US wants SWIFT war on Iran

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB17Ak04.html

What was the parade of European poodles thinking - that Tehran would just roll over and absorb the European Union's oil embargo, scheduled to start on July 1?

No wonder Brussels was caught as a Gucci deer in the headlights when the news started to flow that Tehran would pre-empt the move and immediately slap its own embargo of crude oil exports to six European Union countries - deeply in crisis Club Med members Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain plus recession-hit France and the Netherlands.

It took virtually no time for Iran's Oil Ministry and then the Foreign Ministry to deny it; such a decision, technically, would have to be


officially announced by the Supreme National Security Council, which also deals with the nuclear negotiations.

But only the deaf, dumb and blind wouldn't understand the message; blowback for the ridiculously counter-productive European sanctions/oil embargo package will only plunge vast swathes of Europe further into deep economic pain.

[Mz Pip]

1. I'm having a flashback!

I remember at the start of the Iraq war Rummy was asked how long it would last. His reply was "6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months." And how did that assumption work out?

[xchrom]

2. i always assumed anything rummy says/said is a lie. nt

[peace frog]

3. and Wolfowitz said the Iraqi people

would greet their "saviors" with flowers and chocolates. Doncha know the Iranian people will do the same, you betcha!

[leveymg]

4. Amazing how many buy into the framing that sanctions are a "diplomatic" option to war

rather than simply just a step that escalates tensions and provokes the target.

[xchrom]

5. simple, to the point...well said. nt

[The Stranger]

6. Bravo, Sr. Escobar

We remember you well.

[sad sally]

7. Poke 'em, come on, poke 'em again - see if you can get those nasty hornets mad

Tom Englehardt so appropriately wrote the fictional piece last month about our on-going efforts at trying to get Iran riled up enough to strike us (or Irasel) first so we can move in with another swift despot-leader removing quicky war. America, when will you learn that owing the world thru military might only means death...
#####

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Iran Through the Looking Glass
Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 5:57pm, January 29, 2012.
Iranian Aircraft Carriers in the Gulf of Mexico
It Can’t Happen Here
By Tom Engelhardt

Exclusive: New Iranian Commando Team Operating Near U.S.

(Tehran, FNA) The Fars News Agency has confirmed with the Republican Guard’s North American Operations Command that a new elite Iranian commando team is operating in the U.S.-Mexican border region. The primary day-to-day mission of the team, known as the Joint Special Operations Gulf of Mexico Task Force, or JSOG-MTF, is to mentor Mexican military units in the border areas in their war with the deadly drug cartels. The task force provides “highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments,” Maj. Amir Arastoo, a spokesman for Republican Guard special operations forces in North America, tells Fars, and “seeks to confront irregular threats...”

The unit began its existence in mid-2009 -- around the time that Washington rejected the Iranian leadership’s wish for a new diplomatic dialogue. But whatever the task force does about the United States -- or might do in the future -- is a sensitive subject with the Republican Guard. “It would be inappropriate to discuss operational plans regarding any particular nation,” Arastoo says about the U.S.

Okay, so I made that up. Sue me. But first admit that, a line or two in, you knew it was fiction. After all, despite the talk about American decline, we are still on a one-way imperial planet. Yes, there is a new U.S. special operations team known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Cooperation Council, or JSOTF-GCC, at work near Iran and, according to Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog, we really don’t quite know what it’s tasked with doing (other than helping train the forces of such allies as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia).

And yes, the quotes are perfectly real, just out of the mouth of a U.S. “spokesman for special-operations forces in the Mideast,” not a representative of Iran’s Republican Guard. And yes, most Americans, if they were to read about the existence of the new special ops team, wouldn’t think it strange that U.S. forces were edging up to (if not across) the Iranian border, not when our “safety” was at stake.
----
Just as a small exercise to restore some sense of proportion, stop for a moment the next time you hear of American or Israeli plans for the further destabilization of Iran and think: what would we do if the Iranians were planning something similar for us?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175495/