USA Thwarts Israeli Attack on Iran: President Obama slams Ehud Barak

In two carefully coordinated events, the USA put an end to Israel’s plan to attack Iran. On March 28, 2012, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak publicly praised himself and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta: “The decision [to cancel the attack] was the result of contacts between the [Israeli] Defense Ministry and the Pentagon.” At that moment, the poker game between the USA, Israel and Iran came to an abrupt end. There was no winner, but one loser: Israel.About a week ago, I published Obama Bluffs Netanyahu, just after President Obama’s video appeal to the Iranian people on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. He told them that there was “no reason for the United States and Iran to be divided from one another.” This was a sharp deviation from the belligerent Israeli-American discourse in recent months. Moreover, it was a clear end to Netanyahu’s desire to force the USA into attacking Iran (see Netanyahu Wags the Dog). “Netanyahu needs a war with Iran. The only way Netanyahu could prevent a deal between the USA and Iran is by attacking Iran before an agreement is signed, or by performing a false flag attack on American soil. Obama bluffed Netanyahu,” I summarized the event.

UN Security Council “Slicing Syria”?

Today, March 27, 2012, the Syrian government announced that it accepts the six-point peace plan proposed by the United Nations and Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan (former UN Secretary General). The plan calls for a…

Attacking Iran through fabrication

A report published in The Sunday Times on March 25 suggests that “Israel is using a permanent base in Iraqi Kurdistan to launch cross-border intelligence missions in an attempt to find ‘smoking gun’ evidence that Iran is…

In Palestine: Dying for Justice

On March 20, Hana’s 34th hunger strike day began. The previous day, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) said she’s in imminent danger of dying.  After examining her, its doctor “determined that she must be hospitalized…

Obama Bluffs Netanyahu: A New Cold War?

Is the poker game between USA, Iran and Israel nearing its end? I wish I could say something smart about poker; that would be the perfect opening for an article on the ongoing poker game…

Murder Which Happens Every Day in Afghanistan Is Not an Anomaly in War

The war in Afghanistan—where the enemy is elusive and rarely seen, where the cultural and linguistic disconnect makes every trip outside the wire a visit to hostile territory, where it is clear that you are losing despite the vast industrial killing machine at your disposal—feeds the culture of atrocity. The fear and stress, the anger and hatred, reduce all Afghans to the enemy, and this includes women, children and the elderly. Civilians and combatants merge into one detested nameless, faceless mass. The psychological leap to murder is short. And murder happens every day in Afghanistan. It happens in drone strikes, artillery bombardments, airstrikes, missile attacks and the withering suppressing fire unleashed in villages from belt-fed machine guns.