Goodbye Feith... Hello Tehran?

Juan Cole says farewell to Douglas Feith:

the outgoing number 3 man at the Pentagon, the son of a founder of the proto-fascist Likud Party, has his own foreign policy and fanatically favors the aggressive expansion of Israel and further expropriation of Palestinian property. It is shameful that he is only now resigning, since he has all along opposed the roadmap to peace of the Bush administration. And while others might have had complex motives for taking out Saddam, the reams of disinformation that issued from Feith's "Office of Special Plans" are easily explained. He saw the Baath regime as a brake on his hopes for a "Greater Israel." As number 3 in the US Department of Defense, moroever, it is hard to see how he could have been insulated from the decisions that led to the torture of Arab prisoners.

If France appointed Jean-Marie LePen as its number 3 in the Ministry of Defense, there would be howls of outrage from the international community. But Feith's commitment to colonizing Palestinians is just as racist a project as any of LePen's programs. If any other American bureaucrat had dared to maintain that it is perfectly all right for one country to colonize another, he would have been considered poison in Washington. But the Likudniks have made themselves respectable in ways that are mysterious to those of us outside the beltway.

Cole also posts a link to Doug Ireland at ZNet, who examines the AIPAC spy scandal in relation to neocon plans for invading Iran:

When, for purely electoral reasons with the Iraq occupation going so disastrously, the White House decided against a direct attack by the U.S. on Iran, the neo-cons went to Plan B -- an attack on Iran by proxy, from Israel. The principal classified documents leaked to Israel through AIPAC -- the leaks that that began the investigation of the AIPAC spy ring, which has been going on now for over a year -- concerned Iran. They were leaked by Feith's deputy, Larry Franklin, also now under a five-count indictment for spying.

The plan for an Israeli attack on Iran has been long envisioned -- both in Washington and by Sharon's government -- but this attack is now in a highy advanced state of planning and could come as quickly as Sharon snaps his fingers to order it. Back on March 13, the London Times -- in a report that was largely ignored in the U.S. -- reported that: "The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave 'initial authorisation' for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert,"

The London Times went on to describe how "Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities. The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel’s way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed...." And, the Times added, "US officials warned last week that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces had not been ruled out should the issue become deadlocked at the United Nations."

Just a few weeks before that revelation of the concretization of Israeli plans for the Iran attack, Bush let the cat out of the bag in an off-the-cuff remark captured by London's Daily Telegraph, in a February 18 article headlined, "AMERICA WOULD BACK ISRAEL ATTACK ON IRAN."

Ireland takes a look at some of the key figures in the AIPAC case, including Steve Rosen, the man who built AIPAC into a $40 million dollar Capitol Hill powerhouse, who comes across as the organisation's Dick "evil genius in the corner" Cheney.

Now, just what is AIPAC, you may well ask? AIPAC is the enforcer of the knee-jerk support for the Israeli government which characterizes the political and governing classes in this country, -- Israel is the real third rail of American politics: touch it with criticism, no matter how carefully couched, and you die. Both the Democratic and Republican parties fall all over themselves to kiss AIPAC's boots -- because AIPAC and its well-filled war-chest helps make sure they toe the line on Israel, and has been responsible for the defeat of a significant number of politicians over the years who dared to criticize Israeli policies.

Nuff said?