|
The Empty Threat Against Iran – National Security Advisor Flynn Embarrasses Himself
Trump’s National Security Advisor Flynn keeps demonstrating the limits of is strategic-intellectual capacity. He went in front of the cameras and issued this empty threat:
The international community has been too tolerant of Iran’s bad behavior. The ritual of convening a United Nations Security Council in an emergency meeting and issuing a strong statement is not enough. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate Iran’s provocations that threaten our interests.
The days of turning a blind eye to Iran’s hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over.
What is such bluster supposed to achieve?
Interestingly the statement came out just an hour after Donald Rumsfeld left the White House where he had talked about “process” with Flynn and NSC staff.
The neo-conservatives are of course very happy about such nonsense talk. Obama Should Thank Trump for Putting Iran on Notice writes Eli Lake. James Rubin intones: Finally, the president made a smart move on foreign policy. For the very first time the neoconned Washington Post editors are lauding Trump and highlight Flynn’s juvenile outburst.
But the U.S. has no way to coerce the 80 million Iranians into anything. The Bush administration learned that (it was one reason why Rumsfeld was fired), the Obama administration acknowledged it and the Trump administration will have to accept that too.
Iran has been under U.S. sanction since 1979. A few more years of unilateral U.S. sanctions will not change its positions one iota. The “international community” supports the nuclear deal and encouraged the lifting of international sanctions. It will not agree to new ones just because some Trump flunky says so.
Iran is needed to achieve peace and to fight Islamic terrorism in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. To even try such without Iranian involvement would require hundred-thousands of U.S. troops. They would fail should Iran decide to not support them. Indeed there is nothing that can be achieved in the Middle East without Iran. While it has only limited capabilities to actively interfere in other countries it can throw up hurdles everywhere and block U.S. controlled solutions.
Smaller direct U.S. attacks on Iran would be responded to with attacks by Iranian proxies elsewhere. U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially their resupplies, would be in imminent danger. A large attack on Iran itself would lead to the destruction of U.S. military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Every U.S. ship passing through the Street of Hormuz would come under fire.
There will be no significant international support for any U.S. move against Iran. Sending the USS Cole to the Yemeni coast while fantasizing about Houthi mining the waters is a just too obvious setup for a “Gulf of Tonkin” replay.
Any significant military move against Iran would be a strategic foreign policy disaster just like the Bush administration attack on Iraq was one. That attack strengthened Iran’s long term position. An attack on the country itself would achieve the same on a much larger scale.
The more grown ups in the Trump administration know all this. Secretary of Defense Mattis, no friend of Iran at all, pulled the rug out from under Flynn’s empty threat:
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Saturday that the threat from Iran’s missile program does not currently require the realignment of U.S. forces in the Middle East, striking a note of restraint shortly after the White House issued a strong warning to Tehran.
The U.S. Central Command on the Middle East was not even informed about the Flynn threat towards Iran. The move is obviously no a thought through administration policy.
Is Flynn freelancing with such threats trying to prove his worthiness for the administration? Or was he set up by others to embarrass himself?
Have little to add to previous posts on topic. However, we can also now add re-igniting the six decade old Mini-Cold War with Cuba:
Donald Trump ‘reviewing Cuba policy’, says White House
Possible hardening of stance towards communist island follows improving relations under Barack Obama
Donald Trump is to conduct a “full review” of America’s foreign policy towards Cuba, White House press secretary Sean Spicer has announced.
He said the President planned to look at “all” aspects of how the US deals with its historic enemy, which lies just 90 miles south of Florida.
Human rights would be a key part of Mr Trump’s revised policy towards Cuba, the press secretary said.
Mr Spicer’s comments suggest Washington may take a harder line with Cuba, raising the possibility of new trade embargoes and the cancellation of commercial flights from the US, which were only recently introduced…
Concerns over Human Rights ?! What BS.
Trump and his advisors are re-igniting potential for conflict around the globe, whilst simultaneously aggravating allies and neutrals, with an eye to throwing red meat to their base domestically.
And the gorilla in the room re all this BS re terrorism and Iran, is Sunni/Wahhabist/ISIS/Al-Qaeda/Al-Saud/Qatar/GCC Terrorism, and the active creation, support and plausibly-deniable directions thereof by the US and suborned allies to a lesser degree going back decades, yet most blatantly the last 16 years.
Iran a State sponsor of Terrorism ? Hah! No, the US of A, is. And so too are the rest of the ‘Usual Suspects‘.
Perfidious Albion in partnership with France started all this 100 years ago with classic Divide & Rule. Created Saudi Arabia and elevated the insignificant tribe of Al-Saud Wahhabists when they were drawing lines on maps in the ME during and subsequent to WWI, in service of their Empire, command authority and control was handed off to the US after WWII when the Brits became a lapdog junior partner with a mythical ‘Special Relationship’. And the drivers and ‘Interests‘ have not substantially changed since 1916 …
The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret 1916 agreement between Great Britain and France,[1] to which the Russian Empire assented. The agreement defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in Southwestern Asia. The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between November 1915 and March 1916 [2] and it was signed 16 May 1916.[3] The deal was exposed to the public in Izvestia and Pravda on 23 November 1917 and in the British Guardian on November 26, 1917.[4][5]…
Leading up to the centenary of Sykes-Picot in 2016, great interest was generated among the media[50] and academia[51] concerning the long-term effects of the agreement. The agreement is frequently cited as having created “artificial” borders in the Middle East, “without any regard to ethnic or sectarian characteristics, [which] has resulted in endless conflict.”
House of Saud – Saudi Arabia
From 1915 to 1927, Ibn Saud’s dominions were a protectorate of the British Empire, pursuant to the 1915 Treaty of Darin.
By 1932, Ibn Saud had disposed of all his main rivals and consolidated his rule over much of the Arabian Peninsula. He declared himself king of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that year. Previously, he had gone through several titles, starting with “Sultan of Najd” and ending with “King of Hijaz and Najd and their dependencies.”
Unification of Saudi Arabia
The unification of Saudi Arabia was a military and political campaign, by which the various tribes, sheikhdoms, emirates, and kingdoms of most of the Arabian Peninsula were conquered by the House of Saud, or Al Saud, between 1902 and 1932, when the modern-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed under the leadership of Ibn Saud, creating what is sometimes referred to as the Third Saudi State, to differentiate it from the Emirate of Diriyah, the First Saudi State and the Emirate of Nejd, the Second Saudi State, also House of Saud states.
The Al-Saud had been in exile in British protected emirate of Kuwait since 1893 following their third episode of removal from power and dissolution of their polity, this time by the Al Rashid emirate of Ha’il. In 1902, Ibn Saud recaptured Riyadh, the Al Saud dynasty’s former capital. He went on to subdue the rest of Nejd, Al-Hasa, Jebel Shammar, Asir, and Hejaz (location of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina) between 1913 and 1926. The resultant polity was named the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz from 1927 until it was further consolidated with Al-Hasa and Qatif into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
Same as it ever was …
Re ongoing delusions and sponsorship, see:
Reza Pahlavi & the ‘Government in Exile of Iran’
Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran, born 31 October 1960) was the last heir apparent to the defunct throne of the Imperial State of Iran and is the current head of the House of Pahlavi. He is the older son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi. A resident of the United States, he is the heir to the former Persian throne. Reza Pahlavi is the founder and leader of National Council of Iran, a government in exile of Iran. As Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi left Iran at the age of 17 for air force training at Reese Air Force Base near Lubbock, Texas,[2] two years before the Iranian Revolution…
Posted by: Outraged | Feb 4 2017 18:58 utc | 40
@ Posted by: nonsense factory | Feb 4, 2017 4:48:58 PM | 58
Agreed. Are not and never were, ‘terrorists’.
They grew out of a social and community support system. They were primarily responsible(with help from Amal) for throwing the Israeli’s and their sad border proxy mercs, the South Lebanon Army out of Lebanon, resulting from the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Lebanon would have payed an even higher price re the Israeli 2006 invasion if Hezbollah had not strategically prepared well in advance for the inevitable, with virtually the full support of the population of Southern Lebanon.
Since then they have become integrated into the political state of Lebanon and even draw support from other religious and ethnic factions. Their Counter-Intelligence network works closely with the State and is highly efficient & capable. Essentially they exist as the de facto State guarentors of Lebanon because the Lebanese Army and State had been utterly compromised & riven from within & without.
Anyone who craps on about the attack on the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, either doesn’t care or has no knowledge of what the US forces, Marine & Navy, were actually doing …
Let’s cut to the chase. No more dancing around the issue:
The greatest State sponsor of Terrorism is the Unites States & it’s various ‘Coalition’ partners, through the unlawful use of lethal force, often wildly indiscriminate, by their military & covert agencies.
People are conditioned from birth, indoctrinated to believe in the Lawful/Righteous aspect of formal military forces. Frankly, it is all Bullshit, especially under the banner/facade of the, GWOT.
The ‘Raid’ on the village in Yemen was a Terrorist act. Every Droning, every ‘targeted killing’, every covert assassination, every ‘Military’ attack on civilian infrastructure, etc, around the globe, is a terrorist act. Every life taken by US & coalition forces, directly or indirectly in Yemen/Syria/Libya/Afghanistan/Iraq/Somalia, etc, in undeclared War & breach of a nation States sovereignty, is a terrorist act.
The Battle of Algiers: 1966 Film Depicting Algerian War of Independence Against French Occupation – Parallels Brutal U.S. Occupation of Iraq
This is an excerpt of The Battle of Algiers. This is a scene of a press conference where the Algerian resistance fighter, Ben M’Hidi, is answering questions from reporters.
REPORTER: Mr. Ben M’Hidi, isn’t it a filthy thing to use women’s baskets to carry explosives for killing people?
LARBI BEN M’HIDI: Doesn’t it seem even filthier to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, wreaking even greater havoc? It would be better if we, too, had planes. Give me the bombers, and you can have the baskets.
REPORTER: Mr. Ben M’Hidi, in your opinion, does the FLN still have some chance of defeating the French army?
LARBI BEN M’HIDI: The FLN has more possibility of beating the French forces than they have of stopping history.
Aerial bombs as deadly as suicide bombers [what an understatement …]
“It is a predictable consequence of using this type of weapon,” says study author Michael Spagat of the Royal Holloway, University of London. “Once you understand that, you can’t completely say this is unintentional, in that it is understood that this is going to happen.”
Another scene a little later in the movie with the colonel from the French paratroopers holding a news conference with reporters.
REPORTER: Colonel Mathieu, the spokesman of the resident minister, Gorlin, states that Ben M’Hidi hung himself in his cell, tearing up his shirt to make a rope which he tied to the bars of the window. In an earlier statement that same spokesman said that because the prisoner said he would escape on the first possible occasion, it was thought advisable to keep him permanently bound hand and foot. According to you, Colonel, is a man in this condition capable of ripping up a shirt, making a rope and tying it to the window bars?
COLONEL MATHIEU: You should ask the spokesman about that. I didn’t make the statements. From my part, I appreciated Ben M’Hidi’s moral strength, intelligence and the way he stuck to his ideals. And so, even though I recognize that he was dangerous, I pay homage to his memory.
REPORTER: Colonel, there’s been talk recently of the para’s successes and of the methods they said to use. Could you say something on this?
COLONEL MATHIEU: The successes result from these methods. The one presupposes the other.
REPORTER: I feel that being excessively careful, my colleagues keep asking roundabout questions to which you can only reply in a roundabout way. It would be better to call a spade a spade. If it’s torture, let’s speak of torture.
COLONEL MATHIEU: I understand. You have no questions?
REPORTER: The questions have been asked. We would like the answers.
COLONEL MATHIEU: Let us be exact. The word “torture” does not appear in our orders. We ask questions as in any police operation against an unknown gang. The FLN asks its members to keep silent for 24 hours if they are captured. Then they can talk. That’s the time required to render any information useless. How should we question suspects? Like the courts and take a few months over it? The legal way has its drawbacks. Is it legal to blow up public places? When he asked Ben M’Hidi, what did he say?
Believe me, it’s a vicious circle. We could talk for hours without reaching a conclusion. The problem is quite different. The FLN wants to kick us out of Algeria. And we want to stay. Even though we have different ideas, I think we all want to stay. When the rebellion started, there were no nuances. All the papers, even those of the left, wanted it suffocated. We’re here for that. We are neither mad nor sadists. They call us fascists. They forget what we did in the resistance. They say Nazis, but some of us survived Buchenwald. We are soldiers. Our duty is to win; thus, to be quite clear, I’ll ask you a question myself: Must France stay in Algeria? If the answer is still “yes,” you must accept all that this entails.
Fundamentally, until people come to understand that the application of lethal force by a conventional military, simply because they may wear a uniform, etc, does not exempt that use of lethal force from the Geneva Conventions, International Law, Sovereign State rights, nor the Laws of War … and therefore reject such State funded/sanctioned/ordered terrorism/barbarism, the Global War on Terra,, will continue …
My 2c is up
Posted by: Outraged | Feb 5 2017 7:08 utc | 82
|
