To control, or dominate Iran, Mr. Bush has to encircle it: Afghanistan to the East, Turkey/Azerbaijan to the North, Iraq to the West, the South are already U.S. stooges. Pipelines, in effect, will become the new Berlin Wall. See the map attached below.
Azerbaijan is key to understanding the region and the power. During the past decade the only western source of power and force projection into the region was with the USACC. The United States Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. It was this body that has, and remains, the source of negotiations, planning and structure in the region. Prior to many of its board members entering the present White House along with Mr. Bush, they were the force behind the U.S. Congressional effort called the Silk Road Strategy of 1996-1998; the Caspian initiative; Black Sea pipeline routes and the division of the Caspian Sea, etc.
The USACC Advisory Board consisted of "only" these seven men: Dr. Henry Kissinger, James A Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zibigniew Brzezinski, Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu. It is noted here that the current Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth Cheney-Perry, has been named Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs for regional economic issues; she left Armitage Associates for the job. The USACC Vice-Chairman of the Board is James A Baker IV (Baker Botts, L.L.P.); Chairman Emeritus is T. Don Stacy (VP, Amoco); with Richard Armitage as Board President, until he resigned to become Colin Powell’s Deputy, which rounds out the US elite running the USACC. The remaining Board of Directors are a who’s who of the oil and gas multinational corporate interests of the west and specifically the United States. On the Board of Trustees or USACC the latter interests hold sway again with three primary exceptions: Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA) (whose efforts formed the 1996 legislative backbone of the House/Senate Silk Road Strategy for Afghanistan, [Unocal, Texaco] et al) and Richard Perle (US Defense Policy Board). The Legal Counsel for USACC is Ted Jones of the Texas Law firm Baker Botts L.L.P. (James A Baker III & IV’s law firm.); Treasurer is Karl Mattison (VP, Riggs Bank, NA). It was the James A. Baker III Institute of Rice University which outlined the Cheney Strategic Energy Initiative which later became the Administration’s Strategic Energy National Security Policy. (Clearly Dick Cheney wouldn’t be interested in giving Congress the names of who he consulted on the Energy Initiative as they would amount to the remainder of the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees of USACC.) * see below.
The argument made here remains theoretical and analytical. If anyone can outline a better explanation as to what Bush’s interests, not necessarily the American citizens, are in the region, this analyst would bend in humble humility before it. Facts are facts regardless of how they may be interpreted. There is no denying the Bush Administration and the above named beneficiaries are out to achieve political objectives the American people, indeed the world’s people, are unaware of. Then "in whose interests" does Bush work? It is this analyst’s theory that Mr. Bush will attempt to achieve the objectives of a unique kind of American-led corporate Empire: HHMMS is what it has been called: the Hollywood Harvard McDonalds Microsoft Syndrome.
With Kurds' success in Iraq, some Iranian Kurds itching to resume fight in their homeland
I keep reading from various sources that the United States does not have the troops to invade Syria or Iran. This is almost of small or no consequence as Bush has a history and an agenda of using one faction against another.
To this end the United States is training 20,000 Kurds to oppose Iran and it seems also Azerbaijanis. If Bush can add the Arabs to this group he might be able to come up with a formidable force to oppose Iran with little of our own troop involvement. Looks better for us if no one knows. Also explains why Bush is holding hands with the Saudis who are plagued with those pesky Shiites.
Reference:
Where the details of the operation with the participation of Azerbaijanis against Iran are being considered. #msg-6273446
Dividing the Arabs is the same strategy Bush has been trying in the Persian Gulf Island Dispute. #msg-3136614
The Sunni Arabs know they have an education and experience advantage over the more numerous Shia Arabs. They know that powerful Sunni Arab nations in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, will back them in many ways. The fear of Islamic conservatism from Shia Iran can also be manipulated. #msg-6071457
-Am
With Kurds' success in Iraq, some Iranian Kurds itching to resume fight in their homeland By Yahya Barzanji, Associated Press, 5/22/2005 13:22
QANDIL MOUNTAIN RANGE, Iraq (AP) Some 200 Iranian Kurds marched in single file up an icy mountain path, carrying automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. They were training for the day when they hope to cross the nearby Iraqi border into Iran, recruit supporters and reopen a rebellion they reluctantly abandoned long ago.
After more than 20 years of calm, fighters based in northern Iraq are itching to resume the Iranian Kurds' campaign for greater autonomy, emboldened by the success of their brethren in post-Saddam Iraq.
''We want to break the peace we were forced to accept,'' Piryar Gabary told an Associated Press reporter visiting Qandil Mountain, the group's base in northeast Iraq.
Such talk, however, doesn't sit well with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, which is wary of provoking Iran and disturbing its new stature in Iraq's government and has vowed to prevent cross-border attacks.
The situation illustrates the Iraqi Kurds' delicate position in the reshuffled deck that has emerged in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
Their policy of preventing attacks on Iran is not new. Already in 1991, when they won their Western-protected autonomy in Iraq, Kurdish leaders banned the exiles among them from mounting cross-border attacks.
But the empowerment of Iraq's Kurds since the U.S.-led invasion has inspired their brethren spread across an area from western Turkey and Syria to eastern Iran, who yearn for an independent unified Kurdistan that would take chunks out of all those countries.
That means heightened pressure on the Iraqi Kurds not to antagonize neighboring Turkey and Iran, which have both sent troops into Iraq in the past to put down Kurdish rebels. Moreover, Iraq's Kurds are now in a government alliance with Shiite parties closely tied to Iran's clerical rulers.
When the AP visited the base in March, Gabary, a leading figure in the rebels' Free Life Party, vowed to open hostilities after the snows melted. Then, on May 9, after the thaw began, he claimed that some fighters had already crossed into Iran and waged a small clash with Iranian troops. He gave no details, and the skirmish could not be independently confirmed.
But the strong response from mainstream Kurds illustrates how anxious they are to keep the peace.
''Iran is a neighbor country and we will not allow any side to use our borders for military operations,'' warned Mustafa Sayid Qadir of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two parties that rule Iraq's Kurdish provinces.
Other Kurdish leaders in Iraq said they did not know of any clashes. Iran refused to comment, but former lawmaker Abdollah Sohrabi was among several Iranian Kurdish activists who told the AP they haven't heard of the Free Life Party.
Qadir dismissed it as a ''very small'' organization. Gabary claimed to have around 2,000 fighters a number that could not be independently confirmed.
The four main Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraq said they had no plans to start a fight. Hassan al-Sharify, no. 2 in the largest one, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, said: ''The Free Life Party consists of enthusiastic young men who cannot topple the regime alone.''
The last full-scale rebellion by Iranian Kurds broke out in 1979, and after intense fighting the Tehran government re-established control over its Kurdish areas in 1983.
Since then Iranian Kurdistan has been largely peaceful. Kurds, who make up about 11 percent of Iran's 70 million people, complain of discrimination but have made no significant moves to break away. When Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was chosen this month as Iraq's new president, some Kurds in Iran celebrated in the streets, and there were unconfirmed reports of arrests.
The U.N. counts 4,600 Kurdish refugees from Iran in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq, with more drifting there from camps in western and southern Iraq.
The Free Life Party, grouping separate factions of Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, was formed in 2003.
Its fighters are operating under the radar of Iraqi and Iranian officials. Qandil Mountain, in Iraq's northeast corner near Iran and Turkey, is a rugged, isolated region where Kurdish authorities have little control.
The AP reporter who visited saw about 50 fighters being taught to dismantle and reassemble an automatic rifle. Women wearing traditional male Kurdish clothes sat in a circle with the men. Other recruits jogged uphill carrying bags of rocks.
In one of several rooms with tables fashioned from mud, a teacher wrote on a chalkboard, instructing students how to carry out hit-and-run shootings.
The diplomatic issues mean little to fighters like Gabary, 42.
''Politics in the Middle East is of no avail without military forces,'' he said.
String of arrests in volatile Kurdish towns in Iran
This does not look good for Iran. The increase in violence from the US supported Kurds, the U.S. base in Azerbaijan and Ahmadinejad taking over Iran's hottest seat could mean the beginning of a U.S. war against Iran.
Note: The US is training 20,000 Kurds to oppose Iran in a move very reminiscent of the CIA trained Scorpions.
Before the war in Iraq began, the CIA recruited and trained an Iraqi paramilitary group, code-named the Scorpions, to foment rebellion, conduct sabotage, and help CIA paramilitaries who entered Baghdad and other cities target buildings and individuals, according to three current and former intelligence officials with knowledge of the unit. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201579.html
-Am
String of arrests in volatile Kurdish towns in Iran
Thu. 4 Aug 2005
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Aug. 04 – A number of journalists and human rights defenders have been arrested in towns and cities in western Iran, according to human rights activists in the Iranian capital.
Mahmoud Salehi, the spokesman for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, was arrested in the early hours of Thursday. The arrest follows Wednesday’s nabbing of two Kurdish activists in the city of Sanandaj by plainclothes security agents.
Jalal Qavami, a journalist and a member of the editorial board of the journal Payam-e Mardom, was arrested at his place of work after agents of Iran’s dreaded Ministry of Intelligence and Security initially raided his residence. Azad Zamani, an activist in the Association in Defence of Children’s Rights was also arrested in Sanandaj. Previously, Madeh Ahmadi was arrested in the Kurdish city.
The news comes as the death toll from Wednesday’s clashes between people and State Security Forces in the town of Saqqez reached 13. Official media have been silent on the deaths but several outlets have reported that clashes took place.
According to local hospital officials, authorities have refused to hand over the corpse of seven of those killed that are currently being held at the morgue.
Roya Toloui, the editor of Rassan, a monthly based in Sanandaj, was also recently arrested during a gathering organised in protest against the murder of a young Kurd by Iran’s State Security Forces after she was summoned by the intelligence unit of the SSF on several occasions in the past few months on charges of “disturbing the peace” and “acting against national security”. She had also been accused of “inciting ethnic division”.
Tens of other demonstrators in the volatile Kurdish town have also been arrested according to eye-witness reports. Many more have been arrested during anti-government protests and clashes throughout the provinces of Kurdistan and Western Azerbaijan.
Against the background of diplomatic efforts initiated by Washington to blockade the nuclear program of Tehran , the Pentagon and CIA proceed with preparations for possible war against Iran . A few days before it became known that the leaders of Azerbaijani groupings – the adversaries of Tehran were hastily summoned to Washington , reported Turkish CNN.
According to the information of the same TV channel, referring to the Azeri APA agency, the United States are training 20 thousand Kurds in Iraq, in the camps arranged in the territories under the control of Jalal Talabani. The training is aimed at involving the units of Kurd soldiers in the struggle against the Irani regime.
According to the CNN-Turk, the trainings are carried out with the participation of the Kurd fighters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey.
CNN-Turk reported about the termination of the first stage of training. According to the TV channel, the officers of the Talabani guard are involved in the trainings. 500 Kurd fighters have already finished military training and crossed the border of Iran . They allegedly have delivered control blows on three objective points on the border of Iran .
According to reports of CNN-Turk, the leaders of Azeri groupings – the opponents of Irani regime are already in Washington , where the details of the operation with the participation of Azerbaijanis against Iran are being considered.
According to APA, CNN-Turk reminded about the fact that Azerbaijanis constitute the greater part of the Irani population, and Tehran has been keeping them under control for a long time. As a case in point, the TV channel reported that the Azerbaijanis were deprived of the right to provide education in their native language.
Tehran insider tells of US black ops By an Asia Times Online Special Correspondent
Apr 25, 2006
TEHRAN - A former Iranian ambassador and Islamic Republic insider has provided intriguing details to Asia Times Online about US covert operations inside Iran aimed at destabilizing the country and toppling the regime - or preparing for an American attack.
"The Iranian government knows and is aware of such infiltration. It means that the Iranian government has identified them [the covert operatives] but for some reason does not want to show [this]," said the former diplomat on condition of anonymity.
Speaking in Tehran, the ex-Foreign Ministry official said the agents being used by the US "were originally Iranians and not Americans" possibly recruited in the United States or through US embassies in Dubai and Ankara. He also warned that such actions will engender "some reactions".
"Both sides will certainly do something," he said in a reference to Iran's capability to stir trouble up in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan for the occupying US troops there.
Veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in a much-discussed recent article in The New Yorker magazine that the administration of President George W Bush has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack as the crisis with Iran over its nuclear program escalates.
Hersh wrote that "teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups". The template seems identical to the period that preceded US air strikes against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan during which a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) campaign distributed millions of dollars to tribal allies.
"The Iranian accusations are true," said Richard Sale, intelligence correspondent for United Press International, referring to charges that the US is using the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) organization and other groups to carry out cross-border operations. "But it is being done on such a small scale - a series of pinpricks - it would seem to have no strategic value at all."
There has been a marked spike in unrest in Kurdistan, Khuzestan and Balochistan, three of Iran's provinces with a high concentration of ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Balochi minorities respectively. With the exception of the immediate post-revolutionary period, when the Kurds rebelled against the central government and were suppressed violently, ethnic minorities have received better treatment, more autonomy and less ethnic discrimination than under the shah.
"The president hasn't notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside Iran," said Sam Gardiner, a retired US Army colonel who specializes in war-game scenarios. "So it's a very serious question about the constitutional framework under which we are now conducting military operations in Iran."
Camp Warhorse is the major US military base in the strategic Iraqi province of Diyala that borders Iran. Last month, Asia Times Online asked the US official in charge of all overt and covert operations emanating from there whether the military and the MEK colluded on an operational level. He denied any such knowledge.
"They have a gated community up there," came the genial reply. "Not really guarded - it's more gated. They bake really good bread," he added, smiling.
But that is contrary to what Hersh was told by his sources, According to him, US combat troops are already inside Iran and, in the event of air strikes, would be in position to mark critical targets with laser beams to ensure bombing accuracy and excite sectarian tensions between the population and the central government. As of early winter, Hersh's source claims that the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris in the north, the Balochis in the southeast, and the Kurds in the northwest.
Last week, speaking on the sidelines of a Palestinian solidarity conference, Major-General Yehyia Rahim Safavi, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, sent a warning to the US and British intelligence services he accuses of using Iraq and Kuwait to infiltrate Iran. "I tell them that their agents can be our agents too, and they should not waste their money so casually."
On April 9, Iran claimed to have shot down an unmanned surveillance plane in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, according to a report in the semi-official Jumhuri Eslami newspaper. US media have also reported that the US military has been secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004, using radar, video, still photography and air filters to monitor Iranian military formations and track Iran's air-defense system. The US denied having lost a drone.
This new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by CIA operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.
The confirmation that the US is carrying out covert activities inside Iran makes more sense out of a series of suspicious events that have occurred along Iran's borders this year. In early January, a military airplane belonging to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards went down close to the Iraqi border. The plane was carrying 11 of the Guard's top commanders, including General Ahmad Kazemi, the commander of the IRGC's ground forces, and Brigadier-General Nabiollah Shahmoradi, who was deputy commander for intelligence.
Although a spokesman blamed bad weather and dilapidated engines for the crash, the private intelligence company Stratfor noted that there are several reasons to suspect foul play, not least of which was that any aircraft carrying so many of Iran's elite military luminaries would undergo "thorough tests for technical issues before flight". Later, Iran's defense minister accused Britain and the US of bringing the plane down through "electronic jamming".
"Given all intelligence information that we have gathered, we can say that agents of the United States, Britain and Israel are seeking to destabilize Iran through a coordinated plan," Minister of Interior Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi said. This sentiment was echoed on websites such as AmericanIntelligence.us, where one reader commented, "We couldn't have made a better hit on the IRGC's leadership if planned ... sure it was just an accident?"
Then, in late January, a previously unknown Sunni Muslim group called Jundallah (Soldier of Allah) captured nine Iranian soldiers in the remote badlands of Sistan-Balochistan province that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in mid-February, another airplane crashed just inside Iraq after taking off from Azerbaijan and transiting Iranian airspace. The Iranian Mehr news agency reported that the "passengers on board were possibly of Israeli origin". It added that US troops have restricted access to the site to Iraqi Kurdish officials and that Western media were reporting the passengers aboard as having been German.
The Iranian government has not sat idly by and just taken these breaches of sovereignty. Early this month, an unidentified source in the Interior Ministry was quoted by the hardline Kayhan newspaper as saying that the leader and 11 members of the Jundallah group had been killed by Iranian troops. Then last Friday, Iranian missile batteries shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside Iraqi territory. They were targeting a militant group called PJAK that seeks more autonomy for Iran's Kurdish population and has been operating out of Iraq since 1999.
The former Iranian ambassador argues that in the event that US pressure on Iran continues, "the end of the tunnel" for President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's administration is "weaponization of the [nuclear] technology ... and a military strike".
"The Americans are pushing Iran to become a nuclear state. Iran just wants to be a supplier of nuclear fuel. But [with their threats] they are pushing it further."
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