by Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
"The Bush administration is planning to carry out air strikes against Iran by August and two U.S. Senators have already been briefed on the attack according to a report in the highly respected Asia Times, which cites a former assistant secretary of state and U.S. career diplomat as its source.
Muhammad Cohen's article claims that Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, were informed of the attack plan and planned to voice their opposition to it in a New York Times editorial in an attempt to offset the air strike. The editorial is yet to materialize.
According to Cohen' source, the Neo-Cons believe that they can perpetrate a "limited" air strike aimed more at sending a message than destroying Iran's supposed nuclear program, but the consequences of such a move are likely to provoke a massive Iranian retaliation, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has consistently warned.
The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.
Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.
The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region.
The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.
Speculating on whether such a strike will benefit either McCain or Obama on the eve of the presidential election, the report points out that McCain has built his candidacy around an aggressive foreign policy therefore would be the likelier to take advantage.
"A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain," states the article.
"On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is."
Iran's inevitable response would send oil prices skyrocketing towards $200 dollars a barrel as global instability threatened to boil over into numerous different regions in the aftermath of any attack. McCain's ability to grandstand as a tough war leader would no doubt be amplified by a compliant corporate media and a sizable proportion of the American public would rally behind the Arizona Senator, especially if American interests were the subject of terrorist attacks on behalf of Hezbollah and Hamas.
China's response to any attack, with the Communist nation being Iran's biggest customer for oil, would also be key. Any inkling of a hostile reaction would place the world under the greatest threat since the height of the cold war.
Lugar and Feinstein's public opposition to the plan "would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan," states the article but, "Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration's plan or their knowledge of it."
The impending invasion of Iran has been on the grapevine for the past three summers running and many are beginning to fear that the "boy who cried wolf" mentality is starting to discredit those who repeatedly warn of the coming attack. However, rhetoric has notably heated in the past few months.
During Bush's recent visit to Israel, an Israeli official claimed that a senior member in Bush's entourage had stated in a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had resolved to attack Iran before they left office.
During a recent news conference at Israel's parliament, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House majority leader Steny Hoyer stated that the military option against Iran was still on the table.
Prominent political figures such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Gary Hart have warned that an attack on Iran won't arrive absent a staged provocation or a new Gulf of Tonkin style incident.
During a 2007 Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting, Brzezinski alluded to the potential for the Bush administration to manufacture a false flag Gulf of Tonkin type incident in describing a "plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran," which would revolve around "some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
In an open letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former Senator and current CFR member Hart warned the Iranian President that he would be, "Well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964," two false flag events manufactured by the U.S. itself to kick start a war."
