THE REAL AIPAC SPY RING STORY--IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAN
Doug Ireland
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/08/the_real_aipac_.html05 August 2005
Here's what the stories in today's Washington Post and New York Times on the new indictments of the two AIPAC spies aren't telling you: their espionage was principally about helping to prepare an attack by Israel on Iran. And one of the Israeli embassy officials who knows all about AIPAC's role in helping plan the attack on Iran has been whisked out of the country and out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reports this morning.
The neo-cons in the Pentagon had long been arguing for an attack on Iran to take out its nuclear facilities that had the potential to be converted for development of nuclear weapons. Wolfie's man Doug Feith (below left) had been particularly assiduous in pressing the case for a "forward strategy" against Iran. Feith's views are madly extremist, and Jim Zogby collected them in an April profile of Feith that should scare the pants off of anyone rational. (Feith's been a major activist for years with the viciously anti-Arab crazies of the ZOA, the Zionist Organization of America).
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. (At right, Feith and Franklin)
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 highly 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,"
SNIP
Mr. Ireland gets most of it. He does miss, however, the central importance of the fact that Franklin's been indicted (twice) and is going to trial in the Fall, two AIPAC lobbyists are under arrest, Feith's been fired, AIPAC's offices have been searched (twice) by the FBI, and the Plamegate Grand Jury is moving toward indictments of members of Bush-Cheney inner-circle. The US Gov't isn't nearly as monolithic as Mr. Ireland makes it out to be. The career CIA and uniformed officers at the Pentagon aren't going to allow Iraq Times Ten and another Big Bloody. A lunge toward a contrived war with Iran would bring down the other shoe down, breaking the back of the Administration and the Republican lock on Congress. BushCo is terminal - let's hope the Iranians understand that.