{"id":9756,"date":"2019-05-16T08:41:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T04:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=9756"},"modified":"2021-01-21T19:27:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:57:36","slug":"elaine-chao-john-bolton-paid-by-mek-sending-americans-to-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/9756","title":{"rendered":"Elaine Chao, John Bolton paid by MEK, sending Americans to war"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the US-Iran War Ball Now Rolling, Could an \u201cAccident\u201d or \u201cFalse Flag\u201d Serve as Pretext?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Certain forces in the U.S. and Israel have been actively pushing for war with Iran for years and have a track record that demonstrates little inhibition about using an \u201caccident\u201d to start it.
\nAs tensions between the U.S. and Iran threaten to boil over, the probability of a provocation or \u201caccident\u201d that would provoke hostilities between the two countries is higher than ever. U.K. Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, openly stated as much on Monday, telling reporters in Brussels that the U.K. was worried of a conflict breaking out between the U.S. and Iran by \u201caccident with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict.\u201d
\nYet, current and past events make it clear that such an \u201caccidental\u201d provocation is unlikely to be purely accidental in nature, as forces in the U.S. and Israel have been actively pushing for a U.S.-led war with Iran for years and have a track record that demonstrates little inhibition about using an \u201caccident\u201d or \u201cfalse flag\u201d to drag the country into a war with the Islamic Republic.
\nNotably, the state of Israel \u2014 in an event long since buried by the government and corporate media \u2014 has previously staged such a \u201cfalse flag\u201d by targeting an American naval vessel, killing 34 Americans, in order to blame the attack on Egypt and drag the U.S. into a war with several Middle Eastern nations in 1967. However, Israel is not alone in this, as the CIA as well as neo-conservatives serving in the Bush administration, led by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, have planned \u201cfalse flags\u201d that involved the murder of American servicemen and civilians in order to justify military action against U.S. adversaries.
\nIn this two-part series, MintPress explores the troubling evidence that preparations for another such \u201cfalse flag\u201d are well underway. In this first installment, current events in relation to U.S.-Iran relations and the role of Israel in the ratcheting up of tensions will be examined, while the second installment will focus on Israel\u2019s past of conducting \u201cfalse flags\u201d to goad the U.S. into wars on Israel\u2019s behalf as well as efforts by former Vice President Dick Cheney to conduct a \u201cfalse flag\u201d pitting American sailors against American sailors disguised as Iranian naval forces to justify a conflict with Iran.
\nBolton, taking a page from Iraq 2003 playbook, sets ball rolling
\nSince National Security Advisor John Bolton sent out a dramatic press release announcing the deployment of a U.S. carrier strike group as a warning to Iran on May 5, tensions between the U.S. and Iran have risen dramatically, a development that Bolton \u2014 who has long advocated regime change and a pre-emptive war against Iran \u2014 likely welcomes. As MintPress recently reported, that press release was intentionally vague, allowing justification for a military response to any number of incidents, whether committed by Iran or alleged \u201cproxies\u201d of Iran, including groups over which Iran\u2019s government has no control.
\nFurthermore, it has since been revealed that the \u201cintelligence\u201d Bolton used to frame the deployment and the rationale for future U.S. military action against Iran was from the Israeli government \u2014 which has long pushed the U.S. towards war with Iran. In addition, several unnamed U.S. officials stated soon after that Bolton and other Trump administration officials had greatly exaggerated the nature of this intelligence and overreacted. MintPress has noted on several occasions Bolton\u2019s history of distorting intelligence to conform with a specific narrative or in order to promote specific policy actions and this tendency of Bolton\u2019s was also recently noted in a New Yorker profile on the current National Security Advisor.
\nIt was subsequently revealed that a few days prior to Bolton\u2019s press release, Bolton had made a \u201chighly unusual\u201d visit to CIA headquarters to discuss Iran. NBC News reported that the \u201cextremely rare\u201d choice to hold this meeting at the CIA instead of the White House\u2019s Situation Room likely meant that the purpose of the meeting was \u201cto brief top officials on highly sensitive covert actions, either the results of existing operations or options for new ones,\u201d based on statements from five former CIA operations officers and military officials.
\nThat meeting, as noted by the political and financial news site ZeroHedge, \u201chearkens back to the Bush-Cheney White House\u2019s direct intervention over Iraq intelligence in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion, which involved the VP and his staff making multiple personal visits to CIA headquarters and the Pentagon to pressure the intel analysts into conforming to a preferred \u2018narrative.\u2019\u201d Yet, the emphasis on \u201ccovert actions\u201d in relation to Iran suggests that something much more sinister may be afoot.
\nIndeed, in the weeks since that press release and the \u201chighly unusual\u201d CIA meeting, the U.S. has deployed more military assets towards the Persian Gulf and Secretary of State Pompeo has made several abrupt schedule changes in order to discuss Iran with various countries. Notably, the Trump administration has also announced the end of waivers that have allowed some foreign companies to continue buying Iranian oil without facing U.S. sanctions.
\nThe situation has forced Iran to respond, with Iran announcing that it would begin withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal \u2014 which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from over a year ago \u2014 as the U.S.\u2019 economic war against Iran shoots to another level.
\nPerhaps most telling of all is the fact that Western media, particularly U.S. media, have been heavily promoting the Iranian \u201cthreat\u201d since soon after Bolton\u2019s Mary 5 press release, in yet another striking parallel to the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet, particularly notable in this case is that much of the \u201cintelligence\u201d that has been used to justify these recent moves by the Trump administration has come from Israel\u2019s government, led by the recently re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose desire to goad the U.S. into a war with Iran is an open secret.
\nOne potential pretext already in play in the Persian Gulf
\nOn Sunday, reports surfaced that several oil tankers were the victims of \u201csabotage\u201d while sailing towards the Persian Gulf near Fujairah, one of the seven emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is located just outside the Strait of Hormuz. Fujairah\u2019s government initially denied that any \u201csabotage\u201d took place and maintained that its port facilities were operating normally after media reports from Iranian outlet PressTV and Lebanese outlet Mayadeen reported on a series of \u201cexplosions\u201d on unidentified ships in the area.
\nThe UAE\u2019s foreign ministry later confirmed an incident in the area but said no casualties or spills occurred and notably did not provide details as to the number or nationalities of the ships involved nor the groups responsible for the alleged attack.
\nHowever, Saudi Arabia subsequently claimed that its tankers had been affected by this act of \u201csabotage\u201d and that the targeted tankers had been approaching the Strait of Hormuz on route to load oil destined for the United States. Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, did not blame any country for the attack. A Norwegian-registered oil tanker experienced hull damage after striking \u201can unknown object,\u201d potentially suggesting the attack was caused by an explosion of a sea mine or the result of a torpedo or other projectile launched underwater. Notably, the U.S., U.K. and France held a \u201cmine warfare drill\u201d in the Persian Gulf just last month and past Western media reports have characterized sea mines as \u201cIran\u2019s favorite military asset.\u201d
\nIran rejected any responsibility for the attack and Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi warned against a \u201cconspiracy orchestrated by ill-wishers\u201d and \u201cadventurism by foreigners.\u201d
\nHowever, the timing of the sabotage came right on the heels of statements made by the U.S. and Israeli governments that have led some to blame Iran or suggest Iranian responsibility for the attacks \u2014 despite the lack of evidence made public and the decision by both the Saudis and Emiratis, long-time adversaries of Iran, from blaming any country for the incident or describing any specifics about the attack.
\nThis past Thursday, the U.S. Maritime Administration \u2014 a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation \u2014 stated that \u201cIran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait or the Persian Gulf.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Transportation is currently headed by Elaine Chao, who was paid $50,000 for a five-minute speech to the Iranian exile group, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), known to actively seek regime change for Iran. Other top U.S. officials, such as Bolton, have also been paid hefty sums for appearances at MEK events, where they have openly advocated for the overthrow of the Iranian government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In addition to warning from a U.S. department headed by an official with links to an Iranian opposition group actively seeking regime change, Israeli officials \u201cleaked\u201d information on Israel\u2019s Channel 13 on Saturday that Iran was allegedly planning to target Saudi oil assets in the region. According to the unsourced report, as cited by the Times of Israel, the Iranians were \u201cconsidering various aggressive acts\u201d against American assets or those of its regional allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. The report also claimed that Iran had considered targeting American bases in the Gulf, but rejected it as too drastic and instead had decided to target \u201cSaudi oil production facilities.\u201d
\nIn light of recent events, as well as the corporate media\u2019s willingness to suggest Iranian culpability despite little to no publicly available evidence, it appears that this recent attack \u2014 regardless of who was responsible \u2014 could be seized upon by officials in the U.S. or Israel eager to see tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalate.
\nNetanyahu: \u201cAmerica is easily moved\u201d
\nIt is an open secret that Israel\u2019s government, particularly under Netanyahu, has been eager to see the U.S. engage in hostilities with Iran. The main driver for this is the fact that, while Israel has since forged alliances with several Arab-majority nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, Iran and its regional allies \u2014 namely Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah and Syria \u2014 oppose Israeli objectives for the region and those of its allies. More crucially, Iran is arguably the country that is most supportive of Palestine and the major barrier to Netanyahu\u2019s plans to annex Palestine\u2019s occupied West Bank, a promise on which Netanyahu rode to reelection last month. Now more than ever, Netanyahu wants Iran\u2019s government out of the way.
\nNetanyahu has openly stated that he views the U.S. government as a vehicle for fulfilling Israeli objectives and believes that Americans are easily manipulated, by Israel in particular. For instance, in a video recorded in the early 2000s \u2014 later broadcast on Israeli TV and subsequently reported on by Consortium News \u2014 Netanyahu \u201cbrags about how he deceived President Bill Clinton into believing he [Netanyahu] was helping implement the Oslo accords when he was actually destroying them. The tape displays a contemptuous attitude toward, and wonderment at, a malleable America so easily influenced by Israel.\u201d
\nIn the video, Netanyahu states:
\nAmerica is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won\u2019t get in our way; 80 percent of the Americans support us. It\u2019s absurd.\u201d
\nIsraeli journalist Gideon Levy later asserted that the video reveals Netanyahu to be \u201ca con artist who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes\u201d and that the current Israeli prime minister\u2019s attitude is unlikely to \u201cchange over the years.\u201d
\nNow, with the Trump administration having shown its willingness to favor Israeli interests in the Middle East, Netanyahu has apparently sensed that the hour has come to push the U.S. towards war with Iran. For instance, the Trump administration organized a summit aimed at securing \u201cpeace and security in the Middle East,\u201d to which Iran was not invited. The New York Timesdescribed that summit as follows:
\n\u2026Leaders of Israel and Arab states met publicly again, at an international conference in Warsaw staged by the Trump administration. But the goal of this meeting, drawing officials of some 60 nations, was not peacemaking. It was to rally support for economic and political war with Iran, for which the United States has found little enthusiasm among allies since withdrawing from the 2015 deal that restricts Iran\u2019s nuclear program.\u201d
\nNotably, during that meeting, Netanyahu wrote in a since deleted tweet that the summit was \u201can open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran.\u201d
\nIn the wake of the Warsaw summit, Netanyahu has since claimed that he was responsible for the Trump administration\u2019s decision to label Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terror group, a move that dramatically increased the risk of a military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, especially given that Iran subsequently responded by declaring the U.S. military\u2019s Central Command a terrorist organization.
\nNow, with Netanyahu feeding Bolton \u201cintelligence\u201d that Bolton has greatly exaggerated in order to justify their common goal \u2014 a U.S. war with Iran \u2014 and also \u201cpredicting\u201d dubious \u201csabotage\u201d attacks near the Persian Gulf, Israel\u2019s government has revealed itself to be a driving force behind the spiking tensions between the two countries.
\nEqually troubling is the fact that world leaders are now openly positing that an \u201caccident\u201d or \u201cfalse flag\u201d provocation will be used to provoke such hostilities.
\nFor Netanyahu, it\u2019s now or never for a U.S.-Iran war
\nWith the Iran nuclear deal in tatters, one consequence of the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign against Iran has been to push Iran to renege on aspects of the deal, from which the U.S. has already long since withdrawn. The goal, by all appearances, is to use Iran\u2019s plan to breach parts of the deal as justification for further aggressive actions against the country by claiming that such breaches, instead of a response to U.S.-led economic warfare, are a sign of an intention to develop nuclear weapons.
\nWith waivers for the purchases of Iranian oil now ending and Iran\u2019s president announcing that Iran will end compliance with some aspects of the deal if Europeans do not find a meaningful workaround for U.S. sanctions, the Trump administration \u2014 and the Iran hawks within \u2014 seem to have their ducks in a row.
\nWhile there has long been concern about a U.S.-Iran conflict, several situations have arisen that have made this push for a regime-change conflict with Iran of extreme importance to both U.S. and Israeli interests in the region.
\nFor instance, Syria\u2019s government is set to take the Idlib province, after which Syria will turn its attention towards the Israel-controlled Golan Heights and the U.S.-occupied area of northeastern Syria. Israel was revealed to be the \u201cbrains\u201d behind the Syria conflict and has been actively preparing for hostilities with Syria and nearby Lebanon since last year, following the failure to overthrow Syria\u2019s government. Syria holds a mutual defense pact with Iran, meaning that it will join a conflict with Iran if Iran is threatened, thus preventing Syria\u2019s government from focusing its efforts on retaking areas occupied by the U.S. and Israel.
\nIf the U.S. and Israel wait until Syria consolidates control over Idlib, they will be facing a much stronger adversary in Iran\u2019s closest regional ally than one distracted by a pocket of Al Qaeda-dominated terrorist groups in its north.
\nYet, the clearest indicator that the push for war is very much in earnest is the intention of Netanyahu to effectively destroy Palestine. Several analysts, including ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, have long maintained that Israel\u2019s and Netanyahu\u2019s main reason for wanting a war with Iran is to \u201chave Iran bloodied the same way we did to Iraq\u201d so that Iran \u201cwould no longer be able to support Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere.\u201d In other words, Netanyahu wants Iran out of the picture so it can no longer provide material or financial support to groups that resist Israeli occupation.
\nHaving won reelection in part because of his promise to annex the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu worries that Iran and its regional allies will strongly oppose that annexation and may even go to war over it, particularly if the fate of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem is threatened. Now, with the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cDeal of the Century\u201d also set to be made public in less than a month, that deal\u2019s push to enable the annexation is also threatened by the regional bloc led by Iran that still supports Palestine. If Netanyahu is able to eliminate Iran as a regional power, he will have eliminated the greatest single threat to both his plans for complete annexation and the enactment of the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cDeal of the Century.\u201d
\nWith top officials in the U.S. government and much of the media failing to push back, Netanyahu finally has a window of opportunity \u2014 albeit one that is shrinking \u2014 to push the U.S. to war with Iran and it appears that he, along with his allies in the Trump administration, plans on taking it.
\nAs Part II of this series will show, Israel\u2019s government and Bush-era neo-conservatives have a track record of enacting and planning \u201cfalse flag\u201d attacks to embroil the U.S. in foreign wars and that playbook would include provoking the U.S. into a war with Iran.<\/p>\n

By Whitney Webb, Mint Press News<\/strong>
\nWhitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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