Syria and Iran are next

There's no letup, is there? The preparation of the American mind, the world mind, for the next gala performance of D&D — Death and Destruction. The Bunker Buster bombs are now 30,000 pounds each one, six times as heavy as the previous delightful model. But the Masters of War still want to be loved; they need for you to believe them when they say they have no choice, that Iran is the latest threat to life as we know it, no time to waste. The preparation of minds was just as fervent before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. And when it turned out that Iraq did not have any kind of arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) ... well, our power elite found other justifications for the invasion, and didn't look back. Moreover, Gen. Hussein Kamel, former head of Iraq's secret weapons program, and a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, told the UN in 1995 that Iraq had destroyed its banned missiles and chemical and biological weapons soon after the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s, and those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq and Americans knew that. Last year Hans Blix, former chief United Nations weapons inspector, who led a doomed hunt for WMD in Iraq, told a British inquiry into the 2003 invasion that those who were "100 percent certain there were weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq turned out to have "less than zero percent knowledge" of where the purported hidden caches might be. He testified that he had warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a February 2003 meeting — as well as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in separate talks — that Hussein might have no weapons of mass destruction. There is ample evidence that Bush knew this to be the case, or at a minimum should have seriously suspected it; the same applies to Tony Blair. Saddam Hussein did not sufficiently appreciate just how psychopathic his two adversaries were. Bush was determined to vanquish Iraq, for the sake of Israel, for control of oil, and for expanding the empire with new bases, though in the end most of this didn't work out as the empire expected; for some odd reason, it seems that the Iraqi people resented being bombed, invaded, occupied, demolished, and tortured.

The United States and Israel are preparing to attack Iran because of their alleged development of nuclear weapons, which Iran has denied on many occasions. But if Iran is in fact building nuclear weapons, we have to ask: Is there some international law that says that the US, the UK, Russia, China, Israel, France, Pakistan, and India are entitled to nuclear weapons, but Iran is not? Iran sits directly between two of the United States' great obsessions — Iraq and Afghanistan ... directly between two of the world's greatest oil regions — the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea areas ... it's part of the encirclement of the two leading potential threats to American world domination — Russia and China ... Tehran will never be a client state or obedient poodle to Washington. How could any good, self-respecting Washington imperialist resist such a target? Bombs Away! (1) Shadow operations on the ground have already begun. Amid conflicting reports that a huge explosion at Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan occurred last week, speculation was rife that Israel and the United States were stepping-up covert attacks against defense and nuclear installations. The latest attack on Iran's civilian nuclear program followed a blast two weeks ago at the sprawling Bid Ganeh missile base 25 miles west of Tehran. That blast killed upwards of 30 members of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Major General Hassan Moqqadam, a senior leader of Iran's missile program. Satellite imagery shows much of the base in ruins. The attack was described by Time Magazine as the work "of Israel's external intelligence service, Mossad." Dan Meridor, the Israeli Intelligence Minister, said: 'There are countries who impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat'." In 2007, the CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize the Iranian government according to ABC News. Congress has appropriated some $300 million for the CIA and the Pentagon's covert war. In a further sign that the "shadow war" is heating up, last week's occupation of the British embassy in Tehran may have been a warning to the U.K. The embassy occupation and subsequent downgrade of diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran mean these threats are being taken very seriously indeed. Asia Times Online reported that Iran's claim "to have arrested 12 spies working for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is potentially a major blow to American intelligence-gathering efforts in Iran and to American intelligence generally." Following closely on the heels of last month's arrest in Lebanon of some 30 CIA operatives by Hezbollah "is suggestive of a major American intelligence defeat, if not a full-blown disaster," Asia Times analyst Mahan Abedin wrote. According to Abedin's Iranian sources, the CIA's team of "operatives and analysts" appears to have been "embedded within numerous official and unofficial American organizations, including US embassies, multinational corporations, medium-sized commercial organizations, recruitment consultancies, immigration and wider legal services, academic and quasi-academic institutions and reputable (i.e. longstanding) as well as newly set up think tanks." In other words, as many researchers have amply documented, efforts by the U.S. secret state to subvert a target nation's internal defenses prior to full-on "regime change" either through direct warfare (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, now Syria) or via an American-brokered "color revolution" (Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Ukraine, Georgia) are not about "freedom and democracy" but to achieve Washington's geopolitical goals: total economic and political domination. On Sunday, Al Jazeera reported that the Iranian armed forces "brought down an unmanned US spy plane." "Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran," Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted an unnamed source as saying on Sunday." (2) The unmanned U.S. spy plane was deep inside Iran's airspace, flying over an eastern town famous for Persian carpets and saffron when it was downed by Iranian armed forces, state radio reported Wednesday. The report said the stealth-version of the RQ-170 drone was detected by Iranian forces over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the border with Afghanistan. It was the first time an RQ-170 Sentinel was lost by the United States, according to AP. The Sentinel drone has cutting-edge stealth and surveillance technology that other nations could exploit. The aircraft's full abilities are a closely guarded secret, and the Pentagon has not revealed its price tag, size or top speed. But it has acknowledged this: The Sentinel may now be in Iranian hands... The truth is Iranian Army has the aircraft, pride of U.S. Navy and Air Force untouched. The aircraft is flown remotely by pilots based in the United States, but is also programmed to autonomously fly back to the base it departed from if its data link with U.S.-based pilots is lost. The fact that the plane did not return to its base suggests a "catastrophic" technical malfunction. It has safely landed, it was not shot down. Stealth technology is no longer secret, not after NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Current flight tests of the Chinese J-20 stealth fighter at a Chengdu aircraft factory are ringing alarm bells inside the Pentagon. Invisible to radar, the high-tech aircraft is upping the ante against the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the Pacific theater. The takeoff of a Chinese-built stealth aircraft should come as no surprise. It traces its inception to a distant Southern European battlefield more than a decade ago, when the Pentagon and the People's Liberation Army fought the world's first electronic war. As NATO forces based in Albania launched their invasion to "liberate" Kosovo in May 1999, the U.S. Air Force unleashed over the Yugoslav capital its most sophisticated aircraft—the stealth B-2 Spirit bomber and F-117 Nighthawk fighter. On the second night of the Belgrade bombing campaign, however, things went horribly wrong when a Nighthawk was hit with stunning accuracy. Americans may be tempted to conclude that the Chinese stole or pirated the stealth ware, but the fact is that the technology was captured from invaders as a fair prize of war.

Bombing a country into "democracy and freedom", simply doesn't work. As a result of NATO’s interference, “Sharia law is coming to previously relatively secular states”. To what extent NATO is aware of the fact that the coming of radical Islam to all the regions where it projected its force is a result of its actions? The epic fight for democracy which unfolded in Egypt in February has turned to major disillusionment. Almost a year after Mubarak’s fall, Tahrir Square was again stained with blood as ordinary Egyptians struggled to oust the military junta which has been in power since February’s uprising. The situation carries echoes of Libya, whose ousted leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was murdered with no trial. People there have been left with a country in ruins and a government they did not choose. And it now looks as if Syria might be joining the club as the demands of NATO and some Arab states for regime change grow more vocal. Some say the louder they call, the more violent the opposition becomes. Civil war is brewing in Syria. Libyan sources conveyed in recent days that 600 rebel fighters have already gone from Libya to Syria in order to support the Syrian opposition. The sources explained that the announcement of Libyan interim leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil regarding his country's willingness to provide support for the rebels in Syria, has actually opened the door to volunteers. The source pointed out that there is coordination between the Libyan interim government and the Syrian opposition. The source added that the Libyan rebels entered Syria through Turkey, to join "the free Syrian army" in order to counter the pro-Bashar al-Assad forces, asserting that the door is still open to more volunteers in Libya in case they wish to fight. The whole region seems to be plunging deeper into crisis. While people on the ground bear the brunt of the continuing wave of violence in the Middle East and North Africa, some observers say certain powers might be interested in keeping the trouble boiling. Powerful interests outside the Middle East want to bring discontent and chaos to pave the way for a NATO militarisation of the region so that the oil resources of those oil-rich countries can be put directly into private hands.

With globalist restructuring plans for the Middle East and North Africa looking to be nearly complete, one major hurdle remains. After a relatively easy path to victory in Tunisia and Egypt, and with the project to dismantle and re-privatise the Libyan state nearly complete, only Syria remains as the last serious contender for resistance against a globalist effort to dominate the greater region. No one can deny the strategic importance of Syria on the grand chessboard. It’s bordering neighbors include no less than Israel, Turkey, Lebanon and most importantly now, Iraq. It is also a natural political ally of Iran and aligned firmly with the region’s last remaining independent militia, Hezbollah. To bring Syria under the globalist umbrella would be a key jewel on the globalist crown in their effort to control the entire Middle East and Central Asian region. In addition, Syria is one the region’s most economically independent sovereign states and possesses an incredible basket of natural resources. For all these reasons, Syria is a very high priority for globalist economic privatisation and dismantling of the state that is currently in place. Israel’s stake in Syrian regime change is first and foremost- land. The Golan Heights, as well as its formerly occupied prize in the form of South Lebanon will be firmly within Israel’s grasp if the country should eventually come under US and European globalist control. A successful NATO operation in Syria would probably come at a high cost, but it would in effect remove the Middle East’s last remaining strong independent state from the chess board. (3)

(1) by William Blum, author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only SuperpowerWest-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War MemoirFreeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
(2) by Tom Burghardt, Global Research
(3) by Patrick Henningsen, Global Research

Yinon Plan and the "Clash of Civilizations"

The plans for reconfiguring the Middle East started several years before the First World War. It was during the First World War, however, that the manifestation of these colonial designs could visibly be seen with the "Great Arab Revolt" against the Ottoman Empire. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, it was London and Paris which denied freedom to the Arabs, while sowing the seeds of discord amongst the Arab peoples. Local corrupt Arab leaders were also partners in the project and many of them were all too happy to become clients of Britain and France. In the same sense, the "Arab Spring" is being manipulated today. The U.S., Britain, France, and others are now working with the help of corrupt Arab leaders and figures to restructure the Arab World and Africa. The Yinon Plan, which is a continuation of British stratagem in the Middle East, is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states. Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses. The Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military's Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region. Although tweaked, the Yinon Plan is in motion and coming to life under the "Clean Break." This is through a policy document written in 1996 by Richard Perle and the Study Group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000" for Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel at the time. Perle was a former Pentagon under-secretary for Ronald Reagan at the time and later a U.S. military advisor to George W. Bush Jr. and the White House. As a first step towards creating an Israeli-dominated "New Middle East" and encircling Syria, the 1996 document calls for removing President Saddam Hussein from power. Perle and the Study Group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000" also call for driving the Syrians out of Lebanon and destabilizing Syria by using Lebanese opposition figures. The document states: "[Israel must divert] Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon." This is what would happen in 2005 after the Hariri Assassination that helped launch the so-called "Cedar Revolution", and create the vehemently anti-Syrian March 14 Alliance controlled by the corrupt Said Hariri. The document also mentions something that resembles what is currently going on in Syria. It states: "Most important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite." With the 2011 upheaval in Syria, the movement of insurgents and the smuggling of weapons through the Jordanian and Turkish borders has become a major problem for Damascus.
In this context, it is no surprise that Ariel Sharon and Israel told Washington to attack Syria, Libya, and Iran after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Finally, it is worth knowing that the Israeli document also advocated for pre-emptive war to shape Israel's geo-strategic environment and to carve out the "New Middle East." This is a policy that the U.S. would also adopt in 2001.

"Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. " Oded Yinon, February 1982

It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum and before the crisis in Libya. Nor is it a coincidence that Iraqi Christians, one of the world's oldest Christian communities, have been forced into exile, leaving their ancestral homelands in Iraq. Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of U.S. and British military forces, the neighbourhoods in Baghdad became sectarian, as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to the Yinon Plan and the reconfiguration of the region as part of a broader objective. The objectives of the Yinon Plan are to divide Lebanon and Syria into several states on the basis of religious and sectarian identities for Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians, and the Druze. Christian leaders in Lebanon and Syria are afraid of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Syria. Like Iraq, mysterious groups are now attacking the Christian communities in Syria. The leaders of the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church, including the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, have also all publicly expressed their grave concerns. Aside from the Christian Arabs, these fears are also shared by the Assyrian and Armenian communities, which are mostly Christian. A Christian exodus is being planned for the Middle East by Washington, Tel Aviv, and Brussels.

"Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today." Oded Yinon, February 1982

In Iran, the Israelis have been trying in vain to get the Iranian Jewish community to leave. Iran's Jewish population is actually the second largest in the Middle East and arguably the oldest undisturbed Jewish community in the world. This project is meant to delineate the Arab nations along the lines of being exclusively Muslim nations and falls into accordance with both the Yinon Plan and the geo-political objectives of the U.S. to control Eurasia. A major war may be its outcome.

"Egypt is no longer the leading political power in the Arab World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come tomorrow. In the short run, due to the return of the Sinai, Egypt will gain several advantages at our expense, but only in the short run until 1982, and that will not change the balance of power to its benefit, and will possibly bring about its downfall. Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run." Oded Yinon, February 1982

With regard to Africa, Tel Aviv sees securing Africa as part of its broader periphery. In the same context as the sectarian divisions in the Middle East, the Israelis have outlined plans to reconfigure Africa. The Yinon Plan seeks to delineate Africa on the basis of three facets: ethno-linguistics; skin-colour; and, finally religion. An attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and African identity is underway. It seeks to draw dividing lines in Africa between a so-called "Black Africa" and a supposedly "non-Black" North Africa. This objective is why the ridiculous identity of an "African South Sudan" and an "Arab North Sudan" have been nurtured and promoted. This is also why black-skinned Libyans have been targeted in a campaign to "colour cleanse" Libya. In the same context, tensions are being fomented between Muslims and Christians in Africa, in such places as Sudan and Nigeria, to further create lines and fracture points. This is why the Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the Copts, are being targeted. This is also why black-skinned Arabs and black-skinned Berbers, as well as other North African population groups which are black-skinned, are facing genocide in North Africa. The fuelling of these divisions on the basis of skin-colour, religion, ethnicity, and language is intended to fuel disassociation and disunity in Africa. This is all part of a broader African strategy of cutting North Africa off from the rest of the African continent.

"In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes. The Moslem Arab World is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners (France and Britain in the Nineteen Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorites and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging... This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand its severe problems." Oded Yinon, February 1982

The chessboard is being staged for a "Clash of Civilizations" and all the chess pieces are being put into place. What is being staged is the creation of an exclusively "Muslim Middle East" area (excluding Israel) that will be in turmoil over Shiite-Sunni fighting. A similar scenario is being staged for a "non-Black North Africa" area which will be characterized by a confrontation between Arabs and Berber. At the same time, under the "Clash of Civilizations" model, the Middle East and North Africa are slated to simultaneously be in conflict with the so-called "West" and "Black Africa." In this regard, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, explains why multiculturalism is a threat to Washington and its allies: "As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues [e.g., war with the Arab World, China, Iran, or Russia and the former Soviet Union], except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat. Such a consensus generally existed throughout World War II and even during the Cold War [and exists now because of the 'Global War on Terror']." This is why both Nicolas Sarzoky, in France, and David Cameron, in Britain, made back-to-back declarations during the start of the conflict in Libya that multiculturalism is dead in their respective Western European societies. Real multiculturalism threatens the legitimacy of the NATO war agenda. It also constitutes an obstacle to the implementation of the "Clash of Civilizations" which constitutes the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.

In the past, the colonial powers of Western Europe would indoctrinate their people. Their objective was to acquire popular support for colonial conquest. This took the form of spreading Christianity and promoting Christian values with the support of armed merchants and colonial armies. At the same time, racist ideologies were put forth. The people whose lands were colonized were portrayed as "sub-human," inferior, or soulless. Finally, the "White Man's burden" of taking on a mission of civilizing the so-called "uncivilized peoples of the world" was used. This cohesive ideological framework was used to portray colonialism as a "just cause." The latter, in turn, was used to provide legitimacy to the waging of "just wars" as a means to conquering and "civilizing" foreign lands. Today, the imperialist designs of the United States, Britain, France, and Germany have not changed. What has changed is the pretext and justification for waging their neo-colonial wars of conquest. During the colonial period, the narratives and justifications for waging war were accepted by public opinion in the colonizing countries, such as Britain and France. Today's "just wars" and "just causes" are now being conducted under the banners of women's rights, human rights, humanitarianism, and democracy.