Also See: Part I: Obama Continues Bush’s Iran Policy
The Coming War Against Iran
The battle against Iran has already begun. War is only one phase of this process – just as it was with Iraq. The preparation is the most important part of the battle. Whoever thought that the preparation for war ended when Barack Obama took office is advised to take note of the views of critical thinker Noam Chomsky in the previous installment of this DeepJournal series. He says that Obama’s policy on Iran is a continuation of the policy of his predecessor, President Bush.
Anyone who cares to look at the facts will see that he is right.
Earlier this week the Sunday Herald wrote that the U.S. has shipped hundreds of powerful so-called bunker buster bombs from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean ‘in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’. The newspaper writes: ‘Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons’. One of the experts consulted is Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on US preparations for an attack on Iran. He says: ‘They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran’. Plesch adds: ‘The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely’. The shipment ‘includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs’.
According to another newspaper, the shipment was intended for Israel, but delivery of the weapons was delayed in order to put pressure on the Israeli government. Plesch hits the nail on the head when he says that America ‘is using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions’. Because no matter what, the ultimate destination for the explosives seems to be Iran.
Obama Preserves Bush Program to Undermine Iran
But Iran is actually already finding itself under fire. This is clear from revelations made by two employees of the National Security Council during the Bush Administration. They write in the New York Times about a large-scale program that was started under George W. Bush, and in quiet was kept alive by President Obama. It’s a program worth approximately 400 million dollars that is intended to undermine the Iranian regime with among other things terrorist acts, many of which have already taken place in Iran.
The program was dealt a blow recently when the terrorist Abdolmalek Rigi was arrested. Rigi was the leader of the Jundullah terrorist organization. Rigi’s brother, likewise a member of Jundullah, was arrested earlier. The BBC writes: ‘Jundullah has launched several deadly attacks in recent years in the south-east of Iran in protest at the discrimination of Sunni minorities in Iran. The attacks include the killing of six senior commanders of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard in October’. Iranian commandos forced the plane that Rigi was flying in to land in Iran. Rigi later said on Iranian television that he was en route to a meeting at an American base in Kyrgyzstan with ‘a high-ranking person’. Rigi also said: ‘The Americans said… that we don’t have a problem with al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but the problem is Iran and we don’t have a military programme against Iran. […] They [Americans] promised to help us and they said that they would co-operate with us, free our prisoners and would give us [Jundullah] military equipment, bombs, machine guns, and they would give us a base’. The self-explanatory denial from the U.S. raises the question as to whether Rigi told the truth or whether his statements came as a result of (the threat of) torture.
In reference to Rigi’s arrest, the press agency AFP writes: ‘Iran says Jundallah receives backing from the intelligence services of Pakistan, Britain and the United States, a charge those countries strenuously deny’. This is not the best possible way to reflect reality. The report could have mentioned that an investigation by ABC News found that Jundullah was being financially supported by the U.S. ABC News writes: ‘[…] the United States has supported and encouraged an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, that has conducted deadly raids inside Iran […]’.
AFP could have also quoted former CIA agent Phil Giraldi. Or Selig S. Harrison. Harrison writes in Le Monde Diplomatique about the ‘well-established US ties with Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The ISI channelled weapons and money to an already established Iranian Baluch dissident group, Jundullah (Soldiers of God), which inflicted heavy casualties in raids on Iranian Revolutionary Guard units in Zahedan and southeast Iran in 2006 and 2007. The US made no effort to hide its support for Jundullah. On 2 April 2007, Voice of America radio interviewed its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, introducing him as “the leader of the popular resistance movement of Iran.”‘
Harrison writes: ‘Several of my Baluch contacts recently provided detailed proof of Rigi’s ISI ties’. Famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersch also wrote about Jundullah in connection with the increasing ‘secret moves against Iran’ in 2008. And about another terrorist organization sponsored by the U.S. – the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK).
Preparatory Struggle for the ‘Hearts and Minds’
Terrorist attacks carried out in Iran under contract for the U.S. are part of a broad palette of actions aimed at regime change in Tehran. The palette consists of, among other things, attacks, military preparations, the support of the Iranian opposition, sanctions, diplomatic pressure, ‘threats, constant, verbal, actual’ – which Chomsky talks about in part 31 of this series – the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (see part 33) and the never-ending stream of reports in the media that keep Iran at the top of the agenda, which has worked to convince seven out of every ten Americans that Iran has nuclear weapons, according to a CNN poll<>.
These are all elements of the fight against Iran, an island in a sea of American interests. The biggest fight of them all is for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the public.
Daan De Wit currently works at the NOS Journaal, Dutch tv news, website, is the programmer and interviewer for Docs at the Docks, a monthly series of evenings with critical journalistic documentaries, interviews and performing arts, and the author of De Volgende Oorlog The Next War – The Attack on Iran – A Preview.
Translated by Ben Kearney
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy