Economic, military pressures on Iran escalate global tensions

Bill Van Auken

The march towards an oil embargo against Iran and continuing military threats against the country from both the US and Israel are escalating global tensions.

Having recently doubled the number of US aircraft carrier battle groups within striking distance of the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration reportedly used back channels last weekend to deliver a threatening ultimatum to the Iranian government. It identified “red lines”, which, if Iran crosses them, would trigger a US attack.

Chief among these is Tehran making good on a threat made last month to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which at least a fifth of the world’s oil must pass, in retaliation for what amounts to a looming US-European sanctions blockade designed to strangle the Iranian economy and permit “regime change” in this country of 70 million people.

Washington and its European allies claim that such economic warfare is necessary to halt Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that its nuclear program complies with international treaties, that it has taken no steps to weaponize uranium at its nuclear plants, and that it is developing its nuclear capacity solely as a source of power.

Direct US threats have grown in tandem with Israel’s increasingly provocative actions. The Sunday Times published a detailed investigative piece on January 15, citing multiple Israeli sources as confirming that the January 11 car bomb assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan in Tehran was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, which had prepared the murder through extensive surveillance by multiple agents working in the Iranian capital.

US officials formally distanced themselves from the killing. “We were not involved in any way with regards to the assassination that took place there,” claimed US Defense Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who did allow that he had “some idea” of who was behind it.

In reality, the line of demarcation between the covert operations against Iran carried out by Mossad and those conducted by the CIA is decidedly murky. This was made clear in an article in Foreign Policy magazine last week entitled “False Flag,” in which military analyst Mark Perry cites US intelligence officials as saying that Mossad agents have posed as CIA agents while recruiting members of the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah for terrorist operations inside Iran.


Israel Plans Major Gaza "War"

Stephen Lendman


Photo: Israel plans more "war". This is what the
Zionists in Tel Aviv call "war". The world at large
however would consider it to be mass murder.
Anyway, the Zionists want more of it. Much more.

Israel already threatens war on Iran. It's also involved with Washington, Turkey, Jordan, and other rogue Arab states behind Syria's externally generated insurgency.

Gaza's also threatened. On January 1, Haaretz writer Amos Harel headlined "Will 2012 bring another Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza?" saying:

Repeated Israeli air strikes and incursions target Gaza. Perhaps they precede a broader offensive. Israel's IDF chief Benny Gantz "said on Army radio that 'Operation Cast Lead was carried out in a professional, determined manner, and significantly strengthened Israel's deterrent strength.' "

At the same time, he suggested another round of fighting is likely. "Particularly worrisome (are the alleged) weapons smuggl(ed) into the Gaza Strip. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have....many thousands of rockets; hundreds" able to reach central Israel, said Harel.

As a result, "the IDF is preparing itself for the possibility of a land operation in another few months."

On January 16, Jerusalem Post writer Yaakov Katz headlined, "IDF preparing for major Gaza action within months," saying:

"The IDF General Staff has ordered the Southern Command to prepare for a possible large Gaza operation that could occur within the next few months, the Jerusalem Post has learned."

If true, preparations have been ongoing much longer. Three years ago, Southern Command head General Yoav Galant trained forces for two years prior to Cast Lead. Plans involved inflicting major damage while limiting Israeli casualties.

Now, said Katz, operational plans are being finalized and distributed to IDF units to be deployed against Gaza.


Wikipedia shuts down to protest censorship bills

Andre Damon

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is shutting down for 24 hours today to protest internet censorship bills currently being considered by the US Congress.

The Wikipedia Foundation announced its plan to make the English-language Wikipedia “go dark” in a press release posted on its site Monday. The move will coincide with similar actions by a number of sites, including Reddit, the link sharing site, and BoingBoing, a technology blog.

The protest is aimed against two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), currently under consideration in the US House of Representatives, and its counterpart in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The laws would increase the government’s power over the Internet and its ability to shut down sites in the name of enforcing copyright law. They have strong support from both Democrats and Republicans

“If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” the Wikimedia foundation, Wikipedia’s parent organization, said in its statement Monday.

The bills would give the US government and major corporations the power to shut down access to web sites on the basis of court orders sought by the office of the Attorney General, which is subordinate to the White House. The court orders would force other companies, including search engines, to halt financial transactions and disable any links to the relevant sites.

In their current forms, the bills would allow sites to be removed from domain name registrars (which connect Internet addresses such as www.google.com with particular computer servers) and be blocked by Internet service providers.

The laws would allow the government to prosecute the owners of websites that link to any site providing copyrighted material, including search engines. They would also encourage web hosts and payment providers to extra-judicially blacklist websites they suspect of providing copyrighted content.


Boko Haram – An Overview on America’s Latest ‘Threat’

Jason Ditz


Boko Haram Leader, Mohammed Yusuf.

Heavy-Handed Policy Turns Loopy Sect Into Terrorist Powerhouse

US officials have repeatedly made a point to emphasize the “threat” posed by Nigerian militant outfit Boko Haram to American interests. It is unsurprising, as Nigeria is one of America’s largest suppliers of oil and the campaign against the faction has turned much of the nation’s northeast into a no-go area.

To that end US officials have pledged major support for the Nigerian government, with the belief that their usual anti-terror policy of large scale military operations against the affected regions will provide a solution. Always unspoken, of course, is that this strategy doesn’t seem to be working for the US anywhere else.

But Boko Haram is interesting not so much for what it is — another militant faction using the the same strategy of violence against rivals and suicide bombings — but for what Boko Haram was: a mostly irrelevant Luddite sect.

The group’s name, Boko Haram, is a combination of the Hausa word “Boko” meaning Western education, and the Arabic word “haram” used to refer to religiously forbidden or sinful things, usually seen in the context of Muslim dietary laws. The group was founded in 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, a Western educated cleric, and was virtually unknown for several years.

Yusuf’s faction was reportedly something of a laughingstock early on, with some claiming that Boko Haram was originally a term of ridicule for the group’s backwards belief system. In an interview with the BBC, Yusuf claimed that the idea that the Earth was round was “heretical” and also mocked the idea that rain was the result of condensation, insisting that it was clearly a miracle instead.

The group’s membership also eschewed firearms for the most part, arming themselves with bows and arrows and machetes on the grounds that there was no mention of guns in the Qu’ran.


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