The Iran war, fictional or real?
Posted by Charles II on September 13, 2007
An important piece of evidence in support of the prospect of war with Iran has been discredited. (Via Atrios), Will Bunch and Laura Rozen demonstrate that a key source for some of the reports of a US buildup to war, Alexis Debat, may have falsified his resume and apparently invented interviews (this now confirmed) with top figures, like Alan Greenspan and Barack Obama. Debat was the primary source for a Sunday Times piece by Sarah Baxter claiming that the US was planning massive strikes on Iran.
So, does this mean that the report of a buildup to war with Iran was a huge scam, put out through Murdoch media? Certainly, the exposure of a Stephen Glass/Judy Miller hybrid in the ranks of the press raises questions and requires that we trace back through the sources of Plesch and Butcher, the primary source on which I have relied in opining that the US was intent on making war on Iran.
Plesch and Butcher did not rely on the Baxter Sunday Times article of September 2nd, and their primary reliance on Murdoch media seems to have been reports that Israel (not the US) would strike Iran. Some of the Murdoch media I spotted are these (readers, please add any that you spot):
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65 (raids were being planned by Israel on Arak, Natanz and Isfahan, and that these might include nuclear weapons) Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran Uzi Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah Baxter, Washington, The Sunday Times, January 07, 2007.
69 (Israel has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran) Uzi Mahnaimi, Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant, the Sunday Times, March 13, 2005.
71 (members of Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s commando force, are also said by Western military experts to have carried out covert reconnaissance operations inside the Western Iraqi desert.)Ian Cobain and Stephen Farrell, Israeli special forces join ‘secret front’ in Jordan, London Times, 3 March 2003.
72 (Israel’s special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites )Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, Nato may help US airstrikes on Iran, The Sunday Times, March 5, 2006.
75 (Mr Straw, speaking on BBC1′s Sunday AM Programme, stressed that the UK would not launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran, adding that he was as “certain as he could be” that neither would the US.) Daily Telegraph, Straw: Iran Attack Nuts, 10/4/2007.
76 (the recent speech to the Council on Foreign Relations by Brown protégé, Douglas Alexander, and by Mark Mallach Brown have only heightened worries in Washington that Brown will be much less supportive of the Bush agenda than his predecessor.) See for example the stories at http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007May10/0,4670,BushBlair,00.html, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/05/09/do0902.xml, and http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2013359.ece .
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Plesch and Butcher’s primary reliance for sources that US was planning strikes against Iran apparently were Bush Administration statements and government documents, as well as General Wesley Clark, Seymour Hersh, and Scott Ritter. Therefore, their thesis remains largely intact.
In summary, the reasons to believe that the US is planning to strike Iran include these:
- Bellicose rhetoric and contingency planning for war by the Bush Administration, as well as clumsy attempts to invent a causus belli.
- The presence of a recklessly large fraction of the US Navy in the Persian Gulf, which in itself endangers national security.
- Reports by Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter that the US is engaged in proxy warfare in Iran, as well as participation of US Special Forces and overflights of Iran by the USAF.
- An anonymous report, cited by Robert Fisk, of a spike of military activity in North Carolina (which he attributes to a likely attack on Pakistan).
- A reported strike by Israel against Iranian ally Syria.
(There are many other things alleged, but I regard these as speculative).
My opinion is as follows:
- Bushco would like to have a war with Iran
- Bushco would like Iran to provide a pretext for war
- Bushco has positioned everything it needs for a war
- Bushco has engaged in extreme provocations
- The longer that war is delayed by focusing scrutiny and raising public awareness of the behavior of the Administration, the less likely actual war is
- The Murdoch media are being used to stir the pot, but the push toward war is real
Bottom line: the risks of regional or even worldwide war consequent to an attack on Iran are too large to ignore. Despite the exposure of Debat as a fabulist, contact Congress and tell them No More War.
Update: See comments for JPost/FOX News attempt to stir war by alleging US plan to attack.
10 Responses to “The Iran war, fictional or real?”
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Charles said
More Murdoch media war talk here
“The [Fox News] report stated that the attack would be comprised of two main strategies: cutting off the Iranian gas supply, which the US hopes would pressure the Iranian people towards action against their government, and an aerial bombing campaign, which would be meant to paralyze Iranian defenses and allow American bombers to destroy the nuclear facilities.”
MEC said
How can we take seriously a news source that uses “comprise” incorrectly?
Dan said
Scott Ritter a main source? OK, I guess it’s legit then.
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20030122-091722-8355r
Charles said
MEC, I hereby confess to using that despised formulation and furthermore that I intend to continue to use it, even in the face of your sniffs.
From the Merriam Webster online dictionary on AOL:
“3 : COMPOSE , CONSTITUTE
usage Although it has been in use since the late 18th century, sense 3 is still attacked as wrong. Why it has been singled out is not clear, but until comparatively recent times it was found chiefly in scientific or technical writing rather than belles lettres. Our current evidence shows a slight shift in usage: sense 3 is somewhat more frequent in recent literary use than the earlier senses. You should be aware, however, that if you use sense 3 you may be subject to criticism for doing so, and you may want to choose a safer synonym such as compose or make up.”
It’s a guy thing.
Charles said
Very cute, Dan. Use a matter that is basically under seal and that never led to a conviction to smear a Marine.
Typical f—–g Republican.
MEC said
I have no objection to the intended meaning of “comprise” in that news report. But the correct syntax is “the attack would comprise two main strategies”, not “would be comprised of”.
Charles said
I’m sorry, MEC, a bit of my post was deleted in the course of removing a bad tag. Merriam Webster provides the following examples to illustrate the usage:
“a misconception as to what comprises a literary generation” –William Styron and
“about eight percent of our military forces are comprised of women” –Jimmy Carter
Over time, “comprise” has come to mean two mutually exclusive things: “to form in combination” (some new thing) or to “to be formed by combination of” (two or more different things).
You can look it up. :-)
Phoenix Woman said
Uh-oh! Grammar wars! (grabs blankie and pillow))
And What Charles Said about Dan. (Of course, what Dan won’t say is that if there were anything to the charges, Ritter would be in prison now alongside Philip Giordano. And another thing Dan won’t say is how interesting it is that this matter involving Ritter never was touched on by FOX News and the Moonie-owned UPI until AFTER he started going after Bush. So long as he attacked Clinton, he was an honored guest on all the TV talk shows and nobody tried to use anything in his past against him.
Paul Krugman describes this phenomenon quite well: It’s safe to attack Democrats, because the corporate money doesn’t like most Democrats. But attack a Republican, and the snarling Dobermans of the authoritarian right will stop at nothing to destroy your good name.
Surveillance Bill said
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.GoreVidalGore Vidal
Stormcrow said
God alone know who owns congresscheck.com. The domain name is registered through GoDaddy, by an outfit called DomainsByProxy.com. These guys are in the business of proxy domain registration, which means pretty much what you’re thinking it means.
But the fact that congresscheck.com is in the habit of recycling Kurt Nimmo’s pieces from conspiracy theory heaven over at http://www.infowars.com, is not a good sign.