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Lockdown Skeptics
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international edition
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Why is the Bush Admin eyeing Iran? international |
anti-war / imperialism |
opinion/analysis
 Thursday February 16, 2006 14:19 by MichaelY - iawm
 Is the US likely to start another war? Brace yourself for a big new war. And start workig now to prevent it. They invaded Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban, and subsequently abandoned that country to vicious warlords and drug barons (generally the same people). And the Taliban are on their way back. We're approaching the third anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, an invasion that we now incontrovertibly know was sold with outrageous lies and planned and executed with stunning incompetence. Even after three years of ever-escalating anti-American, anti-Western and inter-religious violence in Iraq, the White House is as divorced from reality in its public pronouncements as ever. And the domestic so-called ‘democratic’ opposition is as ineffectual as ever. We now witness the U.S.-fuelled rise of Islamist parties in elections across the Middle East. There are Internet reports today that, unbelievable as it may sound, Saddam Hussein had “warned” the Americans and the Brits of terror attacks. Tape recordings of this have ‘mysteriously surfaced. In the meantime in the real world of the invasion, Basra and its surrounding region are seething with discontent. The British Generals are worried. What more could go wrong? Plenty. Brace yourself for a big new war. And start working to prevent it. As incomprehensible as it might seem to most rational people, the Bush cabal is pushing full speed ahead for a military attack on Iran, perhaps as soon as next month. For the last year, it has been diligently laying the groundwork, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to use the International Atomic Energy Agency as a bully ramhead to portray Iran as a country intent on illegally developing nuclear weapons. The IAEA hasn't bought it thus far, due mostly to a notable lack of evidence, but the campaign has done two things: it has enraged and emboldened Iran's leadership, and it has planted the idea of Iran as an "axis of evil" rogue state firmly in the mind of the public. It is true that has been no real groundswell of support for an attack on Iran -- but there has also been no serious opposition so far. The topic simply isn't on most peoples radar – certainly not in Ireland.. But it is very clearly on Bush's. In the US, there midterm elections coming this year. Republicans will need a good, fresh example of their supposed stalwartness in the face of criticism. Like an attack on Iran. Internationally, the Bush White House would like nothing better than to behead the rising Islamist tide that has swept through recent elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and, most explosively, now Palestine. The Teheran heads are not only the spiritual fathers to this revolution, but are directly tied to the new Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and to the Palestinian resistance; so Washington wants regime change in Iran. It preferably wants regime change before Teheran follows through on its threat to convert the currency in which it sells its oil from dollars to euros -- a precedent-setting move that could have dire global consequences for the dollar as the international currency of choice, and, hence, ugly long-term consequences for the debt- and trade-deficit-riddled American economy. Fortunately for Bush, the case for military action need not involve such inconvenient truths. Even after the embarrassment of Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, to the Bush White House Iran's alleged nuclear program provides an ideal excuse for intervention. At least initially, don’t expect the U.S. to launch an actual invasion of Iran. Much more likely is a strike by some combination of U.S. and Israeli forces, using U.S. intelligence, on some 40 sites identified as key to Iran's developing nuclear energy program. Such a strike wouldn't be easy; the sites are widely scattered, often deeply buried, well-defended, and most are located in densely populated areas. Iranians learned from the Israeli strike on Iraq's developing nuclear program in 1981. There is thus talk of the use of American "bunker-busting" bombs, hundreds of which were provided recently to Israel. Any attack on Iranian facilities would surely be answered, and probably escalated. And if war escalates, there is another prize: Iran's massive oil reserves, 90 percent of which are massed in one province along an Iraqi border crawling with U.S. troops. The problem, of course, is that Iran is no Iraq, with a hated regime, crippled by decades of war, bombings, no-fly zones, and economic sanctions. The Teheran regime, for all its religious oppressiveness and rhetorical belligerence, has popular support, especially in the face of American (or Israeli) aggression. The savage American-installed Shah dictatorship (which was overthrown by the revolution in 1978) is still remembered and despised. Iran is a much larger, more populous, and more prosperous country. Its military is well-equipped; invaders cannot roam the skies unchallenged. Any attack on Iran would have even less international "coalition of the willing" support than the invasion of Iraq did. And Iran has links with terror groups around the world happy to target U.S. facilities. Most importantly, Iran shares borders with both Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as it would be easy for American troops to cross from neighbouring countries into Iran during any hostilities, Iranian and pro-Iranian forces could easily make U.S. forces' lives hell in the already-tenuous situations of the two countries. Tariq Ali, at a Dublin meeting last night, spoke of how the Iranian leaders predict that the anti-American campaign will be fought in Shiite dominated Iraq and not Iran. Just imagine if the fully armed Shiite militias decide to fight the crusaders in Iraq itself!In other words, what Bush is playing with is a conflagration that could involve Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and the entire Middle East, and perhaps beyond. It has the potential to dwarf (on all sides) the body count thus far in Afghanistan and Iraq; inspire further generations of terrorism and anti-western jihadism; severely damage the western economies; and decimate an American military already stretched thin and reeling from a badly mismanaged, relatively low-intensity insurgency in Iraq. Why risk it? Oil, stopping Islamism with a tinge of Orientalism, short-term domestic considerations, and Iranian regime change, in that order. With their dreams of remaking the Middle East, it just might be too much of a honey pot for Bush's hawkish neo-cons to resist. The only minor complication is that such an imbroglio is not only by definition unwinnable, but is likely to be disastrous -- to the point where it could end America's status as a global superpower. (Which might well be a good thing, but for the horrific loss of mostly civilian life it would entail.) How can such an outcome be prevented? The most likely scenario has nothing to do with political opposition at all -- it has to do with the willingness of Asian countries that covet Iranian oil, especially China, to countenance another U.S. military adventure. The U.S. is now so badly in debt to countries like China, Japan, and South Korea that while a limited raid is simple enough, any massive new military expenditure would literally require the Asian countries to be writing the checks, and they're not about to do so for a war that threatens their own strategic interests. Bush may well be finding out the limits of a global empire erected on other people's money. But that scenario relies on stopping hostilities from expanding. To prevent them entirely requires domestic and international popular opposition. For a country already palpably tired of the Iraq war and wanting troop reductions (if not total withdrawal) there, a military incursion leading to a broader regional conflict will be pure madness. The only way it can play out politically for Bush is if it unfolds in stages. If a "justifiable" U.S. attack on "nuclear weapon" facilities leads to Iranian retaliation (which we, in turn, just have to respond to), such a war might float. If the probability of a broader and disastrous war becomes an issue ahead of time, the question then becomes the advisability -- or foolishness -- of the original raid. And especially in an election year, such public perceptions just might derail the whole thing. Iran needs to become a political issue. But consider the consequences of not acting. Think of Shannon being used as a warport for still another imperial adventure.The Bush administration's hostility to negotiation and the possibility of its attack on Iran, and the likely result, must be widely publicized. Now. Before it's too late, and we're stuck with another deadly disaster America will regret for generations. |
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Comments (12 of 12)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12i think you meant why is the usa, germany, france, england, and maybe israel want to start a new war while russia, china, and most UN members seem to not really care
The reason for the coming war with Iran is simple.
In March 2006 Iran will open it's very own oil burse.
The plan is that Iran will sell it's own oil on the open market.
No big deal in and of itself!
However, Iran will be trading their oil for...EURO.
In 2002 Saddam stated that he planned to market his oil for Euro, and we all know what happened after that.
Should Iran start trading their oil for Euro, chances are the reset of the oil producing countries will follow suit.
Should this happen, the petro-dollar will no longer exist and the US will face economic riun.
So there you have it in a nutshell. US couldn't care less about who has nukes, it's all about the mighty dollar.
March will prove to be a very interesting month....
How many times have we heard the following whining and yet received no specific answers from our leaders?
"Israel has nuclear weapons, so why single out Iran?"
"Pakistan got nukes and we lived with it."
"Who is to say the United States or Russia should have the bomb and not other countries?"
"Iran has promised to use its reactors for peaceful purposes, so why demonize the regime?"
In fact, the United States has a perfectly sound rationale for singling out Iran to halt its nuclear proliferation. At least six good reasons come to mind, not counting the more obvious objection over Iran's violation of U.N. non-proliferation protocols. It is past time that we spell them out to the world at large.
First, we cannot excuse Iran by acknowledging that the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, and Pakistan obtained nuclear weapons. In each case of acquisition, Western foreign-policy makers went into a crisis mode, as anti-liberal regimes gained stature and advantage by the ability to destroy Western cities.
A tragic lapse is not corrected by yet another similar mistake, especially since one should learn from the errors of the past. The logic of "They did it, so why can't I?" would lead to a nuclearized globe in which our daily multifarious wars, from Darfur to the Middle East, would all assume the potential to go nuclear. In contrast, the fewer the nuclear players, the more likely deterrence can play some role. There is no such thing as abstract hypocrisy when it is a matter of Armageddon.
Second, it is a fact that full-fledged democracies are less likely to attack one another. Although they are prone to fighting — imperial Athens and republican Venice both were in some sort of war about three out of four years during the 5th century B.C. and the 16th century respectively — consensual governments are not so ready to fight like kind. In contemporary terms that means that there is no chance whatsoever that an anti-American France and an increasingly anti-French America would, as nuclear democracies, attack each other. Russia, following the fall of Communism, and its partial evolution to democracy, poses less threat to the United States than when it was a totalitarian state.
It would be regrettable should Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, or Germany go nuclear — but not the catastrophe of a nuclear Pakistan that, with impunity de facto, offers sanctuary to bin Laden and the planners of 9/11. The former governments operate under a free press, open elections, and free speech, and thus their war-making is subject to a series of checks and balances. Pakistan is a strongman's heartbeat away from an Islamic theocracy. And while India has volatile relations with its Islamic neighbor, the world is not nearly as worried about its arsenal as it is about autocratic Pakistan's.
Third, there are a number of rogue regimes that belong in a special category: North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Cuba, unfree states whose leaders have sought global attention and stature through sponsoring insurrection and terrorism beyond their borders. If it is scary that Russia, China, and Pakistan are now nuclear, it is terrifying that Kim Jong Il has the bomb, or that President Ahmadinejad might. Islamic fundamentalism or North Korean Stalinism might be antithetical to scientific advancement, but it is actually conducive to nuclear politics. When such renegade regimes go nuclear they gain the added lunatic edge: "We are either crazy or have nothing to lose or both — but you aren't." In nuclear poker, the appearance of derangement is an apparent advantage.
Fourth, there are all sorts of scary combinations — petrodollars, nukes, terrorism, and fanaticism. But Iran is a uniquely fivefold danger. It has enough cash to buy influence and exemption; nuclear weapons to threaten civilization; oil reserves to blackmail a petroleum hungry world; terrorists to either find sanctuary under a nuclear umbrella or to be armed with dirty bombs; and it has a leader who wishes either to take his entire country into paradise, or at least back to the eighth century amid the ashes of the Middle East.
Just imagine the present controversy over the cartoons in the context of President Ahmadinejad with his finger on a half-dozen nuclear missiles pointed at Copenhagen.
Fifth, any country that seeks "peaceful" nuclear power and is completely self-sufficient in energy production is de facto suspect. Iran has enough natural gas to meet its clean electrical generation needs for centuries. The only possible rationale for its multi-billion-dollar program of building nuclear reactors, and spending billions more to hide and decentralize them, is to obtain weapons, and thus to gain clout and attention in a manner that otherwise is not warranted by either Iranian conventional forces, cultural influence, or economic achievement.
Sixth, the West is right to take on a certain responsibility to discourage nuclear proliferation. The technology for such weapons grew entirely out of Western science and technology. In fact, the story of nuclear proliferation is exclusively one of espionage, stealthy commerce, or American and European-trained native engineers using their foreign-acquired expertise. Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran have no ability themselves to create such weapons, in the same manner that Russia, China, and India learned or stole a craft established only from the knowledge of European-American physics and industrial engineering. Any country that cannot itself create such weapons is probably not going to ensure the necessary protocols to guard against their misuse or theft.
We can argue all we want over the solution — it is either immoral to use military force or immoral not to use it; air strikes are feasible or will be an operational disaster; dissidents will rise up or have already mostly been killed or exiled; Russia and China will help solve or will instead enjoy our dilemma; Europe is now on board or is already triangulating; the U.N. will at last step in, or is more likely to damn the United States than Teheran.
Yet where all parties agree is that a poker-faced United States seems hesitant to act until moments before the missiles are armed, and is certainly not behaving like the hegemon or imperialist power so caricatured by Michael Moore and an array of post-September 11 university-press books. Until there is firm evidence that Iran has the warheads ready, the administration apparently does not wish to relive the nightmare of the past three years in which striking Iran will conjure up all the old Iraqi-style hysteria about unilateralism, preemption, incomplete or cooked intelligence, imperialism, and purported hostility toward a Muslim country.
In the greatest irony of all, the Left (who must understand well the nightmarish scenario of a fascist Iran with nuclear weapons) is suddenly bewildered by George Bush's apparent multilateral caution. The Senate Democrats don't know whether to attack the administration now for its nonchalance or to wait and second-guess them once the bombs begin to fall.
Either way, no one should doubt that a nuclear Iran would end the entire notion of global adjudication of nuclear proliferation — as well as remain a recurrent nightmare to civilization itself.
I agree Iran should not have the bomb.
But like before with Iraq a strange history emerges.
There should never be a conversation about Iran and Nukes without also mentioning the name of AQ Khan. If you, the reader, do not know the name - please educate yourself because you wont hear him mentioned much in the daily mainstream media - in the same way we rarely heard about Rumsfeld's meeting with Saddam and offering missile tech and chem weapons.
Without AQ Khan Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and possible Saudi Arabia would not be able to have or pursue Nuclear Weapons
And the question that needs an answer is why the USA does not persue him for questioning or extradiction etc. The Bushies don't like talking about him.
more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan
Pakistan's nuclear hero, world's No. 1 nuclear suspect
- Revered as the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan has confessed to sharing weapons secrets with regimes around the world.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0202/p25s01-wosc.html
and also...
Did the CIA give Iran the Bomb?
George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1678220,00....html
run before you fight
fight before you injure
injure before you maim
maim before you kill
I was not at all surprised to see this topic. I have reciently posted a story of my own (The War on Terror to become the Long War) After reading an article in the Guardian, I became furious with my govenment (I'm an Irish-American) yet again. It seems certain members of the USA government see fit to become international police against terror. Apparently we have such a wonderful system of gathering inteligence, that we know who can and will harbor terrorists throughout the world. Too bad this system couldn't prevent an idiot from leading us into a war in Iraq knowing full well that the reason hew was giving the public was a flat-out lie.
What is even scarrier about this article is that you don't see it in the USA. Between my father and myself, we read several newspapers, most from other countries, as that is the best way to get an idea as to what the US governemt is doing internationally. I've yet to see any paper published in the states mention the report discussed in the Guardian's link. Scarry...
For some reason the link to the article doesn't work. I'll try to post it again, and hopefully it'll work this time.
Great to see my initial post is beginning to develop some thoughtful responses. Thanks to redjade and shannon for their comments. I will try to summarise here a few key points from Simon Tisdall and Ewen MacAskill's article in the Guardian - link provided by Shannon - and thus begin answering some of the points made by Cliff above.
"We are at a critical time in the history of this great country (sic!) and find ourselves challenged in ways we did not expect. We face a ruthless enemy intent on destroying our way of life and an uncertain future." So speaks US General Pace endorsing the Pentagon's four-yearly strategy review, presented to Congress last week. The report sets out a plan for the planned "The Long War", which replaces the "War on Terror". The move is not merely linguistic - it represents a radical shift in American strategic thinking - to quote Cliff above, for deterrence purposes and in order to fight against the so-called "renegade states".
"The struggle ... may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come," the report continues. The emphasis switches from large-scale, conventional military operations, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, towards a rapid deployment of highly mobile, often covert, counter-terrorist forces. The Pentagon does not, as yet, pinpoint the countries it sees as future areas of operations but they will stretch, one suspects, beyond the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, north Africa, central and south-east Asia and the northern Caucasus.
The report states: "This war requires the US military to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches." It adds: "We have been adjusting the US global force posture, making long overdue adjustments to US basing by moving away from a static defence in obsolete cold war garrisons, and placing emphasis on the ability to surge quickly to troublespots across the globe."
The strategy mirrors in some respects a recent readjustment in British strategic thinking but it is on a vastly greater scale, funded by an overall 2007 US defence spending request of more than $513bn.
As well as big expenditure projects, the report calls for: investments in signals and human intelligence gathering - spies on the ground; funding for the Nato intelligence fusion centre; increased space radar capability; the expansion of the global information grid (a protected information network); and an information-sharing strategy "to guide operations with federal, state, local and coalition partners". A push will also be made to improve forces' linguistic skills, with an emphasis on Arabic, Chinese and Farsi.
To wage the long war, the report urges Congress to grant the Pentagon and its agencies expanded permanent legal authority of the kind used in Iraq, which may give US commanders greatly extended powers.
"Long duration, complex operations involving the US military, other government agencies and international partners will be waged simultaneously in multiple countries round the world, relying on a combination of direct (visible) and indirect (clandestine) approaches," the report says. "Above all they will require persistent surveillance and vastly better intelligence to locate enemy capabilities and personnel. They will also require global mobility, rapid strike, sustained unconventional warfare, foreign internal defence, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency capabilities. Maintaining a long-term, low-visibility presence in many areas of the world where US forces do not traditionally operate will be required."
It won't take much thinking to conclude that this report exposes the sheer ambition of the US attempt to mastermind global security. "The US will work to ensure that all major and emerging powers are integrated as constructive actors and stakeholders into the international system. It will also seek to ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security.
-Ryan Henry, a Pentagon policy official, commented: "When we refer to the long war, that is the war against terrorist extremists and the ideology that feeds it, and that is something that we do see going on for decades." And he continued: "We in the defence department feel fairly confident that our forces will be called on to be engaged somewhere in the world in the next decade where they're currently not engaged, but we have no idea whatsoever where that might be, when that might be or in what circumstances that they might be engaged.
So what are the US priorities on the basis of this document?
- Defeating terrorist networks
· Defending the homeland in depth
· Shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads
· Preventing hostile states and non-state actors from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction
Now let us think and figure out how these clearly stated priorities are likely to match with Cliff's stated position that in western democratic countries "war making is subject to a series of checks and balances"
To conclude: The authors of the report credit only one inspiration for their report: Lawrence of Arabia.
They anticipate US forces being engaged in irregular warfare around the world. They advocate "an indirect approach", building and working with others, and seeking "to unbalance adversaries physically and psychologically, rather than attacking them where they are strongest or in the manner they expect to be attacked.
They write: "One historical example that illustrates both concepts comes from the Arab revolt in 1917 in a distant theatre of the first world war, when British Colonel TE Lawrence and a group of lightly armed Bedouin tribesmen seized the Ottoman port city of Aqaba by attacking from an undefended desert side, rather than confronting the garrison's coastal artillery by attacking from the sea."
What a future they prescribe for us and our children...what a wonderful world.
Can they be opposed? Should they be opposed? And how?
One of the quotes from the article I linked and then posted and summarized by MichaelY absolutely terrifies me:
"The US will work to ensure that all major and emerging powers are integrated as constructive actors and stakeholders into the international system. It will also seek to ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security. "
My country (as I am an Irish-American) was based on the foundation that the people have the right to govern themselves. Now we have a report that was published in international news, but not in US news with a statement suggesting that we, the US, are going to become the international police against terrism. Not only are we to become the international police, we are going to "ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security." Why? Because the US has claimed that job...
I've grown up in a coutry where we are taught to be proud of all the freedomes we enjoy, and yet aren't we prohibiting other countries from enjoying those same freedoms with the policies backing the new "long war?" It seems as if my government is saying that we can have a democracy at home, but we need to be the dictator of the world. Yes we will make sure all major powers help out, but we are in charge.
Numbing.....Terrifying....Enfuriating......
didn't read the article... but
I refer you to something Dick Cheney said in 1990. "he who controls access to the oil of the middle east has political leverage...."
so if iran is succcesful with bourse that would be bad for some
've alway been of the opinion, that "Opinion Punditry" is a ridiculous way of obtaining news. But it seems, that's what passes for news now in America. We even hear some pontificate "Don't read the news paper, don't watch the televison and never surf the web. I'll tell you all you need to know. You'll only get the truth from me, my friends." Having said that, it's very easy to find an opposite, thoughful, even persuasive rational for the so called "Long War".
So my way of cutting through the smoke screens laid down by propagandists on both sides is...ask the right question, then go look for the right answer. The question: Who benefits? Eisenhower's Farewell speech to America contains the answer. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
Who are we at war with? We're at war with economically disenfranchised Muslims (some of which are Arab). Rich vs. Poor.
Why are they so fanatical? The poor and needy always turn to God to provide what they can not get themselves.
Who sacrifices? Not the rich. The rich don't fight, they hide.
Who wins?
Apologies for this long post, but given the discussion so far I think that will be welcomed.
This is a post concerning the real reasons for shapes on Iran.
Please read the bottom two links.
==
Khuzestan - the former autonomous Arab province of Ahwaz.
The Ahwazi Arab Nation was admitted as a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) in 2003. According to the UNPO's website the Ahwazi people in Iran’s south western Khuzestan province are suffering severely under the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime with reports last year of repressive and violent measures being taken against Ahwazi dissidents. It has also been reported that Ahwazi children, unlike other children in Iran, are suffering from severe malnutrition.
UNPO's profile of the Ahwazi Arab Nation reads as follows:
History:
Ahwaz used to be an autonomous Arab territory that had its own ruler, Shaykh Khazal, until he was deposed in 1925 by Persian General Reza Khan, who went on to become king of Iran. Ahwaz gradually lost its political, economic and cultural independence when it was completely annexed by Reza Shah Pahlavi, who forcefully took over Ahwaz. Before Iran annexed Ahwaz, the Persians referred to the region as Arabistan (signifying the territory's Arab character). After its annexation, the central government changed the territory's name to Khuzestan. Since 1925, Ahwaz, or Khuzestan, is a province that lies in southwest Iran, bordering Iraq, Kuwait and the Persian Gulf. Ahwaz is now the name of the province's capital, used by Persians and Arabs alike. However, Persians refer to the province as Khuzestan, while Arabs still refer to the province as Ahwaz (or Al-Ahwaz in the Arabic language).
Ahwaz is very rich in oil and natural resources. However, the Ahwazi people do not benefit from the riches of their own land. Our people deserve to benefit from the wealth generated by the resources on their own lands. The only "benefits" they receive is a terribly polluted environment resulting from a mismanaged oil industry and the diversion of oil wealth to Tehran.
The quality of the drinking water and irrigation water is poor due to an inadequate sewage system and industrial contamination, primarily from the sugar cane plants. This problem is exacerbated by the diversion of water out of Ahwaz to other parts of Iran and the sale of Ahwaz's water to the Gulf States by the Iranian government.
The confiscation of Arab-owned land by the Iranian government has been an established policy since 1925. The lands are typically given over to non-Arab settlers and used by the government as new construction sites. No matter who is in charge in Tehran, be it Reza Shah, his son, Mohammad Reza Shah, or the heads of the Islamic Republic, the same undemocratic policy has always been pursued toward the national and religious minorities in Iran, and in particular, toward the Arab people of Ahwaz.
In recent years, self-awareness and the growth of the Ahwazi Arab national movement have been on the rise. This is a reality that cannot be ignored when dealing with the issues of freedom and democracy in Iran and the Middle East at large, particularly in the Gulf region. Due to its fertile land, numerous rivers, and vast oil reserves, Ahwaz has the resources to sustain itself and generate significant income from oil and agricultural exports. Bordering Iraq, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf, Ahwaz weighs in heavily in geopolitical balance of the Middle East.
Geographical features:
Area: About 69,000 square kilometres.
Boundaries from the North, mountains of Lurestan and Kurdistan, from the East and Southeast Zagrus Mountains, from south Dashtestan and the Gulf, from the West Iraq, South and Southwest is the Gulf and the Shat-el-Arab Waterway.
Ahwaz (Arabistan) or Khuzestan is strategically located on the northern tip of the Gulf and the Shatt-al Arab waterway. It sits atop of vast mineral resources including a reserve of over 40 billion barrels of oil and 210 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which is the second largest known oil and gas reserves in the world. The land produces 3-5---5 million barrels of oil per day, or 20% of OPEC's daily production (my emphasis).
Population and Culture:
The population is estimated to be between 4 and 6 million. The U.S. State Department 2002 Human Rights Report estimates the Ahwazi Arabs in Iran to be over 4 million.
Prior to its annexation in April 20, 1925, Arabistan enjoyed full autonomy and independence at various times in its history of 5,000 years. Arabic was taught and spoken as the official language prior to annexation.
After the emergence of Reza Shah and by enforcing centralization, he invaded Arabistan with 22,000 soldiers, overthrew the local administration, occupied and destroyed Arabistan’s sovereignty, and subordinated the province to Iran - all against the wishes of its Arab inhabitants and without their direct involvement or a referendum. The state adopted Farsi (Persian) as the official language, which is spoken by less than 40% of the total population. The government shut down the schools and banned Arabic education in the province where about 90% of the people were native Arabic speakers. The Iranian government officially changed the name of the province from Arabistan to Khuzestan in 1936.
And that is how the Ahwazi Arab people were put under political, cultural, social and economic subjugation by the past Iranian monarchist and the current clerical regimes for the past 78 years. These regimes stripped Arabs of Ahwaz from their human rights and lowered their status to the ranks of 2nd and 3rd class citizens.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/iran-ethnic-groups.gif
(map of ethnic make-up of Iran)
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/ira...8.jpg
(map of Iran's key oil fields)
The Scenario
In late January 2006, the Pentagon secretly alerts all Iranian opposition groups both inside and outside Iran, including those in Khuzestan, Baluchistan, and Iranian Kurdistan and Azerbaijan, that the US administration will begin to actively seek ways of removing the regime of President Ahmadinejad short of all out war. In early February, active American trained sabotage cells from the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) are smuggled into Iran along with deep penetration American special forces. Existing embedded opposition sabotage cells are ordered to continue with their active campaign of disruption (such as the possible sabotage of the Revolutionary Guards Falcon jet which killed nine generals).
It is now just after 2am on the morning of a weekday in late February. The people of Tehran are in bed. The heavy goods and construction lorries are trundling through the city as they are allowed to do at night. The occasional police car can be seen. Street lights are on and everything seems to be normal.
Suddenly the ground starts to shake violently; the lorries lose control swerving from side to side; buildings start to collapse; the lights flicker and go out. Earthquake! The severe shaking goes on for nearly a minute before it suddenly stops. Then, silence.
First light over the city of Tehran sees the city almost obscured by dust - a scene not dissimilar to New York after the collapse of the Twin Towers. Sirens can be heard wailing and it soon becomes clear to any surviving resident of Tehran that the city's skyline has been altered drastically. Through the dust it would appear that virtually every high-raised building in the city has collapsed.
In America, the US Geological Survey (USGS), at their earthquake information centre in Colorado, monitor an earthquake in the area of Tehran of 6.7 on the Richter Scale. This is a big one. In December 2003 a similar sized earthquake (6.6) hit the ancient Iranian city of Bam leaving over 43,000 people dead.
In Geneva, the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on receiving flash reports of the earthquake, sets into motion its well rehearsed procedures and immediately mobilises its Field Co-ordination Support Section. Calls are put through to the Iranian Government in Tehran but all communications appear to be down. The Iranian Ambassador to the UN in New York puts in a call to OCHA requesting immediate international help but admits that he has made this decision unilaterally as he too cannot get through to Iran. On the strength of this, a flash signal is then sent out from OCHA requesting the mobilisation of its member urban search and rescue (USAR) teams in countries all around the world. In Bam, USAR teams from twenty different countries came in with their specialist equipment and dogs to help extricate survivors from the rubble - speed to get these teams into the disaster area is absolutely essential.
Six hours after the earthquake and OCHA finally receives a request for international help from Tehran but it has come from a junior interior minister. It is clear that the Iranian Government is not functioning properly and that the fate of the country’s president and many members of the Iranian regime is not known.
A few messages are now starting to get through from Iran to the international press agencies, Iranian embassies and OCHA. Tehran's international airport is closed and frantic efforts are being made to open it. Two of the main city hospitals have collapsed; there is no power and the only electricity is coming from emergency generators; and all roads and railways to and from the capital have been severely damaged - the city is effectively cut off from the rest of the country. As well as this there are reports of very powerful aftershocks which are adding to the problems of the survivors. Key people in the White House and the Pentagon are very satisfied. Their scientists have successfully triggered a violent movement of the tectonic plates under Tehran - who is going to suspect this expected and tragic ‘Act of God’.
Twenty-four hours on and a global humanitarian relief effort has started. The international airport has been reopened and a nearby military air-base has also said it will receive incoming humanitarian flights. Huge transport planes and civilian airliners packed with emergency relief are arriving from America, Russia, China and over thirty other countries. USAR teams from six countries have arrived within 24 hours - an extremely good response time. Many have been to Iran before and know what to expect. However, the bureaucratic Red Tape that usually delays incoming humanitarian missions is strangely missing - indeed Iranian officials appear shocked and traumatised and emotional scenes are witnessed as international relief workers are mobbed by grateful but desperate Iranians who know their loved ones are probably trapped alive in the rubble of what used to be their homes.
It now appears, forty eight hours on, that Tehran has been devastated. The worst case scenario appears to have happened. The initial death toll is already put at 10,000 but earthquake experts know that that figure will rise probably ten fold. The President and nearly all of his administration have survived and Ahmadinejad has made a presidential speech to his country calling for calm and practical help for his beleaguered capital. The infrastructure of the city has been devastated. The Islamic Iranian Ground Forces (IIGF) has been trucked in and thousands of professional Iranians, doctors, engineers and the like, are heading to Tehran with lorry loads of emergency supplies. The White House and the Pentagon are extremely satisfied with developments.
Seven days on and the search and rescue phase of the operation is coming to a close. The death toll is looking around the 120,000 mark with over 200,000 injured. Thousands of Iranian soldiers are exhausted - they have been working frantically around the clock, with many having loved ones in the city. The international teams are starting to leave, including the three USAR teams who came from America and who have earned the gratitude of the Iranian people by saving the lives of twelve people including three children. It is now time for the Pentagon to put its plan into operation.
Using spy satellite intelligence as to the positions of key Iranian military units, as well receiving information from their special forces operating on the ground, the Pentagon will now choreograph, through their embedded agents, regional indigenous uprisings so as to achieve maximum disruption to the shattered Iranian regime.
Two days later, news agencies start to report of disturbances in the Khuzestan Province - the Governor there, with three of his bodyguards, has just been assassinated by a car bomb. Thousands have taken to the streets of Ahvaz demanding independence for the Ahwazi people and the restoration of Ahwaz or Arabistan as the Persians called it. A nearby barracks was attacked by gunmen with mortars and machine guns and heavy casualties have been reported. Two oil pipelines have also exploded and reports are coming through of isolated attacks on Farsi oil workers and their families.
The next day sees reports of serious disturbances and civil unrest in Baluchistan as well as Iranian Kurdistan and Iranian Azerbaijan. More disturbingly for the Iranian Government there has also been a reported armed clash between soldiers of the Revolutionary Guard and soldiers of a line unit of the IIGF involved with providing humanitarian relief to the people of Tehran. With events now appearing to be escalating out of control, President Ahmadinejad has put out another appeal for calm and unity but Iranian observers, both inside and outside Iran, are talking of civil war between those who want a new beginning with a secular democratic republic of Iran and those who still believe in the revolution and the Islamic Republic.
Meanwhile in Khuzestan the situation is getting worse. Reports start to come through of units of the elite Revolutionary Guard firing on demonstrators in Ahvaz with heavy casualties among the unarmed Ahwazi civilians. More bombs have reportedly gone off in oil production areas and Farsi oil workers have come out on strike against the Government mainly because they and their families are not being protected properly. A confirmed report has now come through that the death toll amongst the civilian Arab Ahwazis is put at over 300 with the situation getting worse by the hour as members of the Republican Guard appear to be out of control in their treatment of the Ahwazis.
The Security Council at the United Nations now meets in emergency session to discuss the worsening situation, especially as regards to the vulnerability of the Iranian nuclear installations and what should be done about them. Ambassador Bolton takes everyone by surprise and announces that the U.S., with the full support of Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Egypt, will organise and send in a multinational or coalition force into Khuzestan in order to restore law and order and to restore the autonomous but democratic Arab state of Ahwaz or Arabistan. An exclusion zone around what used to be Khuzestan is given to the Iranian Government and any Iranian forces found there will be attacked by coalition air and naval forces. The U.S. is now in effective control of 80% of Iran's oil and gas wealth!
No public decision is made at the UN about the nuclear installations but the IAEA, in secret talks with the Pentagon, eventually authorises the coalition forces to send in large airborne forces (U.S. 82nd and 101st Divisions plus UK and Arab contributions), backed up by strong close air support, to seize control of the main nuclear installations at Natanz, Arak, Ardekan and Isfahan once it is clear that there is no proper Iranian Government in control. Nuclear scientists will accompany the airborne forces and will 'make safe' these installations and so prevent any furtherance by Iran towards having nuclear weapons.
This is where my Scenario ends - the neocons will not be accused for what appears to be an appalling, but totally expected, Act of God (except of course by some conspiracy researchers using the Alternative Media) and their rapid humanitarian response to send USAR teams and medical supplies to help the survivors will be applauded. The events following the earthquake will be seen as having put paid to Iran's nuclear ambitions and will have resulted in 80% of Iran's oil falling into the hands of a new U.S. puppet state, though this will be seen as spreading even more democracy in the Middle East. Meanwhile, George Bush's standing and popularity at home will be restored considerably as his Middle East strategy appears to be working. And the global War on Terror is now going America's way..........well, for now at any rate, until the next time the neocons/illuminati/zionists/new world order want to advance their agenda for Global Government and feel the need for some more synthetic terrorism to 'win us over'!
PS. An interesting postscript: I came across a map of ‘The Bernard Lewis (champion of and guru for the NeoCon/Zionist Agenda) plan for the Middle East’. And guess what? He has created a new country called Arabistan except its boundaries go further along Iran's coast to include nearly all of Iran's oil and gas wealth. Now there’s a surprise.
http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/Bernard.gif
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I strongly recommend that you have a look at this UN pdf for some background before reading the article at the next link: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/55/a55129.pdf specifically go to paragraph 6.
The full posting from which I obtained the following snippet can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/ftobh