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Top Source Says Bush To Strike Iran By August

Asia Times says Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, were informed of the attack plan.

The Bush administration is planning to carry out air strikes against Iran by August and two U.S. Senators have already been briefed on the attack according to a report in the highly respected Asia Times, which cites a former assistant secretary of state and U.S. career diplomat as its source.

Muhammad Cohen's article claims that Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, were informed of the attack plan and planned to voice their opposition to it in a New York Times editorial in an attempt to offset the air strike. The editorial is yet to materialize.

According to Cohen' source, the Neo-Cons believe that they can perpetrate a "limited" air strike aimed more at sending a message than destroying Iran's supposed nuclear program, but the consequences of such a move are likely to provoke a massive Iranian retaliation, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has consistently warned.

The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.

Speculating on whether such a strike will benefit either McCain or Obama on the eve of the presidential election, the report points out that McCain has built his candidacy around an aggressive foreign policy therefore would be the likelier to take advantage.

"A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain," states the article.

"On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is."

Iran's inevitable response would send oil prices skyrocketing towards $200 dollars a barrel as global instability threatened to boil over into numerous different regions in the aftermath of any attack. McCain's ability to grandstand as a tough war leader would no doubt be amplified by a compliant corporate media and a sizable proportion of the American public would rally behind the Arizona Senator, especially if American interests were the subject of terrorist attacks on behalf of Hezbollah and Hamas.

China's response to any attack, with the Communist nation being Iran's biggest customer for oil, would also be key. Any inkling of a hostile reaction would place the world under the greatest threat since the height of the cold war.

Lugar and Feinstein's public opposition to the plan "would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan," states the article but, "Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration's plan or their knowledge of it."

The impending invasion of Iran has been on the grapevine for the past three summers running and many are beginning to fear that the "boy who cried wolf" mentality is starting to discredit those who repeatedly warn of the coming attack. However, rhetoric has notably heated in the past few months.

During Bush's recent visit to Israel, an Israeli official claimed that a senior member in Bush's entourage had stated in a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had resolved to attack Iran before they left office.

During a recent news conference at Israel's parliament, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House majority leader Steny Hoyer stated that the military option against Iran was still on the table.

Prominent political figures such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Gary Hart have warned that an attack on Iran won't arrive absent a staged provocation or a new Gulf of Tonkin style incident.

During a 2007 Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting, Brzezinski alluded to the potential for the Bush administration to manufacture a false flag Gulf of Tonkin type incident in describing a "plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran," which would revolve around "some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a 'defensive' US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan."

In an open letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former Senator and current CFR member Hart warned the Iranian President that he would be, "Well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964," two false flag events manufactured by the U.S. itself to kick start a war.

*Coastal Post - Bolinas, Calif.

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Acidrain09

*Groan*... When will this country ever learn.

Buzzby

Why doesn't someone get the President the psychiatric help he so obviously needs? Can't a Democrat-heavy Congress stop this action which no sane person could possibly support?

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Flyingdonk

I think the only message that would be sent is that the American leadership has no respect for other countries whatsoever.

sterbo

Hang on to your hats kids...



The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.

An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.

White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.

The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.

He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran Video

"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.

* ElBaradei warns against strike on Iran
* Official: Israeli air exercise a message to Iran
* Messages conflict over tighter Iran sanctions

"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.

"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.

Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.

He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.

The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.

Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work.

U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.

Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.

The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said.

In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."

"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action

 

troublemaker_42

When asctual sources are quoted as giving this information, it will certainly give it much more credibility. At this point, I see speculation, and little else.

__________________
Remember you're a wreck, an accident
forget the freak, you're just nature
Keep the gun oiled and the temple clean
shit, snort and blaspheme
Let the heads cool and the engine run
Because in the end,
everything we do
is just everything we've done..."Omega" by StoneSour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politic...ma#Gun_control
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SpiralArchitect

I'm with TM, I haven't seen substantial evidence, then again, with the current administration I wouldn't be the least bit surprised actually. Starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was just getting our 'toes wet' in the Middle East.....

It's really quite sad. I mean, what has gotten into the world? I know it's not greed, thats been around since the dawn of mankind. Have we (or at least those in power) lost their fucking minds?

__________________
I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm,
to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.

troublemaker_42

Yes, thats why we feel the need to provide more foreign aide worldwide than any other country I don't agree with bombing Iran, but then again, I've yet to see a credible source agree that its on the agenda. However, despite your seeming dislike of all things American, we DO provide more foreign aide than any other country, to the tune of over 200 billion annually. That doesn't sound like a government that has no respect for other countries, but see it as you please

NoobMcGee

America-Spreading Democracy 1 bullet at a time since 2003.

Flyingdonk

And yet America has bombed over 50 countries since the end of the WWII. It might deliver the most foreign aid than any other country (but it is the largest economy in the World), but it also delivers the highest payload than any other country.