Exclusive: Iran, Syria, Lebanon on military alert over US Gulfmovements and Israel's home defense drill

Exclusive: Iran, Syria, Lebanon on military alert over US Gulf
movements and Israel's home defense drill

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5168

According to British media, the US is set to attack Iranian military
facilities. DEBKAfile's military sources add that the USS Abraham
Lincoln Strike Force is heading for the Persian Gulf.
War tensions in the Middle East have shot up - not only over the
signals flashing between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, but also on the
US-Iranian front in Iraq in the wake of rising in violence around the
Basra conflagration.
Tuesday, April 8, US Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus and
ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, will stress in their report to
Congress that Iran is waging war on America in Iraq, say sources in
Washington, London and Baghdad.
This emerged strongly last week, when US intelligence learned that
Iran had intervened directly in the Iraqi government's crackdown on
renegade militias in Basra and southern Iraq, by directing and
provisioning those militias through the Revolutionary Guards' al Qods
Brigades.
Official sources in London predict that Iran's intervention against
the American effort to stabilize Iraq may well prompt a US attack on
the military installations in Iran which are orchestrating the
interference.
Gen. Petraeus is on record as accusing Iran of being the source of the
daily rocket bombardment of Baghdad's Green Zone, seat of government
and US diplomatic and military headquarters.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that Moscow has dropped its two
nickels into the rising war alarm. In the last two weeks, Russian
military and intelligence officials have been leaking claims of
intensified American military movements around Iranian shores.
Iran is certain to come up in Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir
Putin's farewell talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi Sunday, along
with other controversial business, such as Moscow's objections to
NATO's eastern expansion and US missile shield in East Europe.
Saturday, US defense secretary Robert Gates turned up in Oman, the
site of big American air bases, for talks with Sultan Qaboos. He then
flew straight back to Washington. While Gates insisted to
correspondents aboard his plane that the US is committed to a
diplomatic solution for Iran's covert nuclear program, the surpise
visit struck sparks in the already fraught regional atmosphere,
particularly as it followed on the heels of US Vice President Dick
Cheney's talks in Oman two weeks ago.
DEBKAfile's Middle East sources sum up how Tehran and Damascus read
these events and the picture they have built up of Washington's
intentions as combined with Israel's military steps:
1. US is preparing to attack the Iranian military installations linked
to subversion in Iraq. The operation will widen out into strikes on
the Islamic Republic's suspect nuclear sites.
2. Israel will use the chance for a concurrent attack on Syria.
3. Israel will attack Hizballah's strongholds in Lebanon.
4. A broad, coordinated US-Israeli offensive will be mounted against
Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
Iran and Syria view Israel's four-day home defense exercise against
missile attack, conventional or non-conventional, beginning Sunday, as
setting the stage for these attacks.
Both believe Washington and Jerusalem are in close military step.
Neither is reassured by soothing statements from prime minister Ehud
Olmert and defense minister Barak that Israel does not seek violent
confrontation - especially when the US administration is withholding
all comment. Hence the high state of preparedness ordered by the
jittery governments in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut.

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Forwarded:

Thanks for this send of Paul Craig Roberts' latest piece (included
after the following) for counterpunch.org. However, only apparent
problem with it though is that the Russian article referenced was
dated 2007 making it somewhat out of date (Paul Craig Roberts links to
it at the following URL):

Russians, Saudis Expect U.S. Attack On Iran

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/080330_iran.htm

Here is the actual article (as you can clearly see the '2007' date
shown):

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html

Saudi Arabia 'braces for nuclear war'

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0...ic.php?t=87121

Bob wrote:

I pieced together the same information Secretary Roberts notes below
in his excellent CounterPunch article, writing these words last night
to a friend:
"xxxxx, this [the Russian colonel's intelligence] seems to be of a
piece with the notice you circulated today re Saudi Arabia's
preparation for nuclear fallout. Are we a criminal country -- acting
on Israel's behest -- or what? We don't give a damn how many people --
Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranis -- we murder, how many lives we
ruin, how many lands we devastate on the path to imperial MidEast
hegemony for USrael...."
Oddly, Secretary Roberts -- unlike many of his commentaries of late --
makes no mention below of Militant Zionist Israel, and the
machinations in which beyond doubt it is involved toward war on Iran
for its sake and in its ultimate interests....
To repeat a recurring theme expressed by me, I simply cannot
understand why Secretary Roberts, Admiral Fallon, retired Ambassadors
of any number of names and eminences, a principled Christian leader or
two, a principled journalist or two, university/thinktank scholars,
retired members of Congress, human-rights NGOs, etc., are not banding
together, calling a press conference, denouncing this administration
and the entire fabric of current governance (sic), and establishing/
building a momentum designed to pre-empt the execution of three
million Iranis (Iran's population = thrice that of Iraq...).
Full-bore insanity is upon us...Bob

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03312008.html
March 31, 2008
Iran in the Crosshairs
A Third American War in the Making?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United
Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on
Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If
there were a shred of integrity left in American political life,
perhaps a third act of naked aggression--a third war crime under the
Nuremberg standard--by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited "a
high-ranking security source: "The latest military intelligence data
point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and
ground operation against Iran."
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said
"that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on
Iran's military infrastructure in the near future."
The chief of Russia's general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last
November that Russia was beefing up its military in response to US
aggression, but that the Russian military is not "obliged to defend
the world from the evil Americans."
On March 29, OpEdNews cited a report by the Saudi Arabian newspaper
Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi
newspaper reported on March 22, the day following Cheney's visit with
the kingdom's rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing
"national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive
hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of
possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors."
And Admiral William "there will be no attack on Iran on my watch"
Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing
the way for Cheney's planned attack on Iran.
The Iranians don't seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US
nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group to the
Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response to
an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses to protect US
bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and
the American people have paved the way for Cheney's long planned
attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the US
government's explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats'
refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for
lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and
launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated
evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did
with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with
anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging
a "Polish attack" on a German radio station. On the night of August
31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish uniforms seized a radio
station in Germany. Hitler announced that "last night Polish troops
crossed the frontier and attacked Germany," a claim no more true than
the Bush Regime's claim that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction." Hitler's lie failed, because his invasion of Poland,
which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack,
had obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient
civilization. It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to
have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime's case against Iran is
based on the Bush Regime's desire to deny Iran its rights under the
treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly
reported that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear
weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus
and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the Iraqis
who are resisting the American occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons
that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles
to knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled grenades
that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not have these
weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery
shells. The insurgents are helpless against US air power and cannot
mass forces to take on the American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. The
civilian infrastructure is essentially destroyed--electricity, water
and sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted uranium is
everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops. There is no
economy, and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi
family has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence of the US
invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become displaced persons. A
developed country with a professional middle class has been destroyed
because of lies told by the President and Vice President of the US.
The Bush Regime's lies are echoed by a neoconservative media, and have
gone unchallenged by the opposition party and an indifferent American
public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest
village from the air. America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars
against the civilian populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler's next horror and thus was
always unprepared, the Iranians despite all the evidence cannot
believe that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack Iran based
on nothing but lies about non-existent nuclear weapons.
Iran's only chance would be to strike before the US delivers the first
blow. Instead of using its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields
and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead of closing the Strait of
Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi Shi'ites and moving them to
insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial even as the
US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki move to eliminate Al Sadr's Iraqi
Shi'ite militia in order to avoid supply disruptions and a Shi'ite
rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is important to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war.
Having tamed, blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US media, and
US allies and puppets, Cheney might delight in the arrogance with
which he can now attack Iran free of any restraint or fabricated
provocation. On the other hand, he might cover himself by
orchestrating an "Iranian provocation" to justify his attack as a
response. But like Hitler's planned attack against Poland, Cheney's
attack on Iran has long been in the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press reported that Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi "poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders" at the Arab summit
that day. Gadhafi told the Arab "leaders," many of whom are on the
American payroll, that their American masters would turn on them all,
just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a
proxy war against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi reminded the
Arabs, "but they sold him out." Gadhafi told the American puppets,
"Your turn is next."
Gadhafi asked, "Where is the Arabs' dignity, their future, their very
existence?" If Arabs remain disunited, he predicted, "they will turn
themselves into protectorates. They will be marginalized and turn into
garbage dumps."
Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder at
will in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:

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