A Turkish Non-Denial
There is a lot of talk on the net and in the previous thread about a coming attack on Iran. We all try to get a grip on this. Will it come? When? Is there confirmation?Reading this Reuters piece, my bullshit detector went off.
Turkey said on Monday that newspaper reports which say the United States has asked Ankara for permission to use military bases in Turkey for possible attacks on neighbouring Iran are not connected with reality.I did not remember the detail of using Incirlik or other Turkish soil for an Iran attack, so I tried to find a source for this. I did not succeed.
...
The foreign ministry named no newspapers, but Israel's Jerusalem Post, Germany's Tagesspiegel and Turkey's Sabah newspaper are among those that have published reports speculating that the United States would like to be able to use Turkish soil if it decided to launch an attack on Iran.
...
The U.S. military uses Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey for planes supplying U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It appears the Turkish government just denied something that nobody alleged, but the real issue at hand is not denied. There have been several reports about lots of high level talks between visitors from the U.S. administration and the Turkey government in connection with an air attack on Iran.
The initial one was on December 13 in Cumhyriet, a major left leaning Turkish daily. But at least the English version does not say anything about usink Turkish soil.
On December 23 DDP, a German news agency, had a report (in German) by Udo Ulfkotte, a veteran journalist well connected to various secret services. He writes about possible attacks from Diego Garcia and aircraft carriers.
The Tagesspiegel reports mentioned by Reuters (1 and 2, Dec 28, in German) do not say anything about Incirlik or attacks from Turkish soil either.
A search in the Jerusalem Post archive does not find any recent articles mentioning 'Incirlik' or 'Incerlik'.
A SPIEGEL round up written December 30 has this bit.
Regardless what the prospects are for a strike, there's little chance a US air strike against Iran would be launched from its military base in the Turkish city of Incirlik, but it is conceivable that the United States would inform Turkey prior to any strike.The Turkish government denies reports about an attack on Iran involving the Incirlik airport or other Turkish soil. Reuters mixes in a graph, that says such reports have happened. But none of the reports i find, even those mentioned by Reuters, includes the titbit the Turkish government denies.
One can take this as a confirmation of the original reports. The recent visits of the FBI chief, the CIA chief and the NATO General Secretary, within days and last month visit of the Turkish Chief of Staff to Washingon are indeed in preparation of an air attack on Iran.
Then again, it may all just be PsyOps. Why is Reuters pushing this with false claims?
Posted by b on January 3, 2006 at 20:03 UTC | Permalink
@JR - thanks for the JPost link
So JPost reports on the Dec 31 "According to the report" (of Tagesspiegel) ...,
but later says "Although Der Spiegel could not say that these plans were concrete, ..."
They obviously don´t know the German press and mix it up. The "Tagesspiegel" is a daily Berlin paper, "Der Spiegel" is a weekly magazine from Hamburg.
A search in the Tagesspiegel archive turns up no such report JPost describes other than the ones I linked and those contain not reference to using Turkish soil.
Der Spiegel calls the use of Turkish soil (Incirlic is for practical reasons the only one imaginable) unlikely.
So the use of "Turkish soil" is not from the German press, but from JPost falsly attributed to the German press.
Interesting operation - and it looks like it started in Israel...
Oh, I don't know. I don't read German and I have no access to Tagesspiegel, but according to UPI:
The German news agency DDP cited "Western security sources" to claim that CIA Director Porter Goss asked Turkey's premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets. Goss, who visited Ankara and met Erdogan on Dec. 12, was also reported to have to have asked for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2005/010106strike.htm
"Logistical support" for airstrikes would imply activities on Turkish soil.
There may be some "creep" from the German stories to the Jerusalem Post to Reuters, but one can see that there may well have been rumors that Goss was asking whether Turkey would permit the use of Turkish bases. (The fact that it's a stupid request that would be denied out of hand wouldn't necessarily stop someone like Goss.) Turkey apparently wants to kill that story without addressing anything further about its possible participation in an air attack on Iran.
Posted by: JR | Jan 3 2006 22:54 utc | 3
PS: The likely beneficiaries of a rumor that Goss asked to use Turkish soil would be those in Turkey who are OPPOSED to airstrikes on Iran. Once published, the rumor forces the Turks to deny it, creating a mult-day news event that puts the possibility of airstrikes into the public debate within Turkey. The result: the Turkish government becomes less likely to agree to supply any support at all.
Not something you'd think the right-wing J Post would want to see.
Posted by: JR | Jan 3 2006 23:11 utc | 4
Keep going. This is a most instructive real-time deconstruction of events, and surmises of their causes. Much Appreciated.
I don't understand what the German papers are doing. An attack on Iran is just not an option, despite all the sensational "leaks". A war between Iran and Israel would devastate both countries. Iran is capable of inflicting great harm on Israel even without nuclear weapons. Iran may be ten years away from developing a bomb, which is what a CIA report concluded some months ago. Certainly the UN inspectors have found nothing to justify a military strike.
Ahmadinejad's wild rhetoric is calculated to show that the West is incapable of doing anything at all to Iran. Iran is seemingly invincible. Iran does not need the US and its economy will boom as it sells its oil and gas to the East. I think all the panicked news reporting is playing into Iran's hands, and ironically it appears to be coming from the right.
I am in the camp of those who believe it not a matter or "if" but "when". It is highly possible, as well, that tactical nukes will be employed.
Given the high probability of disaster that could result, the question is "why"?
Jorge Hirsch argues that the pnac crowd believes it is required to show (gangland style) that we really are crazy and defying us would be madness.
Doug Ireland among others lays out the Israeli connection.
IMOP, there is a political upside for Bush at this point. It shores up his "war president" schtick (at least in the short term) since aside from his own scandal-ridden party he would receive overwhelming support from the other side of the aisle. Changes the conversation big time.
It also neutralizes Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton who can be expected to attack him FROM THE RIGHT on this issue.
Finally, the downside is so huge that it is money in the bank the media, the pundits and our representatives will ignore it completely. Hegemony or survival? Only chumps worry about survival - real men want to go to Tehran.
Posted by: tgs | Jan 4 2006 4:44 utc | 7
Off topic, but an interesting bath in another branch of the breathtakingly thorough "media" manipulation machine: who can read through this without
both laughing and wanting to cry? Apparently we can be sure that God has inspired W to do what he is doing, and even the U.S. constitution obviously must cede to sacred writ.
The outlook is so bleak as to be hopeless.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Jan 4 2006 7:12 utc | 8
I'm not sure it is possible to get a handle on the motivation for the BushCo attack Iran furphy simply because we aren't party to all the internal machinations of the elites much less the subset called BushCo.
We have seen in the past where seemingly wanton ploys by bushCo have later been found to be extremely well thought out machinations designed to put some form of internal dissent between a rock and a hard place,
It's my belief that something similar may well be happening here but hey what would I know, I was telling anyone who would listen that not even BushCo would be stupid enough to think they could successfully invade Iraq. I was right but I was wrong in the worst possible way. The US couldn't successfully invade Iraq but they managed to do it unsuccessfully.
But surely that must be lesson enough for BushCo. It's not as if the Fundies are anything other than window dressing. The BushCo enterprise is lead by pragmatists, and unless they are agents of influence for those dedicated to the ending of US imperialism, they must see attacking Iran with whatever way; bombs, nukes or outright invasion just isn't a pragmatic move.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 4 2006 7:31 utc | 9
Not gonna happen, just a shit storm to shore up Georgie's wanning manhood and maybe rattle Iran's cage. (and in a wierd way, continuation of Condi's limp accross Europe where she talked tough and didn't get shit done!) If Iraq was a picnic, going to Tehran will be a Disco on Crack! The Baathist have shown what a devastated force with limited resources can do. Shia's with all their religious, political, and economic clout accross the middle east, south east asia, and central asia are completely capable of carving up Uncle Sams ass in fine slices. Remember, these people have spiritual following, Saddam didn't! You get a different quality of a religious nut with that.
Max
Posted by: Max Andersen | Jan 4 2006 10:14 utc | 10
Machinations of the elite:
exhibit a ,
exhibit b , and
exibit c .
If there are any mainstream media lurkers (doubtful, but possible) hereabouts, these are represenative of the reason why thinking people will gladly take their chances with "unreliable" amateur bloggers rather than complicit professionals.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Jan 4 2006 10:26 utc | 11
So sure, (W) must be a believer, not that being a believer has anything to do with internalizing and or acting on the teachings of the bible in any real (fundamental) sense. We've all run into these types on some street corner somewhere, trying to evanga -- lize those not walking fast enough. You know, the ones so intoxicated by their own conversion, so goddamned amazed that they themselves, usually going nowhere fast, have suddenly been transformed in a flash, from a garden variety looser -- to the enlightened one -- enlightened, no less by an up close and personal relationship to the creator of the entire universe. And, like WOW, just like that, you too can recieve the power. Just repeat, I will surrender, I will surrender -- and be reborn as the agent of the lord, where my own perasonal fate is here to for reconciled as the work of god, where all evaluations of (my) actions can be reduced to intrepretation of scripture.
No doubt such an infintile projection of theology is what someone like (W) has embraced in all its crass and gutteral utility. Which is not to say that such an embrace is not felt (by him) to be genuine, and like the street corner born-again, the utility of surrender can often manifest in itself a transference of what ever particular demons happen to plague the subject. Which in a way is what has happened with (W), in that he has transferred his demons into our demons. All his demons; of privilege, contradiction, corruption, and bloodlust have been transferred upon the national psyche in such a way that find a resonence, or a re-awakining in the vast and latent impulsive exceptionalism in the american character.
The most troubling aspect of all this is that his beliefs are to some considerable extent reinforced through the success of his presidency, which recast his policy(s) as a matter of faith, which require its own brand of servitude to the faith as so defined (by him). He has managed to transfer his personal struggle with "faith" into a struggle of "faith" in the nation, where the nation has been (unwittingly, by him) put into mortal jeopardy.
(W)'s connection to god is predicated only in so far that he gets what he wants, barring no expense -- for he must often reflect that how could I have gotten so far (and done so much damage) if it were'nt for gods directive -- for in any reality based world, none of this would have been permitted to happen.
Posted by: anna missed | Jan 4 2006 10:53 utc | 12
Ah, a man after my own heart - see Paul Wolf’s post above. Max, too.
Yes Bushie Boy wants to be a perpetual war president. But he is not allowed to decide. Carefully managed. All that.
The PTB of a certain stripe have a problem: they want to do it, are pushed and maybe even blackmailed to do it, but know that it is illusory. And the Iranians know that all too. So, a stalemate, snarling and posturing. Lasting for years now. The winner, for the moment, is the one who can make the most noise!
Posted by: Noisette | Jan 4 2006 17:37 utc | 13
Max - "not gonna happen"? Don't be so sure. There won't be an invasion, you're right there, but a "surgical strike" against nuclear facilities - or suspected or supposed nuclear facilities - that's a genuine possibility.
Don't forget that the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981.
That was a very different situation- the Osirak reactor had not yet been fueled so no nuclear material was present, therefore there was no risk that bombing would disperse radioactive material into the environment.
It is hard to imagine that the Bush administration would risk bombing on-line nuclear facilities, thus potentially causing unimaginable public health and environmental harm-- that is, if it weren't the Bush administration, it would be hard to imagine it.
Posted by: JR | Jan 4 2006 18:19 utc | 14
Kevin Drum reports on a leaked document reported in the Guardian about Iranian efforts to acquire nukes and says,
So: maybe this is for real. Or maybe it's just an effort to prepare public opinion for a military strike against Iran. Stay tuned.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
Posted by: JR | Jan 4 2006 18:25 utc | 15
No one has mentioned this:
3 Aug 2005, by Media Monitors Network:
Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse
(...)
Concerning Iran, recent articles have revealed active Pentagon planning for operations against its suspected nuclear facilities. While the publicly stated reasons for any such overt action will be premised as a consequence of Iran's nuclear ambitions, there are again unspoken macroeconomic drivers underlying the second stage of petrodollar warfare – Iran's upcoming oil bourse.
(...)
In essence, Iran is about to commit a far greater “offense” than Saddam Hussein's conversion to the euro for Iraq’s oil exports in the fall of 2000. Beginning in March 2006, the Tehran government has plans to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades – using a euro-based international oil-trading mechanism.
http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html>Energy Bulletin
Posted by: Noisette | Jan 4 2006 18:40 utc | 17
And this (Dec. 19, 2005):
The Putin and Pals Project
The whole Europe may soon find itself in Russia’s gas hands if Gazprom is successful in its expansion in the West.
(...)
The signing ceremony was held ten days before federal elections in Germany. The Chancellor’s party was already evidently losing, so Russians were in a hurry to sign the contract while Schroeder was in power. The ruling party failed indeed.
Once the stir about the new German government hushed and the former chancellor lost all chances to stay in power, it was announced that he would continue to supervise the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline: Schroeder took helm of the committee of the shareholders of the North European Gas Pipeline Company (NEGPC).
Switzerland-registered NEGPC will run the construction and management of the pipeline. Gazprom holds 51 percent in the company, German E.ON and BASF share 24.5 percent each...
(...)
http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=636565>Kommersant
Posted by: Noisette | Jan 4 2006 18:53 utc | 18
Great stuff Noisette!
kinda wish Jerome would stop by and add some comments to this.
energy! is the word that would be offered to "The Graduate" these days.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 4 2006 19:26 utc | 19
I didn't do it - and stop talikng about my mother!!!
Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 5 2006 8:55 utc | 20
@JR:
Iran will only happen as part of a "rapture fantasy". There is no other way to do it. The problem with attacking Iran is that it has equally potent forces (allied/colluded) outside of its borders. Most of them in places which are very important to our GWOT, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, Lebanon, even Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. I don't believe anybody crazy enough to light the fuse on this thing but then anything is possible and on crazy its a tie between Ahmadenijad and Bush. So whereas before the Iraq war started my odd of an actual attack on Iran were 50/50 now they stand more like 80/20 against a frontal assault on Iran. I still think that if it comes down to Bush trying to preserve his legacy then he's more likely to swing at Syria.
Max
Posted by: Max Andersen | Jan 6 2006 8:11 utc | 21
The comments to this entry are closed.
From the Jerusalem Post:
The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike.
According to the report, CIA Director Porter Goss, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1135696369601&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The Turkish statement did not mention Incirlik. Neither did the Jerusalem Post article. That was a supposition of the Reuters reporter.
So the Turkish government is denying something that has indeed been alleged, in both the German and the Israeli press.
Posted by: JR | Jan 3 2006 21:02 utc | 1