Tag: iran

Report: US To Give Israel ‘Compensation’ If It Hits Only US-Approved Targets in Iran

The US has offered Israel a “compensation package” if it avoids hitting certain targets in its planned attack on Iran, The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday, citing the Israeli TV channel Kan 11.

Amichai Stein, a correspondent for Kan 11, said the package would include military aid and a guarantee that the US would provide total diplomatic support.

“An American official said, ‘If you don’t hit targets A, B, C, we will provide you with diplomatic protection and an arms package,” Chair said. “Israeli officials responded saying, ‘We consider the United States and listen to them. But we will do anything and everything we can to protect the citizens and the security of the State of Israel.’”

The US is coordinating with Israel on its plans to respond to the Iranian missile barrage that hit Israel last week, which came in response to several Israeli escalations throughout the region, including the July 31 assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

The US has said it will ensure Iran faces “severe consequences” but has warned against certain types of attacks, including attacks on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. President Biden said the US and Israel were discussing the idea of strikes on Iranian oil sites, but later said if he was in Israel’s shoes, he would be thinking about “other alternatives than striking oil fields.”

Other attacks Israel is considering include strikes on Iran’s air defense systems or more targeted assassinations inside Iran. The US is expected to support the attack in some way, whether by providing intelligence or more direct support and is vowing to defend Israel from any Iranian retaliation.

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IDF Prepares For ‘Serious And Significant’ Attack On Iran

The IDF is preparing for an attack on Iran: “It will be serious and significant, we are at the peak of preparations and deal with it most of our time. This will have consequences for Iran – and they should understand that,’ reported Israeli journalist Doron Kadosh.

The IDF says that they expect significant cooperation in the offensive action from the partner countries in the region.

The number of ballistic missiles launched from Iran to Israel in this week’s attack – 201. Most of them were intercepted by the Israeli air defense systems.

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Israeli airbase sustains extensive damage from Iranian missile strikes, but Israel is censoring reports on the damage

Iran’s recent attack on Israel, which saw nearly 200 missiles being lobbed at the country in retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, is largely being framed in the media as a failure. According to their narrative, Israel managed to intercept most of the missiles and the population was largely spared.

However, satellite images tell a different story, with Israel’s Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert apparently being hit hard by ballistic missiles from Iran.

The imagery, which was released by the AP, showed a large hole in the base’s aircraft hangar as well as a crater on one of its runways. The base houses Israel’s F-35 fighter jets.

Iran claims that 90 percent of the missiles it sent hit their targets after being fired in successive waves, but Israel has been doing its best to cover up the damage. Although the IDF did eventually admit that some of their air force bases were impacted, they specified that no aircraft, troops or weapons were hit. However, the entire topic is the subject of heavy military censorship.

For example, when the Wall Street Journal asked the IDF about an initial assessment by the Israeli army that the damage was only minor, they refused to provide further details on the grounds that they “didn’t want to give information to Iran” about the extent of the damage.

Israel has also closed off a number of military zones and barred reporting on where Iranian missiles hit the ground.

However, some Hezbollah sources have claimed that they put the Hatzerim, Nevatim and Ramon airbases out of service with their missile strikes.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, one senior Hezbollah source claimed: “Most of the bases targeted by Iran in Israel were hit directly, especially the airbases. Most of the objectives of the strike were achieved according to the set plan. Nevatim, Hatzerim, Tel Nof, Netzarim and Glilot bases were targeted. The scale of Israeli missile interception was weak. It has been confirmed that there were significant casualties among Israeli soldiers.”

The Wall Street Journal did report that two fallen missiles from Iran were found near the Dead Sea close to Dimona, which is the location of Israel’s nuclear facilities, although it is not known if they fell there or were shot down.

In addition, a missile hit a road just outside of the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service near Tel Aviv. Another strike damaged around 100 houses in a town to the north of Tel Aviv.

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Biden orders U.S. military to help defend Israel against future Iranian strikes

President Joe Biden has declared that the United States Armed Forces will help Israel shoot down any Iranian missiles that target the country.

This declaration comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that Iran had fired rockets at various targets in Israel in response to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon. The U.S. had reportedly warned the IDF, allowing the Israeli military enough time to engage Iranian munitions with their Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 anti-missile defense systems.

“This is testament to Israeli military capability and the U.S. military,” said Biden. “It’s also a testament to intensive planning between the United States and Israel to anticipate and defend against the brazen attack we expected.”

“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” the president added.

While most of the Iranian projectiles were successfully intercepted, this does not mean Israel went away unscathed. Media reports note that some of the Iranian missiles directly targeted Tel Aviv, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict. (Related: Iran blasts Israel with 180 ballistic missiles; Israel preparing to STRIKE BACK.)

Following the Iranian barrage, Biden ordered U.S. military assets in the region to intercept and shoot down any additional Iranian missiles aimed at Israel. This move highlights the rapidly intensifying situation, with the U.S. now actively involved in defensive efforts to protect its ally.

In response to the crisis, the White House has convened an emergency meeting. Vice President Kamala Harris and top national security teams were involved and helped coordinate the U.S. response.

Reports from Israeli Army Radio indicate that the recent Iranian missile strike against Israel involved over 100 ballistic missiles, marking the largest missile barrage in the country’s history. Israel’s security cabinet reportedly had to convene in a bunker somewhere in or near Jerusalem to discuss defense strategies.

Although Israel’s anti-missile defense systems have managed to intercept many of the rockets, a significant number broke through and hit targets on the ground, causing widespread damage and panic. An Israeli official speaking with the Hebrew-language broadcaster Kan News warned that Iran would face a “harsh” response to the missile attack.

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Israel’s 1981 Attack on Nuclear Facility “STARTED” Iraq’s Nuclear Weapons Program

Biden announced that Washington doesn’t support an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which to some knowledgeable observers, given Biden’s record, makes that more likely. 

There are many other hypocrisies and fallacies, but obviously the first thing to be said about Israel’s propaganda regarding Iran’s nuclear program being weaponized is that Israel has its own massive nuclear weapons program that both it and the US government have refused to acknowledge for decades, as I’ve long documented.

But one myth is little known and important to understand as Israel seems to be eyeing striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Telegraph yesterday claimed: “Israel did the world a historic favour when it bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.”

Bullshit.

Israel would claim in 1981: “From sources whose reliability is beyond any doubt, we learn that this reactor, despite its camouflage, is designed to produce atomic bombs.” Which seems to be a case of projection given their deceit regarding their Dimona facility.

In fact, Richard Wilson, who was Mallinckrodt research professor of physics at Harvard University, visited the Osirak Iraqi reactor in 1982 after it was bombed by Israel. He told me back in 2006: “Many claim that the bombing of the Iraqi Osirak reactor delayed Iraq’s nuclear bomb program. But the Iraqi nuclear program before 1981 was peaceful, and the Osirak reactor was not only unsuited to making bombs but was under intensive safeguards. Certainly, Saddam Hussein would clearly have liked a nuclear bomb if he could have had one, but the issue is whether there were enough procedures for that reactor in place to prevent him from doing so and all the indications are that there were enough procedures.

“The Osirak reactor was destroyed in June 1981. It was not until early in July 1981 that Saddam Hussein personally released Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar from house arrest and asked him to start and head the clandestine nuclear bomb program. The destruction of Osirak did not stop an Iraqi nuclear bomb program but probably started it. Worse still, the Israelis were so pleased with themselves that it appears that neither they nor the CIA looked for and understood the real direction of the Iraqi nuclear bomb program.

“In the international discussions with Iran, this must be borne in mind. Bombing a peaceful program, rather than controlling it, is very dangerous. But, alas, this is not the lesson that many people, who have not studied the technical evidence, have gained.” Wilson died in 2018. See his piece in New Outlook: “Iraq’s uranium separation: the huge surprise.”

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US Likely ‘Had a Hand’ in Israel’s Operation to Eliminate Hezbollah’s Leader Nasrallah – Analyst

Iran has condemned the Israeli attack that killed Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, with President Masoud Pezeshkian claiming that the US greenlit the attack and bears partial responsibility for the “war crime.”

It is very likely that the US “had a hand” in Israel’s operation in Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Nikolas Kosmatopoulos, assistant professor of public policy and international affairs at the American University of Beirut, told Sputnik.

“Certainly, there is good reason to believe that there has been diplomatic approval… military, most probably, and intelligence cooperation,” he said.

US interest in an operation targeting Nasrallah “might have to do with the protection of the role and power that Israel projects in the region,” the pundit speculated.

“It is no secret that Israel enjoys bipartisan support in the US Senate and Congress. It is also an important US ally, and carries out its dirty job in the region. It helps the US maintain economic, diplomatic, and political hegemony […] keeps the region in turmoil… It doesn’t allow for the unification of the region, doesn’t allow for the region to cooperate with each other… become a regional power that could endanger the interests of the US and the EU,” he underscored.

Kosmatopoulos pointed out that the military-industrial complexes of the US and Israel “are almost organically entwined, are an extension of each other.”

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US Bolsters Forces in Middle East, Issues Warning to Iran

The Pentagon on Sunday announced steps to bolster its forces in the Middle East amid Israel’s non-stop bombardment of Lebanon.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the US will reinforce its “air-support capabilities” in the coming days and said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “increased the readiness of additional US forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies.”

Ryder said Austin also ordered the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group to stay in the region. The USS Wasp Amphibious Ready Group / Marine Expeditionary Unit will also continue to operate in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Ryder also issued a warning to Iran in the statement. “Secretary Austin stressed that the United States is determined to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed partners and proxies from exploiting the situation or expanding the conflict,” he said.

“Secretary Austin made clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people,” Ryder added.

The US has been vowing to defend Israel from any potential Iranian attack, and the Pentagon said last week that was one purpose of maintaining an increased force posture in the region.

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Leaked documents reveal US intel cutout’s Iranian counter-revolution plans

Leaks expose a secret effort by retired National Endowment for Democracy leader Carl Gershman to consolidate war-hungry neoconservative control over Iran’s opposition, while channeling US government funds into his own pet regime change initiatives.

Leaked documents and emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal a seemingly covert effort by American regime change operatives to impose radical leadership on the remnants of Iran’s protest movement against the mandatory hijab, in order to topple the government of Iran. 

The initiative was spearheaded by Carl Gershman, the longtime director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government-funded non-profit which advances regime change operations across the globe. Originally conceived by the Reagan administration’s CIA, the NED has meddled in elections and sponsored coup leaders from Nicaragua to Venezuela to Hong Kong, and beyond.

The leaks reveal how Gershman privately plotted to channel US State Department resources into the construction of an “Iran Freedom Coalition” composed of pro-Western Iranian activists and US neoconservative operatives who clamor for an American military assault on Iran.

While aiming to “mobilize international support” for the Women, Life, Freedom Movement, “and to do what is possible to aid [their] struggle,” the Freedom Coalition represents a clear attempt to impose an exiled leadership over the grassroots Iranian opposition which is directed and sponsored by the most belligerent elements in Washington.

Attempts by The Grayzone to reach several members of the Coalition for comment were unsuccessful. We were therefore unable to determine if those listed by Gershman had explicitly committed to participating, or had been named by the NED veteran as prospective leaders.

Regardless of the listed members’ level of participation, the composition of Gershman’s proposed Iran Freedom Coalition demonstrates how Iran’s self-proclaimed pro-democracy movement has become a plaything for the Bomb Iran lobby. Among those handpicked by Gershman to lead the initiative was William Kristol, the neocon impresario who has led a decades-long lobbying campaign for a US military invasion of Iran. Also selected was Joshua Muravchik, a flamboyant supporter of Israel’s Likud Party who insists that “war with Iran is probably our best option”

The Freedom Coalition’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute. While these figures are quoted in Western media as the leaders of Iran’s “freedom” struggle, their involvement in US government-backed campaigns like the one conceived by Gershman reveals them as little more than Persian front people for Washington warmongers.

Protests erupted in Iranian cities in September 2022 after the death of a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini, who was briefly taken into police custody in Tehran after violating moral codes mandating that women wear a hijab. The movement attracted the zealous support of Western governments, celebrities and feminist NGOs, which cheered it on even after it fizzled out in the streets. 

As Gershman’s leaked proposal illustrates, these elements quickly hijacked the protests, inserting US government-sponsored exiles as the movement’s international face and voice, thus ensuring that their ultimate effect would be a deepening of US sanctions on average Iranians.

In an investigation published this August, The Grayzone revealed that after retiring from his longtime post as leader of the NED in 2021, Gershman became locked in a vicious power struggle with his younger, more socially progressive successors. The Iran leaks we have obtained show how even in retirement, Gershman has attempted a bureaucratic end-around, marshaling his connections in US foreign policy networks to channel government resources into his own pet regime change projects.

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Witnesses backed by military, foreign $$ hype war with Iran

At a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, witnesses proposed confronting Iran directly by deploying more military capabilities to the Middle East and the authorization of the use of force.

Yet, they conveniently neglected to mention that their employers — which included one Pentagon contractor and several think tanks funded by weapons manufacturers — stand to rake in profits from selling Congress on a military-first approach to Iran.

One of the witnesses of the hearing — billed as “Israel and the Middle East at a Crossroads: How Tehran’s Terror Campaigns Threatens the U.S. and our Allies” — was Kirsten Fontenrose. Fontenrose, a former Trump administration official, testified that the U.S. should pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), an open-ended congressional resolution that would authorize the president to engage in military action against Iran.

“The U.S. should make it clear to the leadership of Iran’s proxy, drone and missile programs that new capabilities now permit the U.S. and partners to dismantle their facilities and chains of command with low to no risk of negative secondary effects,” she said. “Though ‘AUMF’ is a four letter word in Congress, an Authorized Use of Military Force could convey this quickly and clearly.”

Fontenrose is the President of Red Six Solutions, a red team defense consulting company and Pentagon contractor that prepares clients for threats against unmanned aerial systems. Its website boasts that its “pilot services include UAS operations, training, airspace coordination, event planning, and data generation with all types of UAS to include swarm, large-scale and turbine aircraft.”

According to one of Red Six’s partners, the company has explicitly prepared clients to combat threats from Iran.

Fontenrose is also a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. In a financial conflict of interest document submitted to the subcommittee, Fontenrose disclosed a grant from Norway to the Atlantic Council. Yet, she did not mention the think tank’s funding from Gulf countries, despite being required to list all foreign government contributions related to the hearing’s content. Through embassies and state-owned companies, the UAE and Saudi Arabia (both have had an adversarial relations with Iran) contributed over $3 million and $300,000 respectively to the Atlantic Council over the past two years based on a review of annual reports.

Elliott Abrams, who was convicted of lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra affair, is back on Capitol Hill testifying on — of all things — Iran. During the hearing, Abrams testified that “we have too often been guided by fear of Iran, and have restrained the ability of both our own CENTCOM forces and of our ally Israel in responding to Iranian attacks. It’s past time to put those fears behind us.”

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Leaked documents reveal US intel cutout’s Iranian counter-revolution plans

Leaks expose a secret effort by retired National Endowment for Democracy leader Carl Gershman to consolidate war-hungry neoconservative control over Iran’s opposition, while channeling US government funds into his own pet regime change initiatives.

Leaked documents and emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal a seemingly covert effort by American regime change operatives to impose radical leadership on the remnants of Iran’s protest movement against the mandatory hijab, in order to topple the government of Iran. 

The initiative was spearheaded by Carl Gershman, the longtime director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government-funded non-profit which advances regime change operations across the globe. Originally conceived by the Reagan administration’s CIA, the NED has meddled in elections and sponsored coup leaders from Nicaragua to Venezuela to Hong Kong, and beyond.

The leaks reveal how Gershman privately plotted to channel US State Department resources into the construction of an “Iran Freedom Coalition” composed of pro-Western Iranian activists and US neoconservative operatives who clamor for an American military assault on Iran.

While aiming to “mobilize international support” for the Women, Life, Freedom Movement, “and to do what is possible to aid [their] struggle,” the Freedom Coalition represents a clear attempt to impose an exiled leadership over the grassroots Iranian opposition which is directed and sponsored by the most belligerent elements in Washington.

Attempts by The Grayzone to reach several members of the Coalition for comment were unsuccessful. We were therefore unable to determine if those listed by Gershman had explicitly committed to participating, or had been named by the NED veteran as prospective leaders.

Regardless of the listed members’ level of participation, the composition of Gershman’s proposed Iran Freedom Coalition demonstrates how Iran’s self-proclaimed pro-democracy movement has become a plaything for the Bomb Iran lobby. Among those handpicked by Gershman to lead the initiative was William Kristol, the neocon impresario who has led a decades-long lobbying campaign for a US military invasion of Iran. Also selected was Joshua Muravchik, a flamboyant supporter of Israel’s Likud Party who insists that “war with Iran is probably our best option”

The Freedom Coalition’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute. While these figures are quoted in Western media as the leaders of Iran’s “freedom” struggle, their involvement in US government-backed campaigns like the one conceived by Gershman reveals them as little more than Persian front people for Washington warmongers.

Keep reading