(VIDEO) White House demanded Iran strike options from Pentagon

[KhalaiMakhlooq]

White House demanded Iran strike options from Pentagon

14 Jan 2019 | youtube.com/watch?v=3SYc40oi3Zs

The White House's national security team last fall asked the Pentagon to provide it with options for striking Iran, according to a Reuters source. Ryan Brooks reports. A Reuters source said Sunday (January 13) the Pentagon was asked to draw up plans for striking Iran last fall. That confirms a report initially run by the Wall Street Journal which said the White House national security team, led by John Bolton, had asked for strike options. That decision came after a group of militants aligned with Tehran fired off three mortars into an area of Iraq's capital home to the U.S. embassy last September. The Journal said the request sparked alarm among Pentagon and State Department officials, but that it wasn't clear if President Donald Trump knew of the request, or whether serious plans for a U.S. strike against Iran ever took shape. The State Department hasn't commented on the report. The Pentagon and National Security Council said they provide the president with options for a variety of threats. Tensions have been escalating between the U.S. and Iran after Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal last year, and re-imposed sanctions in a bid to rein in its missile program and influence in the region. The decision to abandon the Iran deal came one month after Bolton took over as national security adviser in April. Bolton is known for his relentless focus on trying to isolate Tehran and cripple its economy by re-imposing tight sanctions.

 

[KhalaiMakhlooq]

White House asked the Pentagon for plans to strike Iran – report

The ‘mind-boggling’ request came after two incidents in Iraq last September when militia mortar and rockets exploded near US diplomatic facilities

14 Jan 2019 | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/white-house-asked-pentagon-plans-strike-iran

"It definitely rattled people,” a former senior US administration official was quoted as saying. “People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran.”

A direct US attack on Iran would be risk triggering a conflict between the two nations that would be hard to stop. There are already hardliners in both camps calling for military confrontation.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, declined to comment on the report on Sunday, when questioned by reporters on his nine-nation tour of the Middle East, which is aimed in large part at maintaining Arab solidarity against Iran. On Sunday he flew from Qatar to Saudi Arabia, where he is due to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In Qatar, Pompeo provided details of a planned anti-Iran ministerial conference to be held, at US prompting, in Warsaw in February.

“There’ll be a broad coalition of countries present,” he said, “and we’ll work on many issues, including how it is we can get the Islamic Republic of Iran to behave more like a normal nation.”

Since John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, became national security adviser in April last year, he has joined with Pompeo in pushing for a much more aggressive posture towards Tehran. Bolton, who wrote a New York Times commentary in 2015 calling for Iran to be bombed, warned that Tehran would have “hell to pay” if it threatened the US or its allies.

That warning came after a Shia militia fired three mortar shells on 6 September into the diplomatic district of Baghdad, where the US has its embassy. A few days later, missiles fired by unknown militants fell near the US consulate in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

Although there were no casualties or significant damage in either incident, they raised alarm in Washington that US diplomats could be vulnerable.

“We have told the Islamic Republic of Iran that using a proxy force to attack an American interest will not prevent us from responding against the prime actor,” Pompeo told CNN at the time, making clear a military response was possible.

Later on Sunday, Axios reported that James Mattis, the then defense secretary, had “deep concerns” about the White House request at the time, believing that it risked creating a direct conflict with Iran.

Last year, Donald Trump pulled the US out of a multilateral 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. He has ordered a campaign of intense sanctions against the Islamic Republic. But he also reassured European leaders that he did not want to be drawn into a new Middle Eastern conflict, and that he would rein in Bolton.

The president’s order for US troops to withdraw from Syria, where they were near Iranian troops and Iranian-backed militias, marked a defeat for Iran hawks in his administration. But with hardliners in positions of influence on both sides, the potential for an unplanned clash remains high, particularly in the crowded sea lanes of the Gulf or in Iraq.

The tough talk from Bolton and Pompeo has added to concerns that Baghdad could again become a proxy battleground between the US and Iranian interests, much as it was during the height of the sectarian chaos, when a full-blown proxy war played out across the country.

Throughout much of the US military presence in Iraq, the giant US embassy in the Iraqi capital’s fortified Green Zone was a target for Shia militias, which regularly rained in rockets and mortars from as far as seven miles away.

Two of the main protagonists from 2007 to 2011, Asa’ib ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah, both proxies of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, have gained strength in Baghdad in the past four years, and exert considerable influence across political and security spheres.

Conflict could also be triggered if Iran decides to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal. The US abrogation of the agreement means Tehran is receiving few of the economic benefits it was promised.

On Sunday, the head of the country’s nuclear programme, Ali Akbar Salehi, said technicians had begun “preliminary activities for designing” a new way of producing 20%-enriched uranium. If production was resumed, it would violate the 2015 agreement, which still exists with other world powers despite the US pulling out, and would escalate tensions with Israel, the Gulf states and the US.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a pro-diplomacy advocacy group, issued a statement on the Wall Street Journal report, saying: “This administration takes an expansive view of war authorities and is leaning into confrontation with Iran at a time when there are numerous tripwires for conflict across the region.”

 

[Persian Gulf 1906]

All countries have plans and options ready to strike anyway, especially in the US/EU.

Nothing new.

They didn't attack in 2012 so they sure as hell won't be attacking any time now.

 

[Tshering22]

White House demanded Iran strike options from Pentagon

Stupid idea.

Iran is the master of low-intensity warfare and can sustain that for years as evident from their success in Syria along with Russians.

Also, liberalising ties with Iran can actually bring a new wave of prosperity and economic growth in Middle East.

It is foolish to keep Iranians needlessly chained.

 

[YeBeWarned]

Iran should have get nukes asap ..

 

[Persian Gulf 1906]

Iran should have get nukes asap ..

Iran feels it doesn't need nuclear weapons for deterrence because it already has deterrence (its geography, mosaic doctrine, BMs, asymmetric warfare, proxies, etc), and this worked to deter any Israeli/US attack, but I agree.

 

[YeBeWarned]

Iran feels it doesn't need nuclear weapons for deterrence because it already has deterrence (its geography, mosaic doctrine, BMs, asymmetric warfare, proxies, etc), and this worked to deter any Israeli/US attack, but I agree.

I think having Nukes will shut America and his threats once and for all , and I want to see Iran in Main stream market, reviving its economy , military and they must be able to do business with all neighboring countries . I hope Iran doesn't go for any other stupid deal to compromise on its nukes .

 

[TheImmortal]

Psych ops propaganda.

Pentagon has had Iran strike options available since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. They are routinely updated just like in case of Russia or China or NK. This is nothing new.

Every administration plays this “card” when they want to thump their chest and then “leak” it to the press.

If US really wanted to attack (even a few pinpoint strikes near the border or in Iraq itself), it would do it covertly like Israel does in Syria. Afterwards you go radio silent as to give Iran the option of not responding/escalating the situation. But when you attack then go public to the world, you are humiliating your enemy thus forcing them to respond.

 

[Sineva]

A poster is worth a thousand words

 

[zartosht]

old psycological war tactics.. didn't work in the early 2000s when they had a real stick in their hands... its laughable to think about today.

 

[Śakra]

All countries have plans and options ready to strike anyway, especially in the US/EU.

Nothing new.

They didn't attack in 2012 so they sure as hell won't be attacking any time now.

What happened in 2012?

 

[Persian Gulf 1906]

What happened in 2012?

Nobody attacked. Not the mighty US. Not the Persian Gulf Arabs in KSA. Not crazy colonialist Israel.

At this time there was a lot of tension with Iran and Ahmadinejad and even Russia and China were voting for UNSCR + sanctions against Iran.

KSA was begging US/Israel to attack Iran.

Iran paid for s-300 but Russia refused to deliver. Iran had no air-defence system like today, very vulnerable to attack.

Today different story.