Alternative title: Target Iran

Our republic went off the rails with the National Security Act of 1947 and the birth of the national security state. Since, the votes at the boards of Northrop-Grumman, DuPont, Chevron, Unocal, et al, have come to carry more weight in the direction the USA has taken than those votes of any organized political bloc. When the dust has settled, chances are Pence will be the shadow president a-la Dick Cheney and Trump the ventriloquist’s frustrated lap dummy. The national security state (read corporate boards) will keep it’s python’s squeeze on our institutions intact; what remains to be seen is what modifications will be made. The Trump ‘team’ includes some of the nastiest military-industrial and corporate personalities American has on offer in chicken hawks Rudy Giuliani whose dealings with the Mojahedin-e-Khalq has seldom been honestly exposed, and John Bolton who wants a war with Iran. And not least, former US Army intelligence officer and Bill Clinton CIA Director James ‘Bomb Iran & North Korea‘ Woolsey.

What do these personalities hold in common with a google ban on ‘fake news’?  They will never tell you the biggest fake news spigots are CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC, outlets that NEVER report on what this is all about; oil and gas, not terrorism as put forward by the western media. The Bush invasion of Afghanistan, where the CIA had (1980s) instigated and supported what became al-Qaida, was about a pipeline. Iraq was about oil where USA policy subsequently caused an al-Qaida branch to morph into Islamic State. The related Syria conflict is about competing pipelines, one favored by Russia, the other favored by NATO. Recalling Robert Kennedy Jr, earlier this year, penned an excellent expose on Syria and the competing pipelines behind that ‘covert’ war waged by the USA employing proxies, including radical Islamist groups aligned with al-Qaida:

“the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat. In Putin’s view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally.”

“Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian-approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shiite Iran, not Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Middke [sic] East and the world. Israel also was understandably determined to derail the Islamic pipeline, which would enrich Iran and Syria and presumably strengthen their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.

“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link”

The full essay can be read HERE.

The RFK Jr piece clearly echoes an earlier essay by Gore Vidal and a proposed pipeline USA based multinationals coveted, requiring a war in Afghanistan:

“As it proved, the conquest of Afghanistan had nothing to do with Osama. He was simply a pretext for replacing the Taliban with a relatively stable government that would allow Union Oil of California to lay its pipeline for the profit of, among others, the Cheney-Bush junta.

“Background? All right. The headquarters of Unocal are, as might be expected, in Texas. In December 1997, Taliban representatives were invited to Sugarland, Texas. At that time, Unocal had already begun training Afghan men in pipeline construction, with US government approval. BBC News, (4 December 1997) : `A spokesman for the company Unocal said the Taliban were expected to spend several days at the company’s [Texas] headquarters . . . a BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea.’ The Inter Press Service (IPS) reported: `some Western businesses are warming up to the Taliban despite the movement’s institutionalisation of terror, massacres, abductions and impoverishment.’ CNN (6 October 1996): `The United States wants good ties [with the Taliban] but can’t openly seek them while women are being oppressed.’

“The Taliban, rather better organised than rumoured, hired for PR one Leila Helms, a niece of Richard Helms, former director of the CIA. In October 1996, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that Unocal `has been given the go-ahead from the new holders of power in Kabul to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan . . .’ This was a real coup for Unocal as well as other candidates for pipelines, including Condoleezza’s old employer Chevron. Although the Taliban was already notorious for its imaginative crimes against the human race, the Wall Street Journal, scenting big bucks, fearlessly announced: `Like them or not, the Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history.’ The New York Times (26 May 1997) leapt aboard the pipeline juggernaut. `The Clinton administration has taken the view that a Taliban victory would act as counterweight to Iran . . . and would offer the possibility of new trade routes that could weaken Russian and Iranian influence in the region.’

“But by 1999, it was clear that the Taliban could not provide the security we would need to protect our fragile pipelines. The arrival of Osama as warrior for Allah on the scene refocused, as it were, the bidding.”

The full essay can be read HERE

What remains to be seen is, whether this group surrounding Trump, as responsible for the spread of terror via proxy wars abroad as anyone, has determined some dialing back is in order. Clearly the model of covertly supporting Wahabi extremism to effect regime change to benefit big oil & gas has increasingly spun out of control over the decades, since the ultimate stupidity of using religious extremists to wage proxy wars had been initiated in Afghanistan by Robert Gates under Reagan.

Just as large a question is, has Bolton’s, Woolsey’s and Giuliani’s hostility towards Russian ally Iran been tempered? Almost certainly not. Insofar as what the actuality of policy will initiate, a comment of Woolsey is particularly disturbing, as it had been made in the context of Russia and geopolitics…

“I think what Mr. Trump does is much more important than what he says”

…considering:

Woolsey chairs the Leadership Council of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an important bastion of hawkish “pro-Israel” advocacy in the United States that has served as an outpost for many well-known rightist ideologues. Among his activities at FDD has been to support the work of its Energy Security” program, which advocates for the United States to break “break the oil monopoly” that helps prop up “regimes and individuals who fund terrorist activities”

Based on open source analysis, it would appear this preceding applies to Iran as opposed to Saudi Arabia. Rabid Iran hater Bibi Netanyahu has a new best friend in Washington. Be informed; Woolsey was a top McCain advisor when McCain mimicked the Beach Boys: