Exclusive: The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
For many Americans the progression toward war with Iran has the feel of cattle being herded from the stockyard into the slaughterhouse, pressed steadily forward with no turning back, until some guy shoots a bolt into your head.
Any suggestion of give-and-take negotiations with Iran is mocked, while alarmist propaganda, a ratcheting up of sanctions, and provocative actions like Wednesday’s assassination of yet another Iranian scientist push Americans closer to what seems like an inevitable bloodletting.
Cattle, mechanically immobilized before being stunned and slaughtered. (Photo credit: Temple Grandin)
Even the New York Times now acknowledges that Israel, with some help from the United States, appears to be conducting a covert war of sabotage and assassination inside Iran. “The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour,” Times reporter Scott Shane wrote in Thursday’s editions.
Though U.S. officials emphatically denied any role in the murder, Israeli officials did little to discourage rumors of an Israeli hand in the bombing. Some even expressed approval. Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said he didn’t know who killed the scientist but added: “I am definitely not shedding a tear.”
The latest victim, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was the fifth scientist associated with Iran’s nuclear program to be killed in the past four years, with a sixth scientist narrowly escaping death in 2010, Fereydoon Abbasi, who is now head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.
As might be expected, Iran has denounced the murders as acts of terrorism. They have been accompanied by cyber-attacks on Iranian centrifuges and an explosion at a missile facility late last year killing a senior general and 16 others.
While this campaign has slowed Iran’s nuclear progress, it also appears to have hardened its resolve to continue work on a nuclear capability, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only. Iranian authorities also have responded to tightening economic sanctions from Europe and the United States with threats of their own, such as warnings about closing the oil routes through the Strait of Hormuz and thus damaging the West’s economies.
Target: USA
Another front in Israel’s cold war against Iran appears to be the propaganda war being fought inside the United States, where the still-influential neoconservatives are deploying their extensive political and media resources to shut off possible routes toward a peaceful settlement, while building support for future military strikes against Iran.
Fitting with that propaganda strategy, the Washington Post’s editorial page, which is essentially the neocons’ media flagship, published a lead editorial on Wednesday urging harsher and harsher sanctions against Iran and ridiculing anyone who favored reduced tensions.
Noting Iran’s announcement that it had opened a better-protected uranium enrichment plant near Qom, the Post wrote: “In short, the new Fordow operation crosses another important line in Iran’s advance toward a nuclear weapons capability.
“Was it a red line for Israel or the United States? Apparently not, for the Obama administration at least. In a television interview Sunday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: ‘Our red line to Iran is: do not develop a nuclear weapon.’ He asserted that Tehran was not trying to develop a weapon now, only ‘a nuclear capability.’ The Revolutionary Guard, which controls the nuclear program, might well take that as a green light for the new enrichment operation.”
While portraying Panetta as an Iranian tool, the Post suggested that anyone who wanted to turn back from an Iran confrontation was an Iranian useful fool. The Post wrote:
“The recent flurry of Iranian threats has had the intended effect of prompting a new chorus of demands in Washington that the United States and its allies stop tightening sanctions and instead make another attempt at ‘engagement’ with the regime. The Ahmadinejad government itself reportedly has proposed new negotiations, and Turkey has stepped forward as a host.
“Almost certainly, any talks will reveal that Iran is unwilling to stop its nuclear activities or even to make significant concessions. But they may serve to stop or greatly delay a European oil embargo or the implementation of sanctions on the [Iranian] central bank, and buy time for the Fordow centrifuges to do their work.”
The Post’s recommended instead “that every effort must be made to intensify sanctions” and to stop Iranian sale of oil anywhere in the world. In other words, continue to ratchet up the tensions and cut off hopes for genuine negotiations.
A Vulnerable Obama
The escalating neocon demands for an ever-harder U.S. line against Iran — and Israel’s apparent campaign of killings and sabotage inside Iran — come at a time when President Barack Obama and some of his inner circle appear to be looking again for ways to defuse tensions. But the Post’s editorial and similar neocon propaganda have made clear that any move toward reconciliation will come with a high political price tag.
Already, a recurring Republican talking point is that Obama’s earlier efforts to open channels of negotiation with Iran and other foreign adversaries proved his naivete and amounted to “apologizing” for America. Obama also has faced resistance within his own administration, especially from neocon-lites such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
For instance, in spring 2010, a promising effort led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil’s then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva got Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to agree to relinquish Iranian control of nearly half the country’s supply of low-enriched uranium in exchange for isotopes for medical research.
The Turkish-Brazilian initiative revived a plan first advanced by Obama in 2009 and the effort had the President’s private encouragement. But after Ahmadinejad accepted the deal, Secretary Clinton and other U.S. hardliners switched into overdrive to kill the swap and insist instead on imposing harsher sanctions against Iran.
At the time, Clinton’s position was endorsed by editors at the Washington Post and the New York Times, who mocked Erdogan and Lula da Silva as inept understudies on the international stage. If anything, the Post and Times argued, the United States should take an even more belligerent approach toward Iran, i.e. seeking “regime change.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “WPost, NYT Show Tough-Guy Swagger.”]
As Clinton undercut the uranium swap and pushed instead for a new round of United Nations’ sanctions, Lula da Silva released a private letter from Obama who had urged the Brazilians to press forward with the swap arrangement. However, with Washington’s political momentum favoring another confrontation with a Muslim adversary, Obama retreated and lined up behind the sanctions.
Over the next nearly two years, the sanctions have failed to stop Iran’s work on enriched uranium which it claims is needed for medical research. Israel, the neocons and other American hardliners have responded by demanding still more draconian sanctions, while promoting anti-Iran propaganda inside the United States and winking at the murder of Iranian scientists inside Iran.
In this U.S. election year, Israel and the neocons may understand that their political leverage on Obama is at its apex. So, if he again searches for openings to negotiate with Iran, he can expect the same kind of nasty disdain that the Washington Post heaped on Panetta on Wednesday.
The Carter-Begin Precedent
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Likud leaders appear to fear a second Obama term when he’d be freed from the need to seek reelection much as their predecessors feared a second term for President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Then, Prime Minister Menachem Begin thought that Carter in a second term would team up with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in forcing Israel to accept a Palestinian state.
Begin’s alarm about that prospect was described by Israeli intelligence and foreign affairs official David Kimche in his 1991 book, The Last Option. Kimche wrote that Begin’s government believed that Carter was overly sympathetic to the Palestinians.
“Begin was being set up for diplomatic slaughter by the master butchers in Washington,” Kimche wrote. “They had, moreover, the apparent blessing of the two presidents, Carter and Sadat, for this bizarre and clumsy attempt at collusion designed to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Extensive evidence now exists that Begin’s preference for Ronald Reagan led Israelis to join in a covert operation with Republicans to contact Iranian leaders behind Carter’s back and delay release of the 52 American hostages then being held in Iran until after Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com’s “The Back Story on Iran’s Clashes.”]
Today, Obama’s relationship with Netanyahu seems as strained as Carter’s relationship with Begin was three decades ago. And already many American neocons have signed up with Obama’s Republican rivals, including with GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney whose foreign policy white paper was written by prominent neocons.
So the question now is: Will the President of the United States take his place amid the herd of cattle getting steered into the slaughterhouse of another war?
[For more on related topics, see Robert Parry’s Lost History, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep, now available in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.]
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.
The ever more precious internet media should make us all thankful as we turn off the corporate television distractions that keep the majority of our dangerous nation of fortunate citizens in an almost permanent state of “innocent” unawareness of how close we have come many times in the nuclear past and are still coming belatedly to an unexpected apocalyptic war that we still deny or repress from consciousness.
Scanning the opinion shapers and mass-media propagandists in our globally dominant nation it appears almost certain that God’s alleged “chosen” nations will get their hotly desired “obliterating” war on Iran.
This seems to be a popularly supported “entitlement” of the most politically and culturally advanced empires. Our fellow Americans seem to entertain no doubts about their rights to terrorize what many of their most “patriotic leaders and crusading pastors have branded as evil or “lesser” nations.
Which nations win or which ones are more righteous in their allegedly “just ” wars is not anywhere near as important as avoiding pre-programmed or “integrated” nuclear wars that may make much or all of the world uninhabitable for billions of years!!
The impending crunch on what Americans consider an “upitty” Iran may have rarely realized consequences of coverning up for an intimidating and threatening campaign to implant an “integrated” (read expanded) US-NATO “missile defense system” that the Russians fear may be undermining their national security with the NATO Commander displaying contempt for Russian requests for written assurances that the Euro-missile nuclear shield escalation is not aimed at Russians more that at Iranians.
I was made aware of this far more serious nuclear war threat by a Jan.03, 2012 article by David Krieger and Steven Starr of the the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
The total amount of obfuscation put out by the Washington Post concerning Iran’s weapons capabilities is just that…obfuscation. There is no information in this article by the post that does not border on misinformation. The Washington Post has become an obvious neocon rag, and they will print anything for the money. It’s not worth the reading!
Since the creation of Israel, we Americans behave as if we owe her something. Why I dont understand. We send our soldiers to die for her sake, we spend our people’s money on Israel so that she can buy more arms to kill the Palesitnians. And now if we go to war with Iran, again our soldiers will die and our money will be spend while Israel will watch. What is happening to us, we dont know anymore right from wrong. Wake up American poeple dont let your State go to war, this will bring the downfall of America, dont listen to the Zionist propaganda, they never cared for anybody but themselves. God bless America.
where did the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 come from? Certainly not Israel. You are just a naive antisemite.
Since the creation of Israel until now, the United States think they owe her something, why I dont understand. We send our soldiers to die for her sake, we spend our people’s money to provide her with more arms to kill the Palestinians, when are we to wake up and put a stop to all this. Now America will probably go to war with Iran, because Israel wants it. Again our soldiers will die, while Israel watches. Wha is happening to America, we watch with dismay the downfall of the United States while we do nothing. Wake up please Americans.
Throughout the long history of imperialistic wars those who deluded themselves have frequently suffered disastrous defeats that were unexpected
Zorastic Persians were taken over by Arabic Muslims.
The great imperialist powers that clashed in WWI paid the price of their own fantasies of invincibility.
The Bolsheviks defeated a dozen armies that vainly tried to force Russia back into its imperial alliances.
Wars of conquest have had very unpredictable results. “Blowback” emerges like the mythical Phoenix. How many nine-elevens and greater disasters may come from the impending “obliteration” of Iran is impossible to predict.
Cultures of “invincible” conquest breed karmic Double-ganger results for those who lust after new obliterations.
“American exceptionalism” has limits which we cannot afford to hastilly
dismiss.
Launch “on warning” lurks silently behind “tighten the choke holds on the arrogant.”
Will the President of the United States take his place amid the herd of cattle getting steered into the slaughterhouse of another war?
Why this silly coyness? Isn’t it obvious that when it comes to the Middle East, Israel is the dog and the US the tail? Day after day, week after week, and year after year, the same overlooking of this obvious fact–a taboo subject in America, of course, where even to suggest the extent of the Israel–or rather, Zionist–lobby is a mortal sin comprising serious consequences. Israel is using us and will probably destroy us in the process. What fools–and cowards–we be! Evil manipulates us and nothing is done. Is there a more craven group than Congress? Is it not clear that the President is a perfectly unprincipled man?
you sound like the wingnuts on the extreme right with their conspiracy nonsense
You must be feeling very special by now: so many posts in response to your Flat-headedness. I have really started feeling jalous!!!
your feeble attempts at comedy are pathetic! Like the song says, “Ma, she’s makin’ eyes at me”
Robert,
Always enjoy reading your articles, but stopped in the middle of this one.
Depicting cruelty to animals in an accompanying photo was unnecessary, and stomach-turning. It did not, in any sense, add to your otherwise well-written post.
Robert Parry-Your voice needs to be heard in the mainstream, so those of us who don’t want to be herded have a place to jump out of the way to help turn the herd. Please keep at it and get louder!
The Intrigues of Persia
Humanitarian gestures and covert actions won’t stop Iran’s bomb
As a supervisor at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was engaged in building a nuclear bomb in violation of four binding U.N. Security Council resolutions. On Wednesday he was assassinated after a bomb was attached to his car, making him the fifth senior Iranian nuclear scientist known to have been killed in recent years.
His death will serve a useful purpose if it convinces a critical mass of his colleagues to cease pursuing an atomic critical mass. That wouldn’t be a bad way to bring the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program to a peaceful conclusion. But don’t count on it.
Opponents of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions have been attempting for years to use a combination of diplomacy, sanctions and covert action to persuade the mullahs that they have more to lose than gain from building a bomb. So far, none of it has worked: Diplomacy has mostly allowed the Iranians to play for time. Sanctions so far have been too narrowly targeted to have much effect, though that may change now that the U.S. and Europe are finally targeting Iran’s oil trade.
As for covert activity, we may someday learn the full story of who did what, how they did it, and what effect it all had. But to judge by last November’s report on Iran’s nuclear programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran is closer than ever to a bomb. That’s despite the Stuxnet computer worm, the assassinations, and last year’s mysterious explosion at a missile factory.
What goes in the cloak-and-dagger world also goes for public diplomacy. Americans can take pride in last week’s dramatic rescue by the destroyer USS Kidd of 13 Iranian sailors who had spent 40 days as hostages of Somali pirates. But if the Administration thought that would break the tension following Iran’s threats over the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran had other ideas.
Days after the Kidd rescue, Iran imposed a death sentence on 28-year-old Amir Hekmati, an Arizona-born Iranian-American and former U.S. Marine. Mr. Hekmati was charged with spying for the CIA and convicted of being moharebe, or an enemy of God, the worst offense in the Iranian penal code. The U.S. government categorically denies that Mr. Hekmati worked as a spy. His family says he was in Iran on his first visit to see his grandmothers when he was arrested last August.
The Islamic Republic has a long history of detaining foreigners on dubious espionage charges and then trying to use them as diplomatic bargaining chips. But if Mr. Hekmati is simply their latest victim, the death sentence is unprecedented for an American citizen. It is also a reminder of how little U.S. gestures like Thursday’s rescue count in Tehran’s calculus. An evil regime will not be swayed by the conspicuous performance of good deeds.
Much of the world wants to believe that force won’t be necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the explosions and killings show that a covert war involving deadly force is already underway. The Obama Administration says Iran plotted to kill a Saudi ambassador in a Washington, D.C. restaurant, and Iran is trying to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as it previously did in Iraq. Many more people will die if the world doesn’t get serious about stopping this rogue regime.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page 16
Flat five, listen. I’m talking to you. Nukes are not the issue. I repeat, nuclear capabilities of ANY sort are not the issue here. Some of the best global security web sites like NTI and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists seemingly refuse to harp on the important subjects: ACTUAL nuclear proliferation such as the Apollo, Pennsylvania and Erwin,Tennessee plutonium thefts (enough stolen stuff for SEVERAL nukes). And then again, there’s Russian Secretary Alexander Lebed’s warning (he paid with his life to give the world this message), a paraphrase of his warning here…we (Russians) cannot account for a hundred or so suitcase nukes! Why worry what recognized state actors are doing! They have an address and by the way, so does stolen plutonium, because fission products have distinctive fabrication source “signatures”. This is all about making lots of money. It’s not based on politics, mullahs, proliferation worries or military hegemony or anything short of disaster capitalism and greed.
Really, wouldn’t you be a bit paranoid if two very powerful countries started threatening to bomb you. The West put these people through the Shah’s horrible period. I’m damn sure that Iran wouldn’t use the weapon as a first strike, but for defence. They know they would be obliterated if they struck first. Get over your fear of Jewish obliteration and learn to get on in this world,
As for agents in Iran working to divide the country, ‘The Asian Times’ has been reporting on this for some time. I gather from their reports Israel has been training Kurds and others in a move to destabilize the oil rich area of Iran thus causing much upset with the Iranian economy. Israel’s problem is it doesn’t want another power in the region, and some Arab states don’t want a Shiite power in the region. The latter usually want to keep a Shiite majority out of power (America lost that one in Iraq, and Israel lost that one in Lebanon which they wanted under Christian rule). Lack of democracy again.
As for the deaths of the nuclear scientist in Iran, Clinton absolutely denies it, but but I’ve yet to read about a definite denial from Israeli leadership. The line seems to be we don’t know who did it, which is a lot different from an absolute denial. Do they mean Israel didn’t do it, or we don’t know the individuals who did it?
I’ve gotten on very well. It’s easy to whitewash history when a so called civilized Christian nation like Germany caused the deaths of 50 million people.
Posting a WS Journal doesn’t validate your points any more. If we are to live in a rational, peaceful world, we have to take other regimes at their word. Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons and if they say they’re for peaceful purposes, we need to believe them. Do you really think Iran wants nuclear war? It knows that if it launches an attack at Israel that Israel and the US will respond in kind and Iran could be absolutely decimated in a tiny period of time. Also, the WS Journal never acknowledges that we here in the US are the only country to deploy a nuke against another country, nor that Israel won’t even acknowledge that it *has* nukes. Are we entitled to nukes while other countries aren’t?
absolutely.
Even Begin (eventually) admitted that that Israel bit off more than it could chew when it ventured beyond the ’67 borders. So as the song goes “what’s it all about Alfie”. It’s not about fears that a successful Iranian Bourse will rival the US petro-dollar is it? No. Is it not about oil or gas?, well, there’s so much of it to go around, no, that can’t be it. Could the reason be, a military “conquest” to ensure a “first world” hand holds the Iranian oil spigot? no again because patience could abruptly end with capitalist speculators. India and or China could muster a three million man army and seize the whole pot for good, and who in their right mind will try and stop them? So it might very well be the pure economics theory as stated by Naomi Klein and her “disaster capitalism”. Make profit before, during and after a regional military conflict. First arm the enemy, let it grow technologically,
remember pre-WWII Germany? sound familiar? feed it, support it, let it fatten, then slaughter it! Do I have to spell it out? it’s so old, it’s new; the military, Industrial, Congressional Complex. And now comes King Henry’s Becket. Who will kill him (Iran) for me? Who will kill the long standing partnership? When it’s all over, some US Naval Admiral will step forward and hang this Albatross around Obama’s neck.
As usual, the rabid antisemites on this site who love the medievalist Iranian govt. sworn to Israel’s destruction do the old guilty until proven innocent routine. This killing may have been an inside job to elicit sympathy for Iran. Who knows?
Perhaps you didn’t get the memo . . . the “anti-semitic” smear doesn’t work anymore. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if people who have seen this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUGVPBO9_cA ) dismiss it with the contempt it deserves!
You are ignorant. There are plenty of Jews, and amongst them the most intelligent and honorable, who are very rightly against Zionism. Being against Zionism is not “anti-Semitic.” Zionism is a political evil and the worst enemy of Jews.
without it there would be no Jews
Zionism is evil, if you think without this evil there would be no Jews I don’t believe you. There are certainly better ways to survive than to be a major party in bringing death and destruction in this world. just becaus they suffered in the past being Jews doesn’t mean they must cause same suffering to their fellow beings who have no role in their destruction. Majority of Muslim countries including Palestinians are ready to recognize Israel in it’s pre-67 borders only if Israel’s addiction to power allows her to do so. World’s history is full of examples where too much power backfires. Israel is already losing it’s moral edge. For how long would it be able to bribe and blackmail the Western democracies? People are awakening.
Have yoe seen the video clip on YouTube titled “Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Weapons Facility In 3D” ?
Pathetic excuse flat5, is that the best you can come up with. How many more of their nuclear scientists do you believe the Iranians are going to murder(I believe it’s 3 dead 1 injured now). Yassin was attacked by Israelis carrying fake or stolen Canadian passports, and last year an Arab politician was murdered by a clan of Israelis carrying fake and stolen European passports. And Israeli agents carrying fake Canadian passports were picked up in either New Zealand or Australia a few years ago. Israeli agents seem keen, though not adept in some cases, on extra-judicial killings, while they endanger other travellers with their use of fake passports.
So now Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman’s party is going to try and dissolve Israeli Arab political parties. So much for democracy as fundamentalist Jews subject Israeli citizens more and more to far reaches of La La land. Enjoy the trip but please don’t involve others.
As usual antisemites of your ilk would allow Israel to dissapear by Arab thug regiemes. Fortunately she has survived because of self defense period.
It’s not anti-Semitism. Wishing Israel to behave in a lawful way is not the way of Jewish haters. One wishes that for one’s country when one wants to be proud of it. As it stands, an Israeli with a conscience would have a hard time being proud of these sorts of extra-judicial killings. If you are proud of it, it says more about your appreciation of a double-standard of justice – extra-judicial killings OK for Israel, but not for Arabs – than about anything else. Israel’s existence is not threatened. Suggesting it is imperiled is not true and you need to quit it.
flat5 on January 12, 2012 at 11:20 pm
flat5 — shows a first loyalty to right wing Israeli policies.
As with Iraq a “war” against Iran is not in the best interests of the USA.
http://www.viewzone.com/dualcitizen.html
neocons like flat5 exibbit a questionable loyalty not only to their country of redidence but to humanity in general.
In a sane society, neocons would have been charged with high treason for their involvement in the death and maiming of thousands of U.S. citizens in illegal “wars” , started under false pretenses , costing $4 trillion & resulting in over 7,000,000 murdered ,crippled ,diseased , displaced and orphaned human beings.
your stupidity shows. As a lover of Iran go try living there where there is no freedom of expression. Women as in most Arab countries are less than second class.
Like Israel creeps, forces women,use reardoor and set at back of the bus. Flat5–U R sick :^(
pure b.s.
The drumbeat for conflict grows louder but is anybody listening? Do they really think people will buy the same con again but without the 9/11 factor? Panetta gave Iran an out and raised the bar much higher to even consider any military action. Israel is not happy and took it up a notch. It appears they have decided they can’t attack Iran alone. If they thought it would work they would’ve pulled the trigger long ago. Obama has to hang tough and not bite on any of this. That’s our best hope to avoid another stupid war.
“…without the 9/11 factor?”
“Israel is not happy and took it up a notch. It appears they have decided they can’t attack Iran alone. If they thought it would work they would’ve pulled the trigger long ago.”
Well, a missing factor can be manufactured easily with some very good lies.
Kenny, I’d bet if we took a poll today most would enter a resounding, “no war!” vote just as we did before the Iraq fiasco. However, once the rumor-mongering “continuously maximizing profits” munitions industry gets boots on the ground, the national mood experiences some Pavlovian metamorphic about~face into patriotic fervor. So yes, the Madison Avenue mad-men expect the con to work as always. Wave a flag and obedient self-white-ous Americans fall in lock step. George Carlin nailed it when he referred to the “symbol minded” people. You just watch as the corporate media labels the Occupy Movement as “anti-murkin loonies!”
Unfortunately, in political lingo “hang tough” means the willingness to rush to war without giving it a thought. It’s an election year and all the contenders need do is hurl insults, like “Obama is too weak on defense!” Strength of character is viewed as a flaw to the macho-mussel crowd.
caught up by a cow’s eye…and worse
Five Iranian scientists with nuclear connections have been assassinated since 2007 and a sixth scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi, survived a 2010 attack.
Also a suspicious explosion at an Iranian missile base killed a top general and 16 other people.
Israeli General Moshe Dayan quote — ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’
Martin Van Creveld, Israel’s most senior and internationally respected military analyst quote—-
“Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”