Iran's Master Plan To Retaliate If Israel Strikes, Climate Fascism Another Nail In U.S. Coffin, Monsters Of Ukraine - Made In The U.S.

Iran's Master Plan to Retaliate If Israel Strikes | The National Interest

And what about the prospects of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities? That would be a mistake of unimaginable proportions, according to Secretary Kerry. Asked exactly this question by NBC’s Matt Lauer recently on the Today Show, Kerry was blunt in his warnings. An Israeli military operation on Tehran’s program “would be an enormous mistake,” Kerry said, “a huge mistake with grave consequences for Israel and for the region.”

But how much of a mistake would the military option be? How would Iran respond in the event of Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s nuclear enrichment and research facilities? Would Iranian retaliation really be that devastating to the United States and its allies?

1.  Use Diplomatic Channels at the United Nations

Yet if past history is any guide, the first response from the Iranian Government is likely to be a full-court press at the United Nations against Israel and a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Human Rights Council that Israel’s aggression is a violation of their national sovereignty and a direct infringement of Article 2 in the United Nations Charter.

Using diplomatic channels would be an especially appealing option for President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif—both of whom have devoted their tenure to improving Tehran’s image in the eyes of the world.

A formal Iranian complaint would be dead-on-arrival once it hits the desk of the Security Council, but it would nonetheless serve its intended purpose: demonstrate to the developing world (Russia and China in particular) that the Iranian Government is a responsible power whose sovereignty was targeted by the aggressive actions of another state without sufficient cause. The objective, therefore, is not to actually pass a resolution in favor of Iran, but rather to embarrass Israel and depict it as a belligerent to a wide swath of the global community.

2.  Redoubling support to its proxies

According to a 2013 profile in The New Yorker on Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp-Quds Force, Iran contributed $100 million to Lebanese Hezbollah every year from 2000-2006. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars have been given to the organization since that time — a consistent pool of resources that has permitted Hezbollah to stockpile a conservative estimate of 50,000 missiles in southern Lebanon in preparation for another war with Israel. Tens of millions more have been transferred to Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades since the two began a reconciliation after a falling out over support for the Assad regime

Through improved technology and successful defense research with the United States, Israel has been able to render many of Hamas’ rockets ineffective. Yet even with Israel’s sophisticated anti-missile defense system, it would be difficult to counteract a coordinated attack from Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the west simultaneously. Iran, meanwhile, would still be afforded some small degree of plausible deniability.

3.  You’re welcome, Al-Qaeda

“This [Al-Qaeda] network uses Iran as a critical transit point and operates under an agreement between al-Qa’ida and the Iranian government,” former U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury (and now Deputy CIA Director) David Cohen writes.

Al-Qaeda’s own operatives have confirmed through internal correspondencethat Iran was once thought of as a perfect base to re-establish itself after its expulsion from Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks. While those plans were shelved due to expense, it is not inconceivable that the group would be offered expanded freedom of movement inside Iran...

4. Kidnap more Americans

Even if Israel chose to act alone during a military operation against Tehran’s nuclear program, Iran would likely assume that Washington was involved in some fashion — either through intelligence channels or military enablers. This is why Iranian authorities would likely view the arrest and prosecution of more Americans as justified under the circumstances. The imprisonment of even one additional American in an Iranian detention facility for a lengthy sentence would be a black eye to the United States and would elicit an uproar among members of Congress.

5. Make Afghanistan a living hell

If you think Afghanistan is chaotic today, it can get a lot bloodier if the IRGC-Quds Force increases its covert support to insurgent groups fighting the Afghan national security forces. Whereas Iran and the Taliban were once bitter enemies in the late 1990s (Iran was all but ready to launch military action against the Taliban in 1998 after nine Iranian diplomats were slaughtered by the movement), the two have turned into allies of convenience—if only because both consider the United States to be a major irritant in the region.

Conclusion

However Iran chooses to respond to an Israeli attack on its nuclear program, Khamenei will instruct the IRGC-QF to do its work as discreetly as possible. Any overt missile attack on an American ally in the Arab world — let alone a conventional missile attack on Israel — would prompt the U.S. armed forces to scramble the fighter jets and deploy the aircraft carriers. This is not something Iran wants and a full U.S. military operation is certainly not something that they can afford to confront.

The name of the game for Iran is to maximize the damage on Israeli and U.S. interests without provoking a conventional military assault from both nations that will degrade its military capability and potentially destroy the regime.

Obama’s Climate Fascism Is Another Nail In The Coffin For The U.S. Economy

 On Sunday, we learned that Obama is imposing a nationwide 32 percent carbon dioxide emission reduction from 2005 levels by the year 2030.  When it was first proposed last year, Obama’s plan called for a 30 percent reduction, but the final version is even more dramatic.  

The Obama administration admits that this is going to cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year and that electricity rates for many Americans are going to rise substantially. 

 And what Obama is not telling us is that this plan is going to kill what is left of our coal industry and will destroy countless numbers of American jobs.  The Republicans in Congress hate this plan, state governments across the country hate this plan, and thousands of business owners hate this plan.  But since Barack Obama has decided that this is a good idea, he is imposing it on all of us anyway.

So how can Obama get away with doing this without congressional approval?

Well, he is using the “regulatory power” of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Congress is increasingly becoming irrelevant as federal agencies issue thousands of new rules and regulations each and every year.  The IRS, for example, issues countless numbers of new rules and regulations each year without every consulting Congress.  Government bureaucracy has spun wildly out of control, and most Americans don’t even realize what is happening.

In the last 15 days of 2014 alone, 1,200 new government regulations were published.  We are literally being strangled with red tape, and it has gotten worse year after year no matter which political party has been in power.

These new greenhouse gas regulations are terrible.  The following is a summary of what Obama is now imposing on the entire country…

Last year, the Obama administration proposed the first greenhouse gas limits on existing power plants in U.S. history, triggering a yearlong review and 4 million public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency. In a video posted to Facebook, Obama said he would announce the final rule at a White House event on Monday, calling it the biggest step the U.S. has ever taken on climate change.

The final version imposes stricter carbon dioxide limits on states than was previously expected: a 32 percent cut by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, senior administration officials said. Obama’s proposed version last year called only for a 30 percent cut.

In addition, these new regulations are going to complete Barack Obama’s goal of destroying our coal industry.  In a previous article, I included an excerpt from a recent news article about how some of the largest coal producers in America have just announced that they are declaring bankruptcy…

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the biggest American producer of coking coal, Alpha Natural Resources, could file for bankruptcy as soon as Monday.

Competitor Walter Energy filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, and several others have done the same this year.

He promised to kill the coal industry, and he is well on the way to accomplishing that goal.

Of course Hillary Clinton thinks that this is a splendid idea.  She called Obama’s plan “the floor, not the ceiling”, and she is pledging to do even more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The following comes from the Washington Post…

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Sunday that if elected she will build on a new White House clean-energy program and defend it against those she called “Republican doubters and defeatists.”

And you know what?

The climate control freaks will never be satisfied.  Since just about all human activity affects the climate in some way, they will eventually demand control over virtually everything that we do in the name of “saving the planet”.  That is why I call it “climate fascism” – in the end it is all about control.

During the month of September, the Pope is going to travel to the United Nations to give a major speech to kick off the conference at which the UN’s new sustainable development agenda will be launched.  As I have documented previously, this new agenda does not just cover greenhouse gas emissions and the environment.  It also addresses areas such as economics, agriculture, education and gender equality.  It has been called “Agenda 21 on steroids”, and it is basically a blueprint for governing the entire planet.

Unfortunately, that is ultimately what the elite want.

They want to micromanage the lives of every, man, woman and child on the globe.

Obama climate change plan to eliminate jobs, raise electric bills, analysts say - Washington Times

Energy Power Grab

Monsters Of Ukraine: Made In The USA | Zero Hedge

Remember Ukraine? I seem to recall blaring headlines about a supposedly “imminent” and “massive” Russian invasion of that country: the Anglo-Saxon media was ablaze with a veritable countdown to D-Day and we were treated to ominous sightings of Russian troops and tanks gathering at the border, allegedly just awaiting the order from Putin to take Kiev. And it turns out there has been an invasion, of sorts – although it isn’t a Russian one. It’s the Kiev regime’s own foot-soldiers returning from the front and turning on their masters.

The war is going badly for the government of oligarch Petro Poroshenko. The east Ukrainians, who rose in revolt after the US-sponsored coup threw out democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych, show no signs of giving up: they’ve repulsed the “anti-terrorist” campaign launched by Kiev, withstanding relentless bombardment of their cities and enduring many thousands of casualties, not to mention widespread destruction. Indeed, the brutal protracted war waged by Kiev against its own “citizens” has arguably steeled the rebels’ resolve and made any thought of reconciliation unthinkable.

As is usual with violent fanatics, the war aims of the Kiev coup leaders – to bring the eastern provinces back into the fold – have been rendered impossible by their methods and conduct. The de facto blockade imposed on the east has bound the separatists all the more tightly to Russia, and so economics as well as searing hatred of a government the easterners regard as “fascist” has sealed the country’s fate.

Unable to crack the rebels’ resolve, the “revolutionaries” who once gathered in the Maidan have begun to turn on each other. Poroshenko, fearful of the rising power of the far-right militias who make up the backbone of his makeshift army, has ordered their dissolution – and the rightists are resisting.

Mired in debt, and rapidly sinking into an economic abyss, Ukraine is literally coming apart at the seams – and the ugly underside of the Maiden “revolution” is being exposed to the light of day.The most recent atrocity is the uncovering of a torture chamber used by members of the “Tornado” Battalion, another far-right grouping, in which militia members kidnapped, tortured, raped, and robbedcitizens in the eastern Luhansk region, where the government is fighting to retain some modicum of control. Eight members of the Tornado militia were recently arrested and are being held by military prosecutors in Kiev: the Tornado “volunteers,” who mostly consist of ex-convicts, defend their actions by claiming that this is just retaliation because they uncovered a smuggling operation run by local officials – who, they say, are collaborating with the rebels. They initially refused to lay down their arms and barricaded themselves into their camp.

Yes, your tax dollars are going to arm, train, and feed neo-Nazis in Ukraine. That’s what we bought into when Washington decided to launch a regime change operation in that bedraggled corner of southeastern Europe. Your money is also going to prop up the country’s war-stricken economy – albeit not before corrupt government officials rake their cut off the top.

Dmytro Korchynsky, who heads a group of several far-right “volunteers” gathered together in “St. Mary’s Battalion,” declares his goal of organizing a “Christian Taliban” that will put Ukraine in the forefront of an effort to “lead the crusades,” adding: “ Our mission is not only to kick out the occupiers, but also revenge. Moscow must burn.”

That’s a goal American neocons and their liberal enablers can get behind, but Korchynsky’s invocation of the Taliban ought to make the rest of us step back from that precipice. For it was the US, in the throes of the last cold war, that coalesced, funded, trained, and armed what later became the Afghan Taliban – and we all know where that road led.

Once again, in our endless search for foreign monsters to destroy, we’re creating yet more foreign monsters who will provide the next excuse for future crusades. It’s a perpetual motion machine of foreign policy madness – and the War Party likes it that way.

‘So-called progress': U.S. admits ISIL is just as strong as when bombing campaign began a year ago | National Post

Almost a year after the United States began its multi-billion-dollar military campaign to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the jihadist group shows no signs of weakening, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Its hold on social media and flow of oil revenue means it can draw on a steady stream of recruits and has held almost all its territory, despite losing 10,000 fighters. It has managed to expand into new theatres in Libya, Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and Afghanistan.

“We’ve seen no meaningful degradation in their numbers,” a defence official said, citing estimates that put the group’s strength at 20,000 to 30,000 fighters, the same as when the strikes began last August.

Jessica Stern, a Harvard expert on terrorism and the co-author of Isis: The State of Terror, said the group remained attractive to foreign and local recruits, stemming their losses.

The assessments will be a bitter blow to an administration that has tried to talk up success in Syria and Iraq and suggested ISIL was losing ground. Their military strategy relies on an aerial bombing campaign and a much-derided effort to train local fighters.

While the Pentagon trumpets the number of sorties flown by the U.S.-led coalition since Aug. 8 last year – almost 20,000, at a cost of about U.S.$10 million a day – and the number of targets destroyed – almost 8,000 – analysts say it could still take a decade to drive ISIL from its safe haven.

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