concerned—or Tasmania and Uganda, for that matter—is how events in those countries might affect my way of life on the other side of the earth.
I mention this because—unfortunately—it seems obvious to me that much of the mainstream Western commentary on the Israeli-Iranian conflict is severely, irrationally biased in favor of Israel.
This bias is often coupled with a directive obliging people to “choose sides”, as it were: A bias that essentially says, “If you’re not in favor of Israel, then you’re an evil neo-Nazi genocidal anti-Semitic death-camp supporter who is in favor of the terrorists in Iran.”
This bias inculcates the notion that criticism of Israel—or even acknowledging factually accurate but unfortunate truths about Israel—or conversely, any praise of Iran—automatically makes one anti-Semitic (see this Canadian Parliamentary report, this U.S. State Department report or this British broadsheet editorial, all of which explicitly equate criticism of Israel and Israeli policy with anti-Semitism). Not only anti-Semitic, any criticism of Israel or Israeli policy is also deemed anti-democratic or (oddly) anti-American (seethese State Department cables via Wikileaks, which explicitly equate criticism of Israel or Israeli policy with anti-Americanism).
But this is obviously not so. To call a spade a spade—or to determine where fault lies, and call it as such—is neither anti-Semitic nor anti-democratic, and certainly not anti-American. Quite the opposite.
Hence why I began this introduction by noting that the world is notManichæan: To be in favor of one country does not necessarily mean to be against the other. And to be against one country’s position on a particular geo-political matter does not necessarily mean that you favor or endorse everything—or even anything—about the other country.
The difference between mere knowledge and true wisdom isjudgment—which is what I’ll try to bring to this discussion.
- For the discussion of this Scenario, go to The Lounge’s thread on the subject.
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