Bush in the ME: Iran, Iran, Iran

The question that needed to be asked about George Bush's first visit of his presidency to Israel last week was: why now? I suppose it was easy to write it off as Bush trying to salvage some sort of legacy when it comes to making any inroads in the Middle East peace process since his administration basically abandoned any effort towards real change via its' much ballyhooed 'road map' but the broader events in the region, most particularly the ongoing escalation of rhetoric and sanctions towards Iran, seemed to me to be the real reason for his sudden Middle East adventures and now the White House has confirmed that suspicion:

In a speech described by the White House as the centerpiece of his eight-day trip to the Middle East, Bush tried to speak directly to the people of Iran as he urged nations to help the United States "confront this danger before it is too late."

And it would be nice to think that the MSM wasn't playing along with neocon fantasies this time around like they did in the run up to the Iraq war, wouldn't it? It's obvious that when they write statements like this, their pandering to Bush administration policies and rhetoric has hardly diminished:

The comments Sunday were part of a Bush speech devoted to advancing the cause of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

(my emphasis)

No they weren't. They were 'devoted' to Bush pursuing more warmongering against Iran.

When the administration released its' questionable video this past week of supposed Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats 'threatening' a US ship in the Straits of Hormuz, more warning bells went off for those with saner heads. The American version of the audio that accompanied the situation didn't match the Iranians. Add to that the 'Filipino Monkey' theory posted by the Navy Times and it seemed Bushco was crying wolf yet again. Since the administration's 'evidence' of Iranian provocation seemed to fall flat on its face, the Pentagon then revealed that during a December confrontation with Iranian Guard boats, the US had fired 'warning shots'. You'd think, if that was true, the Pentagon would have made that public immediately following the incident since the use of warning shots in that incident would seem to provide more ammo (pun intended) to Bushco's assertion that Iran is such a huge threat that action needs to be taken against it ASAP. That didn't happen. Why? Could it simply be that Bush needed to trot out more 'evidence' to convince those he met with in the ME to go along with his aggressiveness towards Iran? It seems like pretty handy timing to me.

Last week, The Asia Times published a piece about the possibility that Iran may be needed as a new ally in the GWOT as a result of the instability in Pakistan and the growing concern about the fate of the war in Afghanistan. As always, the Bush administration also has to tread very carefully when it comes to dealing with Iran because of its dealings with Russia and China - two very formidable forces which would not stand by idly if the US attacked on Iranian soil. So, the geopolitics of the broader situation trump the simplistic Bush-style rhetoric of justifying bombing Iran for its own good - this 'freedom and democracy' bullshit excuse that the neocons have used the past 8 years as a rationale for their illegal war in Iraq.

And, while Bush has been focusing on Iran, al Qaeda has been threatening the Saudis who would need US military help if attacked on such a scale that the Saudis could not deal with it themselves. Bush visits the kingdom on Monday and Tuesday of this week - when the public can expect an announcement by the administration about the status of US arms sales to the country - to the tune of $20 billion. As for the Saudis and the Iranians, witness this uncomfortable exchange between a member of the press and some unnamed 'Senior Administration Official' at the latest press briefing:

Q King Abdallah has also formed a relationship with the President of Iran, and has invited him personally to come to the Hajj.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That's what we are told, interestingly enough. We are told that Ahmadinejad, as he has done from time to time, invited himself. And one of the things about the Hajj is that it is -- the Saudi Arabian government makes it very much open to all Muslims to come. So if someone asks to come, the Saudis' view is, it's very difficult for them as the custodian of the two holy mosques, which is the whole point of the Hajj, for them to say no. So I think the Saudis would tell you they did not invite him, he invited himself, and they let him come, as they do generally when Muslims come and want to participate in the Hajj.

Q They were photographed arm in arm at the GCC.

Whoops.

So, as much as Bush and the neocons are itching to go after Iran militarily while Israeli hawks like Benjamin Netanyahu are pushing him down that road, the political calculations are much more messy and complex than the administration would like the American public to believe. Such a move could have major consequences, even beyond the ramifications of the decision to invade Iraq, which could set back America's international relations to a point where the resulting political instability could well be far more devastating than what Bushco has already wrought in the world.

While the rest of us are waiting to find out what Bush's final act in the Middle East will be, only he knows how his term will end and what sort of legacy he'll choose to leave for the next president. And that is probably the scariest thing in all of this, given his track record of death and destruction.
 

America's Need for Enemies

America has a pathological need to have enemies - to play the hero. And when it doesn't have real ones, it creates them.

It's a paranoid way to exist in a world where it has been proven, time and time again, that differences and over-exaggerated threats serve only one purpose: to inflate the importance of America's power. And it's the love of that power that allows so many Americans to buy into the propaganda foisted upon them by successive governments that the idea of "America" must be protected at all costs. It breeds an insecurity so rabid in its citizens that they willingly surrender their own rights in the furtherance of that goal because they are not "the enemy", after all. Or so they think as they fail to acknowledge that their government sees them as exactly that.

Since the country's inception, when native peoples were considered a wholesale threat who had to slaughtered or Americanized in order to be brought into line, when slaves were held as chattel because their un-Americanism made them less than people, when power that women sought by being allowed to vote was seen as a threat to the very fabric of democracy to the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2 followed by the communist witch hunt led by McCarthy, to the need of the powers that be to infiltrate the anti-Vietnam war movement and feel threatened by the civil rights movement to the renewed fear of communists and now the new "terrorists" lurking behind every dark-skinned person who looks at someone differently - Americans have been conditioned to live in fear of the other when, in fact, their friends and family members actually constitute more of an actual threat to them on any given day. Crime perpetrated by strangers ought to be the least of their worries. But that doesn't jibe with the myth that outside forces or from other countries or people who are "different" hold the key to whether or not they will actually live or die.

The Bush administration's successful use of psyops to keep the population living in perpetual fear is still effective - despite the fact that their claims of things like those of Saddam Hussein having WMD or a connection to 9/11 have been proven to be false. And now, the demonization of someone like Iran's president Ahmadenijad and the hysterical reaction it has created in yet another example of how manipulated people will choose to be fooled by a government that has absolutely no track record of credibility.

But, America needs its enemies. Because, when America has enemies, there's power to be grasped and money to be made by those whose business it is to "defend" against those "threats". What ordinary people who refuse to look at why they're being manipulated fail to grasp is that there's a system being fed by their fear and it's not a system that benefits them in any way. It benefits the powermongers, the military-industrial complex, the political operatives, the lobbyists, the arms dealers, the countries the US claims it needs to protect in order to be the keeper of its "interests".

Those interests are power and money that come via the pillaging of the world's resources and the cost of those exploits is the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in foreign lands along with those who willingly sacrifice their lives in the name of the myth. Those sacrifices are the trade off that those in power are willing to make to secure their treasure. Those sacrifices are nothing but names and numbers to people like Bush, Cheney and the neocons. They're expendable people who only serve to keep the oppressive system functioning. The Iraq war is nothing but a modern act of piracy with more sophisticated weaponry.

And Ahmadenijad? The Iranian president who actually has very little power beyond his words and whose government is cooperating with the IAEA's inspections while asserting it his country's right to have nuclear energy and weaponry? He's the new Saddam, according to the Bush administration and leaders of other countries like France and Canada who are acting like nothing more than puppets in order to whip up the same hysteria about him that Bush and his cadre did about Hussein and Iraq. We've been here before. Once again, we have the same warnings from Mohammed elBarardei to let the process work. Once again, we have a compliant world press more than eager to sell an attack on Iran as being justifiable.

This time, however, having been there, we know that the Bush administration can and will do whatever it wants to about Iran because it has proven that it has absolutely no regard for the consequences it foists upon the world as a result of implementing its neocon policies or world dominance and influence.

So we wait.

There's no point in discussing whether or when an attack might happen. What needs to be discussed is the pathology, the history ie. how America has reached this point - because that's the only way it can begin to be changed. That change won't come with a new president in the White House in 2009. The pathological need for an American belief in its own power is ingrained in every single candidate running for office (except perhaps for Dennis Kucinich - but he won't win anyway.)

America is sorely in need of a paradigm shift. Will that come from within or will a country like China finally call in the debt America owes it to actually force a change? Just how much more does American democracy need to self-destruct before the people actually stand up strongly and take notice? More importantly, are they willing to really defend America by insisting that the power games are over - that America is about them - not some stuffed egos in suits in DC who are only in it for themselves?

Perhaps the bottom line is this: do they even care? Or have they been so beaten into submission that the idea of "America" no longer matters any more when all they can muster is enough energy to survive as they flip on the tv everyday to see if this is the day that America has, once again, attacked another country in their name that is no threat to their security? And if it has, what then?

Related:

"Petty and Cruel Dictator" by Cindy Sheehan (h/t Madman in the Marketplace)

A Feeling I'm Being Had by Scott Adams at The Dilbert Blog

Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1 by Juan Cole
 

The Engineered Crisis in Gaza

Make no mistake. This was planned by the Bush administration. Via Chris Floyd's blog:

...from Conflicts Forum last January:

Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams — who Newsweek recently described as “the last neocon standing” — has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January [2006], Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a “hard coup” against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamant — the U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government...

The Abrams program was initially conceived in February of 2006 by a group of White House officials who wanted to shape a coherent and tough response to the Hamas electoral victory of January...Since at least August [2006], Rice, Abrams and U.S. envoy David Welch have been its primary advocates and the program has been subsumed as a “part of the State Department’s Middle East initiative.”

The stalled Bush road map for ME peace was not just a matter of neglect. It was part of a grand scheme to cause more chaos in the Palestinian territories. Although financial support had been suspended to the Palestinian government following the last democratic election - the results of which the Bush administration refused to accept - the state department, following approval from the Democratically-controlled congress (full of Israel-supporting hawks), funneled $59 million to Abbas this past April and encouraged Israel to stop withholding aid and tax monies owed to the Palestinians as well. That US money (and along with money from Egypt), which was reportedly supposed to fund "non-lethal training and equipment for Abbas' security forces and $16 million for upgrades at the Karni crossing into northern Gaza" has obviously come in quite handy now that the territories have been plunged into civil war. Undoubtedly, Bushco, as it often does, did not anticipate that those they and Abbas wanted to strip power from - Hamas - would actually emerge victorious in Gaza as it did this week. Subsequently, Abbas dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency and chose a new prime minister to replace the former Hamas politician who held that post laying the groundwork for another proxy war against Iran:

Washington, Europe and Israel prepared to throw open the taps on financial aid to Abbas that was cut off a year ago when Iranian-backed Hamas used its popularity in impoverished Gaza to defeat Abbas's more secular Fatah in a parliamentary election.

Meanwhile on Friday, Hamas' political leader held a news conference in which he said that Hamas does not want to seize power from Abbas:

Addressing media in the Syrian capital, Meshal said that Hamas had not wanted to take over the Gaza Strip.

"Hamas does not want to seize power ... We are faithful to the Palestinian people," Meshal said, promising to help rebuild Palestinian homes damaged in the months of bloody infighting.

"What happened in Gaza was a necessary step. The people were suffering from chaos and lack of security and this treatment was needed," Meshal continued. "The lack of security drove the crisis toward explosion."

"Abbas has legitimacy," Meshal said, "There's no one who would question or doubt that, he is an elected president, and we will cooperate with him for the sake of national interest."

But he also warned Fatah followers not to move this conflict to the West Bank where the moderate movement is dominant.

Meshal called for the Arab League foreign ministers, who are holding an emergency meeting in Cairo to discuss the situation in Gaza, to help mediate talks between Hamas and Abbas.

"I hope [that] ... the Arab ministerial meeting in Cairo presents a strong responsible Arab stance, as an umbrella to hold the national Palestinian dialogue to approach a Palestinian accord," Meshal said.

Meshal said Abbas' dissolution of the unity government "will not remedy the situation ... and will not solve the problem. There will be no two governments and no division of the homeland."

Abbas rebuffed him casting the entire Hamas movement as terrorists:

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, an Abbas adviser, rejected Meshaal's gesture. "There will be no dialogue with coup seekers, masked men and murderers," he said.

The Israeli government has also dismissed the idea of an international peacekeeping force, stressing continued violent aggression while "mulling" over aid to the Palestinian people:

A proposed multinational force deployed along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt must be willing to fight the Islamic militant group Hamas to stop weapons smuggling in the area, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Friday.

At a news conference during an official visit to Portugal, Livni said Israel was not interested in any proposal involving a monitoring force for the Philadelphi corridor where Hamas uses tunnels to bring in weapons. Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday after days of heavy fighting with Fatah forces.

"Those who are talking in terms of international forces have to understand that the meaning is not monitoring forces but forces that are willing to fight, to confront Hamas on the ground," Livni said.
[...]
"At this stage, there is not even the beginning of the conditions under which a possible peacekeeping force could operate," said Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht. "At this point, a proposal would stand no chance."

And here's how at least one Israeli official describes Gaza:

Israel has been careful not to become involved in the fighting, and Housing and Construction Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) said Friday that despite calls from the right for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew in 2005, Israel would not move in to confront Hamas, which is sworn to destroy it.

"There is no intention to re-enter that swamp, Gaza, in this situation," Sheetrit told Israel Radio. "At this point, Israel has no reason to intervene."

That term speaks volumes. Nothing like dehumanizing the Palestinians by declaring that they live in a swamp.

Olmert is set to meet with Bush next Tuesday. And, in case you missed it, one former UN official had harsh words for everyone involved in the so-called I/P peace process this week.

De Soto also accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior U.S. officials of having "hijacked" efforts by former Quartet envoy James D. Wolfensohn to negotiate an agreement to provide greater freedom of movement for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

It was obviously "hijacked" for a reason: the Bush administration has absolutely no use for diplomacy, preferring instead to try to solve problems using military might and continued violence. None of their violent "solutions" have worked. Not in Afghanistan, Iraq or the Palestinian territories. Yet, they continue on their failed path because it's the only way they seem to know how to operate - even when the results continually and literally blow up in their neocon faces - leaving hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, terrorized and displaced civilians in their wake. Crimes they will never be held accountable for.

It's madness.
 

Will Bush Attend These Memorial Services?

Baghdad Bombings Kill at Least 131

BAGHDAD, April 18 -- Four car bombs killed 131 people and wounded 164 others across Baghdad Wednesday, the U.S. military said, as bloodshed spiked two months into a U.S.-led crackdown meant to placate the Iraqi capital.

Some news accounts suggested the death toll may be higher. The Reuters news agency, quoting local officials, said as many as 170 people had been killed, and the Associated Press said at least 183 had been killed.

Cue the talking points:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, on a tour of the Mideast, called the bombings "horrifying" and accused al-Qaeda of being behind the attacks, the AP reported. He said the attackers were trying to demonstrate that the U.S. security plan for Baghdad was failing.

I think they've successfully demonstrated that fact.

The deadliest attack Wednesday occurred when a car bomb ripped through the Sadriyah market in a predominantly Shiite area of central Baghdad, killing 115 Iraqis and wounding 137 others, the U.S. military said in a statement. The blast also damaged 40 vehicles. The same market was the site of a Feb. 3 bombing that killed more than 125 people, the gravest single bombing since the war in Iraq began.

And what was it Rep Pence said about Baghdad markets? Oh yes:

And so it went, up and down the street, in between tents and tables, squeezing past pedestrians to inspect the offerings in one booth after another, we milled around this marketplace in downtown Baghdad for more than an hour. I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime. I didn’t mean that Baghdad was as safe as the Bargersville Flea Market; I just meant that that was what it looked and felt like…lots of people, lots of booths and a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

And bombs and dead people, unlike Indiana's.

Reuters has photos of the aftermath of today's carnage and is now reporting that "nearly 200" people were killed.

"The street was transformed into a swimming pool of blood," said Ahmed Hameed, a shopkeeper near the carnage in Sadriya.

As for whether Bush will attend those memorial services, the answer if obviously "NO". Just as well because if he did and quoted from the Bible as he did on Tuesday at the Va Tech convocation, his absolute hypocrisy would be met with the scorn it so obviously deserves.

Bush: As the Scriptures tell us, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

I'd sure like to know what his definition of "good" is when it comes to waging a pre-emptive war against a country that was not a direct threat to the United States.

Just how "good" is it to end up being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of millions more while children - and every Iraqi - will suffer from this endless trauma for their entire lifetimes due to the ignorant arrogance of a small group of PNAC neocons whose only concern was oil profiteering?

P.S.: You will not see wall-to-wall coverage of these bombings on any of the cable news networks. This is just another day in Baghdad, after all.
 

Neocon Democratic Theory & the Iraq Parliament Bombing

John Bolton on The Daily Show, March 21, 2007:

I would suggest that the president has a responsibility to be true to the people who voted for him.

Bush on the bombing of the Iraqi parliament which killed 8 people on Thursday:

The assembly is the place where people have come to respresent the 12 million people who voted.

So in the US, according to Bolton, the president only has the responsibility to be true to the people who voted for him - the rest of the citizens be damned. And in Iraq, elected representatives apparently only have a responsibility to serve the people who voted - the rest of the citizens be damned.

Yes, that's neocon democratic theory.

Related: Rice's response? "There are going to be good days and bad days." As I challenged Bush on the anniversary of the war when he used the same facile "good days, bad days" talking point, "Identify one "good day" in Iraq since this war began, Bush. I dare you." The same goes for you, Condi.

According to the International Red Cross, life for Iraqis is getting worse every day:

The report documents the alarming state of Iraqi health-care facilities suffering critical shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors, nurses and patients no longer dare to go to hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or threatened. The report also underlines that much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and electricity infrastructure is in a critical condition owing to lack of maintenance and because security constraints have impeded repair work.

"The suffering that Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable and unacceptable. Their lives and dignity are continuously under threat," said the ICRC's director of operations, Pierre Krähenbühl. "The ICRC calls on all those who can influence the situation on the ground to act now to ensure that the lives of ordinary people are spared and protected. This is an obligation under international humanitarian law for both States and non-State actors."

Bolton to be Investigated?

Last week, John Bolton told the BBC that he was "damned proud" of the fact that the US refused to work for an early ceasefire in the Israel/Lebanon war. "He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working." In other words, the Bush administration's failure to seek a ceasefire cost hundreds of people their lives. You'll recall the last minute blitz by the IDF against Lebanon when the Israeli government knew UN resolution 1701 was going to be passed by the UN security council. It was a final act of desperation in a war they had already lost.

Now, the the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is calling for a congressional investigation into Bolton's revelations.

In January, the US Department of State issued a preliminary report to Congress indicating that the State Department might have found evidence that Israel violated bilateral weapons agreements when it dropped US-made cluster bombs on civilian populations in Lebanon last summer. According to reports from international human rights organizations, it was determined that Israeli Defense Forces dropped more than 130,000 cluster bombs containing 1.2 million cluster bomblets in 498 locations in villages throughout southern Lebanon. These cluster bombs are in addition to those already present in southern Lebanon from previous Israeli operations.
[...]
It should be noted, Israel dropped the majority of unexploded ordinances in Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the conflict before an impending cease fire deadline. Bolton's remarks to BBC indicate that the delay in implementing this ceasefire was a result of deliberate actions by the United States. The 2006 war in Lebanon resulted in well over 1,000 Lebanese civilian deaths, 43 Israeli civilian deaths, approximately 4,500 Lebanese civilian injuries, and approximately 4,000 Israeli civilian injuries. The war displaced over one million Lebanese civilians from their homes and resulted in an environmental tragedy creating the largest ever oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea with over four million gallons of oil leaking into the Mediterranean as a result of Israeli bombing of Lebanese power plants. According to reports, the damage to Lebanon's infrastructure and economy is estimated to surpass four billion dollars.

We also recently learned through leaked testimony that Olmert had been planning the war against Lebanon for months before the generally accepted reason (one of a few justifications) - the seizure of IDF soldiers (which became the cause celebre) - was used as an excuse to spur on a plan that had already been set in motion. It was just a matter of waiting for the right timing.

Further:

And second, we have an interview in the Israeli media with Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of one of the highest officials in the Bush Administration, David Wurmser, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s adviser on the Middle East. Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli citizen, is herself closely associated with MEMRI, a group translating (and mistranslating) speeches by Arab leaders and officials that is known for its ties to the Israeli secret services.

She told the website of Israel's leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, that the US stalled over imposing a ceasefire during Israel's assault on Lebanon because the Bush Administration was expecting the war to be expanded to Syria.

"The anger [in the White House] is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space. They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its [Iran's] strategic and important ally [Syria] should be hit."

In other words, the picture that emerges is of a long-standing plan by the Israeli army, approved by senior US officials, for a rapid war against Lebanon -- followed by possible intimidatory strikes against Syria -- using the pretext of a cross-border incident involving Hizbullah. The real purpose, we can surmise, was to weaken what are seen by Israel and the US to be Tehran's allies before an attack on Iran itself.

That was why neither the Americans nor Israel wanted, or appear still to want, to negotiate with Assad over the Golan and seek a peace agreement that could -- for once -- change the map of the Middle East for the better.

Many, of course, posited that the Israel/Lebanon war was just a proxy war against Iran and Syria and while the Israeli government was failing, the pressure for sanctions against Iran was racheted up via UN resolution 1696 (which was followed up again this weekend with yet another resolution. This time, however, the Bush administration didn't get everything it was asking for.)

Justin Raimondo was certainly prescient back in December, 2005 when he wrote this:

Syria is now girding for the imposition of economic sanctions and trying to head off the campaign to destabilize the country on two fronts: by restarting talks with Israel, and by cooperating with the request to permit Syrian officials to be questioned in the Hariri investigation. I have the funny feeling, however, that this is not going to do them a lot of good, as far as their enemies in the West are concerned. As we have seen in the case of Iraq, when the U.S. wants to manufacture a case for war, it can be done pretty easily: Congress is not likely to ask inconvenient questions until it's too late, and the American people can hardly be expected to keep up with arcane doings in faraway Lebanon, the scene of the intrigue and obscure religious-ethnic rivalries that could spark another Mideast war. Acting pretty much without either congressional or public scrutiny, this administration thinks it can get away with anything when it comes to Syria – and in that, they are probably right.

If things had gone differently in the Israel/Lebanon war, it definitely is possible that Syria would have been brought into the armed conflict as well.

I imagine John Bolton was severely disappointed by the IDF's failure - that is, if he actually feels anything at all - about anything. Only a sociopath would be "damned proud" that he engineered a strategy that cost more people their lives based on a failed neocon ideology that places military might above all else.

Will the Democratic congress, most of which supported Israel's war, agree to investigate Bolton? I guess we'll have to wait and see...
 

On Iran: Mind Your Sources Pt 3

The conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph is running a story about the Israeli government supposedly negotiating with the US military for permission to use Iraqi air space in an eventual attack against Iran, according to anonymous sources. The Israeli government was quick to issue a denial.

Asked if Israel had turned to the U.S. to use Iraqi airspace in any possible attack, Ephraim Sneh [Israel's deputy defense minister] told Israel Radio: "No such approach has been made -- that is clear."

"Those who do not want to take political, diplomatic, economic steps against
Iran are diverting attention to the mission we are supposedly said to be conducting," Sneh said.

"(They) are anxious to spread the idea that we are planning to attack Iran in order to absolve themselves of the need to do the things that have been requested of them," he added.

As I've written before in Mind Your Sources (April 2006) and Mind Your Sources Pt 2 (January 2007), this public saber-rattling against Iran through the use of anonymous sources is nothing new. (Remember the recently bizarre Baghdad briefing that the Bush administration had to back off from?). Neither is the "publicize, deny" method of taunting ones enemies.

There is no doubt that the US and Israel have drawn up war plans against Iran. They've both said that all options are on the table. Cheney reiterated that position on Saturday in Australia.

This was the Iranian government's response:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Saturday the United States was not in a position to take military action against it and urged Washington and its allies to engage in dialogue.

"We do not see America in a position to impose another crisis on its tax payers inside America by starting another war in the region," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared itself for any possibility, but insists on constructive cooperation, Mottaki said.
[...]
Mottaki said negotiations, not threats, were the only way left to resolve the standoff over Iran's nuclear activities and urged the U.S. and its allies to return to dialogue when they are scheduled to meet in London next week.

"The only way to reach a solution for disputes is negotiations and talks. Therefore, we want the London meeting to make a brave decision and resume talks with Iran," Mottaki told reporters during a press conference with Bahrain's visiting foreign minister.

There is an obvious push/pull relationship between the US and Israel that is often played out in the media - just as it has been between the US and the UK. It doesn't take much to plant a story in a newspaper, forcing your ally to respond, all the while working in tandem to apply pressure to a third country like Iran. And while the Bush administration will call for tougher sanctions against Iran this week, it will have an uphill battle convincing other countries that do business with the regime to endorse such measures.

As for military attacks, the US and Israeli governments know that they don't have much to stand on in the international community. The wars with Afghanistan and Iraq have already drained allies' resources and the idea that so-called surgical strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities would be a quick and easy fix unmet by Iranian retaliation is a fool's dream. Militarism has not worked in Afghanistan or Iraq. Both situations require political remedies - a fact sorely missing from the neocons' empire-building playbook.

So, whether or not the government of Israel is seeking US cooperation for Iraq overflights is beside the point. There is war planning going on. Everybody knows that. What's important to focus on when unsourced stories like these come up is the propaganda value behind them and there certainly has been no shortage of coordinated efforts on that front pertaining to the situation with Iran. That's one of the few things the neocons actually do well: spreading the message of fear and intimidation. What they don't seem to realize, however, is that very few people are actually buying what they're trying to sell anymore. Bush would do well to set aside My Pet Goat to start reading The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Related: 26.02.07 New Evidence of Iranian Weapons in Iraq? Not Exactly.