January 23, 2018
By
Brandon Turbeville
With the recent unrest in Iran seemingly organized and orchestrated
by outside forces such as the U.S. color revolution apparatus in concert
with Saudi Arabia, it is becoming more and more clear to individuals
observing the situation in the Middle East that the plan to destroy Iran
is now coming into view. Even before Syria was destabilized by Western
forces in 2011, Iran had been placed on the chopping block on the list
of countries that would be ripped apart for the crime of not acquiescing
to dictates of the Western financial system. From being included in
Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech to being discussed by the
Project for the New American Century as
a target shortly before 9/11 became the “New Pearl Harbor” to justify
the rapid spread of American empire across the world and eviscerate what
was left of civil liberties at home, Iran has been in the crosshairs of
the Western financier system. Likewise,
Iran was identified by General Wesley Clark as one of the countries set to be attacked and destroyed by the United States after 9/11.
Ever since 2001, Iran has been a topic of discussion by politicians,
intelligence agencies, the military, and a myriad of Western financier
“think tanks” in terms of how the country can best be destabilized,
weakened, or destroyed.
The Brookings Institution Report – Which Path To Persia?
The plan for a Western or a Western/Israeli attack on Iran, along
with the theatre of alleged US-Israeli tensions leading up to a strike
and outright war, has been in the works for some time. For instance, in
2009, the Brookings Institution, a major banking, corporate, and
military-industrial firm, released a report entitled “
Which Path To Persia? Options For A New American Strategy For Iran,”
in which the authors mapped out a plan which leaves no doubt as to the
ultimate desire from the Western financier, corporate, and governing
classes.
The plan involves the
description of a number of ways
the Western oligarchy would be able to destroy Iran including outright
military invasion and occupation. However, the report attempts to
outline a number of methods that might possibly be implemented before
direct military invasion would be necessary. The plan included
attempting to foment destabilization inside Iran via the color
revolution apparatus, violent unrest, proxy terrorism, and “limited
airstrikes” conducted by the US, Israel or both.
Interestingly enough, the report states that any action taken against
Iran must be done after the idea that Iran has rejected a fair and
generous offer by the West has been disseminated throughout the general
public. The report reads,
…any military operation against Iran will likely be very
unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—
both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and
to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international
opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to
strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were
given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime
determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong
reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States
(or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger,
and at least some in the international community would conclude that
the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.
From the writings of Brookings, it is readily apparent for all to see
what the latest browbeating over the “terrible” Iran deal and how the
Iranians are not living up to their obligations under the agreement
coming from the Trump administration are all about. The United States
has bullied Iran into accepting a deal it should never have had to agree
to in the first place and now the U.S. is attempting to add
restrictions and obligations that were never part of the deal to begin
with and/or claim that Iran is not living up to its end of the deal. If
Iran refuses to comply with the additional mandates or if the world is
susceptible enough to the American and Israeli propaganda attempting to
paint Iran as uncooperative, Iran will be painted as having refused “a
very good deal.” As the report states, any action taken against Iran
must be done after the idea that Iran has rejected a fair and generous
offer by the West has been disseminated throughout the general public.
For that reason, the idea is being promulgated that Iran was offered a
great deal at the disadvantage of the United States but Iran would not
abide by even this agreement, continuing to insist on gaining nuclear
weapons to destroy the U.S. and poor innocent Israel, forcing America’s
hand after diplomacy failed.
Ironically, it is admitted by the authors of the report that the
Iranians are not governed by lunatics intent on nuking the world but by
entirely rational players. Still, they move forward with a number of
options for attacking Iran. It should thus be obvious to anyone reading
this report that the US, NATO, and Israel are uninterested in peace with
Iran and are entirely focused on war and Iranian destruction.
“The so-called “Iran deal,” introduced during the administration of US President Barack Obama,
represents precisely this “superb offer,”
with Flynn’s accusations serving as the “turn down” ahead of the
“sorrowful” war and attempted regime change the US had always planned to
target Tehran with,” writes
Tony Cartalucci of Land Destroyer Report.
The report continues to discuss the citations that could be used for
an attack on Iran, clearly stating its intentions to create a plan to
goad a non-threatening nation into war. It states,
The truth is that these all would be challenging cases to
make. For that reason, it would be far more preferable if the United
States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the
airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more
deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the
United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the
United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of
the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One
method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet
up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate
overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an
unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)
The question of the Israeli role in the possible attack against Iran
is also mentioned by Brookings. In fact, in the chapter entitled,
“Allowing or Encouraging An Israeli Military Strike,” Brookings not only
outlines a potential strategy but essentially admits that the
US-Israeli tension being hyped in the Western media is nothing more than
a farce. Moreover, it discusses the possibility of Israel taking the
lead in an attack against Iran, knowing that the U.S. would be drawn in
under the guise of “defending” Israel. With an American public so
thoroughly brainwashed to believe it is the religious duty of Christians
to act as the sword Israel, it might very well be successful
propaganda. Israel, of course, is adept at using its symbiotic
relationship with the U.S., always ready to fight and die to the last
American. In Chapter 5, entitled “Leave It To Bibi: Allowing Or
Encouraging An Israeli Military Strike,” the document states,
..the most salient advantage this option has over that of
an American air campaign is the possibility that Israel alone would be
blamed for the attack. If this proves true, then the United States might
not have to deal with Iranian retaliation or the diplomatic backlash
that would accompany an American military operation against Iran. It
could allow Washington to have its cake (delay Iran’s acquisition of a
nuclear weapon) and eat it, too (avoid undermining many other U.S.
regional diplomatic initiatives).
The “Which Path to Persia?” document also contained a section
dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian government via “soft power”
means. In a section titled, “THE VELVET REVOLUTION: Supporting A Popular
Uprising,” the paper reads,
Because the Iranian regime is widely disliked by many
Iranians, the most obvious and palatable method of bringing about its
demise would be to help foster a popular revolution along the lines of
the “velvet revolutions” that toppled many communist governments in
Eastern Europe beginning in 1989. For many proponents of regime change,
it seems self-evident that the United States should encourage the
Iranian people to take power in their own name, and that this would be
the most legitimate method of regime change. After all, what Iranian or
foreigner could object to helping the Iranian people fulfill their own
desires?
. . . . .
The true objective of this policy option is to overthrow the clerical
regime in Tehran and see it replaced, hopefully, by one whose views
would be more compatible with U.S. interests in the region.
Interestingly enough, the paper continues by discussing some of the
exact methods to be used against Iran in the coming “velvet revolution”
as well as some of the methods that are currently being used to those
ends. The paper reads,
The United States could play multiple roles in
facilitating a revolution. By funding and helping organize domestic
rivals of the regime, the United States could create an alternative
leadership to seize power. As Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy
Committee argues, students and other groups “need covert backing for
their demonstrations. They need fax machines. They need Internet access,
funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep vigilantes from beating
them up.” Beyond this, U.S.-backed media outlets could highlight regime
shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent. The
United States already supports Persian language satellite television
(Voice of America Persian) and radio (Radio Farda) that bring unfiltered
news to Iranians (in recent years, these have taken the lion’s share of
overt U.S. funding for promoting democracy in Iran). U.S. economic
pressure (and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the
regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership.
Under another section entitled “Finding the right proxies,” the paper
lists “intellectuals,” “students,” “labor and civil society
organizations.”
In another section of the paper, Brookings discusses the possibility
of initiating a military intervention in support of the “revolution”
Western powers have instigated on the ground. Found in the “Military
Intervention” section of the paper, Brookings writes,
…if the United States ever succeeds in sparking a revolt
against the clerical regime, Washington may have to consider whether to
provide it with some form of military support to prevent Tehran from
crushing it.
. . . . .
…if the United States is to pursue this policy, Washington must take
this possibility into consideration. It adds some very important
requirements to the list: either the policy must include ways to weaken
the Iranian military or weaken the willingness of the regime’s leaders
to call on the military, or else the United States must be ready to
intervene to defeat it.
As Tony Cartalucci writes,
In essence, Brookings quickly admits that its “velvet
revolution” would be the fulfillment of Washington’s desires, not the
Iranian people’s – pursued merely under the guise of helping Iranians
fulfill their own desires. As the CIA itself admits in its own
historical records that US “interests in the region” are based on
economic exploitation and the enrichment of Wall Street and Washington,
not lifting up, empowering, or enriching the Iranian people.
It is an open admission regarding US designs for Iran demonstrated on
multiple occasions elsewhere from Iraq to Libya to Syria to Ukraine and
Yemen – what is promoted as progressive political revolution supported
by the “democratic” West is in fact the destruction and subjugation of a
nation, its people, and its resources at the cost of global peace and
prosperity.
In addition to direct military invasion and “velvet revolution”
through soft power, Brookings discusses the possibility of creating an
“armed insurrection.” The paper reads:
As much as many Americans might like to help the Iranian
people rise up and take their destiny in their own hands, the evidence
suggests that its likelihood is low—and that American assistance could
well make it less likely rather than more. Consequently, some who favor
fomenting regime change in Iran argue that it is utopian to hold out
hope for a velvet revolution; instead, they contend that the United
States should turn to Iranian opposition groups that already exist, that
already have demonstrated a desire to fight the regime, and who appear
willing to accept U.S. assistance.
In this discussion, Brookings points to the MEK radical Marxist
terrorist group tacitly supported by the United States and Israel. It
should be noted that the MEK was removed from the U.S. list of terrorist
organizations in 2012. The paper states,
Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most
controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a
potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of
Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e
Khalq).
. . . . . .
…the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist
organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and
three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis,
the group praised the decision to take American hostages and Elaine
Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11
attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread. Undeniably, the
group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s
advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For
example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic
Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political
organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently,
the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks,
assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military
targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely
with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to
remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The report also mentions briefly the need for the cooperation of neighboring states. It states,
Of equal importance (and potential difficulty) will be
finding a neighboring country willing to serve as the conduit for U.S.
aid to the insurgent group, as well as to provide a safe haven where the
group can train, plan, organize, heal, and resupply…
…without such a partner, it would be far more difficult for the
United States to support an insurgency. One thing that the United States
would have in its favor when searching for a state to play this role is
that many of Iran’s neighbors dislike and fear the Islamic Republic.
. . . . . .
Properly executed, covert support to an insurgency would provide the
United States with “plausible deniability.” As a result, the diplomatic
and political backlash would likely be much less than if the United
States were to mount a direct military action.
Of course, the United States has already established willing partners
neighboring Iran. Afghanistan, particularly, which the U.S. invaded in
2001 and where it remains to this day seventeen years later, is a
perfect conduit for supporting an “armed insurgency” as well as a direct
military invasion. Pakistan also serves as an easily managed conduit
nation. Iraq also stands as another country the U.S. invaded in 2003 and
fifteen years later, still remains. This is one of several reasons why
Iran has involved itself so heavily in both Iraq and Syria.
“Of course,” Cartalucci writes, “Brookings’ own publicly-published
conspiracy coupled together with the US’ demonstrated use of proxies in
Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and now Iran, lays bare this strategy and
mitigates whatever ‘plausible deniability’ Washington hoped to
maintain.”
“Regardless,” says Cartalucci, “the West, through its formidable
influence in the media, will attempt to maintain plausible deniability
regarding US involvement in Iranian unrest until the last possible
moment – not unlike how it hid its role in executing the so-called ‘Arab
Spring’ during its opening phases despite plotting and organizing the
mayhem years in advance.”
But Brookings admits that it might not be necessary to completely
destroy Iran or even to overthrow the government. Instead, it suggests
that it may be worthwhile to simply keep the government under constant
pressure. Brookings writes,
…even if U.S. support for an insurgency failed to produce
the overthrow of the regime, it could still place Tehran under
considerable pressure, which might either prevent the regime from making
mischief abroad or persuade it to make concessions on issues of
importance to the United States (such as its nuclear program and support
to Hamas, Hizballah, and the Taliban). Indeed, Washington might decide
that this second objective is a more compelling rationale for supporting
an insurgency than the (much less likely) goal of actually overthrowing
the regime.
Indeed, a weakened Iran continuously occupied with internal disputes,
protests, and social unrest may very well serve as an acceptable Plan B
for the authors of the Brookings report as well as the intended
audience.
Destabilizing Iran Is Nothing New
Attempts at destabilizing the Iranian government are by no means
anything new. In 2009, the United States attempted to engineer a color
revolution in Iran known as the Green Movement or Green Revolution. The
color revolution was quickly put down by the iron fist of the Iranian
government and Iran remained free of internal strife until 2018 when the
U.S. once again attempted to stir up popular sentiment against the
Iranian government. Again, the government was able to quickly quell the
revolt which itself was much smaller than the 2009 version.
Tony Cartalucci of
Land Destroyer Report also discusses the
indirect role of the United States in the Iranian 1979 Revolution due to
the revolution itself being a reaction to decades of American meddling
in Iran. Indeed, American destabilization methods go all the way back to
1953, when the United States overthrow the Iranian President Mohammad
Mosadegh and installed the repressive Shah.
Cartalucci writes,
While pro-war circles in the US claim the 1979 Iranian
Revolution was an instance of Iran drawing first blood, the revolution
was in fact a direct response to then already decades of US meddling in
Iran stretching back as early as 1953 with the US Central Intelligence
Agency’s Operation AJAX.
Regarding Operation AJAX, in an entry on the CIA’s own website titled, “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” it admits (emphasis added):
The target was not an oppressive Soviet puppet but a democratically
elected government whose populist ideology and nationalist fervor
threatened Western economic and geopolitical interests. The CIA’s covert
intervention—codenamed TPAJAX—preserved the Shah’s power and protected
Western control of a hugely lucrative oil infrastructure. It also
transformed a turbulent constitutional monarchy into an absolutist
kingship and induced a succession of unintended consequences at least as
far ahead as the Islamic revolution of 1979—and, Kinzer argues in his
breezily written, well-researched popular history, perhaps to today.
The article – a review by the CIA’s own history staff of a book
regarding Operation AJAX – admits that US policy regarding Iran merely
picked up where the British Empire left off in an effort to reassert
rapidly-slipping Western control over the globe. In no way was US
efforts to undermine and control the government of Iran described in
terms of protecting US national security or promoting democracy – and in
fact was characterized instead as undermining Iranian
self-determination.
It is this admission that reveals the core truth of today’s tensions
between Iran and the United States. The West still seeks to reassert
itself and its economic interests in the Middle East. Notions of
“freedom,” “democracy,” as well as threats of “terrorism,” “nuclear
holocaust,” and even the ongoing conflict with nearby Israel, Saudi
Arabia, and other Persian Gulf States are but facades behind which this
self-serving neo-imperial agenda is pursued.
Why Iran?
There are a number of reasons why the United States and the NATO
imperial army would like to see Iran destroyed over the coming years.
Geopolitical reasons are, of course, front and center.
On one level, the Israeli connection stands as one obvious reason the
United States has maintained an anti-Iran posture for nearly two
decades. Iran not only stands as a regional opponent to the whims and
aims of the Israeli settler state, but it also bankrolls and supports
one of the greatest forces of opposition to Israel directly. Indeed,
Israel was humiliated by Hezbollah in front of the world in 2006. Thus,
if Iran is destroyed, Hezbollah goes with it and two of Israel’s biggest
and most effective opponents disappear from the game board.
The United States also sees Iran as an opponent due to Iran’s
resistance to the Anglo-American insistence on global hegemony of its
“Western” system of financial and corporate overseers in a global
plantation owned by a world oligarchy. Iran stands in opposition to the
Western system because it refuses to engage in a system private central
banking as well as corporate and private financier domination of its
society and culture. Maintaining its own national bank has long been a
source of irritation for Wall Street and City of London vampires eager
to sink their fangs into the blood supply of every nation on earth as
has its refusal to knuckle under to the destruction of its culture
through insidious methods and its alliance with other opponents of the
Western agenda.
Iran also remains a close Russian ally and the last domino that needs
to fall before the great Anglo-American army can march forward directly
into Russia and break the largest country in the world into
“manageable” parts. Once Iran is destroyed, Russia will be largely
isolated and left to face the NATO alliance which has been slowly
surrounding Russia over the last two decades.
Conclusion
While the recent protests may have disappeared from the headlines and
the streets, the plan to bring Iran to its knees is no doubt
continuing. Indeed, a plan that has seen such massive amounts of
commitment, spanning decades of administrations, is not likely to be
abandoned anytime soon. After all, the United States recently announced
that it will not be leaving Syria and essentially admitted that it will
continue to support the creation of Kurdistan. As documents, think
tanks, and important geostrategic actors have repeatedly demonstrated
through their writings, Iran remains an immensely important target. The
streets of Iran may be quiet today but, if the United States, NATO, GCC,
and Israel have anything to say about it, they won’t be for long.
Brandon Turbeville writes for Activist Post – article archive here – He is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President, and Resisting The Empire: The Plan To Destroy Syria And How The Future Of The World Depends On The Outcome. Turbeville
has published over 1000 articles on a wide variety of subjects
including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties.
Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every
Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.
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