NoW UPDATES: DROP YER COCKS AND GRAB YER SOCKS!

 

THEY SAY A WEEK IN POLITICS is a very long time, and these past couple of weeks have certainly shown there is a lot of truth in that old chestnut. The recent drama in the Middle East seems like it’s been going on forever, and what everyone feared might happen finally came to pass when the maniacs in Tel Aviv launched missile and drone barrages into Iran ostensibly to cripple Iran’s nuclear research capabilities, but it’s plain to see Israel’s goal is, and has always been, regime change in the predominately Shia Muslim country of ninety million.

The unprovoked, June 13 attacks by Israel targeting Iranian missile defenses, military installations, defense industries and assassinations of high-ranking army personnel and nuclear scientists occurred while Iran and the United States were in negotiations to work out an agreement on Iran’s civilian-only nuclear power system that everyone could live with. In fact, Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, was to meet with Iranian officials the next day. Since then, both sides have been lobbing drones, ballistic and cruise missiles against the other in a tit-for-tat arrangement.*

The Americans entered negotiations to resolve issues around Iran's nascent  nuclear power generation system which would include indigenous nuclear fuel enrichment capabilities, something the Iranians saw as their legal right under the international   NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) of which Iran is a signatory in good standing. This, however, was bug-a-boo for both the Americans and the Israelis who felt Iran would secretly enrich uranium to levels where the radioactive fuel could be used to make a nuclear bomb, despite assessments from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) on-site inspectors in Iran, and from American intel agencies, even Israel’s Mossad, all concurring that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapons program. Just last March, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, testified before Congress that Iran was not working on a nuclear bomb.

IN REALITY, the June 13 attacks fulfilled a decades-long desire by Israel to take out their chief rival for dominance in the region. Some commentators even suggest that the talks with Iran, begun shortly after Donald Trump became president, were a smoke screen, that the negotiations were a façade to lull Iran into a false sense of security so Israel could launch a surprise, “decapitation” strike. It’s hard  to disagree, given that President Trump, instead of being furious with the Israelis for disrupting his peace talks, praised PM Netanyahu, saying he’d known of the impending operation. The next several days saw calibrated attacks and counterattacks on military and civilian infrastructure between Iran and Israel until a week later when the other shoe dropped. 

 

IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of Saturday, June 21, American heavy bombers and submarines launched cruise missiles striking three Iranian nuclear facilities including the large, underground “Fordow” laboratories. On Friday, the American emperor president said he would take “two weeks, within two weeks” to decide whether or not to use American forces against Iran directly. And, again, it’s hard to see his pronouncement as anything other than another subterfuge, masking the launch of B-2 heavy bombers loaded with fourteen 30,000 lbs. GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) munitions, the next day. Incidentally, planning for the sortie was begun during the Biden administration, so hardliners in the U.S long had their eye on Iran’s nuclear sites. It is still too early to assess the damage from Saturday’s attacks, but there is evidence that the plants had been largely evacuated. According to the IAEA, which has staff monitoring, there does not appear to be any radioactivity released after bombardments by Israeli and American aircraft, which suggests either the enriched uranium had been removed or that the strikes were largely ineffective in damaging the facilities located deep underground.

Talks between Tehran and Washington have been suspended until the attacks against Iran stop.

 

👍HOLD THE PRESSES! I hope you won't get whiplash with all these rapidly changing events, but a ceasefire has just been brokered by the American president between Israel and Iran. Both sides almost immediately accused the other of infractions to the deal hammered out in the early hours of Tuesday morning, June 24, but President Trump apparently read PM Netanyahu the 'riot act', prompting Israeli jets to turn around before they attacked Tehran. That's good news. 😂 

 

SOME TAKEAWAYS from this overall foreign policy FUBAR are:

👉Donald Trump, the “peace” President, has just started (and perhaps ended?) another Middle Eastern war (bombing Iran). Regardless of what happens, he ‘owns’ it. Like he owns Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon and Syria and any other country Israel decides to invade with its arsenal of American-made weapons and political 'cover'.  He came into office with a mandate to end foreign wars. So far, it’s “Promise (not) kept!” Ukraine's still on fire [He owns that, too. Ed.] Iran's starting to boil, and Gaza is dying. And his supporters are beginning to notice.

👉Attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities is a sure way to incentivize Iran to develop a nuclear weapon as a deterrence against just such invasions. (And, to make the Israelis think twice before using nukes against them.)⁺

👉Air bombings, the only realistic intervention America can muster against Iran,  will not ensure regime change, or even conclusively eliminate Iran’s nuclear laboratories. By the way, under international law it is illegal to attack nuclear sites. But when did legal niceties ever stop Tel Aviv? Or Washington, for that matter.

👉If it comes down to a war of attrition between Iran and Israel, Iran has the advantage in terms of withstanding a prolonged siege. Israel, not so much.

👉The ceasefire brokered on Tuesday suggests a couple of things:

The American air strikes on three Iranian nuclear installations may have been for show. A bit of theatre. Why do I say this? Recall that in the days leading up to bombings, fleets of trucks were seen at the installations, suggesting critical machinery and nuclear fuel were taken and hidden elsewhere. The Iranians even said the sites had been emptied of critical material and personnel. Recall last summer when Iran launched its first wave of drone and missile attacks against Israel in response to Israeli targeted attacks on Iranian military personnel and diplomats. The Iranians 'telegraphed' the time and routes of their counterattack so the majority of drones and missiles could be taken out by Israel's "Iron Dome" defense grid. A couple of missiles reached their targets. Point made: We can hurt you if we want; now it's time to deescalate. 

A SIMILAR CASE can be made for this summer's American bombings of Iranian nuclear sites. The Americans saying, in effect: we can hurt you, so stop attacking Israel and agree to a ceasefire. Done and done. This also suggests that Israel could not effect regime change in Iran or destroy its nuclear program without U.S. assistance. Hence the kabuki  theatre of "destroying" a (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. 

👉A final point suggesting the events of the last few days was theatre and face-saving demonstrations was Iran's so-called 'counterattack' in response to America's 'attack' on its nuclear installations. The Iranians lobbed a few missiles into an American base in Qatar, across the Persian Gulf. "No significant damage" or injuries. They blew up some sand, but point made. You hit us, we hit you. A nothing burger of a counterstrike when Iran could have flattened the Qatari base. Done and done. Now the ceasefire.

  

INCIDENTALLY, the reason Iran enriched uranium in their plants to 60% of weapons-grade¹  in the first place was to use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States to gain relief from sanctions that had been imposed on the country for years. Let's see if there are discussions down the road whereby Iran gives up its enriched uranium  cache for sanctions relief.

 

IT'S A WIN-WIN-WIN SCENARIO  for the United States, Iran and Israel: The U.S. can crow about its superior military might and the efficacy of its 'big stick' diplomacy; Iran can gain a path forward to establishing a civilian nuclear power industry and gain sanctions relief; Israel can claim to have eliminated the threat of a future Iranian "bomb" [Even though what it really wants is to destroy Iran as a functioning state. Ed.] And for now, Israeli aggression is muzzled at least with respect to Iran.

Please folks, take the wins!

 

Cheers, Jake. _____________________________________ 

 

* The barrages have inflicted damage on both sides, but the question is whether Israel can stick it out in the long run, given Iran’s size, both in terms of land mass and population. Israel is a small country. Targets there are closely spaced and difficult to camouflage. Needless to say, Israel is experiencing unprecedented levels of damage to its cities and infrastructure. [Ain't karma  a bitch! Ed.] 

 

+ IT'S BEEN OVER TWENTY MONTHS since Israel’s genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip began, and Palestinians there are still being starved and murdered, dozens every day, as they are corralled into the southern city of Rafah where the so-called ‘humanitarian’ aid organization, the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation, which has been roundly condemned by the UN and other legitimate aid organizations as a cruel “weaponization” of aid relief run by armed mercenaries using inadequate food distribution networks whose "aid centres" are venues for daily massacres by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). Iran has not wavered in its support of the Palestinian people. Their plight remains the moral issue of our time. War crimes are committed there daily, and in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and now with Israel’s maniacal wars in Lebanon, Syria, and now Iran.

 

👉TWO REASONS Israel gets away with this illegal and depraved behaviour is because the United States backs it, in the UNSC for example, vetoing UN sanctions against the apartheid state. They, literally, get away with murder!

The second reason is: Israel has nukes, an estimated cache of 90 to 200 warheads. Israel has never declared it's nuclear  weapons program and is not a signatory to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) unlike Tehran which is a signatory. If Israel cannot deter Iran’s daily drone and missile attacks, which have continued unabated since June 14, and if the country's stability is in question, there is a possibility,  some say probability, it will use nuclear weapons. [See above update: "Hold the Presses.] It may also target Iran’s deep underground nuclear facilities with nukes. And if  the Israeli nuclear arsenal is unleashed, then all of us are crossing the Rubicon, whether we want to or not. 

 

1. Uranium has to be enriched to 90% purity to make a Bomb.