Iran – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Why Start a War with Iran? Trump in his own Words…

David Posnett — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 01:09:25 +0000

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Drumbeat of War

David Posnett — Sun, 26 May 2019 18:39:19 +0000

John Bolton is at it again. Watch the video and then please share !

From: https://www.facebook.com/moveon/videos/2379403038949493/?v=2379403038949493

Bolton War(s)?

David Posnett — Mon, 14 May 2018 18:21:02 +0000

It is unambiguous! Any war ensuing due to the Bolton appointment can now be squarely blamed on Zeldin and his fellow Republicans who have endorsed Bolton for National Security Adviser.

The reations from different law makers were recently reported in the NY Times and they include this:

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York: “Ambassador John Bolton is ridiculously knowledgeable and will be a great national security adviser. The leaks coming out of the National Security Council will end, Obama administration holdovers will be gone, and the team, chemistry and work product will all be improved. Ambassador Bolton is a very underrated, amazing American, and I applaud this extraordinarily talented pick. I look forward to working closely with Ambassador Bolton on the many national security concerns facing our exceptional country.”

Unfortunately, this appointment did not require Senate confirmation. Unlike Bolton’s unsuccessful nomination for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005.

Let me sum up why Bolton is so dangerous. Bolton has been preaching pre-emptive war for decades: war in Iraq, war against Iran, war in Syria, war against N. Korea.

John Bolton, who served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush, had a recent Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal calling for pre-emptive war against North Korea. According to foreignpolicy.com/:

Trump shocked the world by agreeing to meet with Kim sometime before the end of May. Reports suggest that the timing of Trump’s move to replace McMaster with Bolton, as well as the president’s earlier decision to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replace him with Mike Pompeo, is an effort to put key personnel aligned with his views in place leading into the summit. Yet if Bolton reflects, or influences, Trump’s position on North Korea, the entire endeavor is doomed. Indeed, Bolton reacted to news of the summit by dismissing any prospect for success and rooting for a quick failure. According to Bolton, the only value in having this “unproductive” leader-to-leader meeting now, instead of starting with a more deliberate set of working-level talks, is to “foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want, which is Kim giving up his nuclear program.”

John Bolton has a history of skewing intellingence and is known to retaliate against people he disagrees with. Here is a sample from talkingpointsmemo.com:

A biological warfare analyst wrote back that Bolton’s proposed comments overstated what U.S. intelligence agencies really knew about the matter, and, as routinely happens, suggested some small changes.

The analyst was summoned to Bolton’s office. “He got very red in the face, and shaking his finger at me, and explained to me that I was acting way beyond my position,” the analyst, Christian Westermann, recalled later during a Senate inquiry. Bolton then demanded that Westermann’s supervisor remove him permanently from the biological weapons portfolio, thundering that “he wasn’t going to be told what he could say by a mid-level munchkin.”

Jimmy Carter is warning of a looming nuclear war!

My Sources

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/john-bolton-is-foolishly-calling-for-preemptive-war-against-north-korea/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-legal-case-for-striking-north-korea-first-1519862374

https://www.theaustralian.com

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/23/john-bolton-is-a-national-security-threat/

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/john-bolton-skewed-intelligence

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/938108/North-Korea-news-World-War-3-Donald-Trump-Kim-Jong-un-USA-Jimmy-Carter-latest-video

Scrapping the Iran Nuclear Deal: War?

David Posnett — Wed, 09 May 2018 20:17:08 +0000

Netanyahu in the Golan Heights looking out at Syria and warning Iran not to “test” Israel’s resolve, on Feb. 6, 2018. From his twitter feed.

Scrapping the Iran Nuclear Deal (or JCPOA as it is formally called) is likely to have all sorts of bad side effects. I have collected some thoughts from friends and experts:

Scrapping JCPOA undercuts the moderate wing within Iran and empowers the hardliners;
Will likely lead to a return to nuclear enrichment and possibly a military program for nuclear weapons too — if only to strengthen their hand in negotiations
The U.S. is seen to ally itself with Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Iran, Syria (and Iraq).
Emboldens Saudi Arabia to step up its attacks on Yemen and Lebanon.
Further increases the refugee flow.
Emboldens Netanyahu to do whatever … (Israel has been flying sorties over Syria and attacking different targets in the vicinity of Damascus over the past week, killing Syrians and apparently some Iranian troops as well).
We will have a realignment with Iran and the Syrians becoming even closer to Russia and possibly giving Russians the option of air bases on Iranian territory for the first time, while the US will become even more closely tied to Saudi Prince Mohamed Bin Salman whose grip on his own country is almost certainly very fragile after he has violently burned all his bridges with those who have real power in the country.
A subdued Iran would lead to an unfettered Saudi Arabia with an aggressive leader, Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia has been the most important exporter of radical Wahabi/Salafi fundamentalism around the world
Then of course there is the question of how Trump’s performance is perceived by Kim Jong Un and how he feels he has to position himself in the upcoming negotiations. “If I were Kim, I would definitely not give up nuclear weapons — it really is the only significant card that he holds.”
Sanctions won’t work any longer (e.g. when not everyone is on board), and it was the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table.
It looks very much like a strategy to have an excuse to bomb…or “regime change”, meaning war.

A bipartisan group of more than 100 US national security experts — including nearly 50 retired military officers and more than 30 former ambassadors –had urged President Donald Trump to remain in the Iran nuclear deal.

On the other side we have John Bolton, Trump’s new National Secrutiy Advisor, who repeatedly advocated regime change in Teheran. Bolton’s hawkish views on Iran mirror those of Israel, Saudi Arabia and one of his key ideological partners, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK). It is also a victory for Netanyahu who has viewed Iran as the arch enemy for the past 25 years! Recently Israel has been bombing missile stock piles in Syria, apparently from Iran and meant for Syria and for Hezbolah. CBC news reports:

“The worry for Israel is that Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement could embolden Tehran to retaliate against Israel for a number of recent airstrikes in Syria, believed to be carried out by Israeli warplanes.

The most recent incident unfolded about an hour after Trump spoke in Washington, when explosions were reported near Damascus. Syrian state media reported that eight Iranians were among the 15 killed in the attack.

This is yet another in a string of bombings that are thought to be part of the shadow war Israel is engaged in with the Iranians, who have built up their military muscle — including stockpiling surface-to-surface missiles — inside Syria. “

Our reperesentative, Lee Zeldin, is an unabashed cheer leader for Trump and John Bolton. He also cheers on the Israeli war mongers and Netanyahu. And by-the-way, that same John Bolton led a superPAC that employed Cambridge Analytica ! Yes, those are the people that got your FB info and sold it to the Trump campaign. Sound like a swamp?