05 Iran – Page 10 – Public Intelligence Blog

Afghanistan: President Karzai's spokesman said Wednesday that Afghanistan has suspended Bilateral Security Agreement talks with the US and that Afghanistan will not pursue peace talks with the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations.

The spokesman explained President Karzai took the action because of a contradiction between what the US says and does.

Comment: The Afghan government judges it has been betrayed by the US in agreeing to talks with the Islamic Emirate. Afghanistan said no such entity exists. It was told the Doha office was only for negotiations.

Qatar said the Taliban betrayed their promise to open only a political office of the Taliban. Qatari authorities were persuaded to force the Taliban to take down their flag and their Islamic Emirate plaque. The US said the Afghan government had been kept fully informed.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Karzai Refuses US-Taliban Talks, US Clueless & Still Shutting Pakistan Out”

2013/06/192013/06/19

Chuck Spinney: Imperial Idiocy Wrecks Middle East (Fruits of Treason) — End of Sykes-Picot Betrayal, Five Inter-Mixed Conflicts, Return of the Tribes

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

Patrick Cockburn has written a very important essay on Syria in the London Review of Books (attached below). The essay is aptly titled but has only a few oblique, albeit important, references to Sykes – Picot Agreement, a document some readers may not familiar with. Let's begin with a little background.

The Sykes-Picot agreement (it was a secret agreement concocted by two bureaucrats) is one of the most cynical documents in the creation of the modern Middle East.

The Encylopaedia Britannica describes it accurately as follows:

It was a … “secret convention made during World War I (1916) between Great Britain and France, with the assent of imperial Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into various French- and British-administered areas. The agreement took its name from its negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Imperial Idiocy Wrecks Middle East (Fruits of Treason) — End of Sykes-Picot Betrayal, Five Inter-Mixed Conflicts, Return of the Tribes”

2013/06/152013/06/15

Franklin Lamb: Obama, Surrounded by Liars and Untried Youths, Declares War on Syria — USA Working for Iran (Again)

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Genocide, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Government, Idiocy, Peace Intelligence

Why Obama is Declaring War on Syria

Veterans Today, 15 June 2013

(Beirut) – The short answer is Iran and Hezbollah according to Congressional sources. “The Syrian army’s victory at al-Qusayr was more than the administration could accept given that town’s strategic position in the region. Its capture by the Assad forces has essentially added Syria to Iran’s list of victories starting with Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, as well as its growing influence in the Gulf.”

Other sources are asserting that Obama actually did not want to invoke direct military aid the rebels fighting to topple the Assad government or even to make use of American military power in Syria for several reasons. Among these are the lack of American public support for yet another American war in the Middle East, the fact that there appears to be no acceptable alternative to the Assad government on the horizon, the position of the US intelligence community and the State Department and Pentagon that intervention in Syria would potentially turn out very badly for the US and gut what’s left of its influence in the region. It short, that the US getting involved in Syria could turn out even worse than Iraq, by intensifying a regional sectarian war without any positive outcome in sight.

Continue reading “Franklin Lamb: Obama, Surrounded by Liars and Untried Youths, Declares War on Syria — USA Working for Iran (Again)”

2013/06/072013/06/07

Eagle: Pentagon destroys replica of underground nuclear facility — Israel assured budget cuts will not stop attack on Iran

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, Corruption, DoD, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

300 Million Talons... — 300 Million Talons…

US experiment: Pentagon destroys replica of underground nuclear facility

Pentagon uses advanced bunker buster bombs to destroy replica of underground facility as part of experiment whose results were relayed to friendly nations

The Pentagon has recently completed a series of field exercises on US soil as part of which a replica of an underground nuclear facility was destroyed, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday. The tests were declared a resounding success having exceeded all expectations.

The results of the experiment were relayed to friendly nations with the aim of reassuring them as to the US's ability to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities in a single strike. It was also meant to convey that the US is serious in its intentions to attack Iran should circumstances allow it.

Continue reading “Eagle: Pentagon destroys replica of underground nuclear facility — Israel assured budget cuts will not stop attack on Iran”

2013/06/062013/06/06

Berto Jongman: US Attacking Iran and China — While Living in a Glass House

02 China, 05 Iran, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency

Silent War

On the hidden battlefields of history’s first known cyber-war, the casualties are piling up. In the U.S., many banks have been hit, and the telecommunications industry seriously damaged, likely in retaliation for several major attacks on Iran. Washington and Tehran are ramping up their cyber-arsenals, built on a black-market digital arms bazaar, enmeshing such high-tech giants as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. With the help of highly placed government and private-sector sources, Michael Joseph Gross describes the outbreak of the conflict, its escalation, and its startling paradox: that America’s bid to stop nuclear proliferation may have unleashed a greater threat.

Read full article (5 screens).

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: US Attacking Iran and China — While Living in a Glass House”

2013/06/062013/06/06

NIGHTWATCH: Pakistan, China, & India — Regional Accommodation As US Gets Kicked Out of the Neighborhood — Next Up the Persian – Russian Peace Zone

02 China, 03 India, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Pakistan: Pakistan's National Assembly on Wednesday formally elected Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. Sharif, 63, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, was elected by an overwhelming majority. He received 244 of the 317 votes cast by assembly members. Many parties voted en bloc for Nawaz Sharif to curry favor with the new government.

President Zardari administered the oath of office at President House.

Prime Minister Sharif delivered a brief speech on the floor of the National Assembly after his election. He said, “The chapter of drone attacks on the country's soil should now be closed. As we respect others' sovereignty, ours should also be given respect. This campaign must come to an end.”

He also addressed Pakistan's many problems. In Churchillian fashion, he said he would not make attractive promises to the masses nor talk about any imaginary heaven on earth. He openly sided with the productive forces of the country agriculture, industry and exports, as the keys for economic revival. He said he would tolerate no corruption and nepotism and that the doors of dictatorship had been closed forever.

The only foreign country mentioned was China. The Prime Minister said he would form a study group to work on establishing a rail link to western China from Karachi and the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar via the Khunjerab Pass in the north. He plans to give free port status to the Chinese built and now managed new port of Gwadar in western Pakistan.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Pakistan, China, & India — Regional Accommodation As US Gets Kicked Out of the Neighborhood — Next Up the Persian – Russian Peace Zone”

2013/06/04

SchwartzReport: US Elective Invasion & Occupation of Iraq: Gift to China (and Iran),. Biggest Blunder Ever, Biggest War Crime in Modern History

02 China, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

You and I, thanks to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Daniel Pipes, and a number of other lesser neocons, and an almost fatally incurious President, spent over a TRILLION dollars of public money, and squandered the lives of tens of thousands of young Americans who were killed, wounded, or permanently maimed, in order to achieve… nothing… for either America or Iraq, as t! his report makes clear.

Historians, I think, will say it was the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. It has resulted in the destabilization of an entire region of the world, sucked out the money that should have gone to rebuilding our infrastructure and our schools, and laid the foundation for generations of anti-American hate throughout the Islamic world.

Fears of Civil War in Iraq After 1,000 Are Killed in a Month
PATRICK MARKEY – NBC News

As the previous story pointed out the deaths of thousands of Americans and some far large but never accurately counted number of Iraqis, and the wounding and maiming of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis produced no benefits for either country and great damage to both. Even on the terms the neocons argued for the war: it would protect Iraq's massive o! il supplies for the U.S. (read the neocons' corporate masters) turns out to be wrong, as this story makes clear. Everything the Bush Administration based its policy decisions on was wrong, and China is the main beneficiary.

China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
TIM ARANGO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS – The New York Times