If US Attacks Iran, Human Survival May Be at Risk (Part I)

The media campaign: how to make us believe that a country threatens us with nuclear bombs, yet does not have them.

In recent years, there have been constant statements made by Western leaders demonizing Iran. This is true of Tony Blair in 2006, “It’s important we send a signal of strength” against a regime that has “turned its back on diplomacy” and is “exporting terrorism” and “flouting its international obligations.” The U.S. Department of State said the same year that “Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism,” along with North Korea, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Cuba. Robert Gates, U.S. defense secretary, said in 2008 that “Iran is hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons.” In 2011, we remember the statements uttered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only a few weeks ago, that “time is short” for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

It also alludes to the “expansionist” plans of Iran, from the hand of the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shia of Iraq and Syria.

In 2006, CNN misrepresented a statement by the Iranian president saying they were developing nuclear weapons. Iran responded by banning the entry of CNN journalists in the country for a few days.

Words of Iranian President Ahmadinejad had also been misrepresented, it having been said that he would wipe Israel off the map. The phrase he said was: “Our dear Imam [referring to Ayatollah Khomeini] said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map…” What it declares is that a regime should disappear, not a country.

Much excitement in the West was assembled with the alleged denial of the Holocaust by Ahmadinejad. The literal translation of the words he uttered was, “They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews, and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets.” The dictionary of the Royal Academy said that mystify (create a myth) is to “to surround with extraordinary esteem, certain theories, peoples, events, etc.” Clearly, charging someone of creating a myth is not the same as denying the event that generates the myth.

In 2006, the National Post of Toronto, Canada reported that they’re going to create distinctive sectors for different population groups in Iran, including Jews, much like what the Nazis had done.

Following the 2009 general elections, the United States set in motion the machinery of a coup, although the outcome of the vote was as follows: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 63.3 percent of the vote (24.5 million), Hossein Mousavi 34.2 percent (3.2 million), involving more than 80 percent. Too often we have seen that when an election is not conducive to imperialism, our “democrats” shout themselves hoarse, calling it fraud with populist leaders who deceive the people, etc…. This is what happened in Iran in 2009: Mousavi, the leader of the opposition, called for demonstrations against the “fraud” election, sparking a level of violence (burning cars and public buildings, clashes with the police…) to justify the assault on power. It is known that one of the sources financing these movements, apart from the CIA, of course, was Amir Jahanchahi, the last finance minister Shah, from London.

[According to James Petras, professor and contributor to Global Research,] “What is astonishing about the West’s universal condemnation of the electoral outcome as fraudulent is that not a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of voter tampering was raised.”

A few months ago, the Iranian regime was accused of an attempted assassination of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States. Ali Akbar Javanfekr, spokesman for the Iranian president declared that: “I think the U.S. government is busy fabricating a new scenario, and history has shown both the U.S. government and the CIA have a lot of experience in fabricating these scenarios… I think their goal is to reach the American public. They want to take the public’s mind off the serious domestic problems they’re facing these days and scare them with fabricated problems outside the country.

[Thierry Meyssan of Voltaire Network points out how former] CIA agent Robert Baer joked about this grotesque scenario with Time Magazine. “How does the Obama administration expect anyone to believe that an elite force like Al-Quds would have outsourced this operation to a car salesman and a Mexican criminal organization? This sounds more like the type of hype the Mujahedeen e-Khalq have specialized in and that Washington rides on with enthusiasm.”

Let us show how easy it is to play with language in the interests of the moment. [The Spanish “Rebelion” writes:] “When the construction of nuclear power plants was the subject of confrontation between European governments and environmental organizations a few years ago, the media coined the term ‘nuclear’ against ‘atomic’ so that the audience does not associate that kind of energy to the atomic bomb, so infamously in memory. Now, when dealing with Iran, it comes back, and they recover the discarded terms of atoms.”*

Western Countries Carry out Terrorist Actions in Iran

Attacks and terrorist actions in Iran have been occurring without interruption year after year.

In 2006, we can outline a kidnapping of eight soldiers by the “Independent Soldiers of God for Sunni Mujahideen” under the CIA and the death of eight people in a bombing that was originally directed at the president, which was organized by 17 British officers and 140 Iranian Arab separatists (the British presence in Iraq is an excellent base of operations on Iran). This makes the dead in the area amount to 18 in a few months. Twenty-one civilians were gunned down and killed on a road and another 12 civilians died in similar circumstances.

In 2007, we note the kidnapping of the second secretary at the Iranian embassy in Iraq by agents of the United States, the death of eight revolutionary guards in an attack near the Pakistan border, fighting in the northwest, the firing on the Iranian consulate in Basra (Iraq) by British troops who surrounded the building and opened fire and the violation of Iranian airspace by two U.S. planes in Khuzestan (oil area in the southwest of the country). Fifteen British soldiers were arrested for espionage in Iranian waters, and, upon being released, a diplomat kidnapped two months ago stated that he has been tortured by the CIA (his feet were pierced by a drill and he has fractures on his nose and neck, as well as significant back injuries, hemorrhaging in the digestive organs and damage and cracks in the ears).

In 2008, nine people were killed in a bomb attack on a mosque in the city of Shiraz. In 2010, there were 33 dead in suicide bombings in Zahedan, in the southeast near the border with Pakistan. Another 20 dead were in Mahabad, mostly women and children. News became known that former Deputy Interior Ali Reza Asgari died in an Israeli jail (he was kidnapped in 2007). In 2011, there was the downing of an American unmanned spy plane near the Ford nuclear facilities. Fifteen people were killed in the explosion of a munitions depot in Tehran.

The Assassination of Iranian Scientists Is the Official Policy of the United States and Israel

“I do not remember another time in history that the assassination of scientists has become the official policy of a group of powers equipped with nuclear weapons,” said Fidel Castro earlier this year. But this is just it; America and Israel are killing scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program.

In 2010, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a professor of physics at the University of Tehran, was found dead from a bomb planted on the motorcycle outside his home.

A few weeks later, it was disclosed that scientist Shahram Amiri had escaped after a trip to Mecca, aided by the CIA. Two months later, Shahram Amiri reappeared saying that he had escaped from his CIA captors in Virginia. He says he was offered $50 million to defect to the United States and lie about Iran’s nuclear program. It so happens that he is not a nuclear scientist and knows nothing of nuclear energy research in his country. He clarifies that Israeli elements were used during the interrogations.

In September 2010, Iran confirmed that a total of 30,000 computers in industrial sectors have been infected with the virus known as Stuxnet. This cyber attack seriously affects the development of nuclear research, rendering almost 20 percent of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges useless. Previously, this virus had been tested at Israel’s Dimona nuclear facilities.

In November 2010, the Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari died and Fereydun Abbasi in Tehran was wounded by bombs attached to their cars. Both were professors at the University of Tehran. The Mossad admitted to being the author of the attacks.

In July 2011, the scientist Darioush Rezaie died from gunshots. The terrorists also shot his wife. He was not linked to the country’s nuclear program. The government blames the United States and Israel for the assassination.

The icing on all of this was put out by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), as it recently released the names of a lot of Iranian scientists related to nuclear research. The government says they will now be an easy target for Israeli and American terrorists.

A Pro-US Government in Tehran Is Absolutely Necessary to Maintain Imperialist Hegemony

Iran produces 5.2 percent of the world’s oil, and is the fourth-largest producer. Oil revenues are about 35 million euros (as of 2005).

Iran’s oil reserves are the second largest in the world: 11.1 percent of known reserves. It also has the second most gas reserves in the world: 15.3 percent of known reserves.

An important part of the oil industry is still in private hands. Ahmadinejad government’s intention is to nationalize it, “[putting] the last link in the chain of nationalizing the oil industry,” was recently said, because “most of the country’s oil revenues still go to foreign pockets.” According to the Iranian head of state, only one-third of oil revenues remain in Iran, while the rest “goes to the pockets of those who have plundered the country’s oil resources.”

Iran extends from the Caspian Sea on the north to the Persian Gulf area and the Strait of Hormuz in the south. These are areas with a top-level strategic value. The Caspian Sea is one of the largest producers of oil and gas. An Iran dominated by the United States would facilitate transit of these commodities to Japan and Europe. About 40 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz each day. [According to Voltaire Network,] “If Washington succeeds in controlling Iran, it would also have the military control of the eastern coast of the Gulf and the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, its oil and gas reserves, both regarded as the second largest in the world. The United States already has the military control of part of the Caspian basin and the corridor that allows for communication between that area and the Indian Ocean (Afghanistan and Pakistan). Most of the Gulf (Saudi Arabia and Iraq) is also under the US’s military control. Thus, at the end of this operation, Washington would own the most important current hydrocarbon exploitation areas and the main reserves still to be exploited.”

Trade relations with Russia are very important and highlight their role in the development of Russian civil nuclear program. China remains in agreement to purchase Iranian gas for 25 years and offers support in the developing the Yadavaran gas field. Nearly 14 percent of China’s oil imports are Iranian, which represents 25 percent of Iran’s exports. Also, there are big trade agreements with India and Japan.

Another headache for the United States is that in 2010, Iran agreed with Pakistan to build a pipeline. The Iranian side was built in 2011. “Even more worrisome for the US is that the pipeline might extend to India,” Noam Chomsky wrote in “The Iranian Threat.” “The 2008 US treaty with India supporting its nuclear programs… was intended to stop India from joining the pipeline.” Not only that, but the pipeline could reach China from Pakistan itself.

It is clear that the U.S. needs to control Iran sine qua non in order to keep its imperialist hegemony over the world and its supremacy over China, especially.

*This quote could not be verified.

Editor’s note: Tomorrow: “Iran and the Dollar.” This is the first in a three-part translation of Miguel Giribets’ “If US Attacks Iran, Human Survival May Be at Risk.”