Time Magazine’s Karl Vick reports that Israel was behind the sabotage attack on a missile base outside Tehran Saturday:
Israeli newspapers on Sunday were thick with innuendo, the front pages of the three largest dailies dominated by variations on the headline “Mysterious Explosion in Iranian Missile Base.” Turn the page, and the mystery is answered with a wink. “Who Is Responsible for Attacks on the Iranian Army?” asks Maariv, and the paper lists without further comment a half-dozen other violent setbacks to Iran’s nuclear and military nexus. For Israeli readers, the coy implication is that their own government was behind Saturday’s massive blast just outside Tehran. It is an assumption a Western intelligence source insists is correct: the Mossad — the Israeli agency charged with covert operations — did it. “Don’t believe the Iranians that it was an accident,” the official tells TIME, adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede the Iranian ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. “There are more bullets in the magazine,” the official says.
So now it’s ‘sabotage’ when Israel does it? You know what they would call it if this was an Israeli or US base, right?
great piece up over at Race for Iran
http://www.raceforiran.com/pulling-the-iaea-into-the-%E2%80%9Cattack-iran%E2%80%9D-debate-will-backfire
“Nevertheless, Amano chose to focus the report on unsubstantiated intelligence reports, provided almost entirely by the United States, Israel, and other Western governments, alleging that the Islamic Republic is working on a nuclear weapons program. Most of this information has been available to the IAEA for years. But Baradei refused to publicize it during his tenure as the Agency’s chief—because he could neither corroborate it nor be confident about its provenance and quality. Remember, Baradei had been right about the state of Iraq’s nuclear program in 2002, when all of the intelligence services and national governments that would later try getting him spun up about Iran had been spectacularly wrong. And he was not going to let the United States or anyone else steamroller him on Iran.” “
i just skimmed the ‘time’ piece quickly, but no apparent mention of MEK, which would have likely had an operational role in this? a tad squeamish about linking the israelis to a terrorist organization, i suppose.
The moment the reports came that stated that Israel was ‘about to strike’ Iran you instantly knew the danger was over for at the very least 6 months. They will likely try everything they can to delay the program until the presidential election. Remember that the Gaza operation took place in the interim period, I wouldn’t be surprised if in exactly one year from now Israel and the U.S. are attacking Iran.
They’ve sent a new Stuxnet virus too to try to cripple Iran’s facilities.
I do actually believe that Iran is trying to produce the bomb, unlike Iraq.
If Iran tries to use it as a defensive shield or not remains to be seen, but I do not think the leadership is just as mad as many think, although you never quite know.
Either way, a lot of leaked reports are probably not-so-covert ways that the Israelis are trying to pressure the Western world. Obama knows that The Lobby will force him to act if Israel decides to attack, and Netanyahu knows this. That’s why he is taking increasingly belligerent strides towards Iran.
But the strike for Iran is probably off for a year, unless something unexpected happens. But I do think we’ll see somekind of strike at some point. Either way, a lot of alleged ‘sourced reports’ is just psychological warfare. The Israelis run of the tightest ships in the world vis-a-vis the press. If they managed to keep everyone, including most MKs, in the dark about Cast Lead, why would they be leaking like crazy for a much harder mission, Iran?
It’s just pressure tactics.
who is the unnamed ‘American official’? Usually journalists say ‘senior official’ or such to try to hype up the importance of the scoop.
the ‘bomb iran’ talk works for bibi in more ways than one. You have to admit, if you really think that world war III is about to start tomorrow, the ethnic cleansing of palestine seems a less urgent issue.
if anyone didn’t know it before, the leaked sarkozy/obama conversation demonstrates that the us has to constantly deal with israel; bibi wants to put the focus entirely on a non-existent threat from iran, so that in his conversations with washington things like settlement expansion and the related repression of palestinians doesn’t even come up.
Is it a coincidence that the iran threat has been of more concern to Bibi since the PA’s recognition by Unesco? Just this small hint that the Likud party program of a single state west of the jordan might be threatened by a genuine prospect of a palestinian state might have seriously spooked the israeli government.
Israel and the US have been at war with Iran for a long time. Cyber attacks, assassinations, and who knows what else. Even if not a single American person is directly involved, it doesn’t matter; the US is involved as the enabler. Nobody quite knows what things the US and Israeli leadership have in mind for Iran and its not much use speculating.