Iran’s war games could force U.S. into aggression, oil price

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John Baird: Iran's threat is real, not rhetoric
john baird
Special to Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 7:28AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 2:34PM EST
Though we often disagree, I have always found Gerald Caplan to be an entertaining political pundit. That said, I have never met Mr. Caplan, and I wouldn’t presume to know whom he consults or the evidence he considers in forming his political opinions.

Apparently Mr. Caplan has no such inhibitions. His recent article (“Harper and the U.S. are wrong on the Iran threat”), which minimized the threat posed by a nuclear Iran, begins with a list of prominent Israeli security and intelligence experts that, he assured his readers, the Prime Minister and I are “unlikely [to] have ever heard of.”

Mr. Caplan returns to this theme at the end of his article, wondering rhetorically: “Is John Baird meeting with [Meir Dagan] this weekend to learn why? Don’t bet on it.” Here’s a tip: don’t go to Vegas with Gerald Caplan. If Mr. Caplan had bothered to pick up the phone and ask me if I had heard of Meir Dagan or Amos Yadlin, I would have told him that not only have I heard of them, I reached out to them weeks ago to ensure they could attend a discussion of the Iranian situation while I am in Tel Aviv this week.

It’s a peculiar taunt, as Mr. Caplan had to know that, as Foreign Minister, I would be privy to a broad range of opinions and expert advice on an issue as fraught as Middle East security. Or does his disdain for those with whom he disagrees extend so far that he cannot imagine they are not merely wrong, in his opinion, but also ignorant and lazy? Perhaps it does, as Mr. Caplan later dismisses Canada’s entire foreign policy as “spin notes and sound bites.”

It might come as a surprise to Mr. Caplan that Liberal MP Irwin Cotler and I frequently discuss the problem posed by a nuclear Iran, and his counsel amounts to much more than “spin notes and sound bites.”.....................http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le2320643/

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Israel: Iran's Nuclear Arms Program Is Complete, Its Missiles Can Reach US
http://www.debka.com/article/21700/

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Former DEA Chief: Hezbollah Eyeing Southwest Border, ‘Hell to Pay in the Not Too Distant Future’
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/former- ... ant-future

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Iran Supreme Leader: U.S., Israel Will Suffer for Threats on Nuke Program
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... m-1.410875

'Certain Countries' Could Take Iran Nuclear Matter into Their Own Hands, U.K. Official
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... s-1.410828

Handwriting on the Wall: Lessons from Daniel Chapter 5 on Future of America and Coming Middle East War
http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2 ... ddle-east/

Ahmadinejad Calls for New World Order
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/224457.html

US Concerned Iran Aiding Al Qaeda
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02 ... -al-qaeda/

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How Iran Could Win a War Against Israel and the United States in One Hour
http://johngaltfla.com/wordpress/2012/0 ... -one-hour/

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Henry Kissinger: "If You Can't Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf"
http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/index.php?news=3089

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USS Enterprise Holding Drills To Attack Made Up 'Faux Theocracy' Shahida States And 'Pesky Garnetians'
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/uss-enter ... garnetians

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Obama Freezes Iranian Government, Bank Assets in U.S.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0 ... -u-s-.html

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Iran threatens to attack any country that assists 'enemies'
http://rt.com/news/iran-warning-neighbor-countries-543/

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Attack on Iran would be ‘suicidal’ for U.S.: ambassador

Reuters Feb 8, 2012 – 8:17 AM ET
Iran is capable of hitting U.S. military forces around the world if attacked by the United States, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted the Iranian ambassador to Moscow as saying on Wednesday.

The United States has imposed sanctions, targeting Iran’s central bank and giving U.S. banks new powers to freeze Iranian government assets, which tighten international measures aimed at forcing the Islamic Republic to scrap sensitive nuclear work.

Interfax said the Iranian ambassador, Seyyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi, had told a news conference in Moscow that the United States would be making a mistake if it carried out a military strike on Iran, although Washington has announced no such plans..............http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/08 ... mbassador/

[Dogpatch]

h/t Eye on a Crazy Planet

Israel and Iran on the Eve of Destruction in a New Six-Day War
Feb 6, 2012 12:00 AM EST

There are plenty of arguments against an Israeli attack on Iran. And all of them are bad.

Jerusalem—It probably felt a bit like this in the months before the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel launched its hugely successful preemptive strike against Egypt and its allies. Forty-five years later, the little country that is the most easterly outpost of Western civilization has Iran in its sights.

There are five reasons (I am told) why Israel should not attack Iran:

1. The Iranians would retaliate with great fury, closing the Strait of Hormuz and unleashing the dogs of terror in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq.

2. The entire region would be set ablaze by irate Muslims; the Arab Spring would turn into a frigid Islamist winter.

3. The world economy would be dealt a death blow in the form of higher oil prices.

4. The Iranian regime would be strengthened, having been attacked by the Zionists its propaganda so regularly vilifies.

5. A nuclear-armed Iran is nothing to worry about. States actually become more risk-averse once they acquire nuclear weapons.

I am here to tell you that these arguments are wrong.

Let’s take them one by one.

The threat of Iranian retaliation. The Iranians will very likely be facing not one, not two, but three U.S. aircraft carriers. Two are already in the Persian Gulf: CVN 72 Abraham Lincoln and CVN 70 Carl Vinson. A third, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush, is said to be on its way from Norfolk, Va.

Yes, I know President Obama is a noble and saintly man of peace who uses unmanned drones only to assassinate America’s foes in unprecedented numbers after wrestling with his conscience for anything up to ... 10 seconds.

But picture the scene once described to me by a four-star general. It is not the proverbial 3 a.m. but 11 p.m. in the White House (7 a.m. in Israel). The phone rings.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Mr. President, we have reliable intelligence that the Israeli Air Force is in the air and within an hour of striking suspected nuclear facilities in Iran.

POTUS: Damn. What should I do?

CJCS: Mr. President, I want to recommend that you provide the Israelis with all necessary support to limit the effectiveness of Iranian retaliation.

POTUS: But those [expletives deleted] never ran this past me. They went behind my back, goddammit.

CJCS: Yes, sir.

POTUS: Why the hell should I lift a finger to help them?

CJCS: Because if the Iranians close the Strait of Hormuz, we will see oil above $200 a barrel.

POTUS [after a pause]: Just a moment. [Whispers] How am I doing in Florida?

David Axelrod [also whispering]: Your numbers suck.

POTUS: OK, General, line up those bunker busters.

The eruption of the entire Muslim world. All the crocodiles of Africa could not equal the fake tears that will be shed by the Sunni powers of the region if Iran’s nuclear ambitions are checked.

The double-dip recession. Oil prices are on the way down thanks to concerted efforts of Europe’s leaders to reenact the Great Depression. An Israel-Iran war would push them up, but the Saudis stand ready to pump out additional supplies to limit the size of the spike.

The theocracy’s new legitimacy. Please send me a list of all the regimes of the past 60 years that have survived such military humiliation. Saddam Hussein’s survival of Gulf War I is the only case I can think of—and we got him the second time around.

The responsible nuclear Iran. Wait. We’re supposed to believe that a revolutionary Shiite theocracy is overnight going to become a sober, calculating disciple of the realist school of diplomacy ... because it has finally acquired weapons of mass destruction? Presumably this would be in the same way that, if German scientists had developed an atomic bomb as quickly as the Manhattan Project, the Second World War would have ended with a negotiated settlement brokered by the League of Nations.

The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war against Iran. It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Tehran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever. We would have acquiesced in the creation of an empire of extortion.

War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don’t yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all.

It feels like the eve of some creative destruction.
Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, has just been published by Penguin Press.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... y-war.html

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Russia and the United States: Pushing Tensions to the Limit?
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/russia ... ions-limit

Former General Says Russia Will Not Allow Israel-U.S. Attack On Iran and Syria VIDEO
http://www.infowars.com/video-former-ge ... and-syria/

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U.S. and Israel Split on Speed of Iran Threat
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/world ... -iran.html

Israel Teams With Terror Group to Kill Iran's Nuclear Scientists, U.S. Officials
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2 ... l-nbc-news

Iran Says Can Hit U.S. Interests Worldwide If Attacked
http://news.yahoo.com/iran-could-hit-u- ... 38932.html

Israel and Iran's Nuke Sites
http://www.khouse.org/enews_article/2012/1893/

Russia Maps Rebel Forces for Assad
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/libra ... osti01.htm

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Expect $200 Oil Prices & $6 At The Pump as Iran Is Now A Full-Blown Crisis
http://etfdailynews.com/2012/02/08/expe ... x-dvn-cop/

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Robert Fisk: An attack on Tehran would be madness. So don't rule it out
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 58872.html