(October 9, 2024)
On Tuesday State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller told the press that the Biden administration no longer supports a ceasefire with Hezbollah, saying “We support Israel’s efforts to degrade Hezbollah’s capability” instead. Two weeks ago CNN reported that the administration has also essentially given up on a ceasefire in Gaza.
(…)
And we haven’t even talked about Iran yet.
(Updated October 13, 2024 at 7:27 p.m. EDT)
The shipment, which will be delivered at an unknown date, is the latest example of Biden using “carrots” rather than sticks to induce Israel into less aggressive behavior, Mann said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Biden administration he is willing to strike military rather than oil or nuclear facilities in Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter, suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war.
Middle East Eye reported last week that Qaani was alive and unhurt but under guard and being questioned about apparent security breaches surrounding the killing of Nasrallah.
Middle East Eye sources say Iranian authorities have serious suspicions about a major security breach in Qaani’s office, though none of MEE’s sources suggested Qaani was involved. Iranian authorities have not commented on reports that Qaani was questioned.
Harris pursues a policy of death in Gaza, and she expects we will vote for her.
We need to work hard to make sure that she will not be elected to the presidency. Not only will this punish Harris, but it will also send a signal to all politicians that you won’t be rewarded with our votes when you engage in genocide. This movement will transform American politics and bring civil rights into US foreign policy.
(September 30, 2024)
„The Democrats cannot win without the support of the Muslim American community. And that community has left the station and is not coming back unless the Democrats decide that it‘s more important to them to win the election than it is to conduct the genocide,“ Stein said in an interview with Newsweek.
„So they have to do a 180 on the genocide and they don‘t appear willing to do that. They could win those votes back, but it doesn‘t look like that‘s on the cards. So it looks like they are sacrificing several swing states.“ Israel denies it is conducting genocide.
(October 11, 2024)
Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party accepts Abandon Harris endorsement for the 2024 presidential ticket
(October 11, 2024)
“The Kamala Harris campaign is looking for a scapegoat,” Stein said Thursday in an interview, about the Harris campaign’s concern about her candidacy. “They could change their policy right now. The problem is they would rather lose the election than end the genocide.”
Stein is one of three independent candidates who have been registering at least 1 percent in recent public polls, along with the left-leaning scholar Cornel West, who is running on a “truth, justice and love” platform, and libertarian candidate Chase Oliver.
(September 25, 2024)
Democracy Now! speaks with the Green Party‘s presidential ticket, Jill Stein and her running mate Butch Ware, after the Green Party suffered a setback Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request to put Stein on the ballot in Nevada. The Democratic Party had sued to keep Stein off the ballot for failing to submit the proper forms. In this campaign cycle,
US officials, who were not identified, told NBC there was no indication Israel would target Iranian nuclear facilities or attempt to assassinate specific individuals, but there was no final decision.
In 2007, former Nato commander Wesley Clark recounted a meeting at the Pentagon shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan. An officer told him: “We are going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”
Clark added of the neoconservatives: “They wanted us to destabilise the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.”
As I documented in my 2008 book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations, Israel was supposed to carry out a central chunk of Washington’s post-Iraq plan, starting with its war on Lebanon in 2006. Israel’s attack there was supposed to drag in Syria and Iran, giving the US a pretext to expand the war.
This was what the US secretary of state of the time, Condoleezza Rice, meant when she spoke of the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”.
The plan went awry largely because Israel got bogged down in phase one, in Lebanon. It blitzed cities like Beirut with US-supplied bombs, but its soldiers struggled against Hezbollah in a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The West subsequently found other ways to deal with Syria and Libya.
(October 2, 2024)
Nasrallah‘s assassination followed two weeks of precise Israeli strikes that have destroyed weapons sites, eliminated half of Hezbollah‘s leadership council and decimated its top military command.
On Thursday, Iranian sources revealed that the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Esmail Qaani, is under investigation on suspicion of espionage, after his chief of staff, Ehsan Shafiqi, was suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Nilforoushan, who had flown into Beirut that evening from Tehran, was taken directly from the plane to the operations room beneath the residential neighbourhood of Haret Hreik, the sources said. He arrived there before Nasrallah.
The strike that targeted the meeting took place shortly after Nasrallah entered the room, the sources said.
“The breach was 100 percent Iranian and there is no question about this part,” a source close to Hezbollah told MEE.
Iranian state media announced Nilforoushan’s death as a “martyr” who died alongside Nasrallah.
Sources close to Hezbollah told MEE that Qaani was in Lebanon and had been expected to attend the Shura Council meeting at Safieddine‘s invitation on the day of the air strike.
But Qaani apologised and backed out of the meeting shortly before it began, they said.
)October 3, 2024)
The revelation from Bou Habib could provide insight into how Israel killed Nasrallah, who has survived multiple Israeli assassination attempts over the decades.
Another report from Reuters published on Wednesday said that Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sent a messenger to warn Nasrallah that Israel was planning to assassinate him. That messenger, senior Iranian commander Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the Israeli strike on Friday 27 September.
(January 5, 2024)
In 1988, the Central Intelligence Agency did discover that Riyadh bought SS-2 medium-range missiles from China but only after the deal was sealed. In 2003, when China exported DF-21 ballistic missiles to the Kingdom, the CIA again found out and was even allowed to verify the missiles were not nuclear-capable, but only after the missiles were delivered.
Several years later, when intelligence finally leaked out that China secretly built missile factories for the Saudis, the Trump administration was mum on whether there was an intelligence failure and allowed speculation that it had blessed the transaction. Then, in 2020, when US intelligence confirmed China was helping the Kingdom mill uranium domestically, it did so, again only after the mining and milling were well underway.
This track record of studied inadvertence, then, brings us to the next worry: MBS wants Washington to green-light the Kingdom enriching uranium…
(March 19, 2023)
In general, the Saudis wish to present themselves as Iran’s equals, and if Iran can enrich uranium, say the Saudis, then so can we. In addition, the Saudis want to keep all their nuclear options open, even if they are not intending to work on the development of nuclear weapons immediately.
(September 14, 2023)
Top Israeli sources have told the Jerusalem Post that there are secret technological ways to ensure that the Saudis do not misuse civilian nuclear items, which the US may give them as part of a three-way normalization deal, for military purposes.
Although there are no guarantees, because the issue is highly technical and there are issues to address regarding the Palestinians and highly complex politics, these technological fixes could be key to locking in a normalization deal between Riyadh and Jerusalem, under Washington’s auspices.
(March 27, 2019)
Many U.S. lawmakers are concerned that sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia could eventually lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. (…)
Last month, Democratic House members alleged in a report that top White House aides ignored warnings they could be breaking the law as they worked with former U.S. officials in a group called IP3 International to advance a multibillion-dollar plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.
(Oct 04, 2023)
Amid reports that Saudi Arabia is seeking United States support for its nuclear energy program—whose capacities critics fear could be utilized to develop nuclear weapons—a group of 20 U.S. senators on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to „seriously consider“ whether such a move is in the national interest as the administration brokers a possible normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel.
(August 30, 2023)
Policymakers in Washington and the Middle East have been busy talking about the possibility of Saudi Arabia normalizing its ties with Israel in return, in part, for a formal defense pact with the United States. Receiving far less attention is a critical question, at least for Riyadh: Would such a move jeopardize Saudi Arabia’s recent diplomatic accord with Iran?
“We are here at a historic time … and now it is an historic moment of opportunity,” Blumenthal stated. “It really is a magnificent potential achievement with enduring effect to match the successes of the battlefield with diplomatic successes.
(October 8, 2024)
„We can get you a treaty through the Senate between the United States and Saudi Arabia, a defense agreement like you have in Japan and Australia, if you do it on President Biden‘s watch,“ Graham, who is seen as close to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, told reporters in Jerusalem.
„The next president will have a very difficult time getting 67 votes,“ he said in reference to the two-thirds majority needed in the U.S. Senate for approving a defense treaty.
“The challenge going forward is to turn tactical wins in battle into a strategy that secures Israel’s people and its future,” Sullivan said. “That takes real discipline. It takes courage. It takes foresight to match the conduct of war to a clear and sustainable set of objectives and to turn tactical advantage into enduring strategic gains.”
Two U.S. officials told Axios that during a call on Friday White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Israel‘s minister for strategic affairs Ron Dermer that the U.S. expects „clarity and transparency“ from Israel about its plans to retaliate against Iran because it will have implications for U.S. forces and interests in the region.
– Call was ‚direct and very productive,‘ White House says
– Defence chief Gallant says retaliation to be ‚surprising‘
– Israel‘s UN envoy: ‚It will be painful for the Iranian regime‘
(August 7, 2024)
The report did not specify the exact type of equipment Russia is delivering. Iran is interested in acquiring the long-range, strategic S-400 Triumf air defense missile system. Tehran acquired advanced S-300PMU-2 systems from Moscow in 2016 and also operates short and medium-range Russian Buk and Tor systems. (…)
Israel trained for striking S-300s for over a decade before the Isfahan strike. Its air force trained against Greece’s S-300PMU-1 based on the island of Crete in 2013, gaining valuable insights about its capabilities and potential vulnerabilities it could one day exploit against a Syrian or Iranian system.
(8. Oktober 2024)
„Angesichts der vorhergesagten Route und der Stärke des Hurrikans“ werde der Präsident seine Reise nach Deutschland und Angola verschieben und sich darum kümmern, die Vorbereitungen auf den Sturm zu überwachen, hieß es in einer Erklärung des Weißen Hauses in Washington.
US-Außenminister Antony Blinken sagte seine Deutschlandreise wegen Hurrikans ebenfalls ab. Blinken werde vom Außenministertreffen der ASEAN-Staaten in Laos in die Hauptstadt Washington zurückkehren, erklärte Ministeriumssprecher Matthew Miller.
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Harris pursues a policy of death in Gaza, and she expects we will vote for her.
We need to work hard to make sure that she will not be elected to the presidency. Not only will this punish Harris, but it will also send a signal to all politicians that you won’t be rewarded with our votes when you engage in genocide. This movement will transform American politics and bring civil rights into US foreign policy.
In an interview with the CBS television network aired on Monday night, the Democratic presidential candidate said Iran is the “obvious” answer when asked about the country she considers to be the US’s “greatest adversary”.
“Iran has American blood on their hands – this attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles,” she said. “What we need to do [is] to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my highest priorities.”
Lord Michael Levy, the former Middle East adviser to Tony Blair, told BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday: “The whole Middle East is potentially in a blow-up situation. And if that happens … how much further can that go for all of us in the world today, there must be a way forward.
“I don’t think there’s any hope for peace with [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu in power,” he added. “I would like to think that Netanyahu could be part of a positive way forward. Regrettably, I just don’t think that is possible at all.”