THE ROVING
EYE Fear
and loathing in the American Gulf By Pepe Escobar
Persian Gulf?
Khaleej-e-Fars? Forget it; time to call it the
American Gulf - to the delight of the vultures,
jackals and hyenas of war, Israeli and
Anglo-American. The House of Saud wouldn't be too
displeased either.
So much for the
Pentagon's "pivoting" strategy from the Middle
East to East Asia - recently announced by United
States President Barack Obama. The confrontation
against China starts in Southwest Asia - in the
American Gulf; and goes way beyond Washington
cheerleading the hardcore Sunni sectarian killers
of Jundallah in Iran's Sistan-Balochistan
province, Israeli Mossad agents posing as US
Central Intelligence Agency operatives, serial
assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, computer
viruses, and ludicrous
accusations of Tehran helping al-Qaeda and
vice-versa.
MOP it all up Time
to review the evidence. In roughly one month, no
less than three US aircraft carriers and their
strike groups will be sloshing around the American
Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea; the
USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson
and USS Enterprise, plus good ol' French
nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de
Gaulle. And yet one more Pacific-based US
aircraft carrier can be swiftly dispatched.
Apart from this naval hajj of US
aircraft carrier groups, the 40-year-old USS
Ponce is being retrofitted into a special ops
amphibious hub - to be dispatched to the American
Gulf.
The Pentagon's CENTCOM is fast
upgrading the 14,000-kilogram Orwellian
bunker-buster monster known as Massive Ordinance
Penetrator (MOP), theoretically capable of taking
out Iran's underground nuclear installations.
A certain Bipartisan Policy Center's
National Security Project - one of those myriad
revolving doors in Washington mixing politicians
and military-complex types - wants to give Israel
some 200 additional MOPs and three KC-135 aerial
refueling tankers to "increase the credibility of
a military strike" against Iran.
DEBKA-Net
is a digital front for Israeli
propaganda/disinformation - so it's essentially
untrustworthy. But its latest bombast deserves
scrutiny. DEBKA is peddling that the Pentagon is
in fast and furious mode in two strategic islands;
the paradisiacal Socotra, 380 kilometers southeast
of Yemen (where the Pentagon has been building a
giant base since 2010); and Camp Justice in
Masirah, 70 km south of the Strait of Hormuz, in
Oman.
Socotra thus joins key American Gulf
nodes of the US Empire of Bases such as Jebel Ali
and al-Dahfra in the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
al-Udeid in Qatar and Arifjan in Kuwait. It's
crucial to keep in mind the extra 15,000 US troops
deployed to Kuwait only a few weeks ago. The
Pentagon, predictably, is thunderously mum about
the build up in both Socotra and Masirah, and
Yemeni and Omani officials are not talking.
DEBKA claims that in two weeks, around
50,000 US troops, flown in from Diego Garcia,
3,000 km away, will be massed in both islands -
plus the 50,000 troops already based in the
American Gulf. Add to this air, naval and special
forces from Britain and France constantly pouring
into Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Not enough to
launch a ground invasion of Iran - but more than
enough for major logistical support in a "no
options off the table" (copyright Obama) scenario.
Build up, and pray for war
DEBKA predictably spins all these
developments - not independently confirmed - into
Obama's "resolve to attack Iran's nuclear
facilities in the course of 2012", which is
absolute nonsense. This may mirror (hysterical)
wishful thinking by the Benjamin Netanyahu
government in Israel, but has nothing to do with
the Obama administration's strategy, which
essentially is to impose a "roll over and die"
form of "diplomacy" on Iran (sanctions/oil embargo
+ Pentagon build up in the American Gulf) as a
means of extracting an Iranian capitulation in the
nuclear dossier.
Wishful thinking is also
the weapon du jour for The New York Times, which
now seems to be subcontracting the Iran dossier to
Israeli writers, as in getting rid of the US
middleman.
One Ronen Bergman writes that
"after speaking with many senior Israeli leaders
and chiefs of military and the intelligence, I
have come to believe that Israel will indeed
strike Iran in 2012". Gary Sick conclusively
debunked this nonsense [1] stressing how "his
conclusion is at odds with virtually everything he
produces as evidence".
The only good thing
among all this weaponized orgy is that Tehran and
Washington are still talking - sort of - using the
proverbial back channels; in Baghdad (via both
ambassadors); via Turkey (with Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan as middleman); and in Vienna,
the headquarters of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (via diplomats). There's a
five-month window for good sense to prevail until
July 1 - when the US/European Union oil embargo on
Iran kicks in.
And then there's the
resurfacing of "Austere Challenge 12" - the
massive joint Israel-US war games involving
thousands of US soldiers and testing of a number
of Israeli and US missile defense systems.
"Austere Challenge" is now rescheduled for
October, less than a month before the US
presidential election, when Mitt Romney, the
neo-con gang and deranged evangelicals will be
bombing Iran non-stop on cable TV. Until then,
it's up to world public opinion, to quote Percy
Bysshe Shelley in The Mask of Anarchy, to
"rise like lions, after slumber, in unvanquishable
number", and drive fear and loathing away from the
American Gulf.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
