[lbo-talk] Baer warning

[Marv Gandall]

I've always viewed the threat of an attack with Iran as a bargaining chip to force the US and Europe to keep the pressure on the Iranians to accept international controls on its nuclear program. Now, I'm less certain because of the alarm being expressed by veterans of the Israeli military and security establishment which appear to be genuine.  Perhaps the thinking on the Israeli right is that the fog and chaos unleashed by another Mideast war would provide an opportunity to expel large numbers of Palestinians from the West Bank - another "naqba" on the scale of 1948, as it were, one which it thinks would put paid to any further talk of a Palestinian state. I don't think it's particularly concerned about the threat from Hezbollah or Hamas or from Iran's conventional forces, for that matter. No other explanation makes sense to me. I doubt anyone in Israel really believes it can knock out enough of the dispersed and deeply buried Iranian nuclear sites to to set back its program for more than a few years. 

On 2011-07-23, at 7:05 PM, Chuck Grimes wrote:
> 
> And his abhorrence of Netanyahu is not uncommon in the Israeli security establishment. ... 12 of the 18 living ex-chiefs of Israel's two security agencies (Mossad and Shin Bet), are "either actively opposing Netanyahu's stances or have spoken out against them". Of the remaining six, two are current ministers in Netanyahu government, leaving a grand total of four out of 18 who independently support the prime minister.... (ouoted various newspaper accounts)
> 
> -----------
> 
> Gar Lipow wonders:
> 
> ``An alternative explanation is this is being put out there as leverage. But leverage by whom against whom?''
> 
> The above hints at where there is resistance within the US government. That resistance comes from some of the Pentagon and evidently within the CIA. This speculation is somewhat confirmed by the links below.
> 
> I missed this thread earlier this week, because I was sick of Israel, especially with respect to Iran.
> 
> I just read the links to Robert Baer's warnings. Here is the shortest written link back:
> 
> http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201107150010
> 
> It predicts that Iran would fight back with its own version of special-irregular forces mounting attacks in Basara, Baghdad, and the US fleet, and also through Hezbollah in Lebanon.