Tag: Iran

Philip Geraldi, Saudi Oil Attacks: Time to Back Off on the Threats

James Fetzerblog

Philip Geraldi Attacks on two Saudi Arabian oil facilities on Saturday reportedly reduced the production of Aramco, the state oil company, by one half. It was a devastating demonstration of just how vulnerable the Kingdom’s oil economy actually is. Initial reports suggested that the damage had been caused by explosive drones launched by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who claimed responsibility, but there has been considerable skepticism regarding whether the drones available to the Houthi could actually have carried out the attack. Inevitably, the United States and the Saudis are…

Andrew J. Bacevich, The Trump Administration’s “Diplomacy of Deference”

James Fetzerblog

Andrew J. Bacevich Trump’s actions are constrained by what Saudi and Israeli leaders are willing to tolerate Iran’s seizure of a British-owned oil tanker transiting the Persian Gulf has let loose a fresh round of media war chatter. Yet should another Persian Gulf War actually occur, who would benefit? Not America, that’s for sure. The central theme of present-day American policy regarding Iran is deference. Nominally, US policy is made in Washington. Substantively, it is framed in Riyadh and Jerusalem, with the interests of the United States figuring only minimally…

Rob Urie, Iran, Venezuela and the Throes of Empire

James Fetzerblog

by ROB URIE With the Trump administration threatening war against Iran and Venezuela, the question of how the U.S. was brought to this point needs to be considered. To argue that current circumstances are particular to this administration is to overlook U.S. history vis-a-vis both Iran and Venezuela and that between them they possess a material proportion of the world’s proved oil reserves (graph below). In 2019, the pretense that local provocations explain anything beyond domestic political posturing is absurd. However, domestic political considerations do explain threats of war to a…

Jack Mullen, Israel Demands New War with Iran: The War to Deliberately Destroy America

James Fetzerblog

JACK MULLEN In 2007, General, retired 4-star U.S. Army general and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia, publicly told the world the United States was planning to take out 7 nations in 5 years. The Lord your God will bring you into the land that you are going to occupy, and he will drive many nations out of it. As you advance, he will drive out seven nations larger and more powerful than you [..] When the Lord your God places these people in your power and you defeat them, you must put…

Pat McShay, Trump pushes back on War with Iran–but for how long?

James Fetzerblog

Pat McShay “The ignorant warmonger masquerading as an American Secretary of State should be arrested for his impersonation of an American government official. — Paul Craig Roberts, The “Father Of Reaganomics” “Every time the U.S. saves a country, they turn it into an insane asylum or a cemetery.” — Ed Galean, Latin American Author “It’s a trick we always use. In Europe, we stop criticism of Israel by bringing up the Holocaust, in the U.S. we call critics anti-Semitic” — Shulamit Aloni, Former Israeli Minister by Patrick J. McShay Spain,…

Gareth Porter, John Bolton’s Nefarious Plot for War with Iran

James Fetzerblog

Gareth Porter John Bolton has gotten away with a dangerous deception. The national security adviser’s announcement Sunday that the Pentagon has deployed air and naval forces to the Middle East, which he combined with a threat to Iran, points to a new maneuver to prepare the ground for an incident that could justify a retaliatory attack against Iran. Bolton presented his threat and the deployments as a response to alleged intelligence about a possible Iranian attack on U.S. targets in the Middle East. But what has emerged indicates that the alleged intelligence…

Scott Ritter, America Just Declared War on Iran and Nobody Blinked

James Fetzerblog

Scott Ritter It is no longer a question of if Americans will die in a conflict with Iran, but when. The United States has long been engaged in a secret shadow war with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), dating back to the American invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. This conflict took the lives of hundreds of American troops and hundreds more IRGC members. The Iranian opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the inability of the U.S. to militarily defeat Iranian forces inside Iraq, was just…

William Boardman, Alleged “Spy” Monica Witt Is No Justification for US War on Iran

James Fetzerblog

By William Boardman Inside the government, some officials called her “Wayward Storm.” Her real name was Monica Elfriede Witt, an exemplary Air Force counterintelligence agent who had studied Persian and carried out covert missions in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  – New York Times lede, February 13, 2019 … American authorities have struggled to conclude exactly why she turned on her country. – New York Times “think piece,” February 16, 2019 I served in the Air Force for 10 years and participated in both the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. After viewing so…

William Rivers Pitt, The Suffering of the Iranian People has “Made in USA” Stamped on It

James Fetzerblog

William Rivers Pitt                                       If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind. —Robert Hunter   “Iranians have taken to the streets across the country to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution,” reads a Monday morning Al Jazeera report, “renewing their allegiance to the country’s Islamic principles at a time of rising economic and political pressure amid the resumption of punishing US sanctions.” So much terrible history rammed into one sentence: The brutal U.S.-backed regime…

Press TV’s Hashemi unlikely to be released immediately: Son

James Fetzerblog

PressTV A court in the United States has confirmed the arrest of US-born Iranian Press TV news presenter Marzieh Hashemi as a material witness in an unspecified investigation. Ms. Hashemi, 59, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on unspecified charges upon arrival at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, her family and friends said. At the request of the US Justice Department, Judge Beryl Alaine Howell, the chief district judge for the District of Columbia, issued a federal court order, approving the partial unsealing of…