Trump administration threatens Iran

‘Iran put on notice’ after ballistic missile test – White House National Security Advisor

National security adviser General Michael Flynn © Carlos Barria / Reuters

RT,

1 February, 2017

Washington has put Tehran on ‘official notice’ over its recent ballistic missile test, with White House National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn describing it as provocative and destabilizing the situation across the Middle East.

The Trump administration "condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East that puts American lives at risk," Flynn told reporters Wednesday.

Reuters reported that an anonymous White House official said the missile test was carried out on Sunday from a site near Semnan, east of Tehran.

A White House statement released by Flynn said the missile test was in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 which called upon the country “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles.”

Iranian officials on Tuesday, however, insisted that the country has complied with the restrictions imposed in the Iran nuclear deal, according to Al Jazeera.

The Russian deputy foreign minister also concurred the test does not contravene the UN resolution.

"Such actions, if they took place, do not breach the resolution," Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, told Interfax news agency, saying demands for UN talks were aimed at "heating up the situation".

AP reported that a defense official said the missile test ended with a “failed” re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere but had no details on the type of missile.

Flynn included with his criticism of a recent attack against a Saudi naval vessel “conducted by Iran-supported Houthi militants.”

Flynn stated, "Iran is now feeling emboldened," and criticized the Obama administration.

“The Obama Administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions—including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” said Flynn in the statement.

Flynn added that the Trump administration “condemns such actions by Iran,” and "we are officially putting Iran on notice," although it's not clear what he meant.

As Iran Dumps Dollar, Congress Quietly Slips in Bill for ‘Use of Force Against Iran’

the Free Thought Project,

1 Febraury, 2017

On March 21, The Islamic Republic of Iran will cease using the U.S. dollar in all of its financial reporting. The decision to stop using the dollar as a reference has been in the works for some time but was expedited after the Trump administration decided to include Iran as one of the seven countries banned from entering the United States.

Iranian PressTV reported, “Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran, was quoted by domestic media as saying that Iran would either replace the US dollar with a new common foreign currency or use a basket of currencies in all official financial and foreign exchange reports.”

Seif reportedly stated the country of Iran needs a much more stable foreign currency, that the dollar is insignificantly found in exchange houses throughout the country, and Iran would be better-suited trading in European Union Euros, Chinese Yen, or in United Arab Emirates Dirham.

Following Trump’s plan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen have all been banned from entering the US for a period of at least 90 days. The decision has angered globalists who see borders as just one more man-made obstacle to freedom to travel the world, as well as anyone with family or conducting business in those countries.

Even with all the angst and outrage, if Iran goes ahead with its plan to replace the dollar in its monetary system, the country’s theocratic leaders run the risk of falling victim to U.S. vengeance.

In fact, the United States is already preparing for potential conflict with Iran, the US has introduced H.J.Res.10 – Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution. 

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This resolution was quietly introduced last month with absolutely no media attention in spite of the fact that it“authorizes the President to use the U.S. Armed forces as necessary in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

Other countries and their leaders have attempted to do the same thing as Iran, but it backfired in their faces and they were subsequently invaded by the US. 

TFTP’s Jay Syrmopoulos reported in January, NATO’s involvement in Libya, “was not for the protection of the people, but instead it was to thwart Gaddafi’s attempt to create a gold-backed African currency to compete with the Western central banking monopoly.”

Likewise, the involvement of the USA in Libya’s affairs, “was also driven by a desire to gain access to a greater share of Libyan oil production, and to undermine a long term plan by Gaddafi to supplant France as the dominant power in the Francophone Africa region.”

Just as in Libya, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein waded into the currency controversy when he announced Iraq would no longer sell Iraqi oil in dollars. According to The New American, “Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein, once armed by the U.S. government to make war on Iran, was threatening to start selling oil in currencies other than the dollar just prior to the Bush administration’s ‘regime change’ (George W. Bush) mission.” The year 2000 Timearticle stated Saddam’s purpose for making the change was for Iraq to no longer deal “in the currency of the enemy”.

In 2006, just prior to Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad being called by U.S. officials as a genocidal war criminal who needs to step down, the Chicago Tribune reported “Syria has switched the primary hard currency it uses for foreign goods and services from the U.S. dollar to the euro in a bid to make it less vulnerable to pressure from Washington. The decree signed by Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari on Monday ordered government bodies and public-sector companies to use euros to pay for foreign transactions.” The announcement may seem insignificant, but it may have been the last straw in an already chilly relationship with Syria. After all, Syria had made business arrangements with nearly all of America’s foes and major competitors; Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Iran, Russia, and China.

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That plan backfired quickly after the U.S. targeted Assad for removal, going so far as to provide arms and cash to Sunni rebels in a proxy war against Syria’s Assad.

Donald Trump has said he may pursue a more diplomatic solution. However, that is yet to be seen. For the moment, he’s simply banning all immigration from Syria amid talk of establishing “safe zones” for Syrians to be able to remain in their homeland. It remains to be seen if the terms “safe zone” are equivalent to what the previous Bush administrations called “no-fly zones,” a tactical move which led to air superiority over Iraq and Libya, later leading to those countries’ downfalls.

As The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous occasions, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Bashar Al-Assad all attempted to move away from the dollar and replace it with another currency. All three saw their countries destroyed. Only Assad remains in power for the moment, protected only by Russia, and Syrian ally Iran. But after Russia withdraws, one could only expect the conflict to resume, with the expressed intents and purposes of overthrowing Syria and allowing for Western companies to enter and exploit Syria’s natural resources, and establish a more dollar-friendly national currency.

Make no mistake, the US has no problem invading Iran and will do so on a whim — all the while, maintain support of the citizens — in the name of spreading freedom. 

House bill would allow Trump to wage preventive war on Iran

Digital Journal,

1 February, 2017

Washington - A joint resolution introduced in the House of Representatives last month authorizes preventive war against Iran to stop the Islamic Republic from developing nuclear weapons.

H.J. Res. 10, the “Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution," is sponsored by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and permits the president to wage war as he sees fit, with the goal of thwarting Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions.

"The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines necessary and appropriate in order to achieve the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons," the measure states, adding that any such action is subject to the War Powers Resolution, which limits military action to 60 days unless Congress offers the Commander-in-Chief an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war.

"The United States must do all that is necessary to ensure that all of Iran’s pathways to obtaining a nuclear weapon are blocked," the resolution declares, adding that "Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon is a threat not only to the United States but also to our allies in the region" and "Iran’s sincerity in forgoing the procurement of a nuclear weapon has created legitimate cause for concern."

The last national intelligence assessment showed consensus among all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, a conclusion also reached by leading Israeli intelligence officials. Despite this, Republican lawmakers have long called for a U.S. war on Iran. Perhaps most alarmingly, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) called for a nuclear attack against Iranian nuclear sites.

"If you have to hit Iran, you don't put boots on the ground," Hunter said in 2013. "You do it with tactical nuclear devices and you set them back a decade or two or three. I think there's a way to do it with a massive aerial bombardment campaign."

The United States is the only nation to have ever waged nuclear war, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and for years to come from radiation, cancer and other ailments.

Iran has not initiated a war in nearly 200 years, although the Islamic Republic does sponsor groups considered terrorists by the United States, Israel and other Western nations. The U.S., Israel and others also sponsor their own campaigns of state terrorism against Iran, allegedly launching cyberattacks against the nation's nuclear facilities and assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists. The U.S. also trained and supports the Iranian exile terrorist group MEK, which has carried out attacks against regime targets for decades. Crippling economic sanctions have hamstrung the Iranian economy and hurt ordinary Iranians the most.

The concept of preventive war gained popularity within the George W. Bush administration following the Islamist terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While military experts say there are times when preemptive war may be necessary to thwart an immediate foreign threat, the far more nebulous notion of preventive war — waged on the mere possibility that a threat may one day emerge — is much more dubious. The infamous 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a textbook preventive strike, meant to eliminate the U.S. Navy threat in the Pacific and thus avert the type of war that eventually led to the destruction of much of Japan.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, faced with calls for a preventive attack on the Soviet Union, scoffed: “All of us have heard this term ‘preventive war’ since the earliest days of Hitler... I don’t believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn’t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.”

Bush's determination to wage preventive war in Iraq — a nation which had nothing to do with 9/11 and which had long ago given up developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) — is widely considered one of the most disastrous decisions in U.S. history, resulting in hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and thousands of U.S. troops killed and a country left in ruins and ripe for exploitation by Islamist extremist groups like Islamic State.