pawns in the larger game ?

there have been during the recent al Sadr vs al maliki fighting in iraq , several rumors of fervent Us military activity near iran's border.

the rumors as far as i can determine have been based on a russian news article reporting these observations made by their military intel. but what i'm seeing in actuality, is russian media running in late march of this year, an article dated as being written about this same time last year.

because detailed invasion plans for both iraq and iran along with preparatory exercises and war games have been in the pentagon works and reworks since at least 1995 , i saw this recycling of the russian article as no real new evidence that the long dreaded Us attack on iran was beginning.

but then we saw articles stating that saudi arabia after cheney's recent visit was initiating measures to deal with massive radioactive fallout resulting from an attack on iran's nuclear power research facilities.

added to that, during german chancellor angela merkel's recent state visit to israel she referred to iran as world enemy number one in an address to israel's Knesset.

bush in his address to NATO chiefs reviewing the EXPANSION of the SIX DECADE OLD
EURO-AMERICAN MILITARY ALLIANCE , referred to his proposed and totally unnecessary missile defense shield for europe as a protection against iranian missiles that could hit europe.

hold the phone georgie --does any one with even the most slender connection to REALITY ask the question, who in their right mind would even think to attack europe?

the europeans have for centuries been armed to the gums--the problem of the last five centuries is not some global bully attacking the peace loving europeans , its the exact opposite. the heavily armed and highly warlike europeans have been the global bully.

the last sixty years of relative peace in europe were the result of two world wars fought in large part in europe by europeans that left close to seventy million dead and devastated the land and economies. european on european crime--as ahmadinejad of iran pointed out and was crucified by the western press.

from 1945 to about 1975 was the era of decolonization in the third world where former colonies of european powers hd to fight brutal and protracted wars to gain pseudo-independence from their former colonial masters .

Europeans, even after being treated as colonies themselves by the nazis and finally being on the receiving end of what europe had been dishing out to the non-white world since columbus sailed the ocean blue--almost immediately after the second world war, the european colonial powers proved they had learned nothing from their "what goes around comes around" experience of being used as hitler's colonies and waged genocidal and brutal wars in asia and africa against the nonwhite peoples who only wanted the same freedom from colonization and racist oppression the europeans had just fought against the nazis to end.

i'm no historian , but OTHER THAN EUROPEANS THEMSELVES, who has had the means or inclination to attack europe since the days of the ottoman turks and the fall of constantinople around the year 1453?

what are they so afraid of ? WHO HAS BEEN THEIR ENEMY --other than themselves ?

even the 'terrorist" attacks in madrid and london had their own national security services fingerprints all over them . so who are the most heavily armed people in the world--the europeans and their global offspring--so afraid of? and why?

iran is no threat, the Un's international atomic regulatory agency even said the iranian nuclear program was civilian in nature--despite the UNFOUNDED ravings to the contrary of the bush administration and the israelis --two of the world's biggest nuclear powers --with enough nukes between them to incinerate iran at least a hundred times over.

yet the Us maintains, if memory is correct , at least three carrier groups in the persian gulf-- the nimitz the eisenhower and the john c. stennis.(they actually had the audacity to name an aircraft carrier after the overtly red neck racist mississippi senator john stennis ?)

the Us runs naval wargames off iran's coast.

the Us in march pushed through new rounds of sanctions against iran allowing member nations of the security council (the Us Uk france etc) to stop and search iranian ships and planes --looking for nukes and bin laden, i guess .

and a measure by the Us treasury department treats iranian banks as money launderers for terrorism and those doing business with iranian banks as basically aiding and abetting terrorism .

an article by john mc glynn titled "day of infamy : the march 2008 Us declaration of war on iran " reports :

...make no mistake. As of Thursday, March 20 the US is at war with Iran.

So who made it official?

A unit within the US Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which issued a March 20 advisory to the world's financial institutions under the title: "Guidance to Financial Institutions on the Continuing Money Laundering Threat Involving Illicit Iranian Activity."

FinCEN, though part of the chain of command, is better known to bankers and lawyers than to students of US foreign policy. Nevertheless, when the history of this newly declared war is someday written (assuming the war is allowed to proceed) FinCEN's role will be as important as that played by US Central Command (Centcom) in directing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In its March 20 advisory FinCEN reminds the global banking community that United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 1803 (passed on March 3, 2008) "calls on member states to exercise vigilance over the activities of financial institutions in their territories with all banks domiciled in Iran, and their branches and subsidiaries abroad."

UNSC 1803 specifically mentions two Iranian state-owned banks: Bank Melli and Bank Saderat. These two banks (plus their overseas branches and certain subsidiaries), along with a third state-owned bank, Bank Sepah, were also unilaterally sanctioned by the US in 2007 under anti-proliferation and anti-terrorism presidential executive orders 13382 and 13224.

As of March 20, however, the US, speaking through FinCEN, is now telling all banks around the world "to take into account the risk arising from the deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT [anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism] regime, as well as all applicable U.S. and international sanctions programs, with regard to any possible transactions" with – and this is important – not just the above three banks but every remaining state-owned, private and special government bank in Iran. In other words, FinCEN charges, all of Iran's banks – including the central bank (also on FinCEN's list) – represent a risk to the international financial system, no exceptions. Confirmation is possible by comparing FinCEN's list of risky Iranian banks with the listing of Iranian banks provided by Iran's central bank.

The "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is important because it provides the rationale FinCEN will now use to deliver the ultimate death blow to Iran's ability to participate in the international banking system.

this condemnation is inspite of iran's efforts at improving its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism regulations in order to bring them in align with international ( "international" means Us dictated ) prescriptions .

iran's efforts at improvement were acknowleged by the g-7's financial action task force in 2007 when it said it," welcomes the commitment made by Iran to improve its AML/CFT regime."

the article goes on to explain that the iranian banks and those dealing with them risk being cut off from the global financial markets-still dominated by the Us/Uk .

" So what does all this bureaucratic financial rigmarole mean?

What it really means is that the US, again through FinCEN, has declared two acts of war: one against Iran's banks and one against any financial institution anywhere in the world that tries to do business with an Iranian bank."

...at risk of having all 'correspondent relationships' with US banks severed, a disaster for any bank wanting to remain networked to the largest financial market in the world."

we must ask, do these unwarranted hostilities, threats of physical attack and attacks in actuality upon iran's economy have anything to do with the iranian plan to create an oil market that would sell iranian oil to the world in a currency other than Us dollars?

saddam hussein was tolerated by the Us until he, as revenge for being double crossed by his former allies and business partners in the whitehouse, ordered the selling of iraqi oil in euros instead of dollars--in defiance of the nixon brokered agreement with the saudis around 1974 that the saudis would sell oil only in dollars.

this saudi-Us agreement created an artificial demand for dollars--bolstering the even then faltering Us currency.

the dollar's present woes trace at least back to the 1970s when due to double digit inflation caused by the federal reserve printing increasingly worthless paper money to finance vietnam war debt, countries like france started cashing in Us dollars for the ounce of gold each 35 dollars could then be exchanged for.

to staunch the gold drain , nixon-- who ran on a promise of having a secret plan to end the vietnam war and instead extended the war to cambodia and laos and fought on for six more years-- took the Us dollar off the gold standard and said the dollar would no longer be backed by it, but instead by the productivity of the Us economy.

he also secretly cut the deal with the saudis to sell oil in dollars --making the Us greenback a petro-dollar for the next 30 years--until the saddam and then iranian challenges.

today as the dollar quickly sinks in the west and elsewhere around the globe, a war with iran would not bolster the fallen dollar and return it to unchallenged status as the world's sole reserve currency, but Us military control over the oil reserves of iraq and iran most certainly could.


if iran is finally targeted, syria would also have to be in the crosshairs because of its military power--though nothing compared to that of israel --is viewed as a threat to Us/Euro aspirations in the region.

the 2006 lebanon war between israel and hezbollah was intended to be the opening phase of hostilities leading to the Us ,israel showdown with iran and syria, but hezbollah, like al sadr's mahdi army in iraq , proved too tough for the Us surrogates.

reports have placed syrian troops on high alert in fear of a sudden attack

"Syria is preparing for a comprehensive Israeli strike which will be combined with an attack on Hizbullah, sources in Damascus have told the London-based Arabic-language al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.



The sources, which refused to reveal their identity, reported that Syria was closely monitoring the movement of Israeli forces along the northern border.

Barak to Northern Command:

'Hizbullah growing stronger, but so are we' / Hanan Greenberg

Defense minister tours IDF’s Northern Command, says Lebanese Shiite group is ‘wary of firing at Israel at the moment, but beneath this blissful quiet there is a storm brewing’

The newspaper reported Wednesday that Damascus viewed the Israeli media reports and statements made by senior Israel Defense Forces officials as incitement and attempts to prepare the Israeli and global public opinion for a war against Syria.

The sources added that the Syrian forces were conducting wide-scale military maneuvers and have called up reservists in preparation for an Israeli attack.

In addition to the military preparations, the sources said, Damascus has raised its security alert level for fear that Israeli forces would infiltrate its territories through one of its bordering countries, mainly referring to Lebanon.

Over the past few weeks, the Syrians have stationed three armored divisions, special forces and nine mechanized infantry divisions opposite Lebanon's western valley, as the Syrians estimate that a ground Israeli invasion may take place in that area.

The area is not only a strategic territory for Hizbullah, but also a problematic area for Syria, as it would not take the IDF long to place its cannons opposite the Syrian capital and control the Beirut-Damascus route."