[rad-green] Israel and Its US Lobby Finally Achieve a Long-Term Objective: Direct US-Iranian Military Conflict

*https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2020/01/09/israel-and-its-us-lobby-finally-achieve-a-long-term-objective-direct-us-iranian-military-conflict/
<https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2020/01/09/israel-and-its-us-lobby-finally-achieve-a-long-term-objective-direct-us-iranian-military-conflict/>*


*Antiwar.com          January 9, 2020*

Israel and Its US Lobby Finally Achieve a Long-Term Objective: Direct
US-Iranian Military Conflict
*
<https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2020/01/09/israel-and-its-us-lobby-finally-achieve-a-long-term-objective-direct-us-iranian-military-conflict/Author>By
Grant Smith*

In 1953 the United States and United Kingdom overthrew the democratically
elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The catalyst was the
Iranian government’s decision to exert more sovereign control over the
extraction, export and revenues from its domestic energy industry, which
British Petroleum and the UK opposed.

The dictatorial rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi featured massive
embezzlement, graft, corruption and repression. Brutal SAVAK crackdowns on
popular dissent were aided and abetted by Israeli intelligence operatives
that flooded into the regime. Yaakov Nimrodi, a longtime intelligence and
military operative and arms merchant, was posted to Tehran in 1955 for 13
years. According to Nimrodi, “When one day we shall be permitted to talk
about all that we have done in Iran, you will be horrified…It is beyond
your imagination.”

Iranian Israel relations were so close, that when American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Executive Director Isaiah Kenen was under U.S.
investigation as an Israeli foreign agent in 1961, he fled to Iran to
thwart a subpoena.

*“In 1961, it was rumored that [Senator J. William] Fulbright intended to
investigate foreign agents. I was subjected to a barrage of inquiries from
friends and foes wherever I went, and while I was confident that I would
survive the attack I decided to vanish from the scene. Coincidentally, I
was invited that year to visit Iran as a guest of the Iranian government. I
accepted the invitation…”* Source, “All my causes in an 80-Year Life Span”
Washington, DC, Near East Research, 1985, p 103.

AIPAC was not incorporated at the time, and its host organization the
American Zionist Council (AZC) was ordered to register as an Israeli
foreign agent in 1962 <https://www.israellobby.org/azcdoj/>. Though covered
by the order, AIPAC quickly split off and took over as the lead Israel
lobbying organization in the US The Department of Justice never enforced
its FARA order.

Israeli arms sales to Iran under the Shah were extremely lucrative. In
1977, Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres signed a secret agreement for
advanced technology transfer of an Israeli missile design that had been
underway since the 1950s. This “turn-key” package included a special
airport, a missile assembly plant, and a long-range test site in exchange
for $1 billion in Iranian oil. Israel even attempted to interest Iran in
Israel’s US funded, but doomed, Lavi jet fighter project.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution finally ousted the Shah. Fifty-two American
diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days during the hostage
crisis. But Israel in the 1980s, with a failing economy and desperate to
salvage its partnership with a major regional oil producer, helped
orchestrate a secret “arms for hostages” deal to the Ayatollah purported to
help free Americans kidnapped in Lebanon. In concert with Reagan
administration operatives, profits from Israeli stocks of US supplied
missiles sold to Iran partially helped fund the Nicaraguan Contras after
Congress outlawed US support.

After Israeli influence over Iran ended, Israel’s US lobby AIPAC began
working to precipitate a U.S.-Iran military confrontation in order to
improve Israel’s strategic position. The most recent of these efforts
included:

1. Lobbying to create the US Treasury Department’s “Office of Terrorism and
Financial Intelligence” unit in the aftermath of 9/11 to wage US economic
warfare against Iran. The unit has until recently been led by a string of
Zionist ideologues. See “Treasury Sanctions Foreigners for Israel”
<https://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2018/08/29/treasury-sanctions-foreigners-for-israel/>
Antiwar.com,
August 30, 2018.

2. Stealing Department of Defense secrets in concert with convicted spy for
Israel Col. Lawrence Franklin. AIPAC intended to channel the secrets
to the *Washington
Post* in 2004 to convince Americans that it was time for troops fighting in
Iraq to pivot to Iran. Though the Pentagon source was convicted, the two
AIPAC officials involved in espionage escaped justice after a series of
judicial contortions. See Congressmen Pressed Obama to Pardon Spy Lawrence
Franklin
<https://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/11/26/congressmen-pressed-obama-pardon-spy-lawrence-franklin/>
Antiwar.com, November 27, 2017.

3. Demanding cyber-attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities under threat of
Israeli military action, costing the US billions of dollars,
unintentionally unleashing sophisticated cyber weapons across global
computer networks. See “Israel and the Trillion-Dollar 2005-2018 US
Intelligence Budget
<https://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2018/11/06/israel-and-the-trillion-dollar-2005-2018-us-intelligence-budget/>”
Antiwar.com, November 7, 2018.

4. Coordinated opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
designed to provide transparency into Iran’s nuclear program and avert war.
While Israel spied on negotiations, releasing them to US operatives. AIPAC
corralled mainstream Israel lobby opposition to the deal, and helped insert
a “poison pill” requiring proactive action in the form of a presidential
waiver to keep the deal from expiring. President Trump withdrew from the
deal to thunderous Israel lobby applause in May of 2018.

5. Demanding the US designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization. AIPAC began demanding sanctions
on the IRGC through the Treasury Department in 2007. The April 2019 Trump
administration formal designation of IRGC cleared the way for the US to
assassinate Iranian leaders as part of the “War on Terror.”

Israel and its lobby will likely labor mightily to keep U.S.-Iran
hostilities going, while attempting to avoid blame for the conflict they
labored so mightily to precipitate. This will have many ancillary benefits
for Israel and its lobby. Armed conflict will empower additional Israeli
demands for US foreign aid. Israel has received more than $282.4 billion in
unclassified aid since 1948. Conflict will boost the prospects of Israeli
military contractors in Israel and those streaming into the US under
various state subsidy programs <https://virginia.israellobby.org/>. Most of
all, the conflict will allow Israel to divert world attention away from its
brutal ongoing ethnic cleansing of the native populations in Palestine and
ever more robust systematized apartheid.

*Grant F. Smith is research director of the **Institute for Research:
Middle Eastern Policy* <https://irmep.org/>* and the plaintiff in civil
action no. **18-CV-02048 *
<https://www.irmep.org/CFP/letters/default.asp>*seeking
presidential letters to Israel promising not to comply with the NPT and
AECA.**He is the author of the 2016 book, **Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby
Moves America*
<https://www.amazon.com/Big-Israel-Israels-Lobby-America/dp/0982775717/>* now
available as an audiobook.*

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