Kushner: Trump's plan last chance for a Palestinian state. do you agree with Kushner?
The trump peace plan will fail just as all the others have because muslims are bent on Armageddon and will settle for nothing less
The orthodox Jews, and evangelical Christians are bent on Armageddon as well, you can't pin this all on the radical Muslims.
Those nutty Jews and Christians are hell bent on rebuilding that temple, don't tell me they aren't.
For the Jews, they need it rebuilt for the first appearance of their messiah, for the evangelicals, they need it for the second coming.
I've seen much in this thread made about. . . "this is Trump and Bibi trying to distract from their political troubles. . . "
. . . and yet, I fear folks don't really understand what is truly going on.
. . I am afraid, this is Trump's nod to Bibi.
Is this -- the last ditch effort to avoid war with Iran in the spring? If it is, it is one hell of a lousy one, Israel isn't really giving the Arabs much considering all they have taken.
I saw only one post in this entire thread mention how Pali groups have moved closer to Iran.
The leverage here is all Iran's. Both the U.S. AND Israel, if they were rational, and sober, should be giving up a hell of A LOT MORE to ensure peace. Otherwise? I could see the world going up in flames.
I just read an interesting article that explains this Don Quixote like Impeachment. What if, on the off chance, it succeeds? What then?
If Trump is forced out, what this sham is probably all about, and why Trump made that preemptive move over, is maybe he is vehemently OPPOSED to America getting involved, or Israel launching a WWIII type conflagration in the Middle East. Was it his attempt to appease Bibi's blood-lust?
. . .but. .. if they decide to do it anyway? He will have to go. THAT is what this could be all about, and why the urgency before just waiting for an election.
. . . and it will have to be before Spring and any war campaign can be launched, as the window of opportunity is closing.
With that in mind. . . this peace plan was some weak ass sauce if it were intended to avoid a conflagration in the middle east. . . Just sayin'
Any amount of luck. . . all this will be wrong and avoided.
Impeachment: What Lies Beneath?
The Polemicist: Impeachment: What Lies Beneath?
". . . There is one thing that I can think of that drives such frantic urgency: War. That would also explain why Trump’s “national security” problem—embedded in the focus on Ukraine arms shipments, Russian aggression, etc.—is the real issue, the whistle to Republican war dogs. But if so, the Ukro-Russian motif is itself a screen for another “national security”/war issue that cannot be stated explicitly. There's no urgency about aggression towards Russia. There is for Iran.
So here's my entirely speculative tea-leaf reading: If there's a hidden agenda behind the urgency to remove Trump, one that might actually garner the votes of Republican Senators, it is to replace him with a president who will be a more reliable and effective leader for a military attack on Iran that Israel wants to initiate before next November. Spring is the cruelest season for launching wars.
Crazy? Maybe, but reliable reports say that the leadership in both Israel and Iran have come to the conclusion that their two countries have reached a crossroad Israel calculates that Iran has already gained too much power in the region, that it has established a network of battle-hardened allies and a widening emplacement of increasingly accurate missiles that could right now seriously damage the Jewish state in any conflict. Indeed, the Pentagon reports that Iran is producing “increasingly capable ballistic and cruise missiles” with “better accuracy, lethality and range.” And “Axis of Resistance” sources tell Elijah J. Magnier that these missiles “have been delivered to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.”
The Houthi strike on Saudi Arabian oil fields in September confirmed this and stunned Israeli and US observers, as it demonstrated that Iran and its allies have missiles and attack drones that can avoid American anti-aircraft defenses and, most worrying, strike with pinpoint accuracy. Like this:
US Government / AFP
Four bull’s-eyes. From over 1000km away.
This is the picture of Israeli fear. These are not your daddy’s throwaway rockets that get fired blind and land in the middle of wherever. They are harbingers of increased military capability and confidence. They can find the Israeli Defense Ministry, a big building in the middle of Tel Aviv.
Iran knows that Israel knows all this and cannot allow it to go any further. That’s why Israel is attacking Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) forces in Syria, Hezbollah warehouses in Lebanon, and Iranian-allied forces in Iraq. But, as Iran knows very well, that’s not enough, and Israel is determined, sooner rather than later, to strike large and at the root—Iran itself. All the more so because Iran is not backing down but beefing up, and proclaiming itself ready to fight rather than get pushed back. Magnier quotes an “Axis of Resistance” decision-maker: “There is no alternative to war. One day it will be war on a large scale.”
It’s not that Iran does not know the damage Israel can do; it’s that they also know (and know that Israel knows) how little damage Israel can take. As the Deputy Commander of Operations of the IRGC, Abbas Nilforoushan, says, quoted by defense analyst Yossef Bodansky: “Iran has encircled Israel from all four sides…if only one missile hits the occupied lands, Israeli airports will be filled with people trying to run away from the country.”
Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull’s eyes, a lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to go.
So, Netanyahu and the Israeli military leadership are at the point where they think it’s necessary to take Iran down now, before the strategic situation deteriorates for them even further. As they correctly fear, doing nothing carries at least as great a risk for them in the not-so-distant future as taking the risk of a direct attack on Iran does now.
Thus, Israeli journalist Ben Caspit tells former British diplomat Alastair Cooke that Israeli ministers “clearly state that a widespread war is likely to erupt in the next six months between Iran and its adversaries in the region, including Israel.” As Magnier specifies: “Considering the date in the next six months, this means the end of the spring and the beginning of the summer.” They don’t want to wait until the second Tuesday in November, let alone January 20, 2021. Everybody’s got a timetable.
Let’s try to remember: It was in September, Bodansky notes, that Netanyahu, speaking to the IDF General Staff, warned that Israel had “hitherto” avoided “a comprehensive confrontation,” but “This might change soon… raising the specter of an all-out war as a distinct possibility.” It was in September, he also notes, that IRGC commanders concluded: “all chances for a diplomatic breakthrough collapsed.” It was in September, three months after Trump called off a strike against Iran at the last minute, that those extremely accurate Houthi drones and/or missiles struck key Saudi oil facilities. And it was ten days later in September that five “badass” freshman congresswomen—plus two men, all CIA or military officers—“changed…the course of history” and “the dynamic for House Democrats” with an op-ed in the Washington Post that called for impeaching Trump, instantly converting a previously recalcitrant Nancy Pelosi to the cause.
There followed Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria—modified under pressure, but still “leaving the Kurds high and dry” and serving as another “warning sign to Israel.” And there came considerable teeth-gnashing about how Netanyahu’s “signature Iran policy … was rocked by the president's reluctance to flex US military muscle,” and left Israel “facing the reality of an unpredictable and transactional president who has deep reservations about using US military might, is afraid of getting involved in another Middle East conflict.”
Now all of this—the coincidences of the September turning points and the Spring 2020 timetables for both “Netanyahu’s signature war” and Pelosi’s “constitutional duty” of impeachment—may be, most probably are, just that: coincidences. All the signs and proclamations about an impending war with Iran in the next six months may be, as they have been before, bluster and bluff. They probably are. There's probably no connection whatsoever between what's going on in the Israeli Defense Ministry and what's going on in the hallowed Halls of Congress.
But the strategic military balance in the Middle East is changing rapidly, the US is a less reliable partner, and Iran and Israel have reached the zugzwang point where some big move is necessary and every possible one is dangerous. Everyone understands that any war with Iran will be widespread and immensely destructive.
That is exactly why Serious People in Israel and the United States would really, really want to have someone other than Donald Trump as President if there is going to be a war with Iran: It’s more than a fear that Trump won’t go along with it. (After all, he despises Iran, and can usually be made to do what the neocons want.) It’s that Israel won’t, in this instance, be looking to strike some weapons depots. It will be trying to eliminate the perceived strategic threat Iran poses and any possibility of retaliation—quickly, thoroughly, and for decades at least. That means destroying as much of the country as quickly as possible. Given Iran’s size (680,000 sq. mi.), strength, and tenacity, that means Israel will use overwhelming and ruthless force—including, I think, nuclear weapons. And Iran and its allied forces will strike back against all countries and all forces it considers complicit in the attack, everywhere they can reach. In that situation, Israel will need not only US military support, but, perhaps more importantly, the backing of an American president who projects the kind of leadership that can solicit the support, or at least the forbearance, of countries in the region, European countries, and the “international community.” That is not Donald Trump.. . . ."
Iran, Trump, and the neoliberal/neoconservative compact
https://off-guardian.org/2020/01/19...kaCcwXuYxFA-i5F7gVy_uKesyppR30M1PJ6GZaThLLFes
We need to start paying more attention to the politics in other nations and major corporate sectors as well, when these events are going on. It will help bring more clarity to any analysis.
Trump Steps Back From the Edge. Neocons Rage Accordingly
Swiss Back Channel Helped Defuse U.S.-Iran Crisis
Putin Proposes Changes to Constitution, Medvedev Resigns: What's Going On?
