Attacking Iran

Gardiner, who taught at the U.S. Army’s National War College, has previously suggested that U.S. forces were already on the ground in Iran. Today he added several additional new points:

1) The House Committee on Emerging Threats recently called on State and Defense Department officials to testify on whether U.S. forces were in Iran. The officials didn't come to the hearing.

2) "We have learned from Time magazine today that some U.S. naval forces had been alerted for deployment. That is a major step."

3) "The plan has gone to the White House. That's not normal planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we’ve gone to a different state."

"And he who found death in the holy fight
Rests in the fatherland even on foreign soil"
(German First World War poster)

The Cheney-Bush administration, after nearly six years of treating even our closest allies with contempt, doesn't have countries pounding on our door to help us with this war, either: Chirac's shift may end Iran unity by William Horsley BBC News 09/18/06. Horsely reports:

France's President Jacques Chirac appears to have eased the world's political pressure on Iran over its suspect nuclear programme.

In a radio interview before departing for the UN General Assembly session in New York, Mr Chirac said: "I am never in favour of sanctions."

He called Iran "a great nation", and suggested that in the course of future talks the six leading nations now engaged with Iran on the nuclear dossier would renounce the threat of UN sanctions and Iran would renounce uranium enrichment.

Chirac as student




No, Chirac isn't exactly bubbling over with affection for the Cheney-Bush government these days: Chirac hits at Sarkozy over pro-US stance by Martin Arnold Financial Times 09/18/06.

Chirac as President

Arnold reports:

Jacques Chirac, France’s president, on Monday exposed deep ideological divisions at the top of the French government by rebuking Nicolas Sarkozy, his rebellious interior minister and likely successor, for toeing an overly pro-US line.

Mr Chirac also set up another possible clash with the US over the Middle East by urging the UN Security Council to scale down its threat of sanctions against Iran, ahead of Tuesday’s General Assembly meeting in New York.

The French president, widely expected to step down next year, is thought to be furious about Mr Sarkozy's speech in Washington last week, when the interior minister criticised France's "arrogance" in its relations with the US.

Mr Sarkozy struck at the heart of Mr Chirac's foreign policy legacy by suggesting Paris went too far in 2003 by threatening to use its UN veto to block a US-led invasion of Iraq. (my emphasis)

Iran's Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei used the occasion of the Pope's foolish comments on Islam to ramp up the religious rhetoric against the US and Israel.

Juan Cole describes it in Khamenei's Conspiracy Theory Links Pope to Bush's Crusade Informed Comment blog 09/19/06. He writes:

[Khamenei said in his speech that] regretted that the Pope had leant aid and comfort to the policies of arrogant, hegemonic powers that wish to create religious turmoil, cause religious leaders to differ, and prevent the cooperation of religious communities and leaders.

He alleged that America wishes to sow mistrust and hatred between Muslims and Christians, to distort the image of Muslim minorities in the West, and to create a pretext of protecting itself from terrorism in order to oppress Muslim societies.

He accused the Pope of having, by his remarks, aided these policies. He said that the Pope had been deceived, and did not realize where his remarks would lead.

Khamenei recalled a conversation with a European some years ago in which the Westerner spoke of a coming war between Christians and Muslims. Khamenei says he was amazed. "But when the towers in New York came down, and the president of the American Republic spoke of a Crusade, and then when the American-Zionist project of attacking Iraq began, the meaning of the words of that European, which entered directly into the Iraq war, became perfectly clear."

He described the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, dismissive remarks about Islam by prominent Western politicians, and remarks in American and European newspapers, as part of a series of actions in a broader American-Zionist conspiracy against Islam.

He added, "We don't have any expectations of Bush, since he works for powers and global munitions corporations." But, he said, for a respected spiritual source such as the Pope to make such comments is highly disappointing.

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