By Antony C. Black
Global Research, July 19, 2017
Global Research 30 August 2010
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
This incisive article by Anthony C. Black
was
published by GR in 2010
Around the globe an ominous build-up of
military might is taking place, and it is doing so almost entirely beneath the
radar of public attention.
Since 2005 a large scale stockpiling and
deployment of advanced weapons systems has been effected throughout the
territories and seas surrounding Russia, China, and Iran. These include, as a
bare outline: major US weapons transfers to Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf
States and India; US Patriot missiles in Poland; an early missile warning
system in the Czech Republic; new US military bases and troop placements in
Georgia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia; US naval deployments in
the Black Sea; new US and NATO weapons systems situated in Japan, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia; a formidable new naval armada,
including nuclear-weapons-bearing Israeli submarines, in the Persian Gulf; and,
finally, a host of new US air and ship-based anti-ballistic missile systems
located on US fleets throughout the Mediterranean, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan
St. and the South China Sea.
In addition to these ordnance deployments,
the United States and NATO have not only struck countless bilateral and
multilateral military deals and alliances around the globe, but have, over the
past two years, dramatically stepped up their war games and drills in the Far
East.
Just as significant as these material and
strategic manoeuvres, however, are the, now, completely integrated and
‘interoperable’ command structures and weapons systems of the 28 NATO nations
and their 47 NATO ‘partners’. This, then, is the largest, the most
sophisticated, the best organized war-machine the world has ever seen. And, of
course, it is all for your benefit. It is all about global security. You can
sleep sounder tonight. The world is now a safer place.
Or is it?
Target Iran
Though the ultimate strategic objective of
this massive build-up of military might would seem, all rose-coloured lenses
aside, to be the ‘containment’ of the world’s burgeoning new economic
powerhouse, China, the more immediate tactical goal is clearly Iran.
Still, the whys and wherefores for yet
another ‘pre-emptive’ attack on yet another Muslim nation remain rather murky.
Military experts, for instance, are in agreement that any ground invasion of
Iran is totally out of the question. They also largely agree that any
expectations of an internal ‘regime change’ following a US/Israeli/NATO air
assault on Iran’s nuclear reactors is sheer fantasy.
But then perhaps the fear of Iran developing
a nuclear arsenal is the reason? Unfortunately, such a notion doesn’t square
with the facts, for according to the Pentagon’s own National Intelligence
Estimate of 2007, whatever weapons programs Iran may have been working on,
these were all entirely abandoned by 2003. Nor does it square with the
International Atomic Energy Agency’s repeated assertions that Iran has never
been found in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). [What Iran is
apparently ‘guilty’ of is refusing to accede to Washington’s demand that Iran
stop all peaceful nuclear development, period. Such a demand is, of course,
illegal under the NPT]. Nor does the alleged fear of a nuclear Iran jive with
the fact that Teheran accepted the May 27 proposal by Turkey and Brazil to have
Iran’s fuel rods enriched and stored in a third party country (Russia), a
proposal which the Obama Administration rejected out of hand.
Given all this, what then could possibly be
the raison d’etre of such an attack?
The answer, if we repair to the history of
both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is clear. In short, the
hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv are likely planning to target not just Iran’s
nuclear power reactors (a pretext, more or less) but, as in Iraq, the entire
civilian infrastructure of the country. The goal? Not to occupy, and not to
promote ‘regime change’, but simply to destroy and cripple Iran as a regional
power. This, in conjunction with the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, would
then assure Israel hegemony over the Mid-East and the United States hegemony
over the territories, resources and pipelines of Central Asia and the Caspian
Sea Basin. The US would then largely control the energy spigot running west to
Europe and east in to China. Badda-bing badda-boom.
Shades of Dr. Strangelove
There is, however, a tiny fly in this
strategic ointment. Apart from the massive humanitarian catastrophe it would cause
– and the heinous war crime it would represent – such an attack would likely
inflame the entire region. Few seem to remember that the tensions arising from
the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan almost precipitated a nuclear war between
Pakistan and India. As scientists assure us, even as small a nuclear exchange
as between those two nations, i.e. 100 or so missiles, would throw the world
into a nuclear ‘autumn’ killing over a billion and destroying global
civilization as we know it.
Even were a mini (or maxi) Armageddon to be
avoided, the Muslim world would assuredly go completely ape. The Shiites in
Iraq would turn the country into a US graveyard. Israel would likely attack
Iran, Syria and Lebanon simultaneously, and would be targeted in turn. The Iranians,
if they didn’t return fire on Israel or sink a number of US warships in the
Persian Gulf, thus prompting a nuclear reply from either or both, would, at the
very least, sink some oil tankers and close off the Straight of Hormuz. That
would cut off the supply of oil from the Mid-East and possibly lead to a
world-wide economic catastrophe. Hopefully the Russians or the Chinese wouldn’t
get involved. And, here at home, we arm-chair warriors would be lucky to avoid
terrorist attacks on the Toronto subway system.
So perhaps, just perhaps, before we cheerlead
ourselves into the next ‘lovely little war’, we should give pause and consider
whether the global machinations of the ‘incredibly expanding alliance’ are
really about making the world a safer place, or about something rather
different.
The original source of this article is Global
Research
- Copyright © Antony C. Black, Global Research, 2017
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