Wednesday 24th of April 2024
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carrying out the Brzezinski doctrine in the middle east, by destroying diplomacy...

bugger man and his bogeyman   The death of General Qassem Soleimani at the American hand was a cowardly political murder for the sole purpose of blowing up the table and plunging the Middle East into a chaos from which only the United States and their few regional allies, Israel in the first place, can emerge winners.

 

Although from a strictly military point of view such a thing always happened, it is good to remember that over the centuries other perspectives have also been seen and that there have been brave men who in war refused to follow some paths because thought as dishonorable.

 

by Costantino Ceoldo

 


President Trump, in whom I had placed high hopes for a pacification of the ongoing conflicts, tweets his satisfaction for Soleimani's death and promises further terrible military actions if Iran tries to fulfill its revenge purposes. The Donald threatens also to hit places of great historical and cultural value for the Iranian nation. In this by differentiating himself from the Nazis who saved works of art while stealing them from invaded countries and making himself equal to ISIS (of which the Americans were creators and defenders) which worked hard to destroy Palmyra, fortunately blocked in time by Russians and Iranians.


Russia and China do not speak much. Perhaps they have given themselves to an underground diplomacy that they hope is more effective, but who really rules in Washington? In any case, they would do well to remember that it will be up to them after Iran. The redesign of the Middle East pursued by the Americans serves both to carry out in style the Brzezinski doctrine for the partition of Russia and the preventive confinement of China.

If the situation worsens, Internet connections with Iran may be cut off. I therefore rushed to ask ParsToday's Davood Abbasi a few questions, the answers to which I thankfully report here.


1) Can you briefly remind us who was Qassem Soleimani?

A) A boy from a peasant family in Kerman, an area of ​​eastern Iran, who in the space between 1980 and 1988 had gone to the front to defend his country. Initially he worked in the supply section of the front but showing his talents ended the war as commander of the army of the city of Kerman. He became commander of the Quds forces of the Pasdaran, that is the division that carries out operations across borders, he was in charge of operations against ISIS. The defeat of Isis is his greatest work. Surely, he is the person to whom we owe mostly the end of ISIS. I believe the news of his death cheered terrorists from the Middle East region more than anyone else. Recall that by defeating ISIS in Syria and Iraq, he probably also saved the lives of thousands of Europeans and Americans. Unfortunately, he was not rewarded by the West for the services he had given to Western populations as well. He died as a martyr, like the descendants of Muhammad he was inspired by, like Ali and Hussein. Among other things, he died not far from where these Shiite Imams died, that is, in Iraq. He went there to examine the ways with Iraqis to face the challenges posed by the latest pockets of resistance of ISIS.


2) Is it true that the US command in Iraq had been warned of the arrival of the general because Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission?

A) It is true that he made the flight completely in the sunlight because he arrived in Iraq as the official authority of the Iranian government. It could have also reached Italy, for example, if Italy had asked for Iran's cooperation or help in anti-terrorism matters. Killing him, contrary to what the Americans claimed, did not need complicated intelligence information or great organizational skills. It is a cowardly and dastard action.


3) What do you answer to those in the West say that General Soleimani also died due to a settings of score within Iranian politics?

A) Pure fantasy.


4) The situation that has arisen recalls with anguish the accident in Sarajevo, which led to the First World War. How much do we have to fear the future?

A) Iran will respond; it will definitely do it; but it will do so as it is worthy of its millenary culture. True, Americans are much stronger, but I think it is clear that Iranians are much smarter. The answer will be divided into two areas.


a) Strategic: this answer will be the most important. Trump does not know that he served on a silver plate to Iran the just cause for throwing Americans out of the whole Middle East. Iraq will throw the Americans out of its territory, by any means necessary. Losing Iraq once and for all will be the heaviest pledge the US will pay for the assassination of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis.

b) Military: this answer will come but not immediately. It is difficult to understand how and when. If, as I think, the strategic part goes well, the Iranians will probably postpone the action to a remote time and could limit it in size.

So far Abbasi. However, I also want to bring back the thought of Senator Richard Black who, from the beginning of the Syrian carnager, was the only American politician to vigorously distance himself from official American politics and to admit its disastrous drift. In a statement on January 3, Senator Black says:

"The death of General Soleimani is a great tragedy. We have killed one of the two generals most responsible for defeating ISIS and al Qaeda.

We are not genuinely fighting a war on terror. I fear that in a sense, we are becoming the terror.

His killing, coupled with rapidly growing troop movements, may presage a new war of aggression -this time, against the Iranian people. I pray that we draw back from the vast war that looms.

We've now begun the 30'h year of war against Iraq. We've dropped a quarter million bombs on the country and its people. We've spent a trillion dollars there, yet never bothered to effectively rebuild the electrical grid we destroyed in the "shock and awe" bombings a generation ago. Has the war ever concerned democracy? I think not.

General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, told us how the Secretary of Defense, in 2002, ordered the preparation of plans to overthrow seven nations in fave years. Iran was the final target. The schedule changed, but our objective did not. Neither our soldiers nor our people have a voice to stop it."

It is a statement which tasted desperate, of a man who fought for his country in a foreign land, Vietnam, and whose value, loyalty, patriotism cannot be questioned.

Many experts of these days forget, or ignore for convenience, that General Soleimani was a high-ranking officer of a legitimate army, not a rioter in bad shape and badly dressed. According to some sources, he was in Iraq to negotiate a new season with Saudi Arabia. How will Iranian negotiators, but also Russian and Chinese negotiators, now trust an American invitation?

Iran, a cohesive country of three thousand years old, does not have many choices. Soleimani's elimination, a figure already mythical and now handed over to the nobility of the Shiite martyrdom, occurs shortly after the failure of another Maidan in an Iranian key: insurrection suppressed, insurgents stopped, foreign espionage network compromised. This means that even if Iran does not respond to this provocation, the Americans would do another in a few weeks, in a crescendo impossible to accept.

The next few days are crucial: if Tehran falls, then it will be up to Moscow and Beijing.


Читайте больше на https://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/144189-soleimani/

 

 

 

 

who pushed trump's buttons?...

Donald Trump: The New Anti-Shiite Tyrant


By killing Soleimani, he's shown his ignorance of the power of martyrdom in Shia theology and his dislike of Muslims generally.


By Barbara Slavin


Any sound military and political strategist knows the maxim “Divide and Conquer”—“Divide et impera” in Latin and attributed to Julius Caesar.

U.S. policy towards the Middle East, however, has often been the reverse, with the result that groups that are otherwise enemies agree on one thing—opposing the United States.

This failure of strategic logic and indeed basic common sense was on full display during the George W. Bush administration. 

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, instead of using the opportunity to widen the circle of U.S. allies or at least non-enemies in the Middle East, the Bush administration declared war on “all terrorism of global reach,” not just on the Sunni terrorists responsible. That meant not seeking some sort of détente with Shiite Iran—despite its assistance in overturning the Taliban in Afghanistan and forming a replacement government—but putting Tehran in an “Axis of Evil” with North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Some members of the Bush administration went further. John Bolton, then an undersecretary of state nominally tasked with arms control (he mostly did the reverse), said that Iran should “take a number,” implying it would be the next to experience regime change after Iraq. Neoconservatives worried about Iran and its expanding stockpile of low-enriched uranium, as well as its long opposition to Israel, said that “real men go to Tehran,”not Baghdad. 

The Bush administration also went back on a promise to trade leaders of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq—a militant Iranian group nurtured by Saddam that fought on Iraq’s side during the Iran-Iraq war—for members of al-Qaeda detained in Iran. Instead the U.S. gave the group protection and Bolton among others argued that the MEK could be deployed against Iran.

As a result, the U.S. helped turn the Quds Force—the elite overseas branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards—into a full-fledged enemy even as its removal of Saddam’s Baathist regime opened Iraq fully to Iran-backed militants, many of whom were trained in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. Starting with the Badr Brigade, Iran has since helped shape other Iraqi militias, among them Kataib Hezbollah, whose targeting of Americans in Iraq touched off the latest escalatory spiral.


Of course, the Trump administration’s decision in 2018 to quit the Iran nuclear deal and a year later to impose an oil embargo on Iran has been the major cause of the mayhem in the region over the past nine months. 


Now, by assassinating Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, the Trump administration has likely foreclosed any possibility of U.S.-Iran diplomacy and sharply increased the likelihood of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Iran announced on Sunday that it would no longer observe the limits set in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and would resume its nuclear program. That will incentivize Saudi Arabia to get nukes of its own.


It is said that George W. Bush, when he decided to invade Iraq, did not understand the difference between Sunnis and Shias. Donald Trump seems to dislike all Muslims, except those who buy American arms or host Trump properties.


In killing Soleimani, Trump has shown his ignorance of the power of martyrdom in Shia theology. To Iranians and many Arab Shia—including those who would like to get Iran out of their countries’ affairs—Soleimani was a bulwark against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, defending the interests of a religious minority in the Middle East. Pictures of Soleimani being embraced by the Imam Hussein—the revered Shia figure martyred in the year 680 in Karbala, Iraq, by the forces of the Sunni tyrant Yazid—are circulating widely on social media. The U.S., by implication, has become Yazid.


Iran’s long-time Sunni rival, Saudi Arabia, along with Israel, encouraged Trump to quit the Iran nuclear deal and impose draconian sanctions on the country. The Saudis paid the price last September when they suffered a major attack on their biggest oil installation, reputedly at the hands of Iran. According to Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, Soleimani had come to Baghdad to give Iran’s answer to a peace feeler from the Saudis. Saudi-Iran reconciliation would help restore stability to the Middle East; Soleimani’s killing will do the opposite.


Beyond now having to brace for Iranian retaliatory attacks on the 50,000-plus American servicemen and women in the Middle East, the U.S. and its allies will have to contend with a reinvigorated Islamic State and other Sunni militant groups. They may target the U.S. directly or carry out false flag operations that they will try to pin on the Iranians, hoping to provoke the Trump administration to bomb the Iranian homeland. If that happens, a full-scale war seems inevitable.


Already, the U.S. mission against ISIS has been suspended as American forces concentrate on their own protection against Iran and its proxies. If the 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are forced to leave, as appears likely given the Iraqi reaction to the killing of Soleimani on their soil, the 500 or so Americans in Syria will also likely have to quit the region, along with European troops engaged alongside their NATO ally. It will be far more difficult for the U.S. to contain ISIS if Western forces are pushed out of both Iraq and Syria. 


The humiliation of expulsion from Iraq—a country in which the United States has expended so much blood and treasure—will be extreme. Beyond Iran, whose influence in Iraq will only rise if America leaves, and Sunni extremists, the other beneficiaries will be Russia and China. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will be seen as more honest and useful brokers than the United States, having wisely not chosen sides between the Sunnis and Shias and even more wisely not sought to antagonize both.


Barbara Slavin directs the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and tweets @BarbaraSlavin1. The views expressed here are her own.


 

not us, say the zionists...

By Helen Buyniski, RT

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly warned his cabinet not to get too involved in the US murder of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, lest Tel Aviv gets dragged into the escalating conflict between Washington and Tehran.

“The assassination of Soleimani isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be dragged into it,” Netanyahu reportedly told his security cabinet during a meeting on Monday, as cited by Israel's Channel 13. He advised ministers to avoid speaking to the media about Thursday's targeted assassination beyond supporting the US' right to defend itself, so as not to give the impression that Israel had played any role in it.

The directors of Mossad and military intelligence reassured the ministers that the likelihood of a retaliatory attack is low, since "Israel stayed at a distance from the incident," and that Iran will begin planning its reciprocal move on Tuesday following the conclusion of the national mourning period for Soleimani, according to the same sources.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/477604-netanyahu-distances-israel-soleimani-kill...

 

 

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an iranian response...

Missile strikes against US bases in Iraq were legitimate self-defense measures and are now over, as Iran does not intend to wage war or escalate the situation further, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has said.

Two volleys of missiles aimed at the Al-Asad base in Iraq’s Anbar province and another facility near Erbil were “proportionate measures in self-defense” under 51 of the UN Charter, Zarif tweeted from Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday, describing the action as “completed.”

 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/477685-iran-proportionate-self-defense-zarif/

 

'Slapped them in the face': Iranian leader hits out at US 
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei  said in an address to his nation "we slapped them (Americans) on the face last night" with a missile strike “but military action is not enough.” 
He spoke hours after the strike at military bases in Iraq used by US forces. The strike was in retaliation for the  killing of Iran's top military commander in Baghdad Qassem Soleimani, whom he called a "great, brave, warrior". 
The Iranian leader also said the United States is Iran's enemy in his speech and added that the “corrupt presence of the US in the region should come to an end," saying it has caused war, division, and destruction.
Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-08/iran-attacks-us-bases-in-iraq-after-qassem-soleimani-death-live/11851492

 

 

 

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profound regrets about american adventurism...

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has offered “profound regrets, apologies and condolences” over an unintentional downing of a Ukrainian civilian aircraft over Tehran, stating “human error” during a “crisis” led to the accident.

“A sad day,” the FM wrote on Twitter, adding “Preliminary conclusions of internal investigation by Armed Forces:”

Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster. Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/477994-zarif-iran-plane-us-adventurism/

 

 

Sunny skies over the Middle East this week. Donald Trump’s killing of Qassem Soleimani has prompted the Iranians to announce that they’ll no longer abide by the curtailments on their nuclear program imposed under the agreement they negotiated with the West in 2015. That isn’t the end of the nuclear deal but it has deflated it significantly. Meanwhile, much of Iran, not just the accursed clerics, are out to mourn Soleimani’s death and demand revenge. Iranian forces have since fired missiles at American military bases in Iraq, while Trump has responded with a 420583013853rd round of sanctions.

Don’t worry though, America’s foreign policy hawks assure us, all is well. Soleimani’s assassination was worth it, they say, because now Iran understands there will be consequences for its misdeeds. Their militias attacked our embassy, and because they’ve paid a steep price, they’ll be less likely to come after us in the future. But when has it ever worked out that way? When Ronald Reagan bombed Libya in 1986 following a terrorist attack at a West Berlin discotheque that killed an American, Moammar Gaddafi didn’t back down; he remained a maestro of terrorism and two years later was fingered for the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Iran didn’t cower; it sent fighters across the border to attack American troops and carved out significant influence for itself among Iraqi Shias.

Over and over again, we assume these pyrotechnic messages will intimidate the bad guys, and over and over again, the bad guys hit us right back. No, the only guarantee after Soleimani’s death is that the very Iranian aggression hawks claim to deplore will continue. Iran has lost a leader with a wide political and cultural footprint, one who was viewed by many as a guardian angel against ISIS; they had no choice but to retaliate. They certainly aren’t about to signal weakness by setting Hezbollah adrift or surrendering their influence in Bahrain or pulling out of Iraq.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-drives-last-nail-...

the next boogeyman...

therit

 

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nothing to do with iran...

Twenty-one members of the Saudi military are being expelled from the US after a cadet carried out a mass shooting at a air base last month.

The servicemen are not accused of aiding the 21-year old Saudi Air Force lieutenant.

But US Attorney General William Barr said the cadets were found to have had jihadist material and indecent images of children in their possession.

Three sailors were killed and eight wounded in the 6 December attack. 

Training for Saudi servicemen was put on hold in the US after the attack.

Mr Barr told a news conference on Monday that the shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola had been an "act of terrorism". 

He said he had asked Apple to unlock two iPhones that belonged to the gunman, who was killed by police in the attack. The gunman fired a bullet into one phone in an effort to destroy it, Mr Barr said, but FBI investigators were able to restore the device.

 

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51095771

 

Had these guys been "Iranians", they would have been imprisoned for life... But we all know (we should) that the US is not training any Iranians to send and overthrow the legitimate government of Iran... Not in the US anyway.

crowning him the evilest man in the world...

 

by Kit Knightly

 

The fast-paced world of geopolitics can be disorienting to follow and unsettling to witness.

The US Empire teeters on the brink of total collapse, and lashes out recklessly this way and that as feuding factions struggle for control. The world’s finances are a dystopian mess of imaginary money, controlled by an elite class who care nothing for ordinary people and have rigged the game so they win no matter where the roulette wheel stops. And the less said about the environment, the better.

In these uncertain times, it’s important to take comfort in the familiar and the predictable…

…like the mainstream media flashing up a photograph of an Arabic man, and crowning him the evilest man in the world. 

That’s right: ISIS has a new leader. At least, according to the press (or, more accurately, the people that tell the press what to say).

This is Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, and he is the new Public Enemy Number One.

That’s what the Guardian says, anyway:

The new leader of Islamic State has been confirmed as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, according to officials from two intelligence services. He is one of the terror group’s founding members and has led the enslavement of Iraq’s Yazidi minority and has overseen operations around the globe.

Oh, and the Daily Mail too:

The new leader of Islamic State has been revealed as Iraqi Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi. Two intelligence services said al-Salbi took over from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after the terrorist leader blew himself up in October. Al-Salbi, who helped found ISIS, brought in brutal Sharia Law in Iraq and Syria, led the enslavement of the Yazidi and has operated across the world.

(Sidenote: When a schoolfriend of mine copied my homework with that little effort at rewriting we both got in big trouble. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they’re both copying from the same GCHQ memo.)

Interestingly, neither article actually names the “two intelligence services” who provided this information. In fact, they give us no evidence the man even exists. They just say it, because they were told to, and we need a new “face of evil”.

Just as Osama Bin Laden was killed (several times), and then buried at sea…only to be replaced by al-Baghdadi. So is al-Baghdadi killed (several times), and then buried at sea…only to be replaced by al-Salbi. 

(I’m sure, when the time comes, the next Democrat administration will happily kill off al-Salibi, claim to have “done what Donald Trump could never do”, only to replace him with Arabic Terrorist #4 from central casting before the end of the year.)

Whether or not he’s real – whether or not that photo is real, stolen from the website of some cricket team, or invented entirely in photoshop – we have our new Goldstein. Get familiar with him, because you’ll likely be hearing about him a lot.

For starters, don’t be surprised if his “fortification” of ISIS means Donald Trump can’t pull out of Syria after all.

Or maybe if ISIS attacks on Iraqi civilians/militias result in the Iraqi parliament revoking their request for the US to remove their troops from Iraqi soil.

There’s the possibility that ISIS will start a resurgence in Libya, meaning that NATO has to get in there and sort things out.

Maybe some furious ISIS fighters will be the ones who assassinate Iranian generals in future. It’s much less messy that way.

Or, hell, maybe we’ll return to the hits of the 90s and early 2000s, and Islamic jihadists will get back to work in Chechnya.

Whatever happens, ISIS are back baby. And that means that some way, somehow, Mr al-Salbi is about to make the foreign policy goals of the United States much easier.

That’s what Goldsteins are for.

 

Read more:  

https://off-guardian.org/2020/01/20/goldstein-2-0-isis-has-a-new-big-bad...

 

 

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