Ever since Israel attacked without warning Iran the question on many world leaders' lips has been could or, perhaps more aptly, when will the USA get directly involved? The truth is the United States, along with the so-called United Kingdom, have been involved for many years as the largest suppliers of arms to the Israeli state. The bombs which have fallen on Gaza killing countless Palestinian civilians would in all likelihood have come from the USA, UK or both. The same in Lebanon, an independent nation state who sit along with 192 member states who make up the United Nations. The bombs which fell, on more than one occasion, on Beirut again in all likelihood would have originated in one of the two aforementioned countries. The US have been involved by being Israel’s largest weapons supplier for many years and under various Presidents. However, and despite all the weaponry supplied to the Zionist country by the USA, they have not armed them with their GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator or ‘Bunker Buster’ which can penetrate up to 60 meters down through rock. These bombs could and did hit Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility sites buried underground, the deepest being at Forodo about 100 miles south of the Iranian capital, Tehran. These sites are buried in underground workable bunkers, not dissimilar to those used by the Nazis to safeguard against bombing by the allies, and were thought by the Iranians to be bomb proof. In many respects the Iranian’s were right as only the US possess such a bomb capable of destroying sites so deeply buried.
Trump has been playing ‘cat and mouse’ over whether he would get involved on Israel’s side in the war raging in the Middle-East or not. He suggested within the next “two weeks” he would decide as these decisions “cannot be rushed”. The world's media danced to this schizophrenics tune giving him much coverage as the ‘man of peace’. The truth is, this nutter came to power having promised to be a “man of peace”. As Paul Cunningham pointed out on RTE’s One O’clock News on Sunday 22nd June; “don’t forget less than a year ago Donald Trump went to the people saying he was a ‘man of peace’ and was elected”.
Trump has been playing ‘cat and mouse’ over whether he would get involved on Israel’s side in the war raging in the Middle-East or not. He suggested within the next “two weeks” he would decide as these decisions “cannot be rushed”. The world's media danced to this schizophrenics tune giving him much coverage as the ‘man of peace’. The truth is, this nutter came to power having promised to be a “man of peace”. As Paul Cunningham pointed out on RTE’s One O’clock News on Sunday 22nd June; “don’t forget less than a year ago Donald Trump went to the people saying he was a ‘man of peace’ and was elected”.
This statement to a gullible electorate is not dissimilar to the words Hitler said about “peace” prior to the 1933 election in Germany when the Nazi Party gathered much support but still fell short of a majority. The rest was done by tricks and later in the year Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg. Like Trump, Hitler ranted about being a peace-loving man and “all Germany wanted is peace but to be peace loving you must be strong” and then, September 1939, he invaded Poland after he had annexed Austria and rampaged through Czechoslovakia. Trump has been harping on about peace and how he can “bring it about” and then, like Hitler, does the opposite. Before his election Trump maintained he could “stop the war in the Ukraine within 24 hours” and, as we know, that conflict still rages. There is another way of looking at why Trump bombed Iran and could that be as a warning to Vladimir Putin who appears to have been taking the piss out of Trump in recent weeks? Could the Protista in the White House have had enough of the Archaea in the Kremlin running rings around him? Did Trump decide it’s time to show Putin what the US are capable of and Iran seemed the theatre to demonstrate their military might?
Either way this precision (for once accurate) attack by the US has crippled Iran’s nuclear capability. On the balance of probability I am not sorry to see that because if the Iranian equally looney leaders ever get their hands on an atomic bomb, then all fucking hell could be let lose. They would probably find some religious pretext to use an atomic bomb along the lines it is the will of Allah or other such nonsense to use the deadly device. All religious people and groups, of all shades, Christianity (all sects and denominations), Hindu, Islam, Judea, and many other of the planets religious groups tend to find a theological reason in their rule book, Bible, Koran etc for doing something amounting to lunacy! It is bad enough nuclear bombs exist at all let alone in the hands of religious fanatics. It is dangerous enough with people like the unstable Trump and Putin having the power over life and death of the world’s populations. Whether Trump did this to remind Putin of the military capability of the USA or not the fact is Iran’s nuclear capability has been severely hampered if they did have eyes on nuclear weapons which the country’s leadership solidly deny!
British Conservative MP, Tom Tugendhat a former Minister of State for Security, said not surprisingly on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the BBCs Sunday Politics Show, “the US were right to bomb Iran’s nuclear facility” suggesting the evidence is there to give concern to the fact they are building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, claimed with equal justification “it is a re-run of the 2003 weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” people might remember no such weapons existed. In the case of Iran there is evidence to suggest Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, is heading to acquire such a weapon. The major question of the Iranian regime is; why did they increase enrichment of uranium to 83% according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is close to the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. To use as a fuel and peaceful purposes the uranium needs to be enriched to just 3% so why did Iran need such a high level of enrichment? Why was the facility buried under a mountain? The only reason for this, certainly in the past, is to ensure what is being built there cannot be bombed and destroyed no doubt with Israel in mind. The Nazis used this method with much success to protect their secret weapons projects using slave labour. Nobody is suggesting Iran uses slave labour but concerns about the burying of the facility so far underneath a mountain and enriching uranium so close to the 90% needed to build a nuclear bomb must cause concern. There are reasons, not great ones but nevertheless reasons brought about by Trump himself, why the Iranians may have taken this avenue.
Donald Trump won the 2016 US Presidential Election entering the White House January 2017 and one of the first things he said was to announce his intention to pull the USA out of the nuclear deal with Iran. Just over one year later Trump did just that. Former President, Barak Obama, had been instrumental in this deal which limited the level of enrichment of uranium the Iranians could produce. ‘The agreement included a series of provisions describing actions that Iran would undertake for specified years of time’. Over a time of 13 years, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low enriched uranium by 93%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges. In return Iran could free up billions of dollars in oil revenue as sanctions would be eased giving the country much needed income. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) known as the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’ which the US announced its intention to withdraw from on 8th May 2018 as French President, Emmanuel Macron, warned Trump not to withdraw from the deal and told German magazine Der Spiegel that doing so “would open the Pandoras box. There could be war”. It was the USA who pulled out of this deal, not Iran, and no matter what opinions may be held of the country’s political leadership they did appear to be honouring the deal. Now, as predicted by Macron, “war” has erupted far beyond the massacring of Palestinian civilians by the Israelis. It could be reasonably argued if the US had not pulled out of the JCPOA this situation may not have arisen or escalated to this level?
British Conservative MP, Tom Tugendhat a former Minister of State for Security, said not surprisingly on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the BBCs Sunday Politics Show, “the US were right to bomb Iran’s nuclear facility” suggesting the evidence is there to give concern to the fact they are building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, claimed with equal justification “it is a re-run of the 2003 weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” people might remember no such weapons existed. In the case of Iran there is evidence to suggest Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, is heading to acquire such a weapon. The major question of the Iranian regime is; why did they increase enrichment of uranium to 83% according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is close to the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. To use as a fuel and peaceful purposes the uranium needs to be enriched to just 3% so why did Iran need such a high level of enrichment? Why was the facility buried under a mountain? The only reason for this, certainly in the past, is to ensure what is being built there cannot be bombed and destroyed no doubt with Israel in mind. The Nazis used this method with much success to protect their secret weapons projects using slave labour. Nobody is suggesting Iran uses slave labour but concerns about the burying of the facility so far underneath a mountain and enriching uranium so close to the 90% needed to build a nuclear bomb must cause concern. There are reasons, not great ones but nevertheless reasons brought about by Trump himself, why the Iranians may have taken this avenue.
Donald Trump won the 2016 US Presidential Election entering the White House January 2017 and one of the first things he said was to announce his intention to pull the USA out of the nuclear deal with Iran. Just over one year later Trump did just that. Former President, Barak Obama, had been instrumental in this deal which limited the level of enrichment of uranium the Iranians could produce. ‘The agreement included a series of provisions describing actions that Iran would undertake for specified years of time’. Over a time of 13 years, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low enriched uranium by 93%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges. In return Iran could free up billions of dollars in oil revenue as sanctions would be eased giving the country much needed income. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) known as the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’ which the US announced its intention to withdraw from on 8th May 2018 as French President, Emmanuel Macron, warned Trump not to withdraw from the deal and told German magazine Der Spiegel that doing so “would open the Pandoras box. There could be war”. It was the USA who pulled out of this deal, not Iran, and no matter what opinions may be held of the country’s political leadership they did appear to be honouring the deal. Now, as predicted by Macron, “war” has erupted far beyond the massacring of Palestinian civilians by the Israelis. It could be reasonably argued if the US had not pulled out of the JCPOA this situation may not have arisen or escalated to this level?
There could be another perfectly legitimate reason why Iran buried their facility deep under a mountain and that may have been, while the JCPOA was still in place, to ensure their domestic supply to provide the country with energy could not be bombed by Israel! Could the reason for this deep interment have been to protect their domestic non-fossil fuel supply and source of energy? We hear much of Iran’s intentions to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ which is wrong, but could Israel not have plans of their own to remove the country of Iran off the face of the world?
On the same programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the Iranian Ambassador to the United-kingdom, Seyed Ali Mousavi, was informed by Laura; “our Home Secretary has said Iran is a danger to the UK.” She continued telling to him; “you have a chance to stop the attacks on Israel”. The Iranian Ambassador replied; “it was Israel who attacked us, we are defending ourselves.” On this point the Ambassador to Britain is correct, the Israelis did bomb Iran using precision weapons they, were the aggressors, as now are the United States. No doubt the Israelis would point out before they bombed Iran the Iranians had been sending drones over thus causing loss of Israeli life and destroying property in Israeli cities. That would also be true: the Iranians, on behalf of Hamas, had been bombing Israeli cities with drones but the Israeli response with precision bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities, those above ground, was in a different league.
According to the Director General of MI5 who maintains Iran is a is a “serious threat”, the question is, and given the British security services less than reliable track record, should we believe MI5? As Zarah Sultana pointed out quite rightly this may be a “re-run of the 2003 weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” which it was proved later did not and never had existed. Robin Cook, then Leader of the House of Commons, resigned in 2003 over the question of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ later alluded to by Zarah Sultana. He said; “they found a tractor trailer which is hardly conducive to weapons of mass destruction” which was perfectly true. This was the findings of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who ultimately failed to find any stockpiles in Iraq of WMDs. This did not stop the 2003 US and UK invasion - the UK being very much the junior partner - of Iraq. It was the same MI5 who said these weapons not only existed but “posed a serious threat to Britain”! They do seem a bit trigger happy, do MI5, using terms like “a serious threat to Britain!” Isaac Herzog, the Israeli President, not surprisingly said; “we condone and welcome the US for their air strikes” thus cementing the alliance with the USA even further.
On the same programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the Iranian Ambassador to the United-kingdom, Seyed Ali Mousavi, was informed by Laura; “our Home Secretary has said Iran is a danger to the UK.” She continued telling to him; “you have a chance to stop the attacks on Israel”. The Iranian Ambassador replied; “it was Israel who attacked us, we are defending ourselves.” On this point the Ambassador to Britain is correct, the Israelis did bomb Iran using precision weapons they, were the aggressors, as now are the United States. No doubt the Israelis would point out before they bombed Iran the Iranians had been sending drones over thus causing loss of Israeli life and destroying property in Israeli cities. That would also be true: the Iranians, on behalf of Hamas, had been bombing Israeli cities with drones but the Israeli response with precision bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities, those above ground, was in a different league.
According to the Director General of MI5 who maintains Iran is a is a “serious threat”, the question is, and given the British security services less than reliable track record, should we believe MI5? As Zarah Sultana pointed out quite rightly this may be a “re-run of the 2003 weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” which it was proved later did not and never had existed. Robin Cook, then Leader of the House of Commons, resigned in 2003 over the question of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ later alluded to by Zarah Sultana. He said; “they found a tractor trailer which is hardly conducive to weapons of mass destruction” which was perfectly true. This was the findings of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who ultimately failed to find any stockpiles in Iraq of WMDs. This did not stop the 2003 US and UK invasion - the UK being very much the junior partner - of Iraq. It was the same MI5 who said these weapons not only existed but “posed a serious threat to Britain”! They do seem a bit trigger happy, do MI5, using terms like “a serious threat to Britain!” Isaac Herzog, the Israeli President, not surprisingly said; “we condone and welcome the US for their air strikes” thus cementing the alliance with the USA even further.
The President spoke of the potential for a “new middle-east” but never outlined what this new Promised Land would look like. I’ll have a stab in the dark at this new Jerusalem: The US occupy Gaza evicting all Palestinians and turning it into a Mediterranean playground for the wealthy. A greater Israel encompassing the West Bank and Lebanon again expelling the Palestinians. Israel to be the only military force in the area and the greater Israel apart from Gaza, now a US playground, be for Jewish people only. All charges against Netanyahu to be dropped including those domestic charges which is perhaps why the Israeli Prime Minister is anxious to keep the war going. While hostilities continue and he remains Prime Minister he cannot be prosecuted in Israel for ‘breach of trust, accepting bribes and fraud’. Outside Israel an international arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court and the Israeli Prime Minister is to face trial for war crimes before the International Court of Justice.
The irony of this mess is both Netanyahu and Trump could be facing charges when their tenure of office expires in their respective countries. What a way to end this once and for all if these two war mongers were to be given life sentences! The Palestinians get their nation state and the Iranian people overthrow the gang of religious nutters presently in charge and Israel can at last put their past behind them and live with their neighbours in peace! Time for a double whiskey I think to bring me back to reality!!
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
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