US Vice President Dick Cheney - the power behind the throne, the eminence grise, the man with the (very) occasional grandfatherly smile - is notorious for his propensity for secretiveness and behind-the-scenes manipulation. He's capable of anything, say friends as well as enemies. Given this reputation, it's no big surprise that Cheney has already asked for a backroom analysis of how a war with Iran might begin. 

In the scenario concocted by Cheney's strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran. 

This information was leaked by an official close to the vice president. Cheney himself hasn't denied engaging in such war games. For years, in fact, he's been open about his opinion that an attack on Iran, a member of US President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil," is inevitable. 

White House Leak: Cheney's Plan For Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile Strike 

Meanwhile, in an act unprecedented in the history of international relations, Washington on Thursday unilaterally imposed harsh & potentially crippling economic sanctions against Iran’s main uniformed security force, as well as against more than 20 Iranian companies & the country’s three major banks. 

The sanctions, announced by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice & Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, represent a deliberate provocation aimed at precluding any negotiated settlement to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program & making a US war against the country all but inevitable.

From the Washington Post

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Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

While top U.S. commanders say the statistics of violence have registered a steep drop in Baghdad and elsewhere, the soldiers' experience in Sadiyah shows that numbers alone do not describe the sense of aborted normalcy -- the fear, the disrupted lives -- that still hangs over the city.

Before the war, Sadiyah was a bustling middle-class district, popular with Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein's military. It has become strategically important because it represents a fault line between militia power bases in al-Amil to the west and the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Dora to the east. U.S. commanders say the militias have made a strong push for the neighborhood in part because it lies along the main road that Shiite pilgrims travel to the southern holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people. After they left, insurgents and militiamen used their abandoned homes to hold meetings and store weapons. The neighborhood deteriorated so quickly that many residents came to believe neither U.S. nor Iraqi security forces could stop it happening.

The descent of Sadiyah followed a now-familiar pattern in Baghdad. In response to suicide bombings blamed on Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, went from house to house killing and intimidating Sunni families. In many formerly mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad, such as al-Amil and Bayaa, Shiites have become the dominant sect, with their militias the most powerful force.

"It's just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing," said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion's operations officer.

The focus of the battalion's efforts in Sadiyah was to develop the Iraqi security forces into an organized, fair and proficient force -- but the American soldiers soon realized this goal was unattainable. The sectarian warfare in Sadiyah was helped along by the Wolf Brigade, a predominantly Shiite unit of the Iraqi National Police that tolerated, and at times encouraged, Mahdi Army attacks against Sunnis, according to U.S. soldiers and residents. The soldiers endured repeated bombings of their convoys within view of police checkpoints. During their time here, they have arrested 70 members of the national police for collaboration in such attacks and other crimes.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the national police, has said that officials are working hard to root out militiamen from the force and denied that officers have any intention of participating in sectarian violence.

But in one instance about two months ago, the American soldiers heard that the Wolf Brigade planned to help resettle more than 100 Shiite families in abandoned houses in the neighborhood. When platoon leader Lt. Brian Bifulco arrived on the scene, he noticed that "abandoned houses to them meant houses that had Sunnis in them."

"What we later found out is they weren't really moving anyone in, it was a cover for the INP to go in and evict what Sunni families were left there," recalled Bifulco, 23, a West Point graduate from Huntsville, Ala. "We showed up, and there were a bunch of Sunni families just wandering around the streets with their bags, taking up refuge in a couple Sunni mosques in the area."

 'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'

When it comes to Iran's nuclear capabilities, whose word would you rather take: that of a Nobel prize-winning head of an international agency specializing in nuclear issues who was proved triumphantly right about Iraq, or that of a bunch of belligerent neo-cons who make no secret of their desire to whack Iran at the earliest opportunity and who made such a pigs ear of Iraq? 

That is the stark choice facing the sane people of the world, given the smearing of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei for not joining the hysterical lynch mob building up against Iran.  

Criticised by Condoleezza Rice and others in the Bush administration, it is uncannily reminiscent of the slurs against him and UN weapons inspector Hans Blix in the run up to the invasion of Iraq - and we should remember that the US vindictively tried to unseat him afterwards for not joining in the lying game.  

Déjà Vu All Over Again

US most important UK ally - Brown
Gordon Brown has said Britain's "most important" relationship is with the US, in his first major foreign policy speech since becoming prime minister.

He warned that he had "no truck with anti-Americanism" and said the EU should strengthen ties with the US.

Mr Brown also called for more "hard-head internationalism" in peacekeeping, aid and reconstruction.

In the speech at the Lord Mayor of London's banquet, he also warned Iran over its "nuclear ambitions".

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Gus: Hello?!!! No-one is promoting "we've got to be anti-American" more than the present Bushit administration itself... It has shot itself in the foot many times, and tried to shoot us in the head, in order to prove it does not understand what it means to be Americans — or Aussies for that matter... or anything human. I have many friends in the US and they deplore the way Bushit-the-Kid has scuttled so much good will. The world would be less hypocritical by a zillion miles had Bush understood an oompth of whatever decent. The moon is more friendly that Bush-the-Lesser. At least the moon provides the tidal ebbs and flows...

And the French President sings from the same sheet of music too... Yet, the Yanks are trying hard to flog GM crops (crops that are dangerous, exclusive and which the French president opposes), are promoting war with Iran (which is not in the Europeans interest) while denying doing it, are indulging in warming the planet plenty more (which the Europeans are working hard to minimise), are looting resources and ancient treasures in Iraq (a theft the world should be ashamed of) as well as others— including poor countries, are manipulating the money market (which makes the stock exchange like a hot and cold shower), are showing how to let shameless spruikers take over the finances (subprime usury fostered by banks) of the poor and plenty more stuff that is entirely unsavoury...

I'm sure there are a few clever characters over there in the US that know how to place landmines on the financial tracks and have kept the map to themselves and tell massive porkies as to the purpose of what... And they are free to operate in their shonky ways, including the present president... Not a good look.

Unless Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy have decided to engross themselves with the US to pluck their turkey-feathers, when the time is ripe... Yes that could be the dubious way to play the dubious game to the dubious... Gracious me...

And while they point finger at "Iran's nuclear ambitions" I'm sure they're tightening their butts at the thought of Musharraf doing what's he's doing and what the future for Pakistan holds... Most likely falling in the hands of hard-line Muslims before falling in the hands of extremists... Oh sh..t.

Iran remains 'most active' state sponsor of terrorism: US

May 1, 2008 - 6:00AM

Iran remains the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism as it tries to build regional influence and drive the United States from the Middle East, a US government report said.

The State Department report added meanwhile that al-Qaeda and associates "remained the greatest terrorist threat" to the US and its partners especially now that it has a "safe haven" in Pakistan's north-western tribal areas.

Officials also said that "terrorist attacks" doubled last year in frontline US counter-terrorism ally Pakistan, mainly on its north-western border with Afghanistan, and that they also rose in Afghanistan.

The State Department report said Iran remained last year both "the most active" and "most significant" state sponsor of terrorism, though it also listed Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Sudan as terrorism sponsors.

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Gus: see toon at top... In my book, less war leads to less terrorism... As a major sponsor of war, the United States add to the violence and to more terrorism in opposition to "invasion" which the Americans may present as a "liberation"... Presently many countries in the world are militarising fast... Taste of things to come?... War is a grand form of terrorism.