Friends, MER provides a good summary of various signs pointing toward nuclear confrontation. I'd put the article in the "must read" category. And yet, some important elements are left out. One is the increasingly close connections between China and other parts of the world, in particular Iran. Iran is becoming a major supplier of petroleum to China, and a US invasion of Iran could be seen by China as an attempt to get a stranglehold on China's energy supplies, which would in fact be the case. Might they respond in some way? Have they already supplied Iran with nuclear-armed Sunburn missiles? How would Russia respond? I read one report, which may only be an Internet legend, that Russia has privately told Western officials that an attack on Syria or Iran would lead to Russian retaliation against Israel. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org" Subject: Onward Toward World War III Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 08:20:36 -0500 <http://www.MiddleEast.Org> News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know Closer and closer to World War III MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 19 February: Some kind of World War III seems to get closer and closer by the crisis, by the fear, and by the new high-tech as well as low-tech weapons. If and when it fully erupts it won't necessarily be a take-off on previous wars; the world has changed considerably since World War II and the Cold War with all of its sub-hot-wars that came close but never did result in nuclear war. It's only 60 years since the fire-bombings of Dresden and the atomic bombings of Japan. It's only 43 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis and only 33 since the Middle East War that brought about the 'nuclear alert'. It was just two years ago that no less than Walter Cronkite, long known as the most credible man in America and for those too young to remember long-time anchor of the CBS Evening News, publicly warned that World War III was approaching. Not long thereafter one of the most senior Generals long-associated with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned a synagogue audience in off-the-record remarks that he was sure World War III was coming and everyone better prepare. Both of these warnings were featured and explained by MER at the time; neither was seriously reported in the Washington Post or New York Times or PBS News Hour. The evangelical American President is off to Europe declaring he will seek support for his policies toward Iran, Syria, and in fact against all who are not with the U.S. and Israel in what is their New World Order crusade. While they try to mask this imperial NWO with simple-minded trademark rhetorical excuses -- 'the war on terrorism' and 'democracy and freedom' -- much of the world isn't buying, no matter how much 'shock and awe' propaganda the Americans finance and the Israelis push. It didn't take long at all after the Bush/Cheney/Neocon election (some would say selection) for the tensions with Iran and Syria to be considerably escalated and a new pre-war climate established. The Americans and the Israelis are determined that only they will have a monopoly on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East; that on top of course of overwhelming advantages when it comes to spying and propanganda, as well as massive economic and political power. In rapid successor of late, the Iranians have been quite publicly targeted, Rafik Hariri was so visibly assassinated after Arafat's 'stealth assasination, the Americans are close to breaking diplomatic relations with Syria, another false 'peace process roadmap' has been temporarily resuscitated in the Holy Land, and Damascus and Tehran have declared a 'Common Front' appealing to others to come to their assistance. Meanwhile as well arms sales from the U.S. and Europe to Israel and other American allies continue to escalate while pressures and calculated threats against all potential opponents, including China, are growing. When it comes to what is still called by some American 'journalism' -- even as it continually escalates to more naked jingoism and propaganda -- it's bad enough what comes these days from The Washington Post, the New York Times, and the TV networks especially still ascending FOX. But when it comes to war-mongering and whipping up fears The Washington Times -- closely aligned as it is with the neocons, the Evangelicals, and the Zionists -- is always out there on top of things as the first two articles that follow demonstrate. After that The Guardian as usual puts things in greater perspective. <http://insider.washtimes.com/articles/normal.php?storyid= 20050217-101518-3750r>Iran urges Islamic vigilance against 'plots' By Nasser Karimi - AP Washington Times - February 18, 2005 TEHRAN -- Iran yesterday urged Islamic states in the Middle East to create a powerful alliance and remain vigilant in the face of "U.S. and Israeli plots," a call coming a day after Syria and Iran declared they would form a "united front" against any threats. The United States has escalated its criticism of both Syria and Iran, demanding that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon and accusing Tehran of running a covert nuclear weapons program. The United States also has said both countries, which are under U.S. economic sanctions, need to do more to prevent insurgents from using their territory to cross into Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of seeking to produce nuclear weapons. President Bush has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea and prewar Iraq, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month labeled Tehran an "outpost of tyranny." Yesterday, Mr. Bush said Syria was "out of step" with other nations in the Middle East, and the United States would work with other countries to pressure Damascus to remove its troops from Lebanon. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa told CNN earlier this month that Syria has 15,000 to 16,000 troops in Lebanon. U.S. relations with Syria have deteriorated, especially since the attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese blamed Monday's car bombing in Beirut on Syria, but the Syrian government denied responsibility. Washington withdrew its ambassador from Syria in response to the assassination. Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaking after a meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji al-Otari, said it was important to strengthen relations among Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other Islamic states in the region, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. The relationships between Shi'ite Iran and Arab countries have been rocky for some time. They were strained after the 1979 revolution in Iran and worsened during the eight-year war against Iran launched by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. All Arab countries except Syria supported Iraq in the war out of fear that Iran's revolution would spread. Mr. Rafsanjani, who is widely expected to run in Iran's June presidential election, said the United States and Israel were trying to create divisions among the region's countries, which he said must "stay completely vigilant vis-a-vis the U.S. and Israeli plots in this regard." Mr. al-Otari was quoted by IRNA as saying Israel was "the source of instability" in the Middle East, and Syria would continue supporting the Palestinians and Lebanese in their struggle. Both Syria and Iran back Hezbollah, which Washington considers a terrorist group in part because it sponsors Palestinian violence and funds suicide bombings that have killed dozens of Israelis. Hezbollah operates mostly in southern Lebanon and has carried out a cross-border war with Israel for years. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Hezbollah was responsible for about 80 percent of terror attacks on Israel. On Wednesday, Syria and Iran said they would form a "united front" to confront any threats against them. But the Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, later said in a television interview that "we don't need an alliance against the United States." <http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050217-114812-3737r.htm> Chinese military buildup assessed as threat to U.S. By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published February 18, 2005 China's military buildup is "tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait" in ways threatening to the United States, say U.S. intelligence officials, whose blunt comments contrast sharply to past intelligence assessments of the communist country's capabilities. "Improved Chinese capabilities threaten U.S. forces in the region," CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Wednesday. "China continues to develop more robust, survivable nuclear-armed missiles, as well as conventional capabilities for use in regional conflict," he said. Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in prepared testimony to the panel that China is adding numbers and more capable ballistic missiles to its arsenal to "improve their survivability and war-fighting capabilities, enhance their coercion and deterrence value, and overcome ballistic missile defense systems." "This effort is commensurate with its growing power and more assertive policies, especially with respect to Taiwan," Adm. Jacoby said. The officials' testimony shows an apparent effort to define the dangers posed by China's rising military power, which critics said have been minimized in the past, in part so as not to offend the country with markets coveted by U.S. businesses. The CIA, in particular, has been criticized in the past for underestimating Chinese military and security developments. Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, yesterday asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing about Mr. Goss' testimony that "sounded the alarm about China's modernization of its navy." Mr. Rumsfeld said China is boosting defense spending by "double-digit" rates and most of the buildup is being carried out in secret. "They're purchasing a great deal of relatively modern equipment from Russia," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And as you point out, they have been expanding their navy and expanding the distances from the People's Republic of China that their navy ventures." Mr. Rumsfeld said "we hope and pray" China enters the civilized world "without the grinding of gears." "We don't know that, how they're going to shake out," he said. The communist government faces internal tension caused by "competing pressures between the desire to grow, which takes a free economy as opposed to a command economy, and their dictatorial system, which is not a free system," Mr. Rumsfeld said. On Wednesday, Mr. Goss said China increased the number of missiles deployed opposite Taiwan last year and deployed several new submarines. The Washington Times first reported in December that China rolled out the first of its 094-class ballistic missile submarines, and in July China revealed a new class of attack submarine that took U.S. intelligence agencies by surprise. "If Beijing decides that Taiwan is taking steps toward permanent separation that exceed Beijing's tolerance, we assess China is prepared to respond with varying levels of force," Mr. Goss said. Adm. Jacoby identified three new missile systems, the DF-31, DF-31A mobile intermediate range ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and JL-2 submarine launched missile, noting that by 2015 China will have increased its nuclear warhead arsenal to several times the current level. The DIA estimated in 2000 that China had a total of 157 nuclear warheads for long- and short-range missiles, and will have 464 warheads for its missiles by 2020. 'Great Satan' warned of a burning hell The US is making threatening noises towards Iran, but, says Ian Black, any military action would have dire consequences The Guardian - 16 Feb 2005 - No one knows whether the US is serious about attacking Iran to destroy its alleged nuclear weapons programmes, and today's assertion from Tehran that US spy planes have been overflying the country will have done nothing to calm the jitters. But everyone is perfectly clear that if that should happen, it will be a very big deal indeed - and one which might make the invasion of Iraq look like quite a minor incident. It takes two to create a sense of crisis, and George Bush deliberately used his state of the union address on February 2 to depict Iran as "the world's primary state sponsor of terror", as well as accusing it of secretly developing an atomic arsenal. In Washington's eyes, one of the central members of the "axis of evil" of 2002 has now graduated to become an "outpost of tyranny". Lest anyone imagined that Iran would take such charges lying down, tens of thousands of people braved snowstorms a few days later to turn out in central Tehran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, and to hear a stern warning from President Mohammed Khatami that anyone who dared attack his country would face a "burning hell". Decades of mutual animosity means that is no empty threat. For some, memories go back to the CIA's overthrow of the nationalist prime minister Mossadegh in 1953, and while many Iranians admire the US, it is still known, as Ayatollah Khomeini famously dubbed it, as the "Great Satan". <>Americans remember the 444-day hostage drama at their embassy in Tehran. Nor have Iranians forgotten US support for Khomeini's bitter foe Saddam Hussein during the eight bloody years of war with Iraq. Israel, physically far closer to Iran - and equipped with its own undeclared nuclear arsenal - is banging the drum even louder. Its foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, warned on a visit to London on Wednesday that Iran, supporter of groups like Lebanon's Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, was now only six months away from acquiring the knowledge to join the nuclear club. "This kind of extreme regime with a nuclear bomb is a nightmare, not only for us," he said. So far, so bad. And if the rhetoric is to be believed, things may be about to get worse. For the moment the US is grudgingly acquiescing in diplomatic efforts by the EU3 - Britain, France and Germany - to persuade Iran to permanently abandon its programme of enriching uranium, which can be used to make bomb-grade material. So far, this has only been suspended "temporarily", with more talks due next month. That was the conciliatory-sounding message conveyed by Condoleezza Rice, the new US secretary of state, on her maiden visit to Europe, though she left no doubt about basic US hostility, criticising "the loathed" Tehran regime of "unelected mullahs" and urging "those of us who happen to be on the right side of freedom's divide" to encourage Iranians to win democracy. Whether this amounted to a call for regime change, as seen in Baghdad, was tantalisingly unclear. President Bush will be closely monitored on this subject when he arrives for his first second-term visit to the old continent next week - taking in Brussels, the German city of Mainz, and the Slovak capital Bratislava. Europeans are increasingly worried that options are being closed off, with the distinct possibility that the issue will end up being referred, as the Americans would like, to the UN security council - the beginning of a path that could lead to sanctions, and, in the worst case, military action. Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, has suggested that sanctions could strengthen hardline elements in Tehran. "Iran is not Saddam Hussein," he argued. "We have there a contradictory mixture of very dark elements and democratic elements." International divisions, however, mean sanctions are unlikely, as Russia and China, permanent members of the security council, would be loath to agree. Alarmingly, there are signs that military options are being explored by the US, with reports of unmanned drones, special forces identifying targets (Seymour Hersh's recent New Yorker article on this was reprinted in its entirety in the Iran News), as well as carefully-publicised nods, winks and briefings that Israel might attack Iran's nuclear sites, as it did Iraq's in 1981. None of this, however, is entirely convincing. With US forces bogged down in Iraq and hunting al-Qaida and Taliban remnants in Afghanistan, it requires a huge leap of the imagination to see the 82nd airborne heading for Tehran and Qom. Thus the dismissive comment by Ali Yunesi, Iran's powerful intelligence minister, that the very idea of US military action was "psychological warfare". "The Americans," he insisted, "would not dare to implement their threats." Still, Iran is playing hardball, robustly defending its right to develop civilian nuclear energy under the terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and denying - though unconvincingly in the light of well-documented concealment and evasion in the past - that it has any plans to produce weapons. Its motivation may well be the same search for national prestige and modernity that drove the shah - then backed by the US - to build the country's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr, on the Gulf, back in 1974. But it is no secret that the military option is an attractive one. Experts warn of the danger of miscalculation and error as Iran, cut off from the international community in so many ways since the revolution, does not have a sophisticated nuclear or strategic community. Shahram Chubin, a veteran observer of Iranian nuclear policy, argues that Tehran simply does not understand the complex doctrines of deterrence developed and refined between east and west during the cold war. Clearly, an Iranian nuclear capability would not pose a threat to overwhelming US nuclear dominance, but it might force it to keep large forces in the region. It could also encourage other countries - Saudi Arabia and perhaps Egypt - to go down the nuclear path. That would leave the non-proliferation treaty in tatters. Ironically, this crisis is deepening just as Iraq's elections ended in clear victory for the Shia Muslim groups which were supported by Iran during Ba'athist days. US officials have been quizzing them about their current relationship with Tehran, and especially about the implications of a confrontation over Iranian nuclear weapons. Iraq's painful and violent march towards democracy, for all its shortcomings, holds some discomforting lessons for the Iranian regime, dominated by conservatives and clerics whose record on human rights is regularly lambasted. It is hard for them to say so publicly, but some frustrated Iranian reformists - who lost their majority in the majlis last year - agree with Joschka Fischer that a hardline US approach, combined with Israeli sabre-rattling, will strengthen the hardliners and divert attention from their failure to tackle a stagnating economy and high unemployment. Part of this riveting and volatile story is that American credibility is in very short supply - at home as well as abroad. Is the Bush administration, many wonder, likely to be more right about Iran than it was about Iraq? "There is an eerie similarity to the events preceding the Iraq war," commented David Kay, who led the search for banned weapons of mass destruction in postwar Iraq, in a Washington Post article. "Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran would be a grave danger to the world. That is not what is in doubt. What is in doubt is the ability of the US government to honestly assess Iran's nuclear status and to craft a set of measures that will cope with that threat short of military action by the United States or Israel." If you don't get MER, you just don't get it! MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org Phone: (202) 362-5266 Fax: (815) 366-0800 Email: <mailto:•••@••.•••>•••@••.••• Copyright © 2005 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland "Escaping The Matrix - Global Transformation: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", somewhat current draft: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. 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