Saturday, October 27, 2012

Americans Don't Want War With Iran



Majia here: It appears that the US is not simply scenario planning for war with Iran. Rather, it seems, the US has moved to actually implementing contingency planning for a war with Iran.


I say: "AMERICANS DO NOT WANT WAR WITH IRAN"

Americans are tired of wars in the Middle East that never end, that break the bodies and psyches of citizens in the region and those of US soldiers.

Americans are tired of falsities and exaggerations regarding pretexts for wars in the region.

The American government needs to listen to the American people on this issue.

NO WAR WITH IRAN.

Read the article below to see how far contingency planning for the war has developed and note which nation is pushing war on Iran.

Note also that the UK - the U.S.'s closest ally - has stated unequivocally, that a pre-emptive strike against Iran would violate international law :


Britain Rejects US Request to Use UK Bases in Nuclear Standoff With Iran By Nick Hopkins, Guardian UK 25 October 12 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/25/uk-reject-us-request-bases-iran

[Excerpted] Secret legal advice states pre-emptive strike could be in breach of international law as Iran not yet 'clear and present threat'
 

Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent "a clear and present threat". Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states.

"The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans."

British and US diplomats insisted that the two countries regarded a diplomatic solution as the priority. But this depends on the White House being able to restrain Israel, which is nervous that Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant will soon make its nuclear programme immune to any outside attempts to stop it.

Israel has a less developed strike capability and its window for action against Iran will close much more quickly than that of the US, explained another official. "The key to holding back Israel is Israeli confidence that the US will deal with Iran when the moment is right."..

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned at the UN general assembly last month that Iran's nuclear programme would reach Israel's "red line" by "next spring, at most by next summer", implying that Israel might then take military action in an attempt to destroy nuclear sites and set back the programme.

That red line, which Netanyahu illustrated at the UN with a marker pen on a picture of a bomb, is defined by Iranian progress in making uranium enriched to 20%, which would be much easier than uranium enriched to 5% to turn into weapons-grade material, should Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, take the strategic decision to abandon Iran's observance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and try to make a weapon. Tehran insists it has no such intention.

In August, the most senior US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, distanced himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran. He said such an attack would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme".

He added: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."

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