Urging Obama to Stop Rush to Iran War

Ray McGovern & Elizabeth Murray


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with
President Barack Obama at the White House in 2009

A torrent of war propaganda against Iran is flooding the American political scene as U.S. neocons and Israeli hardliners see an opening for another war in the Middle East, a momentum that ex-CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Elizabeth Murray urge President Obama to stop.

President Obama needs to put an abrupt halt to the game of Persian Roulette about to spin out of control in the Persian Gulf. If we were still on active duty at the CIA, this is what we would tell him:

This informal memorandum addresses the escalating game of chicken playing out in the waters off Iran and the more general issue of what can be done to put the exaggerated threat from Iran in some kind of perspective.

In keeping with the informality of this memo and our ethos of speaking truth to power, we may at times be rather blunt. If we bring you up short, consider it a measure of the seriousness with which we view the unfolding of yet another tragic mistake.

The stakes are quite high, and as former intelligence analysts with no axes to grind, we want to make sure you understand how fragile and volatile the situation in the Gulf has become.


Just another Palestinian year

Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem


Palestinian and foreign activists in Ramallah rally
in support of UN recognition of a Palestinian state,
which is opposed by Israeli leaders, but is gaining
momentum with reconciliation between Hamas
and the PLO.

Like in previous years, 2011 was more or less another "normal" year for the Palestinians as Israel, which is ruled by a racist coalition of right wing and religious parties, continued to narrow Palestinian horizons, effectively putting an end to any realistic hopes for establishing a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank.

Psychologically, most Palestinians were in a slightly better mood in 2011 due to the outbreak of the Arab Spring, which many Palestinians view as a promising development of strategic proportions and a potentially important asset for the Palestinian cause.

However, this feeling came with a certain realisation that years would pass before Arab revolutions could reach fruition and the new Arab regimes could pay real attention to the Palestinian issue.

In addition to its general banality, 2011 witnessed the continued expansion of Jewish settlements all over the occupied territories. Indeed, not a week passed without the Israeli government unfolding a new plan for seizing additional swathes of Palestinian land for settlement expansion.

According to Israeli sources, more than 2500 settler units were built in various parts of the West Bank in 2011. Additional settlements were either built or expanded in East Jerusalem where the current Israeli government accelerated the "Judaisation process", besieging Arab communities.

Plans for building more than 5000 settler units have been approved by the Israeli government, which demographic experts argue convincingly would make the two-state solution, the very basis of the peace process, unrealistic and impossible to implement.

Israel consistently refused to freeze settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories as the US proved unwilling or unable to exert meaningful pressure on the Netanyahu government to freeze its colonialist schemes.


Obama's New Year Resolution: More Middle East War

Stephen Lendman

Syria and Iran are targeted. Regime change is planned. At issue is replacing them with client ones, controlling the region's strategic resources, and depriving key rivals China and Russia from access.

Pressure keeps building relentlessly. For months, Syria's been ravaged by externally generated violence. Its economy's also suffered enormously. According to a Damascus University assessment:

"The general financial situation of the country is suffering from the inability of the state budget because of the inability of the general revenue to cover expenses."

Moreover, conditions ahead look worse because tax revenues are half what's needed. Economic sanctions also impede oil revenues. As a result, the estimated 2012 budget deficit will be about 529 billion Syrian pounds ($9 billion dollars) out of a total $1,316 billion budget. A 40% revenue shortfall amounts to 18% of GDP.

Combined with accumulated deficits, financial strain is hugely disruptive. Syria's been cut off from credit markets. Traditionally, Central Bank loans funded deficits. However, sufficient reserves are lacking. Prices keep rising. Purchasing power further erodes. In the past six years, it's fallen 40 - 50%.

The solution requires banks and corporate Syria to help. They're able to provide considerable government funding from their "enormous profits during the economic reform and liberalization process." Doing this can be done through laws specifying amounts, rates and terms.

Syria can only raise 60% of budget needs. It can't borrow so needs other ways to cover the shortfall. Currently, 59 Syrian pounds = one US dollar. So far, economic collapse has been prevented. However, it's coming without help, and with it greater pressure on an already beleaguered regime.


A Third-Rate Intelligence Agency for a Failing Super-Power: The CIA’s Global Demise

Wayne Madsen


CIA’s Most Secret Prison Surfaces in Romania

Based on its recent string of failures, most notably those that have occurred under America’s top general-turned-spymaster David Petraeus, the CIA has become a third-tier intelligence agency that is trying to prop around the world up a failing, financially bankrupt, and over-extended super-power the United States.

The CIA, started in 1947 with veterans of the war-time Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and military personnel, who were soon supplemented by economists and international relations graduates of America’s top Ivy League universities, is now attempting to promote itself as a “made-for-television” futuristic high-tech spy and covert warfare agency, operating intelligence-gathering and armed drones from over 60 bases around the world. All that is missing from the CIA’s over-inflated view of itself are the X-Men and Jason Bourne.

The record of the CIA speaks otherwise. The agency has become a bloated and ineffectual spy agency that is heavy on inflating intelligence reports while being responsible for major intelligence failures.

Recent major failures of the CIA in its drone operations in the Middle East and Africa have some congressional sources wondering what is afoot with the CIA. Under Petraeus's watch the CIA has experienced its worst foul ups since those that occurred when it failed to foresee the Iranian embassy hostage situation and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Petraeus's first major failure, Lebanon, involved Hezbollah's exposure of the CIA's agent network in the country. The CIA station chief, Daniel Patrick McFeely, has been outed as the CIA station chief at the U.S. embassy in the Awkar neighborhood of Beirut. Not only was Hezbollah able to out McFeely, who operates as "official cover" as part of the embassy staff, but they identified his predecessor, Louis Kahi.

By conducting surveillance of meetings at Pizza Huts and Starbucks in Lebanon between CIA case officers and agents, Hezbollah -- and their Iranian allies -- were able to construct the CIA's network that included over 1000 top Lebanese politicians, academics, medical doctors, journalists, military personnel, and celebrities. Essentially, the CIA's network in Lebanon has been largely rolled up. According to Al Manar television, the code names of the agents, names like Nick, Jim, Youssef, Liza and Jonah, were also exposed.


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