Iran and the Coming War

War is coming.  Perhaps Ron Paul could avert it if he were elected. But its a big if, and a long shot.   His economic policies will, I believe, throw the country into a deep depression.  But, it would be better than losing a huge world war, and then having the depression.  Unfortunately, it appears that  our current officials are doing everything in their power to start one.  Perhaps the powers that be think that they have to move now before it is too late.  They didn’t imagine that the ‘third world’ after the fall of the ‘second world’, with Russia and China in the lead would develop so much economic and military strength as quickly as they have.  But now they see the writing on the wall.   They even have supply routes into South America.  It is already too late.

But can they let go of their dream of total power?  The dream is hubris.  It is megalomania.  It is toxic. However, it  is propagated through the population of this country, and indeed has been promoted throughout the world for decades, as a kind of glamor, backed up by the big stick of a new world war with nukes, and now robotic weapons.  Freedom, justice and prosperity backed up by the arsenal from Hell.    While we watch the Arab world burn in the name of  freedom, justice and democracy, and the EU collapse under the weight of the banking cartels, unable to save themselves from the obligations they took on in the name of peace and prosperity, Russia, China, India are growing stronger and more confident.  Most of South America has set boundaries and begun a regional project to assert their independence and bring prosperity to the majority of the people.

It’s over.   The awful truth is known throughout the world.  The reality is an occasional, accidental reflection of justice in a world powered by freedom for those with the desire and the resources to take it, and prosperity for a few at the expense of the many.   I don’t like to use the terminology of class because I think it is patronizing and demeaning to those who just happen to have taken birth in circumstances of poverty and ignorance, and deforms the understanding of those who were born in better circumstances.  No ‘class’ can take power without tipping the balance and turning the wheel that leads to another formulation of the same dilemma.  Only in a world with no classes can  justice and prosperity flower, leading to the kinds of personal and civil freedoms that people crave.

I just read William Blum’s “Rogue Sate, A Guide to the World’s Only Super Power“.   The first paragraph of his introduction takes us to the heart of the human resistance to giving up our ideal world and seeing the naked and painful truth.  He says”

“This book could be entitled: Serial chain-saw baby killers and the women who love them.

The women don’t really believe that their beloved would do such a thing, even if they’re shown a severed limb or a headless torso.  Or if they believe it, they know down to their bone marrow that lover-boy really had the best of intentions; it must have been some kind of very unfortunate accident, a well-meaning blunder; in fact, even more likely, it was an act of humanitarianism.”

Towards the end of the book, Blum talks about how people in other countries, even those most ferociously attacked by the US total dominance machine, often see us through the rose tinted lens of freedom,  justice and prosperity, all unfolding from predatory trade and the power to cast the deciding vote on any issue.  Oh the joys of hegemony!   Often, these people are sorely disappointed when they test the freedom and justice of the great American dream.   Blum mentions Ho Chi Minh and Chairman Mao as admirers of the American system, who only wanted acceptance.   Che Guevara sent a note to the American President offering to negotiate a peaceful understanding for Cuba, Hitler repeatedly opened his hand to Americans, who were, after all, funding much of his militarization up until 1942 or so.   Iranian Presidents Rafsanjani, Khatami and Ahmadinejad all reached out to the Great Satan in an attempt to find a place for their country in the New World Order.  But, it wasn’t meant to be.

Muamar Qaddhafi’s son was welcomed in Western schools.   On his return, Saif al Islam advised his father to lay down his sword and join the world created by the Western Powers.   Bashar al Assad, also schooled in London, with a British wife, also showed admiration for Western Culture.  Now Muamar Qaddhafi is dead along with several of his sons, Saif al Islam is awaiting a kangaroo trial and their country, long the most prosperous and egalitarian in the region, is in ruins.   Bashar al Assad in embattled, with a host of international angels fomenting a revolution in his country.  They are saying, “step down, or we will destroy your homeland.”  Yet it is clear that if he does step down, his country will most likely be destroyed anyway.   What did he do?  He came to New York to plead his case, and was interviewed on mainstream television.  What did he hope to achieve?  Russian warships are now docked at their Syrian port in Tartus, and the US carrier fleet has been moved from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.  Representatives of the undemocratic, often brutal,  regimes of the Arab League are coming to observe.

Yesterday the US army stepped out of Iraq with much fanfare.   The war has been won.  Iraq, with devastating physical and emotional wounds, over a million dead and millions more displaced, many living in Syria which appears to be the next target, is finally free.   But few Iraqis have any illusions about that ‘chain-saw baby killer’.  People complained that the Iraqis could hardly be sovereign without control of their airspace.  So, they’ll be getting a few F-16s.  Great.  If there is a war, and their neighbors on both sides are attacked, what do you think they will do with them?   I suppose it’s a non-issue.  US forces have been removed to Kuwait and distributed in and along the Persian Gulf.

A couple of days into freedom, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, issued an arrest warrant VP, Tariq al Hashemi.  He has accused him of Terrorism, and cited him for running  a lethal militia during the war.    The Iraqiya parliamentarians, who could have formed an opposition block when al Maliki cobbled together a Shia majority to form the Government but were too proud to play their delegated role, were given a pass by their US sponsors.  They got an empty special status, just enough power to bring the government to a standstill.  Now they have withdrawn from the government and are boycotting parliament.   Too much . . . too little . . . too late. . . .    Al Hashemi is cooling his jets in President Uncle Jalal’s Kurdish refuge, the Prime Minister is demanding his return, and the Sadrists are calling for the dissolution of the Parliament and new elections.  Democracy is unfolding.  Meanwhile Iran has high level Ambassadors advising both the President and the Prime Minister in an attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Our drones are no longer a secret.    The US and Israel no longer have a virtual monopoly on the technology.   China has been working on Drones for some time now.  Russia is building a fleet of Drones.   Iran managed to capture a Global Hawk surveillance Drone hovering 144 miles inside their border last week.   What an uproar!  They are triumphant.  Whoo Hooooo!   Gotcha!  Mark one up for our side.  Yep.  Iran says they were able to take over the Drone and land it.   The US says the Iranians could not be capable of interfering with the sophisticated technology of the Global Hawk.   In fact, the US says they aren’t capable of shooting it down.   It must have failed on it’s own.  Hmmmm.  Here we have the most dangerous country in the world, capable of developing a nuclear warhead and a missile to carry it without being caught and without using any of the uranium we know they are enriching (materializing it out of thin air?).  Yet these are the people who aren’t even capable of shooting down the Global Hawk, much less taking over a control system based on Windows CE,  the most insecure operating system on the planet, continually  subverted by viruses and trojans dispensed onto the internet by rogue computers in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, oops, I mean Serbia, or is that Kosovo.

According to Debka, an Israeli site that focuses on covert information, military analysis and  conspiracy theories, the Russians assisted the Iranians in creating the technology to bring the Drone down.  Maybe.   Iran is a central member of the SCO, though it cannot have full membership in the SCO because there is a rule saying you can’t have full membership if you are under United Nations Sanctions.   But, behind the scenes, they have functioned as a core member of the organization for some time.  It seems likely, given the level of Iran’s participation in the SCO, that what this means is, “You have been targeted by some very dangerous people, and we can’t help you by putting ourselves in the cross-hairs.  Instead, we will keep our relationship covert, but if you really need us, we are your family.”   Any way you look at it, Russia and China had representatives on their way to Tehran the day after the Drone landed.

The Iranians say that they will build a drone just like the captured Global Hawk.  Americans say they are too incompetent to reverse engineer the technology.  In fact, this is all posturing, and the arguments are a distraction.  The Global Hawk has our latest and greatest radar shield technology to make it invisible.  If they managed to take control to bring it down, there is either some serious espionage involved (from Russia, maybe) or there have been lots of similar Drones flying over Iran for a long time, so as to give them lots of opportunities to evaluate the technology through some kind of scientific testing over a significant set of data.  Or maybe the technology just isn’t as great as we thought it was.  After all, how good does it need to be to fool Taliban warlords and Al Qaeda Jihadis.

Any way you look at it, what it means is we no long have a cloaking device.   That’s why they are saying the GH could not have been captured or shot down.   Maybe it will be in their interest to copy it, but once someone learns to look through your cloaking device, you can’t cloak any more.   If they (the Iranians, the Russians or the Chinese) understand our technology well enough to see a  cloaked Drone, take it over and and pull it from the sky, then we have to make some serious changes in the security of the system.  If they don’t already understand  it (Whoooo Hooooo!), then they now have an opportunity to reverse engineer it.    Russia and China, and even Iran already have Drones of their own, so why not?   Yes, drones aren’t nuclear science.  They are cheap and accessible.  Yes, there is something about saving face.  Bottom line, having your latest and greatest cloaking technology fail in Klingon territory could be an ugly expensive problem.

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Recently , there have been numerous  ‘conspiracy theories’ going around about Iran making trouble in South America.  Perhaps that is the root of the US Government conspiracy theory wherein an  absent minded drug addicted, used car salesman with a drinking problem, is selected by the IRGC to arrange a hit on the Saudi Ambassador to the US with the evil Mexican Drug Cartel.   Now they have a Hezbollah story to go with it.   The story goes something like this: Hezbollah is getting rich by purchasing cocaine from Columbia, shipping it to Europe via West Africa, then laundering the money through a particular bank in Beirut.  The project is managed by a rich Lebanese trader and  the Mexican Drug Cartel.  They launder the money by mixing it with the proceeds from the sale of used car sales from America in Africa.    That’s a whole lot of shipping.   And what about that messed up Iranian guy selling used cars and . . .  Well, see how consistent they are?

A friend called recently to say there’s a story going around about Iran sending military trainers to countries in South America. Is it true?  Well, I don’t know, but it seems like overkill to me.   What do the South Americans need with Iranian military trainers?  We have been providing them with military training and supplying their military resources off and on for more than a century.  I read an article that implied Iran is ‘infiltrating’ South America by trading there.   Very paranoid.  What are they up to?   It would seem clear that Iran is operating on the same wavelength as some of these South American Countries, newly emancipated from US backed dictatorships and ready for regional collaboration.   It is pretty obvious that a country like Iran, under severe sanctions from the western power brokers, would trade whomever is a willing partner.   Iran has plenty of reasons to do business with South America.    Why assume subversion?

The article in question proceeded to drag out all the old complaints about Iran helping Hezbollah kill Americans during the Lebanese Civil War.  There was a war going on,  What where we expecting the Lebanese to do? It talked about Iran killing off humanitarians in Europe after the revolution, distasteful actions but not out of line with those of certain other world powers, removing enemies of the state from the international scene.  These actions were entirely focused on Iranian internal affairs.      The author wondered why Argentina would trade with Iran after they manipulated Hezbollah into blowing up a Jewish Community Center there, a crime which Iran  and even Hezbollah had no  motive to commit, though there was a corrupt Lebanese President who did have both motive and opportunity.   Nothing mentioned was current or relevant.

But I do think there is something behind all those conspiracy theories about Iran in South America.  It has nothing to do with the old stories or Iran training military forces for Hugo Chavez.    Russia and China are constantly antagonized by US actions on their borders.  But they do not have access to the American continent.  They can’t set up bases  or point short range missile defense systems at us from just over the border.   Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis which almost started a nuclear war.   But, Iran belongs in South America.  It’s just another uppity little third world country trying to stay afloat without the support of the Western Masters of the Universe.   But, Iran is a central player in the SCO, though it is not a full member of the SCO.  Iran has deniability.    Iran doesn’t have significant military hardware to sell.    They are the guys who are just over 20 years out of a devastating war, and who don’t want to fight another.

I don’t think Russia and China want war either.  They just want to build economic power.   However they have an imperative to get some kind of toehold on the American Continent.   It’s survival for them, just as trading with somebody somewhere is survival for Iran.   Iran is just a convenient messenger.  They don’t need to do much, either.  Just keep the lines open, for now.  As a peace activist,  I almost feel guilty mentioning this angle.   But really, if I have thought of it, those paranoid war mongers in Washington must have seen it as well.   It makes a lot more sense to be worried about the barest whisper of an advantage for one’s real adversary than some crazy scheme that pits an incompetent moron against a heavily guarded diplomat.  And it makes more sense than some crazy get rich scheme that requires both drugs and used cars to be transported half way around the world on ships.