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random pastes

jubilee south[1]

personal statistics :P

2005-2006 US-Israeli threats to attack Iran

working space for a new article, see Talk:Iran_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#sorting_out_different_pages

done (initial draft):


  1. note label|chomskyone| Subordinate and Non-Subordinate States, interview with Noam Chomsky, May 8, 2006, ZNet



CUT HERE


During the early twentieth century, many Iranians saw the US as a useful third force that could reduce the control of Russia and Great Britain over Iran. The US missionary Howard Baskerville was killed in Iran in 1909 shortly after he decided to support Iranians in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran.

This relationship changed in the mid-twentieth century, when the US together with Great Britain organised Operation Ajax, which in 1953 overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, due to his nationalisation of crude oil, replacing him with the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who became an absolute monarch and created the secret police force SAVAK. Relations continued to worsen when in 1979 Iranians overthrew the Shah, with the accompanying Iran hostage crisis, and when in 1988 the US destroyed Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians.

During the early twenty-first century US-Israeli threats to militarily attack Iran commenced. Several different motivations, some uncontroversial, some controversial, for the possible attack exist. Some US violations of Iranian sovereignty have allegedly already occurred.

This article attempts to summarise, in an encyclopedic way, perceived or actual threats to Iran, perceived or actual violations by Iran of the NPT, documented claims of motivations for any or all of these, and perceived or actual violations of territorial sovereignty (attacks) by US-Israel against Iran, or Iran against US-Israel.

The individual sections are internally chronological, and in several cases refer to other articles for in-depth documentation. The order of the sections should not be interpreted as a causal, chronological relationship in the escalating tensions.

For a longer article on US-Iran relations, see U.S.-Iran relations.

==Threats to attack Iran ===US threats to attack Iran Seymour Hersh claimed in January 2005 that strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military’s war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran and that during interviews he had made in December 2004 and January 2005,

The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans’ negotiated approach [regarding alleged nuclear weapons development] cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act. "We’re not dealing with a set of National Security Council option papers here," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "They’ve already passed that wicket. It’s not if we’re going to do anything against Iran. They’re doing it."[8]

On February 22, 2005, in Brussels, US president George W. Bush was quoted saying:

This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. (Short pause) And having said that, all options are on the table. (Laughter)[13].

Scott Ritter, former UN weapons of mass destruction inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998, claimed in April 2005 that:

June 2005... was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran, Iraq's neighbor to the east, in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.

Ritter specified that an attack had not yet been authorised by the President, but rather that:

The President had reviewed plans being prepared by the Pentagon to have the military capability in place by June 2005 for such an attack, if the President ordered.[14]

In June 2005, Scott Ritter claimed that in Azerbaijan, bordering Iran to the North, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran. As of 2006, the United States has a large or significant military presence in five countries bordering Iran: (clockwise) Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Scott Ritter also claimed in June 2005 that the US attack on Iran had already begun. For details, see the section below on violations and alleged violations of Iranian sovereignty.

===Israeli threats to attack Iran In December 2005, the Sunday Times claimed that military sources in Israel were order to plan for possible strikes on uranium enrichments sites in Iran in March 2006, based on Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran was getting to the point of being able to build nuclear weapons in two to four year later. It was claimed that that the special forces command was in the highest stage of readiness for an attack (state G) in December.[2]

Seymour Hersh has also claimed that US Department of Defense civilians led by Douglas Feith have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran[8] .

==Possible motivations for possible US-Israeli attack on Iran ===Iran's alleged present or possible future nuclear weapons program

This section is just a summary. For more detail see Iran and weapons of mass destruction#Nuclear_weapons

Since 2003, the United States has alleged that Iran has a program to develop nuclear weapons.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Both the United States and Iran are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The United States (and other official nuclear weapons states) were alleged during the May 2005 month-long meeting on the NPT to be in violation of the NPT through Article VI, which requires them to disarm, which as of 2006 they have not done, while the IAEA has stated that Iran is in violation of a Safeguards Agreement related to the NPT, due to insufficient reporting of nuclear material, its processing and its use.[6]. Under Article IV, the treaty gives non-nuclear states the right to develop civilian nuclear energy programs.[5]

From 2003 to early 2006, tensions between the US and Iran have successively mounted even while International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of sensitive nuclear industry sites in Iran have continued, in line with an Additional Protocol to the NPT which Iran voluntarily adhered to.

===Crude oil and other strategic reasons Stephen Zunes, Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, stated that the Republican and Democratic Parties of the USA have

an urge to punish, isolate, and militarily threaten an oil-rich country [Iran] that refuses to sufficiently cooperate with U.S. economic and strategic designs in the Middle East.[10]

====International Oil Bourse and the euro

see the main articles International Oil Bourse and petroeuro

On March 20, 2006, Iran plans to participate in a new International Oil futures exchange, called the International Oil Bourse, trading oil priced as Petroeuros, rather than Petrodollars, as oil is traded in all other markets (as of 2005). This attempt to rebalance trading relationships in the world economy may trigger a series of far reaching consequences, including the potential for a resource war with the United States of America over the flow of both dollars and oil.

===Electoral reasons in the USA In November 2005, Michael T. Klare, professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, alleged that a major factor motivating the George W. Bush administration to attack Iran would be its desired to distract attention from domestic political difficulties and to increase popularity for the President. US popular support for Bush increased by about 10% when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and only dropped back to its previous level several months later.[7]

===Electoral reasons in Iran

see main article in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel

Religious-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005.

In October 2005, he made remarks to domestic audiences agreeing with Ayatollah Khomeini's statement that the occupying regime in [Israel/Palestineshould] be wiped off the map, citing in his speech that the regime of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Soviet Union as a State and Saddam Hussein's government of Iraq, had been wiped off the map.

On December 8 2005, he made remarks doubting the Holocaust though a week later, on December 14, he made a similar statement no longer literally denying the Holocaust.

These remarks are generally considered to be in line with his populist voting base - 19% of voters chose him in the first round of the 2005 presidential election.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims that the remarks have been mistranslated and misinterpreted in the Western media, and that his aim is only to support democracy in Palestine.

Independently of whether or not his remarks were misinterpreted, the international reaction to his perceived statements was extremely negative.

Seema Mustafa in the Asian Age claimed that Ahmadinejad's remarks relating to Israel and the Holocaust are now used a major reason for an attack against Iran, stating that:

A campaign to demonise [Ahmadinejad] to rally around international opinion against Iran has been very effectively unleashed. He has, in fact, been carefully inducted as a key component in the propaganda war against Iran...

and that this argument was presented to journalists in Delhi by German-French-UK representative Dr Michael Schaefer and US undersecretary Nicholas Burns when they were requesting Indian representative to accept IAEA referral of Iran to the UN Security Council[9].

===Increasing or decreasing democracy in the Middle East In political speeches following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush has claimed (after weapons of mass destruction could not be found) that his administration's goal in the invasion was to bring democracy to countries in the Middle East and to oppose "islamofascism".

Robert Dreyfuss, author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, claims that the US actions in the region have in fact supported, and are continuing to support, "islamofascism" rather than oppose it.[11]

Iraqi humanities professor and human rights activist Abdul-Latif Ali al-Mayah appeared on a television show on the evening of January 18, 2004, calling for direct elections in Iraq, in opposition to US plans to elect a new government by caucus, in parallel with calls for general elections by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The assassination of Al-Mayah less than 24 hours later, on January 19, 2004, is claimed to be part of a systematic campaign to physically eliminate Iraqi academia which has not been investigated either by the occupying power (the United States) nor by the nominally responsible (Iraqi) judicial authorities.

On February 5, 2006, Iranian blogger Persian Majeed listed a number of alleged human rights violations by the US in Iran and alleged attacks by the US against Iranian democracy of the preceding half-century, requesting judicial enquiries and appropriate compensation payments to Iranians. His judgment of the severity of the US actions against democracy in Iran concludes with the request that the US should be referred to the United Nations for sanctions. [12]

==Possible motivations for Iran to violate the NPT Paul Pillar, former CIA official who led the preparation of all National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on Iran from 2000 to 2005 in his role as national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, told the InterPress Service that all of the NIEs on Iran during that period addressed the Iranian fears of U.S. attack explicitly and related their desire for nuclear weapons to those fears and stated "Iranian perceptions of threat, especially from the United States and Israel, were not the only factor, but were in our judgment part of what drove whatever effort they were making to build nuclear weapons." Another former CIA official, Ellen Laipson, said that the Iranian fear of an attack by the United States has long been "a standard element" in NIEs on Iran.[1]

==2003-2006 US violations and alleged violations of Iranian sovereignty Since 2003 the U.S. has been flying unmanned aerial vehicles, launched from Iraq, over Iran to obtain intelligence on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, reportedly providing little new information[3]. The Iranian government has formally protested the incursions as illegal.[3]

Seymour Hersh has claimed that the US has also been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground [nuclear weapons development] installations.[8]

In June 2005, Scott Ritter claimed that US attacks on Iran had already begun, including US overflights of Iran using pilotless drones and CIA-backed bombings undertaken in Iran by the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK).[15]

work in progress...

==External links

  1. a Fear of U.S. Drove Iran's Nuclear Policy, Gareth Porter, February 10, 2006, InterPress Service
  2. b [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1920074,00.html

Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran], Uzi Mahnaimi, December 11, 2005, The Sunday Times

  1. c http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19820-2005Feb12.html
  2. d http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110701450.html
  3. e http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/
  4. f Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Resolution adopted on 24 September 2005, IAEA
  5. g Wag the Dog: Crisis Scenarios for Deflecting Attention from the President's Woes, November 16, 2005, Michael T. Klare
  6. h i j http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact
  7. j Our Bomb, Your Bomb: On India, Iran, and the Nuclear Bomb, January 22, 2006, Seema Mustafa, Asian Age
  8. k The U.S. and Iran: Democracy, Terrorism, and Nuclear Weapons, August 31, 2005, Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus
  9. l Political Islam vs. Democracy: The Bush Administration's Deadly Waltz with Shiite Theocrats in Iraq and Muslim Brotherhood Fanatics in Syria, Egypt, and Elsewhere, November 29, 2005, Robert Dreyfuss
  10. m Let's rewrite Iranian history: The past 50 years, blog, February 5, 2006, Persian Majeed, iranian.com
  11. n Blair's Next War, May 04, 2005, Dave Wearing
  12. o Sleepwalking To Disaster In Iran, April 01, 2005, Scott Ritter
  13. p The US war with Iran has already begun, June 21, 2005, 2005, Scott Ritter


Wikinews investigates Wikipedia vandalism by United States Senate staff members

I have a concern about the POV expressed by the inclusion of this note on the Joe Biden article. I am the primary writer of the present article which I undertook shortly after these changes were made. At the time the article was truly a mess and it's hard to imagine saying that anyone trying to bring some order and sense to it could be "vandalizing" it. They may have been, but I doubt it, I think they were just trying to rescue it. Either way the Wikinews article is POV. I am going to move it to an external link where it would seem to belong. stilltim 23:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)



TODO 14:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC) Sometime i should clean up this page a bit, i.e. archive some of it. Boud (talk) 14:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

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  1. ^ "Don't Owe, Won't Pay!". Jubilee South. Retrieved 2008-07-07. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
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