Nuclear Iran? Not on Bibi's watch-
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| -UPI photo- |
Retired CIA officer Robert Baer -a man with extensive Middle East experience- made the claim last week on KPFK (LA) that Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister are "planning to bomb Iran this fall"...
Alas, Mr Baer is clearly dead-set against the kind of beating Iran will need to be dealt ("But yer honor... he needed killin'!")
if these apocalyptic ogres in Tehran are ever to be contained... so take his pacifist-alarmist tone with a fistful of salt- same bit you get from Farrakhan, actually.
Baer's angle appears to be "warning" us that Israel will be "dragging us" into another war... when the reality is that what tiny Israel is planning to do is precisely what any responsible US presidency would have already dealt with by now.
He claims to be non-partisan as a TIME Magazine security issues columnist (also WSJ, etc), but with Baer has expressed an odd sympathy for the Iranian regime in the past- including this in the wake of them stealing the last 'election':
He claims to be non-partisan as a TIME Magazine security issues columnist (also WSJ, etc), but with Baer has expressed an odd sympathy for the Iranian regime in the past- including this in the wake of them stealing the last 'election':
"For too many years now, the Western media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran's liberal middle class — an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press, including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles..."
He also once purported that the CIA was holding "proof" that Iran was behind the Lockerbie bombing... odd since Gaddafi has copped to it. Maybe Baer is just some kind of kook, and I notice in some blogs out there that neo-Nazis seem to fancy his slant.
But the guy was surely an accomplished spook, and George Clooney actually won an Oscar for playing a character based on him in the film Syriana. That script came from the storyline of a book written by the same Robert Baer. His CIA career included the task of organizing opposition to Saddam Hussein. (He was recalled and investigated by the FBI re. trying to organise Saddam's assassination.)
Of course he's not naming sources now, but Baer claims to be in contact specifically with Israeli security figures who warn Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are "hell-bent" on war, one of which must surely be former Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
The western Left and Muslim world have made much of Dagan calling an attack on Iran the "stupidest" thing he could imagine, but he of course has ties to the Israeli Left. What I found amusing was Al Jazeera joining in to help isolate Netanyahu -as may be expected- but in painting the picture of many Israeli figures up in arms re. plans to attack Iran, they link Think Progress as a news source- please.
But I do believe Israel will attack the existential threat posed by Iran, and sooner-than-later: nobody's come up with any other viable option yet, and I for one feel Iran should always be denied nuclear weapons... only grown-ups get to play with those.
One thing Baer said that I found interesting was that in his view, many in Iran would welcome a war with Israel, and yes even the United States... they know the regime is teetering, and badly need external enemies to continue propping it up. After all the brainwashing and wild superstitions, they probably actually think they could perform miracles on the battlefield too, same 'thinking' that lead squadrons of 12-year olds to clean Iraqi mine fields with their lives in 1980...