Operation Regime Change

by **professorpan** » Mon May 15, 2006 4:08 pm

<a href="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/15/operation_regime_change.php">www.tompaine.com/articles...change.php</a> Same players, same game plan, clearly laid out right in front of our faces. I only wonder what they will use as a trigger to turn the (currently) skeptical population into a flag-waving, bloodthirsty, "nuke Iran" mob. Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by Iranian "terrorists?" A bomb in an Israeli market with "undeniable" links to Ahmadinejad? Photographic "proof" of missile silos outside of Tehran? Or something even worse? An excerpt: ...The history of the conflict and the private strategic thinking of both sides reveal that the dispute is really about the administration's drive for greater dominance in the Middle East and Iran's demand for recognition as a regional power. It is now known that the Iranian leadership, which was convinced that Bush was planning to move against Iran after toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq, proposed in April 2003 to negotiate with the United States on the very issues which the administration had claimed were the basis for its hostile posture toward Tehran: its nuclear program, its support for Hezbullah and other anti-Israeli armed groups and its hostility to Israel's existence. Tehran offered concrete, substantive concessions on those issues. But on the advice of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bush refused to respond to the negotiating proposal. Nuclear weapons were not, therefore, the primary U.S. concern about Iran. In the hierarchy of the administration's interests, the denial of legitimacy to the Islamic Republic trumped a deal that could provide assurances against an Iranian nuclear weapon. For insight into the real aims of the administration in pushing the issue of Iranian access to nuclear technology to a crisis point, one can turn to Tom Donnelly of the neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. Donnelly was the deputy executive director of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century from 1999 to 2002, and was the main author of ”Rebuilding America's Defenses.” That paper was written for Cheney and Rumsfeld during the transition following Bush's election and had the participation of four prominent figures who took positions in the administration: Stephen A. Cambone, Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton. Donnelly's analysis of the issue of Iran and nuclear weapons, published last October in the book ”Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran”, makes it clear that the real objection to Iran becoming a nuclear power is that it would impede the larger U.S. ambitions in the Middle East—what Donnelly calls the administration's ”project of transforming the Middle East”. Contrary to the official U.S. line depicting Iran as a radical state threatening to plunge the region into war, Donnelly refers to Iran as ”more the status quo power” in the region in relation to the United States. Iran, he explains, “stands directly athwart this project of regional transformation.” Up to now, he observes, the Iranian regime has been “incapable of stemming the seeping U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf and in the broader region.” And the invasion of Iraq “completed the near-encirclement of Iran by U.S. military forces.” Donnelly writes that a “nuclear Iran” is a problem not so much because Tehran would employ those weapons or pass them on to terrorist groups, but mainly because of ”the constraining effect it threatens to impose upon U.S. strategy for the greater Middle East.” The “greatest danger,” according to Donnelly, is that the “realists” would “pursue a 'balance of power' approach with a nuclear Iran, undercutting the Bush 'liberation strategy.’” Although Donnelly doesn't say so explicitly, it would undercut that strategy primarily by ruling out a U.S. attack on Iran as part of a strategy of ”regime change.” Instead, in Donnelly scenario, a nuclear capability would incline those outside the neoconservative priesthood to negotiate a “détente” with Iran, which would bring the plan for the extension of U.S. political-military dominance in the Middle East to a halt. What is really at stake in the confrontation with Iran from the Bush administration's perspective, according to this authority on neoconservative strategy, is the opportunity to reorder the power hierarchy in the Middle East even further in favor of the United States—by pursuing the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

by **albion** » Mon May 15, 2006 5:07 pm

Thanks Prof, that's about as concise a summary I've seen of the geopolitics behind a possible war on Iran. In particular, it's good to see the focus on the nuke issue directed where it belongs - it's not the key issue in and of itself, it's more like a bargaining chip in a bigger game.

by **StarmanSkye** » Mon May 15, 2006 9:39 pm

I read this article by Gareth Porter earlier today -- Between then and on rereading your excerpts, the implications for what it means has sunk in -- the Bush Regime are showing their unmistakably black, monstrously criminal hearts --provoking an entirely uneccessary crisis that could well escalate to a full-blown regional nuclear war, perhaps even spreading to include Russia, Pakistan, India, China, GB, France and the US. This kind of ruthless, irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling is possibly the greatest single act of terrorism being committed today, on the precipice of what may be the most foul atrocity imagineable, putting at-risk the security and well-being of America and indeed the World. Almost as awful is the simple-minded idiocy of the American mainstream and popular public, who lack the intellectual critical thinking skills necessary to understand this modestly-complex political intrigue in other terms than, "But what else can we DO? Iran isn't acting very friendly towards us." I agree with the article's point -- the evidence clearly points to the US grandstanding in order to deny Iran its rightful role as a legitimate state with interests, rights and obligations in Middle East relations, trade, agreements and security arrangements -- because the US wants to play Big Man in the region and doesn't want to share power. This is so absolutely abhorrant -- no less for being typical of the US's fatalist foreign policy under primary influence of the corporatocracy. ****** Iranian nukes not the real issue 08:10 am At issue: Who will dominate the Middle East --- <a href="http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/2006/05/12/">mparent7777.livejournal.com/2006/05/12/</a> --excerpt-- If Iran's nuclear program were the core of its problem with the US, why did Washington reject a 2003 proposal by a worried and concession-minded Tehran to negotiate? Iran's advances were spurned because it stood in the way of the neo-conservative vision of a new Middle East. The Bush administration decided to play hardball, and Tehran responded in kind. <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE13Ak01.html">www.atimes.com/atimes/Mid...3Ak01.html</a> May 13, 2006 By Gareth Porter --excerpt-- WASHINGTON - In pushing for a showdown over Iran's nuclear program in the United Nations Security Council, the administration of US President George W Bush has presented the issue as a matter of global security - an Iranian nuclear threat in defiance of the international community. But the history of the conflict and the private strategic thinking of both sides reveal that the dispute is really about the Bush administration's drive for greater dominance in the Middle East and Iran's demand for recognition as a regional power. ******* On a related note, Journalist Georgie Anne Greyer writes that Israel is prepared to launch a strike on Iran in the next two or three months if the US doesn't -- which may be where much of the impetus for the US's hardline refusal to grant Iran security guarantees in exchange for concessions. Madness. <a href="http://www.astandforjustice.org/2006/05/05-10-16.htm">www.astandforjustice.org/...-10-16.htm</a> --quote-- Columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave, who has extraordinary contacts across the Middle East and whose predictions are nearly always right, wrote last week that a high-level Israeli official told him at Israel's National Day reception that Israel would strike first, in the next "month or two or three." --end quote--

by **professorpan** » Tue May 16, 2006 12:05 am

Word!

by **robertdreed** » Tue May 16, 2006 9:18 am

...while America goes on vacation. Life during "wartime", imperium style.

by **Iroquois** » Thu May 18, 2006 11:09 am

If you filter out the romanticization of the Kurdish position in this article, what's left seems a pretty good compliment to the jist of this thread. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>As the bombs fall, Iraq's Kurds have 'no friends but the mountains' By Patrick Cockburn in Kandil, Iraq Published: 16 May 2006 Shell craters and dead branches torn off the trees by explosions mark the places in the mountains of northern Iraq targeted by Iranian artillery firing across the border in a serious escalation of the confrontation between Iran and the US. Frightened villagers, whose farms cling to the sides of the deep valleys below Kandil mountain, ran for their lives as Iran opened fire on Iraqi territory for the first time since the US invasion in 2003. Local officials said about 2,000 shells were fired in four hours. "I was woken up by the sound of the shelling in the middle of the night and I saw there was fire everywhere," said Meri Hamza Farqa, an elderly Kurdish woman from Shinawa village. "The children and I ran out of the house and scattered in different directions. A shell blew up near me and I was hit by mud and stones. Later I saw blood coming from my arm." The old saying of the Kurds that they "have no friends but the mountains" is truest here among the towering peaks along on the frontier with Iran. For the first time in their tragic history the Kurds believe they are close to being recognised as a nation within Iraq but they fear that their powerful neighbours - Iran, Syria and Turkey - will snatch away their victory at the last moment. A natural fortress without paved roads, the Kandil region can only be entered by moving along rough tracks cut into the sides of ravines, and by using fords to cross rivers where the water is two feet deep. For several years the area has been controlled by heavily armed Kurdish guerrillas from the Turkish Kurd PKK movement, which conducts operations across the border in Iran. The Kurdish farmers, herding their sheep and cattle and living in almost total isolation, find it unfair that they should be among the first victims of Iranian-American rivalry. Asked why the shelling had taken place, Saida Sirt, the commander of the PKK guerrillas in Kandil, said: "The Iranians wanted to send a warning to the Americans, the Kurdish parties and ourselves." Scattered in their mountain bases, the guerrillas are almost immune to artillery fire and Katyusha rockets. But after the latest bombardment - on 1 May - the villagers had no alternative except to run away. "As soon as the shelling was over we decided to leave," said Meri Hamzaa, a 50-year-old woman with a black headscarf. "When we got back, all my hens and two of my goats had died of hunger." On the other side of the valley in the village of Razgay Saju, local people had also been asleep in their flat- roofed houses when the shelling started. "Everybody looked for a place to hide," said Base Pirot Ibrahim. "The children started to shout and cry and tried to shelter in the house but we thought it might be targeted so we took them outside. I've never been so frightened in my life." It is not as if the people of the Kandil are not used to war. One of Meri Hamza's sons was killed in a civil war between two Kurdish parties in the 1990s. Base Pirot said she had had to flee her village three times under Saddam Hussein when its people were ordered out at gunpoint and the houses destroyed. The attitude of the Iraqi Kurds to the Turkish Kurd guerrillas of the PKK is ambivalent. After their defeat in Turkey, the PKK declared a ceasefire in 1999 and 5,000 of them fled into Iraqi Kurdistan, where they took refuge in easily defended mountain regions such as Kandil. Villagers objected to them cutting down oak trees for firewood in winter, and now they use kerosene for heating and cooking. They also levy a "tax" of one sheep or goat from each family every year. The farmers do not like this, but agree that the loss of a single animal is not much of a burden. The local guerrillas are elusive. "When you see one, there are another 15 or 20 hidden near by," said Azad Wisu Hassan, the mayor of Sangaser village, close to Kandil. But in the middle of a grassy plain surrounded by mountains, the PKK fighters have built an elaborate and beautiful military cemetery, with a soaring white pillar in the middle. There is a fountain, red and white rose bushes covered in flowers, decorative trees and the marble tombs of dead guerrillas, mostly young men. It is an extraordinary monument to find in this lonely place. Most of the walls are white but others are painted in the red and yellow colours of the PKK. At one side of the cemetery is a gateway with a sign reading: "The garden of flowers for martyrs." At the other end is a hall of remembrance with a picture of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey. We met Saida Sirt, a dapper man of 35 in Kurdish military uniform carrying a bamboo swagger stick, at the cemetery. He said that he considered all of Kurdistan his home whether he was living among the Kurds of Turkey, Iraq, Syria or Iran. Currently he was leading the Iranian section of the PKK, and in response to the bombardment he would send more fighters into Iran. Commander Sirt saw the shelling of Kandil, probably rightly, as part of the complicated game being played between the US, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the Kurds. He was not sure if there would be another attack by Iran or anyone else, but whatever happened he said he would defend his mountain fortress to the last. <hr></blockquote> URL: <a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article485023.ece">news.independent.co.uk/wo...485023.ece</a>

by **Iroquois** » Thu May 18, 2006 11:20 am

This is a simular accusation made against Turkish forces. I included it in part because the Turkish position in all of this, particularily that of the Turkish military, is one of several major uncertainties I have right now. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> Kurds say Turkish shells land in Iraq, Turkey denies By Sherko Raouf SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - The government of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region accused Turkish forces of shelling an area inside northern Iraq on Wednesday. A Turkish government official dismissed the accusation as "total fabrication." Ankara traditionally launches a spring offensive against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in southeastern Turkey, an area which borders Iraq. Earlier this month, villagers in Iraq's Kurdistan accused neighbouring Iran of hitting targets inside Iraq, a charge Tehran denied. Khaled Salih, a senior official of the Kurdish regional government in Arbil, said by telephone that no one was hurt when three shells slammed into a mountainous area close to the town of Kani Masi a few km (miles) inside Iraq. "A village ... has been bombarded from the Turkish side. There were no casualties, but there was material damage," Salih told Reuters. "This is the second time in a week villages have been bombarded in the north." "We will report this to the government in Baghdad so that they can contact the Turkish government and ask for an explanation," he said. Salih said there were no PKK fighters in the area where the shells landed. NATO member Turkey has stationed some 1,500 troops stationed inside northern Iraq since the late 1990s when it launched regular raids into the region to hunt PKK fighters. In Turkey, a government official told Reuters: "This is not true ... All the measures are on our side of the border." Turkey has sent 40,000 troops to its own Kurdish areas to reinforce the 220,000 already there, the biggest build-up in years after an increase in PKK attacks. The PKK, seeking a Kurdish homeland including southeastern Turkey, accuses Ankara and Tehran of mounting coordinated operations against the group and its Iranian wing, PJAK. Turkey and Iran are wary of the autonomy Iraqi Kurds have consolidated since the 2003 Iraq war and fear it might lead to more unrest among their own large Kurdish population.<hr></blockquote> URL: <a href="http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-05-17T193802Z_01_L1710785_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-TURKEY-KURDS.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=2">today.reuters.co.uk/news/...WTModLoc=2</a>

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