By virtue of the START and SORT treaties related to the reduction of offensive weapons between the two major nuclear powers, the number of those warheads was reduced to several thousand.

In 2010 a new treaty of this type was signed between the two powers.

Since then the greatest efforts have been dedicated to improving the direction, reach, precision of nuclear missiles and their deception of the enemy defense. Vast sums are invested in the military sphere.

Very few people in the world, except for a handful of thinkers and scientists, have realized and are warning that the explosion of 100 strategic nuclear weapons would be enough to end human existence on the planet. The vast majority would have an end as inexorable as it would be horrific, as a consequence of the nuclear winter which would be generated.

The number of countries which possess nuclear weapons at this moment has risen to eight. Five of them are members of the Security Council: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China. India and Pakistan acquired the nature of countries possessing nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998, respectively. The seven countries mentioned acknowledge that nature.

On the other hand, Israel has never acknowledged its nature as a nuclear country. Nevertheless, it is calculated that it possesses 200 to 500 weapons of this type, without that being acknowledged at a time when the world is concerned about the extremely grave problems that would be provoked by the outbreak of a war in the region where a large part of the energy which moves the planet’s industry and agriculture is produced.

It is thanks to the possession of weapons of mass destruction that Israel has been able to fulfill its role as the instrument of imperialism and colonialism in that region of the Middle East.

It is not about the legitimate right of the Israeli people to live and work in peace and freedom; it is precisely about the right of the other peoples in the region to freedom and peace.

While Israel was rapidly creating a nuclear arsenal, it attacked and destroyed, in 1981, the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak. It did exactly the same to the Syrian reactor in Dayr az-Zawr in 2007, an action of which world opinion was strangely not informed. The United Nations and the IAEA were fully aware of what had occurred. Such actions had the support of the United States and the Atlantic Alliance.

There is nothing at all strange about Israel’s highest authorities now announcing their intention to do the same to Iran. This country, immensely rich in oil and gas, had been the victim of the conspiracies of Britain and the United States, whose oil companies were plundering its resources. Its armed forces were equipped with the most modern armaments from the United States’ military industry.

Shah Reza Pahlevi also aspired to acquiring nuclear weapons. Nobody attacked his research centers. The Israeli war was against the Muslim Arabs. It was not against those of Iran, because they had become a NATO bulwark pointing at the heart of the USSR.

Under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, the masses of that nation, profoundly religious and defying the power of those weapons, removed the Shah from the throne and disarmed one of the best equipped armies in the world without firing a shot.

Given its fighting capacity, number of inhabitants and the country’s extension, an aggression against Iran would bear no resemblance to Israel’s military adventures in Iraq and Syria. A bloody war would invariably be unleashed. There should be absolutely no doubt about that.

Israel has a large number of nuclear weapons with the capacity to reach any point in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. I ask myself: Does the IAEA have the moral right to sanction and asphyxiate a country if it attempts to do in its own defense what Israel did in the heart of the Middle East?

What I really think is that no country in the world should possess nuclear weapons, and that this energy should be placed at the service of the human species. Without that spirit of cooperation, humanity is inexorably advancing toward its own destruction. Among Israeli citizens themselves, doubtless a hardworking and intelligent people, many will not be in agreement with this crazy and absurd politics which is also taking them to total disaster.

What is being said today in the world about the economic situation?

The international news agencies report that U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, presented divergent commercial agendas […] highlighting the growing tensions between the two largest economies in the world.

Obama used an address – Reuters affirms – to threaten punitive economic steps against China unless it started ‘playing by the rules…’

These rules are evidently the interests of the United States.

Obama faces a tough 2012 re-election battle, in which Republican opponents accuse him of not being tough enough on China,” the agency states.

News published on Thursday and Friday reflected the realities which we are experiencing much better.

AP, the best informed U.S. news agency communicated, “Iran’s supreme leader warned Israel and the U.S. that Tehran’s response will be tough should its arch-enemies choose a military strike against Iran…”

The German news agency reported that China had stated that, as always, it believed that dialogue and cooperation were the only form of active rapprochement to solve the problem.

Russia was equally opposed to the punitive measures against Iran.

Germany rejected the military option but was in favor of strong sanctions against Iran.

The United Kingdom and France advocated strong and energetic sanctions.

The Russian Federation assured that it would do everything possible to avert a military operation against Iran and criticized the IAEA report.

‘A military operation against Iran could lead to very grave consequences and Russia will have to invest all its efforts in appeasing spirits,’” stated Konstantin Kosachov, head of the Duma’s Foreign Committee,” and, according to EFE, “He criticized ‘affirmations by the United States, France and Israel as to the possible use of force and the fact that the launch of a military operation against Iran is constantly closer.’

Edward Spannaus, editor of the U.S. EIR magazine, stated that an attack on Iran would end in World War III.

After traveling to Israel a few days ago, the United States Defense Secretary himself acknowledged that he could not obtain a commitment from the Israeli government to consult with the United States prior to an attack on Iran. Things have reached this extreme.

The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs crudely revealed the empire’s dark intentions:

Israel and the U.S. will embark on ‘the largest and most significant joint exercise in the allies’ history,’ said Andrew Shapiro, U.S. assistant secretary for political-military affairs, on Saturday.

…in the […] Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Shapiro spoke about the 5,000 US and Israeli forces who will participate in the exercise to simulate Israel’s ballistic missile defense system.

‘Israeli technology is proving critical to improving our Homeland Security and protecting our troops,’ he added…

Shapiro emphasized the Obama administration’s support for Israel, despite comments by a senior U.S. official on Friday, who expressed concern that Israel would not warn the U.S. before taking military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

‘Our security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper and more intense than ever before.’

‘We support Israel because it is in our national interests to do so […] It is the very strength of Israel’s military which deters potential aggressors and helps foster peace and stability.’

Today, November 13, Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the UN, told the BBC network that the possibility of a military intervention in Iran was not only not off the table, but is a real option which is growing on account of Iran’s behavior.

She insisted that the U.S. administration is reaching the conclusion that it will become necessary to end the current Iranian regime in order to avoid it creating a nuclear arsenal. “I am convinced that regime change is going to be our only option here,” Rice acknowledged.

Not one more word is necessary.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 13, 2011
8:17 p.m.

The post Genocidal Cynicism (Part 2) appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Goldberg was not anti-Israeli, quite the opposite; he is an admirer of Israel and holds double citizenship with the US and also did his military service in that country.

At the start of his article he wrote: “It is possible, as well, that “foiling operations” conducted by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers—programs designed to subvert the Iranian nuclear effort through sabotage and, on occasion, the carefully engineered disappearances of nuclear scientists—will have hindered Iran’s progress in some significant way.”

The parentheses in the paragraph are also his.

After mentioning the enigmatic phrase, I carried on with the analysis of that Gordian knot of international politics that could lead to the war which was so feared by Einstein. What would he say if he had learned about the “frustration operations” destined to make the most capable nuclear scientists disappear?

Maybe because it was so absurd and incredible, I didn’t pay too much attention to it, but months later, upon reading the recent accusations by the Iranian government, as well as news and opinions of well-informed people, the memory of that paragraph returned to my mind with a vengeance.

Four weeks before the end of 2010, an AFP agency dispatch informed:

“An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed.

“Teheran accuses the United States and Israel of being behind a double assassination.

“AFP. November 30, 2010.

“‘The hand of western governments and the Zionist regime is behind the assassination attempts’. Mahmud Ahmadineyad had no doubts when it came to look for the people guilty of the double attack on the nuclear experts that took place early yesterday in Teheran. Majid Shariari, professor at the Shahid Beheshti University of Teheran and member of the Nuclear Society of Iran lost his life and his wife was injured in an explosion reported a few metres from their home. His colleague Fereydoon Abbasi, a laser physicist at the same university and his wife were also injured after a similar attack. Even though some newspapers announced Abbasi’s death, it was finally the Mehr agency that confirmed that he had managed to save his life. According to the Fars agency, ‘unknown terrorists’ on motorcycles drove closet o the vehicles to plant the lapa bombs.”

“Members of the Ahmadineyad Executive and the Minister of the Interior, Mostafa Mohamad Najjar, directly accused the CIA and Mossad – the intelligence services of the US and Israel, respectively – of being behind these actions that presume a new blow for the country’s nuclear race at the doors of a possible new round of talks with the 5+1 members…”

“With yesterday’s attempt there are now three Iranian scientists who have been killed since 2007. Dr. Masoud Alí Mohamadi lost his life in Teheran last January after the explosion of a bomb as he was leaving his home, a death that has not yet been cleared up by the authorities who also accused the western intelligence agencies of trying to abort what they considered to be a right, the nuclear race for civilian purposes. The first victim in the heart of the scientific community was Ardeshir Hosseinpour, killed under strange circumstances in 2007 at the nuclear centre of Isfahan.”

I don’t remember any other moment in history when the assassination of scientists has been transformed into official policy on the part of a group of powers armed with nuclear weapons. The worst is that, in the case of Iran, it is being applied on an Islamic nation, with which, even if they are able to compete and surpass it in technology, they could never do it in a field where, for cultural and religious questions, it could surpass them many times in the willingness of its citizens to die at any moment if Iran should decide to apply the same absurd and criminal formula on the professionals of their adversaries.

There are other serious events related to the carnage of scientists, organized by Israel, the US, Great Britain and other powers against the Iranian scientists, something about which the mass media does not inform world opinion.

An article by Christian Elia published on the Rebelión website on August 25, 2010, reports that:

An explosion has killed the father of the “drones” (unmanned planes) – of Iran – but he is just the last of the scientists who have lost their lives in the country.

“To find a photo of Reza Baruni on the Internet is a mission impossible. However, in the last few days, his name was at the centre of a mystery that has many international aspects…”

The only thing certain is that Reza Baruni, the Iranian aeronautical engineer, is dead. An air of absolute mystery hangs over everything else. All the industry analysts consider Baruni to be the father of the [...] UAVs (unmanned vehicles) of the Islamic Republic [...]. On August 1st, 2010, his house was blown up.”

“On August 17, 2010, Debka (very close to Israeli intelligence) publishes news of Baruni’s death and reveals its conclusions: the Iranian engineer’s home blew up because of the explosion of three very powerful explosive devices. Baruni was murdered.”

“But the murkiest episode in contrast is the death of Massud Ali-Mohammadi, professor of nuclear physics at Teheran University, murdered on January 11, 2010 in the Iranian capital. Professor Ali-Mohammadi died in the explosion of a motorcycle-bomb detonated from a distance at the time the professor was leaving his home to go to work…”

An article published on the CubaDebate website informs:

“Israel acknowledges that it has murdered an Iranian scientist last week.”

“Mossad, the Israeli secret service, acknowledged that last week it murdered Majid Shahriari and wounded another physicist in Iran, according to Mossad sources, in an operation carried out in Teheran. ‘It is the latest operation by the head of the Mossad’, the people heading Israeli secret services state with satisfaction at a meeting in their Gelilot headquarters to the north of Tel Aviv.”

“Gordon Thomas, a British expert in the Mossad, confirmed in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph that Israel is responsible for this double murder destined to obstruct the Iranian nuclear program.”

“Thomas states that all the Israeli assassination attempts in the last few years against personalities associated with the Iranian nuclear project have been committed by the Kidon (bayonet) unit. According to the Jewish newspaper Yediot Ahronot this unit is made up of 38 agents. Five of them are women. They are all between 20 and 30 years old and they speak several languages – including Persian – and they are able to come and go from Iran with ease. They are based in the Negev Desert.”

In the days of the Diaspora, the left wing in the world united in solidarity with the people of Israel. Persecuted for their race and religion, many of them fought in the ranks of the revolutionary parties. The peoples condemned the concentration camps that the European and world bourgeoisie wanted to ignore.

Today the leaders of the State of Israel practice genocide and are associating themselves with the most reactionary forces on the planet.

The alliance between the leaders of that State and the South Africa of the hateful apartheid regime is still to be cleared up; in complicity with the United States they supplied the technology to develop the nuclear weapons directed towards striking at the Cuban troops which, in 1975, were confronting the invasion of racist South Africa, whose disdain and hatred of the African peoples was no different from the Nazi ideology which murdered millions of Jews, Russians, gypsies and other European nationalities in the concentration camps of Europe.

If it hadn’t been for the Iranian revolution – stripped of weapons it swept over the best-equipped ally of the United States on the flank of the Soviet super-power – today it would be the Shah of Iran, supplied with nuclear weapons, and not Israel, who would be the principal bulwark of the Yankee and NATO empire in that region that is so strategic and immensely rich in oil and gas for the sure supply of the most developed countries on the planet.

It is an almost inexhaustible subject.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 6, 2011
8:16 p.m.

The post What Would Einstein Say? appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

AFP: Brazil refused to go on mediating on the Iranian nuclear subject after the US and other powers rejected the agreement for exchange signed in May by Iran and Turkey, as declared this Monday by Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim to The Financial Times.

June 22:

ANSA: The former head of Mossad between 1989 and 1996, Shabtai Shavit, today stated that Israel should take into consideration a preventive attack on Iran in order to destroy its nuclear plants.

June 22

AFP: This Tuesday the US government urged private businesses to go further in official sanctions against Iran and to cut the controversial ties with Teheran, at the same time as Washington prepares another series of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

June 23:

ANSA: Today Iran announced that to date it produced more than 17 kilos of 20 percent enriched uranium, at the time the supreme guide Ayatollah Ali Khomenei maintained that the arrogant powers are opposed to his country’s nuclear program because they fear Teheran as a symbol of Islamic movements in the world.

June 24:

EFE: The commander of the army of the elite corps of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, General Ali Fadavi today warned that if the US and their allies inspect Iranian vessels in international waters, they will receive a proper answer in the Persian Gulf and in the Straits of Ormuz.

A high-ranking Iranian soldier stated that the US and their allies would not dare to act against the Iranian ships and if they commit such a stupid move, based on the illegal resolution they have passed, they themselves will receive a proper answer from the Guardians of the Revolution in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Ormuz.

Fadavi added that the Army of the Guardians of the Revolution today have hundreds of ships outfitted with missile launchers.

EFE: The US Senate today approved new unilateral sanctions against Iran, directed at its energy sector, and that would also sanction companies doing business with Teheran.

June 27:

ANSA: Head of the CIA Leon Panetta today warned that Iran has the capability of building two atomic bombs in two years since it now has sufficient capacity of enriched uranium to move forward in that plan, denied by Teheran.

June 30:

REUTERS: Iran issued a warning to members of the European Union about serious consequences due to their decision to impose tougher sanctions against Teheran because of their nuclear program.

This month there were 119 news cables about Iran.

In July, confrontation continued to grow. Before each additional imperialist measure, pressure, sanctions and threats the resolute Iranian resistance continued to strengthen.

July 1

AFP: In a letter to the 15 Council members, thanking Brazil and Turkey for their resistance to political pressures, Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki stated that the new sanctions by the UN Security Council will not prevent Iran from pursuing its peaceful nuclear program.

ANSA: US President Barack Obama today assured that the new law of sanctions by his country against Iran is a blow to the heart of its presumed capacity to develop nuclear weapons…

Obama said that the US was showing the Iranian authorities that their actions had consequences and he accused Teheran of taking on a defiant position…

July 3:

REUTERS: On Saturday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the latest sanctions against Iran are pathetic and he warned the world powers that they would regret their threat.

July 5:

AFP: On Monday an Iranian official announced that the airports of Great Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates refuse to supply fuel to Iranian passenger planes after the new US sanctions…

The official IRNA agency indicated that Kuwait airport was doing likewise.

They said that this measure was being applied since last Thursday following the US Congress decision that imposes sanctions on the sale of fuel products to Iran.

July 6:

AP: On Tuesday China said that the US and other nations should not be adding their own sanctions to the most recent penalties being imposed by the UN on Iran…

July 7:

AFP: This Wednesday, Iran acknowledged, for the first time, that the new international sanctions might slow down its much-discussed nuclear program, including the enriching of uranium, but he assured that it would not stop it.

DPA: Documents today revealed that Iran is ready to return to international talks about their nuclear program in September, but only if the EU denounces the Israeli nuclear arsenal and shelves its plans to impose greater sanctions on Teheran.

July 8:

AFP: On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad described the US as the planetary dictator before attacking Israel just after his arrival in Nigeria to attend a D-8 Summit which brings together eight developing Moslem countries.

The US has appointed itself leader of the world and everyone should know that a self-proclaimed authority is a dictatorship…

AFP: US President Barack Obama stated during an interview broadcast on Thursday on Israeli TV that it is improbable that Israel should attack Iranian nuclear installations without previously informing the US.

On Wednesday, Obama stated on Israeli Channel 2 that it is unacceptable for Iran to possess nuclear weapons and that the US shall do all they can to prevent that from happening. DPA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured today in New York that an Iran with nuclear weapons would be more dangerous than the USSR during the Cold War.

Netanyahu indicated to the think tank Council on Foreign Relations that the Soviets had thousands of atomic weapons, but that they were rational and predictable, something Iran is not.

July 12:

ANSA: Iran insists that Brazil and Turkey should take part in the re-initiation of negotiations about its nuclear program as emphasized by Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki, and quoted today on Press TV.

July 15: EFE: The possibility of an Israeli attack against Iran because of this country’s nuclear program has grown stronger, but its consequences would be devastating and would lead to a prolonged war with regional and global implications.

Those were the conclusions of a study entitled ‘Military Action against Iran: Impact and Effects’ by the Oxford Research Group, a British centre which states that the consequences would be so serious that a way must be found to solve that crisis using methods other than military.

July 16:

EFE: The UN Security Council today condemned terrorist attacks perpetrated on a Shiite mosque in the south-east of Iran where at least 20 persons died and more than 100 were wounded.

EFE: Official Japanese sources informed that the foreign ministers of Japan and Brazil agreed today on the necessity of keeping an open window of dialogue with Iran.

July 17:

AFP: This Saturday Iran accused western countries and Israel of being behind the double suicide attack that caused 27 dead on Thursday in the south-eastern part of the country even though both the EU and the US condemned it.

REUTERS: A semi-official Iranian news agency printed on Saturday that a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard stated that the US would come up against serious negative consequences after a deadly bomb attack occurred in the southeaster part of Iran.

July 19:

EFE: Iranian Parliamentary President Ali Larijani criticizes the unfair structure of power in the international arena, and in his opinion this has led to the instrumentalized use of the international bodies…

July 20:

AP: On Tuesday, the Iranian Parliament authorized reprisal inspections against those countries which inspect cargo on Iranian ships and planes as part of the new UN sanctions because of Teheran’s nuclear program.

July 21:

AFP: On Wednesday Iranian supreme guide Ali Khomenei urged all Moslems to fight against the United States and United Kingdom’s blind and fierce terrorism; he accused these two countries of being behind the double suicide bombing that left 28 dead this month in a Shiite mosque.

July 23:

REUTERS: An Iranian official was quoted on Friday by the semi-official Mehr news agency as saying that Iran would be using other currencies than the Euro and the dollar in order to pay for its oil exports.

He said that they were free to choose any currency for the sale of their oil…

July 24:

REUTERS: On Saturday Iran stated that it had plans to build a reactor for experimental nuclear fusion, as reported on state TV, while western powers demand that the Islamic Republic puts a halt to its delicate atomic work.

July 25:

ANSA: Today Iran warned that it would respond with force to the sanctions that the European Union is hastening to ratify tomorrow as an adjunct to the UN Security Council resolution, in the framework of the dispute about the development of nuclear plans.

July 26:

EFE: Iranian Defence Minister, General Ahmad Vahidi, has threatened Israel with total destruction if it should commit an imprudent act against Iran, as informed today by the official Irna news agency.

July 27:

AFP: Russia considers the sanctions against Iran which were adopted outside the UN framework as unacceptable, in a statement on Tuesday by the Russian Minister of Foreign Relations after the approval on Monday of the EU and Canada’s sanctions against Teheran and its energy sector.

July 31:

AFP: China has become the first trading partner of Iran with 21,200 million dollars of exchanges as compared to 14,400 million three years ago, thanks in part to the retreating western companies that had been pressured by their governments.

International sanctions against Iran because of its disputed nuclear program, and above all those decided by the US and the EU countries allowed China to reinforce its presence in the Islamic Republic.

Beijing said that it did not approve of the sanctions decided last Monday by the European Union that mainly aim at the oil and gas sector.

In July, there were 65 dispatches from news agencies dealing with Iran.

August 1:

AFP: On Sunday the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff assured that a plan by the US to attack Iran was in the works if Teheran were to have a nuclear weapon, but he stated that he was extremely worried by the consequences the measure might bring.

Admiral Michael Mullen told NBC that a military action against Iran could have undesired consequences difficult to anticipate in an incredibly unstable area.

August 2:

EFE: The political advisor of the elite corps of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, General Yadola Javani, today stated that Iran has a plan ready to provide a tough answer for any US or Israeli military invasion.

EFE: China invested some 40,000 million dollars (30,600 million Euros) in the sectors of Iranian oil and gas as informed today by the official China Daily.

According to agreements signed between the two countries, Chinese investment in oil projects for prospecting and extracting, total 29, billion dollars, while the remaining 10 billions will be destined for petro-chemistry, refineries, pipelines for both oil and gas.

August 4:

ANSA: Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, made a call to be prepared for an eventual war that Israel wants to start in the Middle East, and warned that the confrontations with Lebanon show the desperate tactics of the Zionist regime and its disorganization.

DPA: Ahmadineyad made a speech in Hamedan in the western part of the country saying that the US can adopt so many different resolutions and sanctions against us, that it will make them sick; the speech was rebroadcast on public TV.

He added that in matters dealing with the nation of Iran, we don’t care and we shall never beg for your products.

August 5:

ANSA: Iran presented a protest to the UN for the declarations in which the head of the US Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullin said that Washington had a strategic plan for an eventual attack on Teheran.

He warned that they would react to any attack…

AP: Two Iranian diplomatic letters to international authorities show that there is little hope for moving forward in the upcoming nuclear negotiations since Teheran is continuing to be defiant and ill-disposed to make any concessions.

AFP: This Thursday China defended its business ties with Iran in spite of US pressure to strictly apply the UN sanctions…

August 9:

EFE: The IAEA confirms that Iran has gone to a second cascade of centrifuges in order to make the process of enriching uranium more efficacious at its Natanz nuclear plant, contradicting the UN resolutions on the matter.

DPA: The Russian-Iranian Bushehr nuclear plant will be inaugurated in September according to the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Office, Ramin Mehmanparast.

August 10:

ANSA: Iran will mass produce a copy of the Bladerunner 51, defined as the fastest motorboat in the world, equipping it with missiles and rockets, for use in the Gulf.

Statement made by a commander of the […] Guardians of the Revolution, according to information from the FARS agency.

ANSA: Today an Iranian agency published on its Internet site pictures of excavations it defines as common graves, prepared to bury the bodies of soldiers who try to invade the Islamic Republic.

The images presented by the Fars agency show in the first place the supreme guide, Ayatollah Ali Khomenei speaking to the Iranian troops and then […] it shows the excavations, in a desert area…

August 11:

DPA: Analyst Jeffery Goldberg Israel writes in an article in the September issue of the American journal …The Atlantic’ that Israel could attack Iran in the next 12 months even without Washington’s permission in the case that is it deemed to be the only manner of stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

August 13:

EFE: Iran’s first atomic plant, Bushehr, built by Russian specialists on the Banks of the Persian Gulf, will begin operations next August 21st, as announced today by the Rosatom Russian nuclear agency.

August 15:

EFE: White House National Security counsel James Jones said that Obama is getting ready to meet with Ahmadineyad if Iran fulfils certain conditions.

AFP: Iran announces that it will begin to build a new site for enriching uranium in 2011.

August 17:

XINJUA.: Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali-Akbar Salehi, warns that attacking the nuclear plants is an international crime and he said that any aggression against the Bushehr Plant would be followed by a serious reaction.

August 18:

REUTERS: […] the Islamic Republic will not dialogue with the US about its nuclear program unless the sanctions and military threats are abandoned.

ANSA: The Iranian plan to respond to an eventual American military attack includes closing the Straits of Ormuz, taking hostages from the American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and actions against Israel, according to a senior Iranian official.

EFE: The Rusian state consortium Atomstroyexport, which is in charge of the project, informed that Russia hopes to load the nuclear fuel into the reactor of the Bushehr plant in Iran by the end of September.

August 19:

AP: […] Admiral Mike Mullen, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other US officials and legislators threatened to use military action under the totally false pretense that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Mullen said […] that the US army has a plan to attack Iran […] he pointed out that the risk of Teheran developing an atomic weapon is unacceptable, and he repeated that the military option is still on the table.

August 20:

AFP: Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad stated in an interview printed this Friday in Japan that Iran is ready to immediately participate in a dialogue with the great powers about an exchange of nuclear fuel.

On Wednesday the Supreme Guide Ali Khomenei declared that Iran would only negotiate with states about the nuclear program if Washington were to lift sanctions and stop making threats against Teheran.

AFP: The Treasury Department said that US officials began a tour through eight nations this Friday, among them Brazil and Ecuador in order to insist on the application of the sanctions imposed by Washington and the UN because of its nuclear program.

AFP: Iranian Minister of Defence Ahmad Vahidi announced on Friday that Iran effectuated a test run of a Qiam land-to-land missile, without giving details on the date of the launch. .”

August 21:

AFP: Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad promised an answer on a planetary scale if his country is attacked, in an interview published on Saturday by the Qatar newspaper Al Sharq.

The Iranian president stated that their options will have no limits […] They will take in the entire planet. He was answering a question regarding the eventual reaction of Teheran to an attack.

ANSA: France and Great Britain today received with distrust the news from Iran of the Bushehr Nuclear Plant starting operations and they demanded guarantees about the truth of its civilian purposes, while Israel considered the event as unacceptable.

August 22:

AFP: On Sunday, Iranian leaders presented a drone bombing with a range of 1,000 Km at a ceremony destined to show the capacity of the Islamic Republic’s response to an eventual attack against its nuclear facilities.

REUTERS: On Saturday Iran began to load fuel into its first nuclear energy plant, a powerful symbol of its growing regional influence and of its rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent development of an atomic bomb.

DPA: The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded in a communiqué quoted today by Radio Israel that the international community must increase pressure on Iran after the opening of its first atomic plant to prevent it from completing its nuclear program.

August 23:

DPA: The State Department pointed out today that the recent presentation of the first unmanned combat plane manufactured by Iran gave rise to new questions in the US about Iranian intentions, even though the greatest concern still focuses on Teheran’s nuclear program.

August 24:

XINHUA: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said that the Islamic Republic places great priority on the broadening of its relations with all Latin American nations.

DPA: …Of course rejected the giving up of enriching uranium after the Bushehr Plant began operations in the southern part of the country last Saturday.

August 25:

DPA: The ISNA news agency informed that Iran showed itself today to be ready send military help to the Armed Forces of Lebanon if Beirut makes an official request,

Lebanon and also the Lebanese Army are our friends and if there should be an official request we would be prepared to help them and cooperate with them as much as possible, ISNA quoted the Minister of Defence Ahmad Vahidi.

August 26:

EFE: Today Russia declared itself to be ready to create with Iran a joint enterprise that would manufacture fuel for the first Iranian nuclear plant, Bushehr, even though it emphasized that enriching of uranium would only take place on Russian territory.

To the list of 238 reasons, one more was added yesterday, and another was added today.

August 27:

DPA: Today the director of the Iranian Atomic Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, informed that Iran produced 25 kilos of enriched uranium at 20 percent, to be used for medical purposes.

The ISNA news agency quotes statements by Salehi that Iran would try to use the enriched uranium to manufacture fuel. With that purpose, Iran foresees concluding construction of its first facility to manufacture fuel before September 2011.

August 28:

DPA: Today Press TV informed on its web page that Iran withdrew its funds from European banks in response to the latest sanctions decreed by the EU because of its controversial nuclear program.

President of the Central Iranian Bank Mahmud Bahmani described the decision as a precautionary measure in defence of a possible freezing of Iranian accounts; the amount withdrawn was not specified.

From September 7th, the UN Security Council will analyze whether Iran has stopped its nuclear program. If according to the latest resolution, the US or Israel try to inspect any Iranian merchant ship in international waters, they will have to use force. This is where we find ourselves at this time, without a doubt, uncertain.

Whoever has carefully read Jeffery Goldberg’s important article that will be published under the title “The Point of No Return” in The Atlantic journal, knows what this ancient and almost unsolvable contradiction between the two countries means, and no less in this nuclear era.

In my opinion, there is no possibility in the least that the Iranian political and religious leaders would accept that demand.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 28, 2010
6:18 p.m.

The post 238 Reasons to be Worried, Part 2 appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

But science and technology also brought with them an unimaginable destructive capacity.

José Martí, our Apostle and National Hero, in his struggle against Spanish colonialism …which more than 500 years earlier had annexed the island to its country situated thousands of miles away on the Old Continent, exterminated its population and imposed a new culture and the mixing of races … saw the future as the fruit of the development of ideas and the need for justice and equality among human beings.

The great founders of our hopes and dreams, to which they devoted their lives, who got to know the entrails of the imperialist monster and in regards to Iberian-American peoples, the “giant in seven-league boots”, very little was missing to live the terrible dilemma of extreme tragedy or shining hope that today envelops our globalized planet.

Fortunately, our country had a Revolution. Everybody learned to read and write, enjoyed excellent health services and even shared them with other peoples, learned to be patriotic and at the same time internationalist; it is prepared for a world of justice, without exploiters and the exploited, it will be able to contribute to the search for new formulae that will make human life possible on earth. I am coming out of the conviction that imperialism will disappear because its existence is incompatible with human life on the planet. Throughout 88 days, the elements of judgement to explain what is happening to the readers have been pulled together. I shall be using two Reflections.

On June 1st, 8 days before Resolution 1929 of the UN Security Council will be passed, press agencies printed five dispatches. EFE news agency reported in three different dispatches: one stated that Iran today branded as …repetitive and partial’ the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the Iranian nuclear program and it showed itself to be …surprised’ by the lack of mention of the tripartite agreement signed with Turkey and Brazil on uranium exchange.

It went on to say that the Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki today heard tough criticism in the European parliament where the deputies were condemning him for the human rights situation in his country and for the nuclear program being promoted by his government.

Today the White House said that the latest report of the IAEA reveals that Iran continues to violate its international obligations and refuses to cooperate with UN inspectors, so the dispatch continued.

ANSA reports that Meir Dagan, chief of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, today thought that the agreement between Iran, Brazil and Turkey for the exchange of nuclear material is a ruse being set up by Teheran in order to divide in the international community.

June 2:

AFP states that the United States hopes that the UN Security Council makes a statement about a resolution promoting new sanctions against Iran, at the latest by June 21st, as declared this Wednesday by the State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley.

According to EFE, the Central Bank of Iran has set a plan in motion that will transform 45 billions of its reserves in Euros into dollars and gold bars due to the crisis in the single currency as informed today by state television in English, PressTV.

June 4:

EFE reports that hundreds of thousands of people today celebrated the twenty-first anniversary of the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomenei, in a ceremony in which supreme leader, the Ayatollah Alí Jameneí and President Mahmud Ahmadineyad, threatened the opposition and attacked the US and Israel.

ANSA states that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad today warned that an attack against his country by Israel would be “the death of the Zionist regime”.

In Reuters we read that Russia and China are against rushing the vote in the UN Security Council about greater sanctions against Iran, said the Russian Foreign Relations Minister Sergei Lavrov in a quote on Friday.

June 6:

ANSA says that the leader of the Iranian opposition Mir Hossein Mussavi today accused the government of carrying out “deceiving, dark and damaging policies” that “provide a golden opportunity for the United States and Israel”.

June 7:

EFE reports that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineyad will travel this week to China to discuss the nuclear problem and the proposal of exchange of fuel as agreed with Brazil and Turkey, as announced today on state TV.

AFP talks about the IAEA continuing to wait for an official answer from the US, France and Russia about the agreement to exchange uranium done by Iran with Turkey and Brazil, as pointed out this Monday in Vienna by the director of this UN agency, Yukiya Amano.

Meanwhile DPA reports that the Iranian government today reported it was pleased that the IAEA would include Israel’s supposed nuclear arms program in talks it would have in Vienna throughout this week.

EFE reports that Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian Nuclear Agency (Rosatom), today denied that the imposing of sanctions on Teheran could affect construction of the Nuclear Generator in Bushehr, Iran, by Russian engineers.

EFE goes on to say that the UN Security Council might vote on Wednesday to decide whether to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran for refusing to stop the enrichment of uranium, according to diplomatic sources.

AFP reports said that on Monday night Iranian television broadcast the interview of a man introduced as Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear physicist who disappeared in 2009 in Saudi Arabia, stating that he had been kidnapped by US and Saudi secret services and taken to the United States.

June 8:

AFP reports that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad warned that his country will not be participating in new negotiations about their nuclear program if it is submitted to new sanctions; US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hopes that this will occur “very soon”.

Reuters states that UN sanctions against Iran as a result of their disputed nuclear program have been “completely agreed upon” as reported on Tuesday by a Russian source close to the Security Council’s discussions.

EFE states that the UN Security Council will vote this Wednesday whether it will impose a fourth round of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enrichment of uranium despite efforts of Brazil and Turkey to give more time to the negotiations with Teheran.

According to EFE, Iranian Parliament will reconsider its country’s cooperation with the IAEA if the UN Security Council approves the new package of sanctions promoted by the US.

Reuters reports that on Tuesday Iran called in the Swiss ambassador in Teheran for talks and gave him documents that, apparently, reveal that an Iranian nuclear scientist was kidnapped by the US, as reported by the official IRNA news agency.

The greatest number of cable dispatches occurred on June 9th. That day will go down in history as the day the United States crossed the Rubicon when it committed to take measures of force against Iran if it did not allow its merchant ships to be inspected in international waters. I shall indicate them all in the order in which they came out:

EFE: Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineyad today denounced that while in some parts of the world the shortage of water has become a critical factor, developed countries used more water than what they need.

EFE: The UN Security Council today passed a new and tougher regime of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop their nuclear program; this was received with sarcasm by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineyad who described the measure as a bunch of “pesky flies”.

EFE: President Lula da Silva of Brazil which voted today against sanctions against Iran passed in the UN Security Council stated that the new punishment was imposed by “those who believe in force” and not in dialogue.

AFP: The United States respects Brazil and Turkey’s “different point of view” about the new sanctions against Iran even though both countries should explain why they voted against the Security Council as stated this Wednesday by the spokesperson for the State Department Philip Crowley.

EFE: Shortly before passing a new round of sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, the EU and the USA, during a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna, today strongly condemned the Iranian lack of cooperation in regards to its controversial nuclear program.

AFP: On Wednesday, the US, France and Russia expressed their reservations about the agreement between Iran and Brazil and Turkey for the exchange of Iranian uranium, a few hours before the UN Security Council met to vote on a new series of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

ANSA: A new resolution with sanctions in the UN Security Council against Iran “will not solve the matter” of the nuclear disagreement facing Teheran was indicated today in an editorial in one of the Syrian government newspapers.

EFE: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today urged Iran to fulfil its international obligations after the body’s Security Council imposed a new group of sanctions because they were continuing with their nuclear program.

AFP: On Wednesday, Iran stated that the new sanctions passed against them by the UN Security Council “are only used handkerchiefs and should be thrown into the garbage” and it repeated its willingness carry on, come what may, with its controversial nuclear program.

AFP: The UN Security Council Resolution that imposes new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program is a “Pyrrhic victory”, so said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this Wednesday: Brazil, a non-permanent member of the body, voted against the measure.

Reuters: On Wednesday, a Democrat legislator forecast that the US Congress will pass more sanctions for Iran this month: he pointed out that the new measures passed by the UN Security Council would be a key step while at the same time urging stronger measures.

A total of 11 new dispatches informed the world about what happened at the UN Security Council.

This was followed on the 10th by another 9 dispatches on the subject. I shall mention some of them:

AFP: This Thursday Iran threatened to decrease its relations with the IAEA on the day after the UN would vote new sanctions and after Russia, its traditional ally, would freeze the sale of missiles to the Islamic Republic.

Notimex: Iranian Parliamentary President Ali Larijani today stated that the US is unfortunately playing “an innocent game” about Teheran’s controversial nuclear program, pressured by what he called the “Zionist lobby”.

EFE: The Venezuelan government said today that it “would absolutely reject” the UN Security Council resolution on new political and economic sanctions against Iran, one day after President Hugo Chávez demanded “respect” for Iran.

EFE: Today Russia declared that the new international sanctions against Iran passed last night by the UN Security Council do not prevent it from fulfilling the sales contract for anti-air battery systems with S-300 missiles with Teheran.

ANSA: The US considers the nay vote by Brazil and Turkey on Wednesday in the UN Security Council for implementing the new group of sanctions against Iran to be “disappointing”, as stated by the White House spokesperson, Robert Gibbs.

Next, I include isolated dispatches referring to the topic, none of which show even the slightest change of nuance. Like two trains barrelling along at full speed on the same track, heading towards each other.

AFP: Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad launched into a diatribe on Friday against the United States and Israel, 48 hours after new UN Security Council sanctions were passed against his country which is found to be ever more increasingly internationally isolated.

Reuters: Iran will be capable of developing nuclear weapons in a lapse of one to three years, said US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday, adding that there is still time to put the pressure on Teheran.

EFE: Iran will restrict its cooperation with the IAEA to the limits imposed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and will continue the enrichment of uranium, so indicated the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Alí Asghar Soltanieh.”

EFE: The director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, today pointed out to the West to stop putting itself into a blind alley and to accept the exchange formula for nuclear fuel with Iran.

ANSA: Saudi Arabia conceded use of its air space to Israel for an eventual attack on nuclear plants in Iran, after new sanctions decided on against the Islamic Republic by the UN Security Council. The British newspaper, The Times, today revealed this, citing sources from Defence in the Persian Gulf which requested to remain anonymous.

Sources said that Riad conceded a narrow air corridor to Israel in the northern part of their country in order to shorten the distance between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic.

EFE: Last week, Iranian secret agents detained thirteen supposed members of an anti-revolutionary terrorist group at various sites in the country; they appeared to be preparing for an attack as informed today by the Ministry of Intelligence public relations office.

June 15:

AFP: On Tuesday, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim thought it to be good news that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad declared the agreement for exchange of uranium signed by his country with Brazil and Turkey to be still in force despite the new sanctions of the Security Council.

AFP: On Tuesday Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim stated that the time had come to listen to emerging countries on serious matters such as the Iranian nuclear program after the powers ignored an initiative backed by Turkey and Brazil to inactivate tensions.

The minister wrote in the French newspaper Le Figaro that it is time for serious matters of peace and war to be listened to from emerging countries -Turkey and Brazil, as well as other countries such as India, South Africa, Egypt and Indonesia.

June16:

EFE: Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineyad today warned that starting now it would be his country that would be setting up the conditions for an eventual dialogue about the nuclear controversy.

ANSA: Today Iran announced the construction of a new nuclear reactor for scientific purposes and warned that it would return to negotiations in the dispute for its atomic plans only after imposing punishment on the powers that approved the sanctions in the UN Security Council.

EFE: Tomorrow the Summit of European Union leaders will back the passing of sanctions against Iran that go further than those imposed by the UN Security Council, including measures in the sector of oil and gas.

EFE: The Revolutionary Guard, an elite corps of Iranian security forces, has begun to deploy along the Iraqi border facing the presence of the United States and Israel in the area, so stated one of its commanders today.

“Mehdi Moini, brigadier general and commander of this body in the north-western province of West-Azerbaijan, accused these and other countries of wanting to provoke an ethnic conflict in the region, according to English-language state television …Press TV’.

“…The presence of US and Israeli forces along the border is the reason for military movements from Iran in the province, Moini explained.

June 17:

AFP: On Thursday, EU leaders decided to impose sanctions tougher than those agreed by the UN on Iran because of its nuclear program; these were directed towards the national key sector of gas and oil and this has angered Russia.

DPA: Today Russia severely criticized both increases in sanctions on Iran agreed by the United States and the European Union.

We are deeply disappointed that neither the US nor the EU have followed our request to give up determinate measures.

AFP: Iran is capable of launching an attack against Europe using dozens or even hundreds of missiles and thus the US has reviewed its antimissile defence system, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated this Thursday.

June 18:

Reuters: On Friday, Iran described the UN sanctions against its nuclear program as illegal and blamed the US, the principal defender of the measures, of the spread of atomic weapons throughout the entire world.

June 20:

EFE: US Secretary of the Defense Robert Gates today said that the new sanctions against Iran had a reasonable possibility of functioning and forcing the Teheran government to end its nuclear program.

AP: On Sunday, a special US envoy warned the Pakistani government to abstain from implementing an agreement for the gas pipeline that was recently signed with Iran since this might unchain new sanctions that Congress was drafting.

To be continued tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 27, 2010
6:12 p.m.

The post 238 Reasons to be Worried, Part 1 appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

He is not neutral, of course; he is pro-Israel, without question. When one of them does not agree with the policy of that country that too is not done halfway.

For my aim, it is important to know the thinking that guides the main political and military leaders of that State.

I feel that I have the authority to have an opinion because I have never been anti-Semitic and I share with him a profound hatred of Nazi-Fascism and the genocide perpetrated against children, women and men, young or aged Jews against whom Hitler, the Gestapo and the Nazis took out their hatred against that people.

For the same reason, I abhor the crimes committed by the fascist government of Netanyahu which kills children, women and men, young and old in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank.

In his illustrated article “The Point of No Return” that will be printed in The Atlantic journal in September 2010, now available on the Internet, Jeffrey Goldberg starts his more than 40-page paper; I am taking the essential ideas from it in order to enlighten the readers.

“It is possible that at some point in the next 12 months, the imposition of devastating economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran will persuade its leaders to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons. […]It is possible, as well, that “foiling operations” conducted by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers— […]—will have hindered Iran’s progress in some significant way. It is also possible that President Obama, who has said on more than a few occasions that he finds the prospect of a nuclear Iran “unacceptable,” will order a military strike against the country’s main weapons and uranium-enrichment facilities.”

“I am not engaging in a thought exercise, or a one-man war game, when I discuss the plausibility and potential consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran. Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting—forever, as it turned out—Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean–built reactor in Syria. An attack on Iran, then, would be unprecedented only in scope and complexity.”

“I have been exploring the possibility that such a strike will eventually occur for more than seven years, […] In the months since then, I have interviewed roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike, as well as many American and Arab officials. In most of these interviews, I have asked a simple question: what is the percentage chance that Israel will attack the Iranian nuclear program in the near future? Not everyone would answer this question, but a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July. […] But I tested the consensus by speaking to multiple sources both in and out of government, and of different political parties. Citing the extraordinary sensitivity of the subject, most spoke only reluctantly, and on condition of anonymity. […]The reasoning offered by Israeli decision makers was uncomplicated: Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability […]and the most crucial component of Israeli national-security doctrine, a tenet that dates back to the 1960s […]is that no regional adversary should be allowed to achieve nuclear parity with the reborn and still-besieged Jewish state.”

“In our conversation before his swearing-in, Netanyahu would not frame the issue in terms of nuclear parity— […]Instead, he framed the Iranian program as a threat not only to Israel but to all of Western civilization.”

“‘…When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the world should start worrying, and that’s what is happening in Iran.”’

“In our conversation, Netanyahu refused to discuss his timetable for action, or even whether he was considering military preemption of the Iranian nuclear program. […]Netanyahu’s belief is that Iran is not Israel’s problem alone; it is the world’s problem, and the world, led by the United States, is duty-bound to grapple with it. But Netanyahu does not place great faith in sanctions—not the relatively weak sanctions against Iran recently passed by the United Nations Security Council, nor the more rigorous ones being put in place by the U.S. and its European allies.”

“But, based on my conversations with Israeli decision-makers, this period of forbearance, in which Netanyahu waits to see if the West’s nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December.”

“The Netanyahu government is already intensifying its analytic efforts not just on Iran, but on a subject many Israelis have difficulty understanding: President Obama. The Israelis are struggling to answer what is for them the most pressing question: are there any circumstances under which President Obama would deploy force to stop Iran from going nuclear? Everything depends on the answer.”

“Iran demands the urgent attention of the entire international community, and in particular the United States, with its unparalleled ability to project military force. This is the position of many moderate Arab leaders as well. A few weeks ago, in uncommonly direct remarks, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, told me— […]that his country would support a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. […] he said. “Small, rich, vulnerable countries in the region do not want to be the ones who stick their finger in the big bully’s eye, if nobody’s going to come to their support.”

“Several Arab leaders have suggested that America’s standing in the Middle East depends on its willingness to confront Iran. They argue self-interestedly that an aerial attack on a handful of Iranian facilities would not be as complicated or as messy as, say, invading Iraq. “This is not a discussion about the invasion of Iran,” one Arab foreign minister told me. “We are hoping for the pinpoint striking of several dangerous facilities. America could do this very easily.”

“Barack Obama has said any number of times that he would find a nuclear Iran “unacceptable.” […]A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East, but around the world. Whatever remains of our nuclear nonproliferation framework, I think, would begin to disintegrate. You would have countries in the Middle East who would see the potential need to also obtain nuclear weapons.”

“But the Israelis are doubtful that a man who positioned himself as the antithesis of George W. Bush, author of invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, would launch a preemptive attack on a Muslim nation.”

“We all watched his speech in Cairo,” a senior Israeli official told me, referring to the June 2009 speech in which Obama attempted to reset relations with Muslims by stressing American cooperativeness and respect for Islam. “We don’t believe that he is the sort of person who would launch a daring strike on Iran. We are afraid he would see a policy of containing a nuclear Iran rather than attacking it.”

““Bush was two years ago, but the Iranian program was the same and the intent was the same,” the Israeli official told me. “So I don’t personally expect Obama to be more Bush than Bush.”

“If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack.

“a strike on Iran, Israeli intelligence officials believe, could provoke all-out retaliation by Iran’s Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah, which now possesses, by most intelligence estimates, as many as 45,000 rockets—at least three times as many as it had in the summer of 2006, during the last round of fighting between the group and Israel.)

“…Netanyahu is not unique in his understanding of this challenge; several of the prime ministers who preceded him cast Iran’s threat in similarly existential terms. […]“He has a deep sense of his role in Jewish history,” Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, told me.”

Jeffrey Goldberg goes on for several pages to tell the story of Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion, whom he considers to be the most outstanding historian in the world on the subject of the Spanish Inquisition and other important merits, and who recently celebrated his 100th birthday.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is not known in most quarters for his pliability on matters concerning Palestinians, though he has been trying lately to meet at least some of Barack Obama’s demands that he move the peace process forward.”

At the end of this part of his article, Goldberg carries on with the analysis of the complex situation. At times he is rather tough analyzing a 2001commentary by the former president of Iran, Hashemi-Rafsanjani, in which he is certainly speaking about a bomb that would destroy Israel; a threat that was criticized even by the left-wing forces that are Netanyahu’s enemies.

“The challenges posed by a nuclear Iran are more subtle than a direct attack, Netanyahu told me. […] ‘Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella. […]Instead of being a local event, however painful, it becomes a global one. Second, this development would embolden Islamic militants far and wide, on many continents, who would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph..” ““You’d create a great sea change in the balance of power in our area,” he went on.

“Other Israeli leaders believe that the mere threat of a nuclear attack by Iran—combined with the chronic menacing of Israel’s cities by the rocket forces of Hamas and Hezbollah—will progressively undermine the country’s ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens.. […] ‘The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place, such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life, that even American Jewish young people want to come here.”

“Patriotism in Israel runs very high, according to numerous polls, and it seemed unlikely to me that mere fear of Iran could drive Israel’s Jews to seek shelter elsewhere. But one leading proponent of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Ephraim Sneh, a former general and former deputy defense minister, is convinced that if Iran crossed the nuclear threshold, the very idea of Israel would be endangered. “These people are good citizens, and brave citizens, but the dynamics of life are such that if someone has a scholarship for two years at an American university and the university offers him a third year, the parents will say, ‘Go ahead, remain there,’” Sneh told me when I met with him in his office outside of Tel Aviv not long ago. “If someone finishes a Ph.D. and they are offered a job in America, they might stay there. It will not be that people are running to the airport, […]The bottom line is that we would have an accelerated brain drain. And an Israel that is not based on entrepreneurship, that is not based on excellence, will not be the Israel of today.”

“One Monday evening in early summer, I sat in the office of the decidedly non-goyishe Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and listened to several National Security Council officials he had gathered at his conference table explain—in so many words—why the Jewish state should trust the non-Jewish president of the United States to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold.”

“One of those at the table, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser who served as the lead author of the recent “National Security Strategy for the United States” as well as of the president’s conciliatory Cairo speech, suggested that Iran’s nuclear program was a clear threat to American security, and that the Obama administration responds to national-security threats in the manner of other administrations. “We are coordinating a multifaceted strategy to increase pressure on Iran, but that doesn’t mean we’ve removed any option from the table,” Rhodes said. “This president has shown again and again that when he believes it is necessary to use force to protect American national-security interests, he has done so. We’re not going to address hypotheticals about when and if we would use military force, but I think we’ve made it clear that we aren’t removing the option of force from any situation in which our national security is affected.”

“…Emanuel, whose default state is exasperation […](A former Bush administration official told me that his president faced the opposite problem: Bush, bogged down by two wars and believing that Iran wasn’t that close to crossing the nuclear threshold, opposed the use of force against Iran’s program, and made his view clear, “but no one believed him).”

“At one point, I put forward the idea that for abundantly obvious reasons, few people would believe Barack Obama would open up a third front in the greater Middle East. One of the officials responded heatedly, “What have we done that would allow you to reach the conclusion that we think that a nuclear Iran would represent a tolerable situation?”

“Obama administration officials, particularly in the Pentagon, have several times signaled unhappiness at the possibility of military preemption. In April, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, told reporters that military force against Iran was “off the table in the near term.” She later backtracked, but Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also criticized the idea of attacking Iran. […]“In an area that’s so unstable right now, we just don’t need more of that.”

“…President Obama has by no means ruled out counterproliferation by force.. […]Gary Samore, the National Security Council official who oversees the administration’s counterproliferation agenda, told me that the Israelis agree with American assessments that Iran’s uranium-enrichment program is plagued with problems.”

“‘…we can measure, based on the IAEA reports, that the Iranians are not doing well,” Samore said. “The particular centrifuge machines they’re running are based on an inferior technology. They are running into some technical difficulties, partly because of the work we’ve done to deny them access to foreign components. When they make the parts themselves, they are making parts that don’t have quality control.”

“Dennis Ross, the former Middle East peace negotiator who is currently a senior National Security Council official, said during the meeting that he believes the Israelis now understand that American-instigated measures have slowed Iran’s progress, and that the administration is working to convince the Israelis—and other parties in the region—that the sanctions strategy “has a chance of working.”

“The president has said he hasn’t taken any options off the table, but let’s take a look at why we think this strategy could work,” […]Last June, when they hadn’t responded to our bilateral outreach, the president said that we would take stock by September.”

“Ross […]the sanctions Iran now faces may affect the regime’s thinking. “The sanctions are going to cut across the board. They are taking place in the context of Iranian mismanagement—the Iranians are going to have to cut [food and fuel] subsidies; they already have public alienation; they have division in the elites, and between the elites and the rest of the country.”

“One question no administration official seems eager to answer is this: what will the United States do if sanctions fail? Several Arab officials complained to me that the Obama administration has not communicated its intentions to them, even generally.”

“Obama’s voters like it when the administration shows that it doesn’t want to fight Iran, but this is not a domestic political issue,” the foreign minister said. “Iran will continue on this reckless path, unless the administration starts to speak unreasonably. The best way to avoid striking Iran is to make Iran think that the U.S. is about to strike Iran. We have to know the president’s intentions on this matter. We are his allies.” (According to two administration sources, this issue caused tension between President Obama and his recently dismissed director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair. According to these sources, Blair, who was said to put great emphasis on the Iranian threat, told the president that America’s Arab allies needed more reassurance. Obama reportedly did not appreciate the advice.)”

“In Israel, of course, officials expend enormous amounts of energy to understand President Obama, despite the assurances they have received from Emanuel, Ross, and others.”

“Not long ago, the chief of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, paid a secret visit to Chicago to meet with Lester Crown, the billionaire whose family owns a significant portion of General Dynamics, the military contractor. Crown […] ‘“I share with the Israelis the feeling that we certainly have the military capability and that we have to have the will to use it. The rise of Iran is not in the best interest of the U.S.’”

““I support the president,” Crown said. “But I wish [administration officials] were a little more outgoing in the way they have talked. I would feel more comfortable if I knew that they had the will to use military force, as a last resort. You cannot threaten someone as a bluff. There has to be a will to do it.”

“Several officials even asked if I considered Obama to be an anti-Semite. I answered this question by quoting Abner Mikva, the former congressman, federal judge, and mentor to Obama, who famously said in 2008, “I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.” I explained that Obama has been saturated with the work of Jewish writers, legal scholars, and thinkers, and that a large number of his friends, supporters, and aides are Jewish. But philo-Semitism does not necessarily equal sympathy for Netanyahu’s Likud Party—certainly not among American Jews, who are, like the president they voted for in overwhelming numbers, generally supportive of a two-state solution, and dubious about Jewish settlement of the West Bank.”

“Rahm Emanuel suggested that the administration is trying to thread a needle: providing “unshakeable” support for Israel; protecting it from the consequences of an Iranian nuclear bomb; but pushing it toward compromise with the Palestinians. […] he past six Israeli prime ministers—including Netanyahu, who during his first term in the late 1990s, to his father’s chagrin, compromised with the Palestinians—to buttress his case. “Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, Olmert—every one of them pursued some form of a negotiated settlement, which would have been in Israel’s own strategic interest,” he said. “There have been plenty of other threats while successive Israeli governments have pursued a peace process.”

“…Israel should consider carefully whether a military strike would be worth the trouble it would unleash. “I’m not sure that given the time line, whatever the time line is, that whatever they did, they wouldn’t stop” the nuclear program, he said. “They would be postponing.”

“It was then that I realized that, on some subjects, the Israelis and Americans are still talking past each other.”

“IN MY CONVERSATIONS with former Israeli air-force generals and strategists, the prevalent tone was cautious. Many people I interviewed were ready, on condition of anonymity, to say why an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would be difficult for Israel. And some Israeli generals, like their American colleagues, questioned the very idea of an attack. “Our time would be better spent lobbying Barack Obama to do this, rather than trying this ourselves,” one general told me. “We are very good at this kind of operation, but it is a big stretch for us. The Americans can do this with a minimum of difficulty, by comparison. This is too big for us.”

“These planes would have to return home quickly, in part because Israeli intelligence believes that Iran would immediately order Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israeli cities, and Israeli air-force resources would be needed to hunt Hezbollah rocket teams.”

“…in the event of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran, his mission would be to combat Hezbollah rocket forces. […]to keep Hezbollah in reserve until Iran can cross the nuclear threshold.
“…Hezbollah ‘“lost a lot of his men. […] That is one reason we have had four years of quiet. What has changed in four years is that Hezbollah has increased its missile capability, but we have increased our capabilities as well.” He concluded by saying, in reference to a potential Israeli strike on Iran, “Our readiness means that Israel has freedom of action.”

“America, too, would look complicit in an Israeli attack, even if it had not been forewarned. The assumption—often, but not always, correct—that Israel acts only with the approval of the United States is a feature of life in the Middle East, and it is one the Israelis say they are taking into account. I spoke with several Israeli officials who are grappling with this question, among others: what if American intelligence learns about Israeli intentions hours before the scheduled launch of an attack? “It is a nightmare for us,” one of these officials told me. “What if President Obama calls up Bibi and says, ‘We know what you’re doing. Stop immediately.’ Do we stop? We might have to. A decision has been made that we can’t lie to the Americans about our plans. We don’t want to inform them beforehand. This is for their sake and for ours. So what do we do? These are the hard questions.”

“Many Israelis think the Iranians are building Auschwitz. We have to let them know that we have destroyed Auschwitz, or we have to let them know that we tried and failed.”

“There are, of course, Israeli leaders who believe that attacking Iran is too risky. […]“We don’t want politicians to put us in a bad position because of the word Shoah,” one general said.”

“After staring at the photograph of the Israeli air-force flyover of Auschwitz more than a dozen different times in more than a dozen different offices, I came to see the contradiction at its core. If the Jewish physicists who created Israel’s nuclear arsenal could somehow have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and sent a squadron of fighters back to 1942…”

“Benjamin Netanyahu feels, for reasons of national security, that if sanctions fail, he will be forced to take action. But an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, successful or not, may cause Iran to redouble its efforts—this time with a measure of international sympathy—to create a nuclear arsenal. And it could cause chaos for America in the Middle East. […]Peres sees the Iranian nuclear program as potentially catastrophic, […]When I asked if he believed in a military option, he said, “Why should I declare something like that?”

“Based on months of interviews, I have come to believe that the administration knows it is a near-certainty that Israel will act against Iran soon if nothing or no one else stops the nuclear program; […]Earlier this year, I agreed with those, including many Israelis, Arabs—and Iranians—who believe there is no chance that Obama would ever resort to force to stop Iran; I still don’t believe there is a great chance he will take military action in the near future—for one thing, the Pentagon is notably unenthusiastic about the idea. But Obama is clearly seized by the issue. […]Denis McDonough, the chief of staff of the National Security Council, told me, “What you see in Iran is the intersection of a number of leading priorities of the president, who sees a serious threat to the global nonproliferation regime, a threat of cascading nuclear activities in a volatile region, and a threat to a close friend of the United States, Israel. I think you see the several streams coming together, which accounts for why it is so important to us.”

“When I asked Peres what he thought of Netanyahu’s effort to make Israel’s case to the Obama administration, he responded […]his country should know its place, and that it was up to the American president, and only the American president, to decide in the end how best to safeguard the future of the West. The story was about his mentor, David Ben-Gurion. ““Shortly after John F. Kennedy was elected president, Ben-Gurion met him at the Waldorf-Astoria” in New York, Peres told me. “After the meeting, Kennedy accompanied Ben-Gurion to the elevator and said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I want to tell you, I was elected because of your people, so what can I do for you in return?’ Ben-Gurion was insulted by the question. He said, ‘What you can do is be a great president of the United States. You must understand that to have a great president of the United States is a great event.’”

“Peres went on to explain what he saw as Israel’s true interest. “We don’t want to win over the president,” he said. “We want the president to win.”

“Jeffrey Goldberg”

“Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American-Israeli journalist. He is one of the writers and staff journalists on The Atlantic journal. Previously he worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg mainly writes on international subjects, preferring the Middle East and Africa. Some have called him the most influential journalist-blogger on matters dealing with Israel.”

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 25, 2010
6:18 p.m.

The post The Opinion of an Expert appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

In almost all wars, one of the parties wishes to avoid them, and sometimes, both. On this occasion, it would come about even though one of the parties does not wish it, as happened in the two World Wars in 1914 and 1939, with only 25 years of distance before the first outbreak and the second.

The slaughters were horrific, they would not have been unleashed without prior errors of calculation. The two parties were defending imperialist interests and they believed that they would obtain their objectives without the terrible cost that that implied.

In the case that concerns us: one of them is defending national, absolutely just interests. The other is pursuing illegitimate intentions and crude material interests.

If we analyze all the wars that have taken place, starting from the known history of our species, one of the parties has sought those objectives.

Any illusion that, on this occasion, such objectives will be reached without the most terrible of all wars is absolutely vain.

In one of the best articles published by the Global Research website on Thursday, July 1, signed by Rick Rozoff, he provides abundant indisputable arguments on the United States’ intentions, of which any well-informed person must be aware.

“…Victory can be attained when an adversary knows it is vulnerable to an instantaneous and undetectable, overwhelming and devastating attack without the ability to defend itself or retaliate,” is what the United States thinks, according to the author.

“…A country which aspires to remain the only state in history to wield full spectrum military dominance on land, in the air, on the seas and in space.”

“…To maintain and extend military bases and troops, aircraft carrier battle groups and strategic bombers on and to most every latitude and longitude. To do so with a post-World War II record war budget of $708 billion for next year.”

It was “…the first country to develop and use nuclear weapons…”

“… the U.S. retains 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 2,200 (by some counts 3,500) more in storage and a triad of land, air and
submarine delivery vehicles.”

“The non-nuclear arsenal used for disabling and destroying the air defenses and strategic, potentially all major, military forces of other nations will consist of intercontinental ballistic missiles, adapted submarine-launched ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles and bombers, and super stealthy strategic bombers able to avoid detection by radar and thus evade ground- and air-based defenses.”

Rozoff lists the many press conferences, meetings and statements of Joint Chiefs of Staff and high-ranking members of the government of the United States in the last few months.

He explains the commitments to NATO and the reinforced cooperation with Near East allies, primarily, read Israel. He says, “The U.S. is also intensifying space and cyber warfare programs with the potential to completely shut down other nations’ military surveillance and command, control, communications, computer and intelligence systems, rendering them defenseless on any but the most basic tactical level.”

He speaks of the signing in Prague, on April 8 of this year, of the new START Treaty between Russia and the United States, which “does not contain any constraints on current or planned U.S. conventional prompt global strike capability.”

He refers to countless news items on the subject and illustrates the intentions of the United States with one overwhelming example. He notes that “…’The Department of Defense is currently exploring the full range of technologies and systems for a Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capability that could provide the President more credible and technically suitable options for dealing with new and evolving threats.”

I maintain the opinion that any president whosoever, not even the most expert military chief, would not have one minute to know what should be done if it was not already programmed on computers. Imperturbably, Rozoff relates what the Global Security Network affirms in an analysis titled: “Cost to test U.S. global-strike missile could reach $500 million,” by Elaine Grossman. ”The Obama administration has requested $239.9 million for prompt global strike research and development across the military services in fiscal 2011… If funding levels remain as anticipated into the coming years, the Pentagon will have spent some $2 billion on prompt global strike by the end of fiscal 2015, according to budget documents submitted last month to Capitol Hill.”

“A terrifying scenario comparable to the effects of a PGS attack, in this case the sea-based version, appeared three years ago in Popular Mechanics:
“In the Pacific, a nuclear-powered Ohio class submarine surfaces, ready for the president’s command to launch. When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles. ”At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident’s four warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the planet.”

Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel.

“Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods-each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated.”

Rozoff immediately explains the April 7 statement of General Leonid Ivashov, joint chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, made in a column entitled “Obama’s nuclear surprise.”

In that same column Ivashov, refers to the speech by the U.S. president in Prague last year: “The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War” – and his signing of the START II agreement in that same city on April 8, Rozoff quotes the author, who stated:

“No examples of sacrificial service of the U.S. elites to mankind or peoples of other countries can be discovered in the U.S. history over the past century. Would it be realistic to expect the advent of an African-American president to the White House to change the country’s political philosophy traditionally aimed at achieving global dominance? Those believing that something like that is possible should try to realize why the U.S. – the country with a military budget already greater than those of all other countries of the world combined – continues spending enormous sums of money on preparations for war.”

“… ‘The Prompt Global Strike concept envisages a concentrated strike using several thousand precision conventional weapons in 2-4 hours that would completely destroy the critical infrastructures of the target country and thus force it to capitulate.”
“The Prompt Global Strike concept is meant to sustain the U.S. monopoly in the military sphere and to widen the gap between it and the rest of the world. Combined with the deployment of the missile defense supposed to keep the U.S. immune to retaliatory strikes from Russia and China, the Prompt Global Strike initiative is going to turn Washington into a modern era global dictator.”

“In essence, the new U.S. nuclear doctrine is an element of the novel U.S. security strategy that would be more adequately described as the strategy of total impunity. The U.S. is boosting its military budget, unleashing NATO as the global gendarme, and planning real-life exercise in Iran to test the efficiency of the Prompt Global Strike initiative in practice. At the same time, Washington is talking about the completely nuclear-free world.”

In essence, Obama is trying to deceive the world by talking of a humanity free of nuclear weapons, which would be replaced by other extremely destructive ones, ideal for terrorizing state leaders and achieving the new strategy of total impunity.

The yankis believe that Iran’s rendition is already close. The European Union is expected to announce a sanctions package of its own to be signed on July 26.

The last meeting of the 5+1 took place on July 2, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad affirmed that “his country would return to talks at the end of August with the participation of Brazil and Turkey.”

A high-ranking EU official “stated that neither Brazil nor Turkey will be invited to take part in talks, at least not at this level.”

“Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated that he was in favor of defying international sanctions and continuing with the enriched uranium program.”

From Tuesday, July 5, in the face of the European reiteration that they are to promote additional measures against Iran, this country has responded that it will not negotiate until September.

Every day the possibilities of overcoming the insurmountable obstacle are reducing further.

What is going to happen is so evident that it can be foreseen in an almost exact form.

For my part, I must make a self-criticism; I committed an error in affirming in the June 27 Reflection that the conflict would break out on the Thursday, Friday or at the latest Saturday. It was already known that Israeli warships were navigating toward that objective together with the yanki naval forces. The order to search Iranian merchant ships was already given.

However, I did not realize that there was a prior step: confirmation of the negation of permission for the inspection of its mercantile fleet on the part of Iran. In analyzing the torturous language of the Security Council imposing sanctions on that country, I did not notice that detail to give the inspection order full effect. It was the only thing missing.

The 60-day period given by the Security Council on June 9 to receive information on compliance with the Resolution expires on August 8.

But something really most lamentable happened. I was working on the latest material on the delicate issue drafted by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the said document did not contain two key paragraphs – the last two of the abovementioned resolution – which textually state:
“Requests within 90 days a report from the Director General of the IAEA on whether Iran has established full and sustained suspension of all activities mentioned in resolution 1737 (2006), as well as on the process of Iranian compliance with all the steps required by the IAEA Board of Governors and with other provisions of resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and of this resolution, to the IAEA Board of Governors and in parallel to the Security Council for its consideration;
“Affirms that it shall review Iran’s actions in light of the report referred to in paragraph 36 above, to be submitted within 90 days, and: (a) that it shall suspend the implementation of measures if and for so long as Iran suspends all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, as verified by the IAEA, to allow for negotiations in good faith in order to reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome; (b) that it shall terminate the measures specified in paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12 of resolution 1737 (2006), as well as in paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of resolution 1747 (2007), paragraphs 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of resolution 1803 (2008), and in paragraphs 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23 and 24 above, as soon as it determines, following receipt of the report referred to in the paragraph above, that Iran has fully complied with its obligations under the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and met the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors, as confirmed by the IAEA Board of Governors; (c) that it shall, in the event that the report shows that Iran has not complied with resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and this resolution, adopt further appropriate measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to persuade Iran to comply with these resolutions and the requirements of the IAEA, and underlinesthat further decisions will be required should such additional measures be necessary…”

A compañero from the Ministry, after the exhausting work of many hours at the machine making photocopies of all the documents, fell asleep. My eagerness in seeking out information and exchanging points of view on these delicate issues, made it possible for me to discover this omission.

From my point of view, the United States and its NATO allies have said their last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige did not exercise their right to veto the perfidious UN resolution.

It was the only possibility of gaining time to seek some formula for saving the peace, an objective that would have afforded them greater authority to continue fighting for it.

Today, everything is hanging from a tenuous thread.

My principal intention was to advise international public opinion of what was occurring.

I have in part achieved that by observing what was taking place, as a political leader who, for many years, has been confronting the empire, its blockades and its indescribable crimes. But I am not doing it out of revenge.

I am not hesitating to run the risks of compromising my modest moral authority.

I shall continue writing Reflections on the subject. There will be a number more after this one in order to continue going more profoundly into it in July and August, unless some incident occurs to trigger the deadly weapons currently pointed at each other.

I have very much enjoyed the final games of the World Cup and the volleyball games, in which our valiant team is marching at the head of its group in the World League of that sport.

Fidel Castro Ruz

July 11, 2010
8:14 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

The post The origin of wars appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The World Cup has still not ended. There are six days left to go before the final.

What an exceptional opportunity the yanki empire and the fascist state of Israel might miss for keeping the minds of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the planet off their basic problems!

Who would have noticed the disastrous plans of the empire in relation to Iran and its crude pretexts for attacking it?

At the same time I ask myself: what are Israeli warships doing for the first time in the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s maritime areas?

Is it possible to imagine that the yanki nuclear aircraft carriers and the Israeli warships will leave their with their tails between their legs if the requisites contained in Resolution 1929 passed by the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010 – which authorizes the inspection of Iranian ships and aircraft, with the possibility of making those inspections within the territory of any state and which, this time around, authorizes doing so on the high sea – are met?

The resolution also establishes that the inspection of Iranian ships should not be undertaken without Iran’s consent. In that case, its refusal would be the subject of analysis.

Another added element is the possibility of seizing what has been inspected, if it can be confirmed that it does not comply with the terms of the resolution.

A disarmed Iran was the victim of that cruel war with Iraq in which the masses of the Revolutionary Guards cleared the minefields by advancing across them.

This is not the case today. I explained in earlier Reflections that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was chief of the Revolutionary Guards in West Iran who bore the central brunt of that war.

Years later, an emboldened Iraqi government dispatched the bulk of its Republican Guard and annexed the oil rich Arab Emirate of Kuwait, an easy prey.

The government of Iraq maintained a close relationship with Cuba, which has provided it with significant health services since the times when it was not at war. Our country tried to persuade it to abandon Kuwait and put an end to the war that it had provoked based on erroneous points of view.

It is now known that a mediocre yanki ambassador, who maintained excellent relations with the government of Iraq, induced it to the error committed.

Bush Senior attacked his former friend, leading a powerful coalition with a strong Arab Sunni Muslim composition from countries that supply oil to a large part of the industrialized and rich nations, which advanced from the south of Iraq to cut off the retreat of the Republican Guard, which was withdrawing toward Baghdad and which, given the prudence of the United States Marines and Armed Forces – under the leadership of Colin Powell, a prestigious general and subsequently Secretary of State of George W. Bush – escaped toward the capital of Iraq.

Out of pure revenge, they utilized missiles contaminated with depleted uranium against the Republican Guard, with which, for the first time, they experienced the damage that these could inflict on enemy soldiers.

The Iran which, at this moment, is threatening with its air, land and sea armies of the Muslim-Shiite religion, is nothing like the Republican Guard that they attacked with impunity in Iraq.

The empire is at the point of committing an inestimable error without anybody being able to prevent it. It is advancing inexorably toward a disastrous fate.

The only thing that can be stated is that the quarter finals of the World Cup took place. In that way, we football fans were able to enjoy the emotional games in which we saw incredible things. It has been affirmed that, for 36 years, the Holland team has never lost World Cup matches on a Friday. Only thanks to computers could that calculation be made.

It is a fact that Brazil was eliminated in the quarter finals of the Cup. A referee left Brazil out of them. At least that was the impression that an excellent commentator on Cuban television insistently repeated. Afterward, the FIFA declared that the referee’s decision was correct.

Later on, the same referee left Brazil with 10 players at a decisive moment, when more than half of the second time of the game remained. That was definitely never the referee’s intention.

Yesterday, Argentina was eliminated. In the first minutes, the German team, via midfielder Müller, caught by surprise the confident Argentine defense and goalkeeper and succeeded in scoring a goal.

Later, the Argentine forwards just could not score a goal on no less than 10 occasions, for one to the German team.

On the contrary, the German team notched up another three and even Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, applauded wildly.

So, once again, one of the favorite teams lost, leaving 90% of football fans in Cuba stunned.

The vast majority of lovers of that sport do not even know on which continent Uruguay is to be found. A final between European countries would be the most lackluster and anti-historic since that sport came into the world.

On the other hand, events took place in the international sphere that have nothing to do with games of chance but everything to do with the elemental logic that rules the destinies of the empire.

A series of events saw the light of day on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

All of them revolve around one fact: the big powers represented on the United Nations Security Council with a right to the veto, plus Germany, urged the government of Iran on July 2 make “a prompt response” to the invitation extended to it to return to negotiations on its nuclear program.

The day before, President Barack Obama signed a bill extending existing measures against Iran’s energy and banking sectors, and which could penalize companies doing business with the Tehran government. In other words, the rigorous blockade and the strangulation of Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad affirmed that his country would return to talks at the end of August and emphasized the necessary participation of countries such as Brazil and Turkey, the only two members of the Security Council who opposed the sanctions on June 9.

A high-ranking official of the European Union contemptuously stated that neither Brazil nor Turkey would be invited to participate in the talks.

Nothing more is needed to come to the pertinent conclusions.

Neither of the two parties will give in: one, due to the pride of the powerful, and the other, out of resistance to the yoke and the capacity to fight, as has occurred so many times in the history of humanity.

Without any doubt whatsoever, the people of Iran, a national of millenary traditions, will defend themselves against the aggressors. It is incomprehensible that Obama can seriously believe that they would bow down to his demands.

The president of that country and its religious leaders, inspired by the Islamic Revolution of Ruhollah Khomeini, creator of the Revolutionary Guards, the modern Armed Forces and the new state of Iran, will resist.

For us, the poor nations of the world, who are not in the least to blame for the colossal mess created by imperialism, located in this hemisphere to the south of the United States, others located in the West, Center and South of Africa, and others that are able to remain unharmed by nuclear war in the rest of the planet, there is no alternative other than to confront the consequences of the catastrophic nuclear war which will erupt in a very short time.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to rectify and I take full responsibility for what is written in my latest Reflections.

Fidel Castro Ruz

July 4, 2010
5:36 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

The post Impossible joy appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Those who determine every step of the worst enemy of humanity – United States imperialism, a mixture of ignoble material interests, disdain and underestimation for other people inhabiting the planet – have calculated everything with mathematical precision.

In the Reflection of June 16 I wrote: “Diabolical news is filtering little by little between games and games in the World Cup, in a way that nobody is paying much attention to it.”

The famous sports event has entered its most emotional moments. For 14 days, the teams made up of the best footballers from 32 countries have been competing to advance toward the second round; afterward the phases of quarter finals, semifinals and the final of the event come in successive stages.

Fanaticism for sport is growing incessantly, captivating hundreds or millions and possibly billions of people all over the planet.

On the other hand, one would have to ask how many of them know that, since June 20, U.S. military vessels, including the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, escorted by one or more nuclear submarines and other warships with missiles and cannons that are more powerful that those of the old battleships utilized in the last world war from 1939 to 1945, have been navigating toward Iranian coasts via the Suez Canal.

The yanki naval forces are accompanied by Israeli military boats, with equally sophisticated armaments, to inspect every vessel that leaves to export and import commercial products required for the functioning of the Iranian economy.

At the proposal of the United States, with support from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the UN Security Council approved a harsh resolution that was not vetoed by any of the five countries which hold that right.

Another harsher resolution was approved with the agreement of the United States Senate

Subsequently, a third, even harsher one was passed by the countries of the European Union. All of this took place before June 20, which prompted an urgent trip to Russia by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to the news, to meet with the head of state of that powerful country, Dmitry Medvedev, in the hope of negotiating with Iran and avoiding the worst.

Now it is about calculating when the naval forces of the United States and Israel will be deployed facing the Iranian coasts, and joining up there with aircraft carriers and other U.S. military boats which mount guard in this region.

The worst part is that, just like the United States, Israel, its gendarme in the Middle East, possesses extremely modern bomber aircraft and sophisticated weapons supplied by the United States, which has converted it into the sixth nuclear power on the planet given its firepower, among the eight recognized as such, including India and Pakistan.

The Shah of Iran had been defeated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 without using a single weapon. The United States imposed the Shah after the war on that nation with the use of chemical weapons, whose components it supplied to Iraq together with the information needed by its combat units and which were deployed by them against the Revolutionary Guards. Cuba knows that because, at that time, as we have explained on other occasions, it was president of the Non-Aligned Movement. We know very well the devastation that it caused among the population. Mahmud Ahmadinejad, now head of state in Iran, was chief of the sixth army of the Revolutionary Guards and chief of the Guard Corps in the western provinces of that country, which bore the brunt of that war.

Today, in 2010, after 31 years, both the United States and Israel are underestimating the one million soldiers in the Iranian Armed Forces and their capacity for fighting on land, and the air, sea and land forces of the Revolutionary Guards.

In addition to these, there are the 20 million men and women, aged from 12 to 60, selected and systematically trained by its diverse military institutions, from out of the 70 million people who inhabit the country.

The government of the United States drew up a plan to instigate a political movement that, supporting itself on capitalist consumerism, would divide Iranians and defeat the regime.

That hope has become innocuous. It is laughable to think that with U.S. warships plus those of Israel, that they can arouse the sympathies of one sole Iranian citizen.

Analyzing the current situation, I initially believed that the battle would begin in the Korean peninsula, and that that area would be the detonator of the second Korean war which, in its turn, would immediately lead to the second war that the United States would impose on Iran.

Now, reality is changing things in an inverse sense: that of Iran will immediately unleash that of Korea.

The leadership of North Korea, which was accused of the sinking of the Cheonan, and is all too well aware that it was sunk by a mine that the yanki intelligence services succeeded in placing in the hull of that corvette, will not hesitate for one second to act as soon as the attack is initiated on Iran.

It is quite right that the football fans should enjoy their craving for the World Cup competitions. I am only fulfilling the duty of exhorting our people, thinking above all of our youth, full of life and hope, and especially our marvelous children, in order that events do not catch us completely unawares.

It pains me to think of so many dreams conceived of by human beings and the astounding creations of which they have been capable in just a few thousand years.

At a time when the most revolutionary dreams are being fulfilled and the homeland is firmly recovering, how I wish I was wrong!

Fidel Castro Ruz

June 24, 2010
9:34 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

The post How I wish I was wrong appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.