War Clouds Darken: Russia Warns of US Strike on Iran

UPDATE: The White House says President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked today amid tensions over the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.  Iranian authorities blame Israel for the attack on the scientist, who was killed by a bomb attached to his car. The U.S. has denied any role.

The day after a young Iranian scientist was assassinated, US President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone Thursday, January 12, 2012. The White House said Obama "reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security." (AFP/Menahem Kahana) A White House statement on Thursday's phone call didn't say whether they discussed the scientist's death. It said Obama and Netanyahu "discussed recent Iran-related developments," including efforts to hold Iran accountable for failures to meet international obligations. "The President reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security, and the President and the Prime Minister promised to stay in touch in the coming weeks on these and other issues of mutual concern."

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/12-5

Paul Craig Roberts - The Next War on Washington's Agenda

Only the blind do not see that the US government is preparing to attack Iran. According to Professor Michel Chossudovsky, "Active war preparations directed against Iran (with the involvement of Israel and NATO) were initiated in May 2003."

Washington has deployed missiles directed at Iran in its oil emirate puppet states, Oman and the UAE, and little doubt in the other US puppet states in the Middle East. Washington has beefed up Saudi Arabia's jet fighter force. Most recently, Washington has deployed 9,000 US troops to Israel to participate in "war games" designed to test the US/Israeli air defense system. As Iran represents no threat unless attacked, Washington's war preparations signal Washington's intention to attack Iran.

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Next-War-on-Washington-by-paul-craig-roberts-120112-987.html

Sherwood Ross - The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Latest Chapter In the Road towards "Police State USA"

"I believe," warned James Madison in a speech to the Virginia Convention on June 16, 1788, "there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

Surely, this is the story behind the New Year's Eve, 2011, signing by President Obama of the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA). While they were merry-making and tootling horns, NDAA stripped Americans of the last vestiges of their liberties. Now that President Obama can order the military to arrest and imprison you indefinitely on suspicion without trial, your First Amendment rights of speech, press, assembly, and petition have no meaning. Who are you going to assemble with from your jail cell?

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28611

Francis Boyle - Waging War against Iran is a Criminal Act, in Violation of International Law

Article 2 (3) of the United Nations Charter requires the pacific settlement of the international dispute between the United States and Iran. To the same effect is article 33 and the entirety of Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter that mandate and set up numerous procedures for the pacific settlement of the international dispute between the United States and Iran. And of course Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter prohibits both the threat and use of force by the United States against Iran.

Furthermore, both Iran and the United States are parties to the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, upon which legal basis the Nazi Leaders were prosecuted by the United States, inter alia, at Nuremberg for Crimes against Peace, sentenced to death, and executed. In Article I thereof the States Parties “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another." The United States has been illegally threatening war against Iran going back to the Bush Jr. Administration. Article II requires the United States only to pursue a pacific settlement of its international dispute with Iran: “The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28532

Christopher Brauchli - Arms and the World

Arms sales are not as straightforward as one might think. For one thing, Russia and the United States are both eager to maintain their respective positions as the most successful merchants of death dealing devices. That causes them to sacrifice principle to expediency. And there’s a good reason why they are eager to sell lots of arms. It boosts their respective economies. And times were bad in 2010 and needed a boost in 2011.

In 2010 worldwide arms sales dropped by 38 percent from their 2009 levels to the lowest levels since 2003. In 2009 $65.2 billion in worldwide arms sales agreements were signed compared with $40.4 billion in 2010. Of those amounts the U.S. had $21.3 billion in arms sales whereas Russia had only $7.8 billion. Happily, 2011 turns out to have been a much better year. Projections for Russian arms sales for 2011 were more than $9 billion and by year’s end it had contracts to sell approximately $3.8 billion in arms to Syria.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/07-4

Patrick Henningsen - Why Attacking Iran Will Not Work in 2012. Failure could Result in a US-Israel Military and Economic Tailspin

All signs coming out of Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv are pointing towards a pre-emptive military strike against Iran in 2012. But a number of key indicators are also pointing towards an unsuccessful, unlikely operation, whose failure could result in a military and economic tailspin from which the United States and Israel are unlikely to recover.

Currently, the US is following a trajectory of past unsuccessful empires that were unable to sustain themselves resulting in an eventual collapse from within. The US is currently running up a budget deficit which is not only threatening to bankrupt its entire economy, but also threatening the hegemony of its sole instrument for advantage and influence on the world stage – the US dollar. Any threat to the supremacy of the dollar is also a threat to the empire.

It is difficult to calculate the outcome of a western attack against Iran -because there are so many variables.

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28511

David Swanson - Why Not Attack Iran?

The push to attack Iran has been on for so long that entire categories of arguments for it (such as that the Iranians are fueling the Iraqi resistance) have come and gone. At DontAttackIran.org we've been collecting the arguments for and against attacking Iran for years. We've campaigned against an attack, but never been able to claim a success, because decisions not to launch wars are never announced, because those pushing for wars never give up, and because those believing what their government tells them think the Pentagon never campaigns for wars but is forced into them defensively on short notice by attacks from evildoers.

While Iran has not attacked any other country in centuries, the United States has not done so well by Iran. Remember (or, like most U.S. citizens, learn for the first time): the United States overthrew Iran's democracy in 1953 and installed a dictator. Then the United States aided Iraq in the 1980s in attacking Iran, providing Iraq with some of the weapons (including chemical weapons) that were used on Iranians and that would be used in 2002-2003 (when they no longer existed) as an excuse for attacking Iraq. For the past decade, the United States has labeled Iran an evil nation, attacked and destroyed the other non-nuclear nation on the list of evil nations, designated part of Iran's military a terrorist organization, falsely accused Iran of crimes including the attacks of 9-11, murdered Iranian scientists, fundedopposition groups in Iran (including some the U.S. also designates as terrorist), flown drones over Iran, openly and illegally threatened to attack Iran, and built up military forces all around Iran's borders, while imposing cruel sanctions on the country.

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Not-Attack-Iran-by-David-Swanson-120106-322.html

US-Israel vs Iran: War Games Prelude to War?

The drumbeats of war are on the rise this week as the United States and Israel exchanged threats with Iran and prepared for joint 'wargames' - used to simulate future wars.

UPDATE: At 12:53 PM ET the Associated Press filed a new story reporting on the major joint US-Israel missile defense exercise:

The drill is called “Austere Challenge 12” and is designed to improve defense systems and cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli forces. It follows a 10-day Iranian naval exercise near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The Israeli military spokesman did not give a date for the drill Thursday, but a senior military official said it would be in the next few weeks. He said it would be the biggest missile defense drill ever held. He was speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/05-3

Yaakov Katz - Israel, US to hold largest ever missile defense exercise. Thousands of US soldiers will be deployed in Israel.

Israel is moving forward with plans to hold the largest-ever missile defense exercise in its history this spring amid Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.

Last week [11-18 December], Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel.

The drill, which is unprecedented in its size, will include the establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at EUCOM headquarters in Germany– with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.

The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.

The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome.

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28498

Renee Parsons - Israel's Nuclear History as US Troops Deploy to Drill

As the Obama Administration coordinates a global PR campaign of scare tactics for the upcoming attack on Iran, eerily reminiscent of the Bush Administration’s lies of WMD’s to justify its invasion of Iraq, it comes as no surprise that the US Congress has added its voice, enfeebled and corrupt as it is, in repayment for the Israel lobby’s $3 M during the 2010 election cycle, to ban any communication between US and Iran government officials. 
   
Intensifying the drums of war with over-the-top statements that Iran, with an inferior set of missiles and a vastly inadequate Navy, represents ‘the greatest threat to world peace” and that ‘the actions and policies of Iran threaten the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States” ignore the inconvenient reality that US intelligence has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons capacity in Iran.Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who needs to cut back on the coffee, recently told 60 Minutes that Iran has “reached a point where they can assemble a nuclear bomb in a year or less’ only to have Pentagon press secretary George Little set the record straight “we have no indication that Iran has made a decision to develop a nuclear weapon.”  

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http://trueblueprogressivereport.blogspot.com/2012/01/israels-nuclear-history-as-us-troops.html