Probably God alone can connect these dots, but the number of dots is rising rapidly. It’s beginning to look like there’s a thinly veiled, increasingly violent, global cloak-and-dagger game afoot that New York Times columnist Roger Cohen describes – in mostly approving tones – as the “doctrine of silence.” Cohen does have legal reservations, but also wonders whether there won’t be “repayment in kind” for the attacks on Iran.
But the presumption that repayment will be “in kind,” that there won’t be larger consequences strikes me as both dangerously optimistic and questionable strategy. It almost certainly violates the fundamental Clausewitzian principle: understand the nature of the conflict. We’re fixated on the Iranian nuclear program while the Tehran regime has its eyes on the real prize: the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East.
War with Iran | The Weekly Standard
Posted by Matt
on November 30, 2011 [Subscribe Here]
We’re gonna have to take what comes now. We sat around watching when we knew they were developing these weapons. We just brushed it off as Iranian theocrats announced that they would wipe out Israel and the West.
Now we have an unavoidable issue to deal with. I don’t see that we have a choice at this point.
The British have just ordered the immediate closure of the Iranian Embassy in London. They have 48 hours to go make love elsewhere.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8925954/Britain-orders-closure-of-Iran-embassy.html
The British Embassy in Tehran is now closed and diplomats are getting out of Iran.
Germany has just told their ambassador to Iran to get out.
Turkey is upping sanctions and most EU countries are calling in Iranian diplomats for talks.
It’s Getting hot out there pretty quickly.
Throw in Ahmadinewackjob’s claim that the 12th imam will return before the end of his term (2012) and it’s definitely not looking good.
Attacking Iran is the stupidest thing they could do if its peace they want (not).
Nevermind the barrages of missiles that will rain down in Israel and allied bases in the area as reprisal, once Russian nationals numbering in tens of thousands of citizens come under fire in Iran, thats it, you have forced a Russian response, similar to war in South Assetia. Israel should think very carefully how a victory could be possible when one salvo from a Russian ship would erase the state of Israel forever. Clearly in Syria they are ready to draw the lines as well, but in Iran, be it a fake elections or not, the people will demand war if it is waged on Russians in Iran.
And why would Israel or Nato or any country wish to test Russian resolve. These arent humanitarian wars, this is world conquest and butchery. Clearly it is Russia and other SCO member states seeking peace, and Nato western allied countries waging global war with no end in sight.
Do not force Russian empire to march across the continent like in days of old to defend the motherland, wich is increasingly put in Nato crosshairs. And do not think for a second a preemtive war could be waged successfully on Russian nuclear forces. Mutual destruction will remain assured under any circumstance.
And what is the cost of NOT attacking Iran?
I guess the cost might be that the warmongers will have to settle for a unipolar world?
I certainly dont think Iran would do anything stupid to invite its own destruction, even if it had 5000 nukes.
Due to the rise of modern liberalism, westerns are mostly incapable of recognizing external threats until is too late.
Stone,
What are Iranian leaders telling us? They are telling us that Iran, Israel and the US should become friends and work to make a better world, right? Or are they broadcasting the destruction of Israel, the US and the western world. Or do they wish to bring back the Mahdi which requires the death of millions of people.
You put your faith in a world that works according to your framework. Anything outside of that framework is rejected.
Having a complacent approach on Iran is tantamount to the mindset that allowed Hitler to rise to power. You saw how that one ended up. Thinking the problem will take care of itself and go away is a fools errand. I will never understand liberals.
But what about the cost of attacking??? You realize Russia may have no choice but to declare war on Nato if its citizens come under attack in Iran Syria Serbia or elsewhere. Even possible Iranian reprisals alone should make war the last thing anyone wants.
And since when is preemptive war acceptable, isnt that exactly what Hitler was doing, making up excuses and reasons to invade and then invading country after country.
Leaving a country alone, withdrawing sanctions and talk of bombing them is not appeasement.
Or maybe you think they should just appease us, and quietly hand over power and territory to the warmongers clammering to bomb them out of existence.
The costs of not attacking are unknown. Irans enemies are the ones waging wars covertly on Iran and bombing numerous countries to death. Iran hasnt attacked anyone, is under embargoes and covert terrorist attacks and is barely even defending itself.
The costs of attacking Iran outweigh any hypothetical need to prevent future catastrophe. Just like in Libya how Ghadafi forces were supposedly gunning down innocent civilians so we sent terrorists to kill 100 times more innocents and bombed the country and military forces into absolute hell on Earth, now they want to bomb and kill innocent Iranians because they might attack us someday.
Propping up this idiotic notion that murderous wars of attrition can be justified in any way is just sick.
Iranians are scared and angry for the hell thats promised them, no way they would ever instigate a confrontation sure to destroy the entire country by attacking anyone. If the propaganda news agencies announces otherwise, rest assured it is another false flag to justify another “humanitarian” war and yet another country will soon-after fall under the hammer of Nato oppression.
Stone,
You are using the modern liberal framework for viewing this situation. That means you feel Iran is not really bad but is just reacting to the west. If the west would just leave it alone then things would get better.
You cannot believe what the Iranian leadership is telling us about their plans because that would shatter your framework. You must ignore anything that doesn’t fit into your framework.
Under the modern conservative framework, Iran has demonstrated that it is bad news. Given a chance Iran will destroy the west and kill millions of people. That is what Iran is telling us. There is no need to ignore anything in this framework.
I’m starting to think that Iran will attack Israel before Israel gets a chance to attack Iran. The attack will happen through it proxies.
Ultimately, Iran will get its nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. That will mean the end of Europe.
Well, I stopped reading Stone’s remarks after he called his own countrymen terrorists in the 9:49 time-stamped post… That’s all I really needed to know. I think it’s much more than a “liberal framework” he has.
If Iran attacks anyone its lights out, you cant get around that, no matter if Iran had 1000 ICBMS, it would always end with Iran completely destroyed. They may even threaten to attack someplace or another but have no intention of launching a preemptive attack. There is no way I can believe Iran or any country would invite there absolutely guaranteed complete destruction by attacking any NATO member-state or Israel
Seriously Matt, do you really believe Iran would committ suicide for all intense and purpose. If they had nukes like North Korea for example… Using them is just not going to happen, they are only a deterrent. You must know that. Iran, DPRK, and Syria know they could be nearly completely destroyed in a matter of hours by Nato ordinance and fighters, they arent just going to up and committ suicide one day and say, here, lets, if were lucky make a few hits and then lose everything overnight.
I keep rereading your reply Matt and i still dont get it. I dont think Im a liberal by the way, dont really like labels, anyway, why on earth would Iran attack anyone like you say? They will definately be bombed like crazy and the entire country will be destroyed, and it might even trigger WW3 and or a greater depression. You dont walk away from a fight with Nato as far as I understand it.
Matt,
First off. Your attitude towards Iran and your blatant belligerent warmongering desires are quite apparent. You need to stop repeating and propagating the lies about Iran and their nuclear weapons program. You mention that they wanted to wipe Israel off the map. That is another lie repeated by the main stream media which you echo.
THE ACTUAL QUOTE:
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in farsi:
“Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.”
That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word “Regime”, pronounced just like the English word with an extra “eh” sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase “rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods” (regime occupying Jerusalem).
So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want “wiped from the map”? The answer is: nothing. That’s because the word “map” was never used. The Persian word for map, “nagsheh”, is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase “wipe out” ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran’s President threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”, despite never having uttered the words “map”, “wipe out” or even “Israel”.
THE PROOF:
The full quote translated directly to English:
“The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.
Word by word translation:
Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).
Here is the full transcript of the speech in farsi, archived on Ahmadinejad’s web site
http://www.president.ir/farsi/ahmadinejad/speeches/1384/aban-84/840804sahyonizm.htm
THE SPEECH AND CONTEXT:
While the false “wiped off the map” extract has been repeated infinitely without verification, Ahmadinejad’s actual speech itself has been almost entirely ignored. Given the importance placed on the ‘map’ comment, it would be sensible to present his words in their full context to get a fuller understanding of his position. In fact, by looking at the entire speech, there is a clear, logical trajectory leading up to his call for a “world without Zionism”. One may disagree with his reasoning, but critical appraisals are infeasible without first knowing what that reasoning is.
In his speech, Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West’s apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the “Zionist regime” was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination ofthe region and its assets. Palestine, he insists, is the frontline of the Islamic world’s struggle with American hegemony, and its fate will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.
Ahmadinejad acknowledges that the removal of America’s powerful grip on the region via the Zionists may seem unimaginable to some, but reminds the audience that, as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books. He then proceeds to list three such regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished, all within the last 30 years:
(1) The Shah of Iran- the U.S. installed monarch
(2) The Soviet Union
(3) Iran’s former arch-enemy, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
In the first and third examples, Ahmadinejad prefaces their mention with Khomeini’s own words foretelling that individual regime’s demise. He concludes by referring to Khomeini’s unfulfilled wish: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise”. This is the passage that has been isolated, twisted and distorted so famously. By measure of comparison, Ahmadinejad would seem to be calling for regime change, not war.
THE ORIGIN:
One may wonder: where did this false interpretation originate? Who is responsible for the translation that has sparked such worldwide controversy? The answer is surprising.
The inflammatory “wiped off the map” quote was first disseminated not by Iran’s enemies, but by Iran itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official propaganda arm, used this phrasing in the English version of some of their news releases covering the World Without Zionism conference. International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and countless others picked up the IRNA quote and made headlines out of it without verifying its accuracy, and rarely referring to the source. Iran’s Foreign Minister soon attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote had a life of its own. Though the IRNA wording was inaccurate and misleading, the media assumed it was true, and besides, it made great copy.
Amid heated wrangling over Iran’s nuclear program, and months of continuous, unfounded accusations against Iran in an attempt to rally support for preemptive strikes against the country, the imperialists had just been handed the perfect raison d’être to invade. To the war hawks, it was a gift from the skies.
It should be noted that in other references to the conference, the IRNA’s translation changed. For instance, “map” was replaced with “earth”. In some articles it was “The Qods occupier regime should be eliminated from the surface of earth”, or the similar “The Qods occupying regime must be eliminated from the surface of earth”. The inconsistency of the IRNA’s translation should be evidence enough of the unreliability of the source, particularly when transcribing their news from Farsi into the English language.
THE REACTION:
The mistranslated “wiped off the map” quote attributed to Iran’s President has been spread worldwide, repeated thousands of times in international media, and prompted the denouncements of numerous world leaders. Virtually every major and minor media outlet has published or broadcast this false statement to the masses. Big news agencies such as The Associated Press and Reuters refer to the misquote, literally, on an almost daily basis.
Following news of Iran’s remark, condemnation was swift. British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed “revulsion” and implied that it might be necessary to attack Iran. U.N. chief Kofi Annan cancelled his scheduled trip to Iran due to the controversy. Ariel Sharon demanded that Iran be expelled from the United Nations for calling for Israel’s destruction. Shimon Peres, more than once, threatened to wipe Iran off the map. More recently, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who has warned that Iran is “preparing another holocaust for the Jewish state” is calling for Ahmadinejad to be tried for war crimes for inciting genocide.
The artificial quote has also been subject to additional alterations. U.S. officials and media often take the liberty of dropping the “map” reference altogether, replacing it with the more acutely threatening phrase “wipe Israel off the face of the earth”. Newspaper and magazine articles dutifully report Ahmadinejad has “called for the destruction of Israel”, as do senior officials in the United States government.
President George W. Bush said the comments represented a “specific threat” to destroy Israel. In a March 2006 speech in Cleveland, Bush vowed he would resort to war to protect Israel from Iran, because, “..the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel.” Former Presidential advisor Richard Clarke told Australian TV that Iran “talks openly about destroying Israel”, and insists, “The President of Iran has said repeatedly that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth”. In an October 2006 interview with Amy Goodman, former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter referred to Ahmadinejad as “the idiot that comes out and says really stupid, vile things, such as, ‘It is the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the earth’ “. The consensus is clear.
Confusing matters further, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pontificates rather than give a direct answer when questioned about the statement, such as in Lally Weymouth’s Washington Post interview in September 2006:
Are you really serious when you say that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth?
We need to look at the scene in the Middle East — 60 years of war, 60 years of displacement, 60 years of conflict, not even a day of peace. Look at the war in Lebanon, the war in Gaza — what are the reasons for these conditions? We need to address and resolve the root problem.
Your suggestion is to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth?
Our suggestion is very clear:… Let the Palestinian people decide their fate in a free and fair referendum, and the result, whatever it is, should be accepted…. The people with no roots there are now ruling the land.
You’ve been quoted as saying that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Is that your belief?
What I have said has made my position clear. If we look at a map of the Middle East from 70 years ago…
So, the answer is yes, you do believe that it should be wiped off the face of the Earth?
Are you asking me yes or no? Is this a test? Do you respect the right to self-determination for the Palestinian nation? Yes or no? Is Palestine, as a nation, considered a nation with the right to live under humane conditions or not? Let’s allow those rights to be enforced for these 5 million displaced people.
The exchange is typical of Ahmadinejad’s interviews with the American media. Predictably, both Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes and CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked if he wants to “wipe Israel off the map”. As usual, the question is thrown back in the reporter’s face with his standard “Don’t the Palestinians have rights?, etc.” retort (which is never directly answered either). Yet he never confirms the “map” comment to be true. This did not prevent Anderson Cooper from referring to earlier portions of his interview after a commercial break and lying, “as he said earlier, he wants Israel wiped off the map”.
Even if every media outlet in the world were to retract the mistranslated quote tomorrow, the major damage has already been done, providing the groundwork for the next phase of disinformation: complete character demonization. Ahmadinejad, we are told, is the next Hitler, a grave threat to world peace who wants to bring about a new Holocaust. According to some detractors, he not only wants to destroy Israel, but after that, he will nuke America, and then Europe! An October 2006 memo titled Words of Hate: Iran’s Escalating Threats released by the powerful Israeli lobby group AIPAC opens with the warning, “Ahmadinejad and other top Iranian leaders are issuing increasingly belligerent statements threatening to destroy the United States, Europe and Israel.” These claims not only fabricate an unsubstantiated threat, but assume far more power than he actually possesses. Alarmists would be better off monitoring the statements of the ultra-conservative Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who holds the most power in Iran.
As Iran’s U.N. Press Officer, M.A. Mohammadi, complained to The Washington Post in a June 2006 letter:
It is not amazing at all, the pick-and-choose approach of highlighting the misinterpreted remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October and ignoring this month’s remarks by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that “We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world, and the world knows it. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any state.”
The Israeli government has milked every drop of the spurious quote to its supposed advantage. In her September 2006 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni accused Iran of working to nuke Israel and bully the world. “They speak proudly and openly of their desire to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’ And now, by their actions, they pursue the weapons to achieve this objective to imperil the region and threaten the world.” Addressing the threat in December, a fervent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert inadvertently disclosed that his country already possesses nuclear weapons: “We have never threatened any nation with annihilation. Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?”
MEDIA IRRESPONSIBILITY:
On December 13, 2006, more than a year after The World Without Zionism conference, two leading Israeli newspapers, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, published reports of a renewed threat from Ahmadinejad. The Jerusalem Post’s headline was Ahmadinejad: Israel will be ‘wiped out’, while Haaretz posted the title Ahmadinejad at Holocaust conference: Israel will ‘soon be wiped out’.
Where did they get their information? It turns out that both papers, like most American and western media, rely heavily on write ups by news wire services such as the Associated Press and Reuters as a source for their articles. Sure enough, their sources are in fact December 12th articles by Reuter’s Paul Hughes [Iran president says Israel's days are numbered], and the AP’s Ali Akbar Dareini [Iran President: Israel Will be wiped out].
The first five paragraphs of the Haaretz article, credited to “Haaretz Service and Agencies”, are plagiarized almost 100% from the first five paragraphs of the Reuters piece. The only difference is that Haaretz changed “the Jewish state” to “Israel” in the second paragraph, otherwise they are identical.
The Jerusalem Post article by Herb Keinon pilfers from both the Reuters and AP stories. Like Haaretz, it uses the following Ahmadinejad quote without attribution: ["Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out," he added]. Another passage apparently relies on an IRNA report:
“The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom,” Ahmadinejad said at Tuesday’s meeting with the conference participants in his offices, according to Iran’s official news agency, IRNA.
He said elections should be held among “Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner.”
Once again, the first sentence above was wholly plagiarized from the AP article. The second sentence was also the same, except “He called for elections” became “He said elections should be held..”.
It gets more interesting.
The quote used in the original AP article and copied in The Jerusalem Post article supposedly derives from the IRNA. If true, this can easily be checked. Care to find out? Go to:
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0612134902101231.htm
There you will discover the actual IRNA quote was:
“As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated”.
Compare this to the alleged IRNA quote reported by the Associated Press:
“The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom”.
In the IRNA’s actual report, the Zionist regime will vanish just as the Soviet Union disappeared. Vanish. Disappear. In the dishonest AP version, the Zionist regime will be “wiped out”. And how will it be wiped out? “The same way the Soviet Union was”. Rather than imply a military threat or escalation in rhetoric, this reference to Russia actually validates the intended meaning of Ahmadinejad’s previous misinterpreted anti-Zionist statements.
What has just been demonstrated is irrefutable proof of media manipulation and propaganda in action. The AP deliberately alters an IRNA quote to sound more threatening. The Israeli media not only repeats the fake quote but also steals the original authors’ words. The unsuspecting public reads this, forms an opinion and supports unnecessary wars of aggression, presented as self defense, based on the misinformation.
This scenario mirrors the kind of false claims that led to the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, a war now widely viewed as a catastrophic mistake. And yet the Bush administration and the compliant corporate media continue to marinate in propaganda and speculation about attacking Iraq’s much larger and more formidable neighbor, Iran. Most of this rests on the unproven assumption that Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the lie that Iran has vowed to physically destroy Israel. Given its scope and potentially disastrous outcome, all this amounts to what is arguably the rumor of the century.
Iran’s President has written two rather philosophical letters to America. In his first letter, he pointed out that “History shows us that oppressive and cruel governments do not survive”. With this statement, Ahmadinejad has also projected the outcome of his own backwards regime, which will likewise “vanish from the page of time”.
Stone,
My general thinking on this issue is that one needs to incorporate all Iranian thinking and actions, and those from Islam too. What does this say in totality? Naturally, not everything points to the death of the west and Israel, but where does the vast majority point? If some of it points to peace and friendship, but the vast majority points to death and destruction, then what is one to believe?
“why on earth would Iran attack anyone like you say?”
What are Iranian leaders telling us? Just listen to what they say. Do you not believe them?
They want to create the chaos necessary to bring back the Mahdi. That means millions, if not billions, of people are going to die. Does this not mean anything to you? Do you not believe this?
Who is going to get taken out?
If they kill 100 million Brazilians, is that going to bring back the Mahdi? No, it has to be a significant power. Naturally, it is going to start with it enemies – the US, Europe and Israel.
Well, Iran won’t attack Europe because of the nuclear response from NATO. Who said that worries them? Maybe it worries you, but you are not Iranian, and you are not a Muslim. The entire nation of Iran will be guaranteed a place in heaven if they die in this attack. Each male will get 70 virgins.
DefconStudios,
You are being clever. I’m pretty sure you could dig up some statements of friendship toward Israel and the west from one or more Iranian leaders. But one must look at the evidence in totality. Also, just because you don’t like the answer doesn’t mean you should discard it.
Am I spreading lies?
Well, I’m sure a lot of people think everything on this website is a lie. It is for you to decide whether you want to believe something on this website. I try to provide the brutal truth on this website. I don’t always succeed, but I try.
In totality, the Iranian regime is moving toward the development of nuclear weapons and missiles with the aim of destroying the west. If you want to cherry pick a few statements here and there that show Iran as a wonderfully peaceful country, then I’m not buying it.
I keep reading that there is no evidence of Iran doing anything – no bomb, no intent and no anything. This thinking is delusional.
Matt,
I’m not the one who believes in an implausible Iranian EMP Threat or an ‘mad’ Iranian leader as you openly state in your comments quite often.
I’m not buying the over exaggerated or overemphasized Iranian threat. If you want to repeat or echo rhetoric that Mainstream media repeats about the pretext for war with Iran then you are free to do so. However you lose credibility there as you simply take on the form of someone who is incapable of independent thinking. If you want to provide the brutal truth then you should start with your comments and your propaganda directed towards Iran specifically.
You are under the false assumption that Politicians stumble into wars. That is an incorrect and fallic statement. They are Puppets and the Framework and Roadmaps for Wars are often laid out well in advance of the build-up to war. Take for example the ’7′ Plan that was initially constructed in CENTCOM documents that date back to the 1990′s. You can research that and hopefully it should shed some additional perspective to you.
The only delusional thinking is that in which the implausible becomes the plausible. Iran is a country which is under constant encirclement just like Russia and China. It also falls under the Anglo-Saxon mission roadmap. It is constantly under the threat of attack. Yet it hasn’t started wars lately or even in recent history which is contrary to NATO or the US. You want to know who will be responsible for World War III well it is NATO. It can also be pre-emptive from SCO/BRICS but Iran does not have nuclear weaponry.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
Aurelius 7,
I was not referring to any of our own countrymen or military forces as terrorists, I was referring to the rebels in Libya that Nato is backing. So when I said we sent terrorists, I meant that we have given them our support and blessing to take the reigns of power in Libya and provided them naval and air support…
Many of the TNC rebels are actually on the US state departments own list of known terrorists, and clearly they have not waged war within Geneva convention boundaries. These are the terrorists I was referring to, not any of our misguided military personnel. And as far as your thinly veiled personal attack on me, I would remind you that I am entitled to my opinion, and welcome further debate on the issues, but not on my own supposed political ideologies, however I certainly did not refer to any of my countrymen as terrorists.
Matt,
My main argument that Iran would not attack any Nato country or Israel because the entire country would be quickly destroyed still makes more sense to me than some kind of suicidal and fruitless attack by Iran ending in there total destruction. That reality cannot be escaped and there is no way the military brass in Iran think otherwise, they know that they can and will be destroyed by Nato within hours of any assault.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=latestNews
Matt
I appreciate that while our views sometimes seem quite divergent you have always treated me respectfully. Your a good man I believe and also quite entitled to your opinions, and yes though I disagree with your summations on many pertinent issues, I value your insight and greatly appreciate the work you do.
Years ago when 1913Intels future was in the air and I wrote for you briefly, it may have appeared that I was backing Russia against Georgia (8/8/08) and it may have seemed questionable where my allegiances stood.
Do I believe Im on the wrong side of history? NO, and I would stand and defend my country even if our leaders cause the wars.
Harper announcing Canadian new sanctions on Iran with Britain and USA spells clearly that WW3 is looming large. Im starting to worry.
Matt can you give us the rundown on the sites you cherry pick for articles? Here is some of the ones I look at.
http://www.debka.com/#
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-A9DBEA71-1054692F/natolive/index.htm
http://www.voltairenet.org/en
http://www.spacewar.com/
http://therealnews.com/t2/
http://tarpley.net/
http://theintelhub.com/
Stone,
You can also add Pakalertpress in addition to Google News and other sources.
Epochtimes , Dailymail , Telegraph and a few others are quite helpful.
Globalresearch is one of my main web-based sources for information outside of web-based sources.
Forgot Economiccollapseblog and Endoftheamericandream