The Deeper history behind the Iran War

[kalm]

Kendzior is a terrific writer and this is a fascinating deep dive. The causes and plans for the war may not be what you think.

“This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years,” Netanyahu said as the war began, thanking “the United States, my friend, US President Donald Trump, and the US military.”

Netanyahu now says openly what he said behind closed doors in 2001: “America is a thing you can move very easily.”
One cannot understand the Iran War without understanding the Kahanists. But I rarely see analysts mention them. Maybe they did, and it was behind a paywall. If a war crime is subscription-only, does it make a sound? Is that sound a stifled scream?
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Meir Kahane was a terrorist. The New York-based Kahane became an Orthodox rabbi before working as an undercover informant for the FBI to spy on Black Americans, whom he obsessively hated, believing, as Friedman writes, that “Black demands for equality would somehow sabotage Jewish achievements.” In 1970, Kahane and his followers plotted to mass murder the Black residents of Crown Heights.
In his spare time, Kahane worked secretly for the CIA to promote the Vietnam War and partnered with Italian-American mafia head Joseph Colombo. The union between Kahane and Colombo was brokered by mob lawyer Barry Slotnick, who later brokered another union: the prenup for Donald and Melania Trump

In 1982, Oded Yinon, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, devised a plan for “Greater Israel”: an Israel that subsumes six surrounding states, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. For decades, “Greater Israel” and “The Yinon Plan” were dismissed by Israeli officials as antisemitic myths.
The idea that Israel is not pursuing “Greater Israel” would be more convincing had Israeli officials not put emblems of “Greater Israel” on IDF uniforms; invaded Lebanon and proclaimed it part of “Greater Israel”; announced that Israel would also conquer Jordan and parts of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq and call that “Greater Israel”; made a “Greater Israel” amulet for Netanyahu; and displayed maps of “Greater Israel” that exclude Palestinians, whom Netanyahu calls “Amalek” while declaring their fate is to be slain.
The idea of “Greater Israel” dates back to Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, but Yinon devised its borders for the post-WWII era. In 2007, Wesley Clark, a US general who opposed the Iraq War, recalled that ten days after 9/11, he was given a memo on “how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

There is a myth that the Iran War is driven by Christian nationalism. The myth is so powerful that it spurred articles about events that never occurred, like a debunked narrative from an apparent huckster, Mikey Weinstein, claiming that the Pentagon told troops they were fighting to bring Armageddon on behalf of a Christ-like Trump.

The most disturbing part of this narrative, besides that it went viral despite being fabricated, is that it reflects wishful thinking. There are American Christian nationalist fanatics who see the Iran War as a holy war and wish their faith were the central concern. But more influential are ultra-Zionist hawks, like Elliott Abrams, who never recovered from the Iranian Revolution and have sought revenge since 1979. (In the 1980s, some of these alleged “foes of Iran” worked out their complicated feelings by making illicit weapons deals to supply Nicaraguan death squads.)

Christian nationalism is not the main motivation for the Iran War. Nor is it about Trump’s desire for autocratic consolidation (the war impedes it, given its massive unpopularity); nor is it a distraction from the Epstein files (I’ll get to that); nor is it about Trump’s desire for Middle East peace (I’ll get to that when I stop laughing.)

In 1973, Senator J. Wiliam Fulbright went on TV and announced that the US Senate had become a subsidiary of Israel.

“The Senate is subservient to Israel, in my opinion much too much. We should be more concerned about the United States interest rather than doing the bidding of Israel. This is a most unusual development…. The great majority of the Senate of the US — somewhere around 80% — are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and again and this has made it difficult for our government.”

His statement was controversial then, and uncomfortable now, but accurate. Funding Israel is the only issue on which Congress unites, even when it is to the detriment of the United States. AIPAC is a near-universal donor to US politicians on both sides of the aisle, and Israeli spyware steps in when folks get feisty.

Fulbright was worried about the Jackson Amendment that would allow Jewish emigration from the USSR to the US. This was one of the causes Kahane proclaimed to care most about while carrying out terror campaigns that had nothing to do with it. When the amendment passed, it allowed innocent Soviet Jews facing oppression to find freedom abroad. Unfortunately, it also allowed Mogilevich and other mobsters to get to the US, where they made their fortunes with partners like Donald Trump.…

Trump came of political age in the 1970s New York of Meir Kahane. He was mentored by mafia lawyer Roy Cohn, a secular Zionist who partnered with other Zionists, Jewish and Christian, in pursuit of money and power. (Cohn, like Netanyahu, would engage in antisemitism against other Jews in order to achieve his goals.) Like Kahane, they recognized Israel’s utility as a “get out of jail free card”. Mafiosos hightailed it to Israel when RICO or sanctions rolled in. JDL terrorists found sanctuary in Israel after committing brutal murders, like the 1985 assassination of Palestinian-American interfaith peace activist Alex Odeh.

Trump’s father, Fred Trump, became friends with Netanyahu in the 1980s, when Netanyahu was Israel’s ambassador to the UN. The friendship extended to Donald. Trump’s closeness to Netanyahu grew stronger when Ivanka Trump married Jared Kushner, whose family was so close with the Netanyahus that Netanyahu used to sleep in Jared’s bed (when Jared was not in it.)

Jared Kushner works closely with Netanyahu and brokers foreign deals “for the US” despite not being a member of the Trump administration. No one in Congress does anything meaningful to stop him. An unelected son-in-law carrying out the will of an autocrat is typical in a kleptocracy. The unusual part is that Kushner is not working for the country for which his father-in-law is president.

Trump is not in control of the Iran War. Netanyahu is, and Kushner is his lackey.

Trump enjoys violence but is wary of war. War is unpredictable and Trump cannot function in unscripted reality for too long. He likes overseas attacks to be “one and done”: a dramatic plot twist in the season finale of his reality TV presidency. Kidnap the president of Venezuela; drop a MOAB on Afghanistan. Why? To show he can.
A quagmire war is another matter: one Trump wishes to avoid. Too messy, too boring, and too likely to wrest control from him to others.……

Though much has been made of Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons, the only countries in this war that surely have them are the US and Israel. Israel spent decades denying that its nuclear program existed. It locked up whistleblowers like Mordechai Vanunu, who made the mistake of giving documents proving the weapons’ existence to the Daily Mirror, not realizing that Robert Maxwell, who owned the Mirror, was not a “British media magnate” but an espionage operative for Israel. Vanunu was kidnapped by Mossad and thrown in an Israeli prison.

This is the same Robert Maxwell who sired Ghislaine and played a role in Iran-Contra with Trump pals like arms trader Adnan Khashoggi (a relative of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was murdered allegedly with Kushner’s approval to please his friend, Saudi leader MBS.) The same families appear, again and again, in a transnational crime network that profits off war.

Many reacted to the Iran War by proclaiming it a distraction from the Epstein files. Aside from the grotesque nature of declaring the mass murder of civilians, including children, a “distraction”, the Iran War can only remind one of Epstein and Maxwell, for many of the same people tied to them are also tied to this war.

It reminds people that Israel slaughters girls and the Epstein operation rapes them and the US government abets both.

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