Scott Ritter says June. I say when the Michael Jackson trial ends. Regardless of who’s right on that one (or maybe we both are, Jackson prosecution will reportedly close next week) it is clear that Washington has already begun the process of expanding the crusade theatre to include Iran.

Iran is about 3 times the size of Iraq, with about 3 times the population. It also has an air force, and has not been operating under starvation sanctions for the past dozen years.

The US has been conducting various “operations” in Iran for decades.
Its population, while divided on most questions of domestic politics, are unified in their lack of enthusiasm for being invaded by the hordes of torturers and sexual predators that currently hold the position of American goodwill ambassador and spreader of, among other things, the US version of “democracy.”

On June 16, 2000, the New York Times published on its Web site PDF files of a secret CIA report: “CLANDESTINE SERVICE HISTORY, OVERTHROW OF PREMIER MOSSADEQ OF IRAN, November 1952-August 1953,” an operation planned and executed by the CIA and British SIS:

    http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

The Times wrote in an introductory note that names of participants in the overthrow were digitally edited from the report “after consultations with historians who believed there might be serious risk that the families of some of those named as foreign agents would face retribution in Iran.”

Cryptome has recovered the majority of the edited text of the files and is publishing the report unedited except for unrecoverable redactions, and Sections IX and X as well as four appendices which were not edited. Restored text is shown here.

In a previous diary, I included a poll on the question of just how Washington planned to staff this ambitious project – remember the US is also currently occupying Afghanistan, Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Pakistan and the Philippines, as well as maintaining a healthy gaggle of gunmen in Korea and in Europe.

The US has stripped the shelves of commercial gunmen, and in order to secure significant numbers of expendables from any other country, it is currently in a rather awkward position. It would effectively have to invade and occupy, say, France or Germany in order to secure its German or French assets to deploy in Iran, thereby requiring even more expendables.

Yet, the stage is set, and the sets are being rolled out.

Like the follow-up hit of a mediocre pop band, the DC warlords are strumming out the same old riffs, Iranian “exiles,” clambering over each other like eager little puppies, yipping about “weapons.” (It is a given in the mind of the American public that the privilege of self-defense and possession of weapons therefor, can be granted only by the US, by divine right.)

There are the poor deluded rentaKurds, obediently scampering around Iran as their cousins were doing in Iraq back in the winter of ’02, clinging to the foolish hope that Uncle Sam will really come through with the sweets this time.

There is the ritual banning of pitiful declawed Al Jazeera, just in case it has any reporters with more integrity than attachment to life and limb yet, the routine joint “military exercises” with Israel, Rummy in Azerbaijan, lining up his bases, his ducks, did he stop in Tashkent for a snuggle with Karimov to line up some boiling vats, too? The Uzbek press is understandably reticent on this and all other subjects.

Yesterday I questioned the source of a forged letter purporting to be from an Iranian offical which proposed ethnic cleansing of Ahwazi Arabs in the southern Iran region of Khuzestan.  I wondered if it might have had provenance from the forgery shop set up with CIA funding by Ahmed Chalabi in nearby Kurdistan.

News of the letter led to riots, 340 arrests and 5 deaths in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan.  Khuzestan has 90 percent of Iran’s oil production, 8 percent of total global reserves.  

Today I dug around a bit to find the source of the forged letter, and learned that the letter was first published right here in Britain on the website of the newly-founded British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS) and then broadcast into Khuzestan over BAFS’s own in-house Al-Ahwaz TV into Iran.  It was also provided to Al-Jazeera, which has now had its southern Iran operations closed down while the events around the forgery are investigated.

It could all be coincidence, of course, but I kept digging.

The timeline is very intriguing. . . . link

Hundreds of US Marines riding hovercrafts stormed ashore the beaches of Nitzanim Wednesday as part of joint maneuvers being quietly held between the US and Israeli militaries.

The Marines simulated an armed assault from the sea while IDF forces maneuvered inland until the two forces met.

Military sources said the operation was code named “Kaya Green.” Troops were delivered by LCVs (hovercrafts) which also unloaded Humvees.

The Marines of the Sixth Fleet specialize in extraction operations to evacuate US personnel and conduct such exercises periodically in Israel.
 link

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took time out from a fast moving tour of America’s war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, to pay a third visit to Azerbaijan Tuesday night, his first arrival in a year.

According to local reports, during his roughly three-hour visit Rumsfeld met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Defense Minister Safar Abiyev and addressed Azeri peacekeepers in Iraq and the current pace of settlement talks regarding the Karabakh conflict.

While brief, the trip generated huge interest among Azerbaijani media, with some reports calling the visit “shrouded in secrecy.” Local analysts blamed the suspicion on recent international speculation that the United States seeks to establish a major military presence in Azerbaijan. The so-called Caspian Guard will reportedly be headquartered in Baku and comprised of American troops trained for rapid response missions for regional crises.
 link

So how do they intend to pull this off? It is unlikely, and possibly logistically impossible, to repeat the Iraq modality exactly.

More probable: the classic and timeless Mission Creep. As the twitching fingers of a besotted youth inch downward from the shoulder of his blushing dance partner sneak stealthily toward their plum, inviting goal, so will the “consultants,” the “exiles,” the “special forces,” and of course, the hapless Kurds, tiptoe gently onto the sand and stone of Darius’ old stamping ground. Yes, Iran is not without a little knowledge of empire itself…

That still leaves the question of staffing. While “nuke em all” may be popular with the American public, it will be less so with American corporate executives, for obvious reasons.

How quickly can the US implement a program of impressment of sufficient rigor to provide the large numbers of expendables needed? Not quickly enough, and the top gunmen don’t want it. Hard enough to operate a crusade, they say, without having to operate it using battalions of unwilling, hostile youths who are thrust into the theatre without the necessary “training.”

The ace in the hole has always been the Indian army, but no matter what the honorarium, this could create some unintended domestic consequences for India, a country with a sizeable Muslim population, few of whom support US foreign policies.

There is always the option of a second Unity Operation, but my speculation is that opinion on this is divided even within the warlords’ lair.

What do you think?