Moon of Alabama — June 21, 2019
Last night U.S President Trump allegedly pulled back from a military strike against Iran after it had already been ordered.
That is the official story but there are doubts that it is true. The Iranian campaign of “maximum pressure” against Trump’s sanctions is still on. But there are first signs that it is successful.
The New York Times headlines: Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back
WASHINGTON — President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions.
As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president’s top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.
Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries.
The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.
…
The NYT story blames the hawks in the Trump administration, Bolton, Pompeo and CIA torture queen Gina Haspel, for arguing for a strike. The Pentagon and some congressional leaders are said to have been against it. The NYT report includes this curious paragraph:
Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.
The Associated Press has a similar story: US prepped for strikes on Iran before approval was withdrawn. The Washington Post and ABCNews also report along the same line. The White House is clearly pushing this version of the story.
But not everyone is buying the claim of a planned attack that was called back. Jeffrey Lewis, a scholar on international conflicts, remarks:
Jeffrey Lewis @ArmsControlWonk – 3:43 UTC – 21 Jun 2019
I don’t buy this. Trump’s team is trying to have it both ways — acting restrained but talking tough. This is pretty much what Nixon did in 1969, too. Why not just admit that sometimes restraint is smart?
The @nytimes ran the same story Nixon in 1969. 路♂️ Nixon was not going to retaliate but he wanted people to think he almost did — and the Gray Lady obliged. —> Aides Say Nixon Weighed Swift Korea Reprisal
Elijah Magnier, a journalist with excellent sources in Tehran, also rejects the NYT claim. Pointing to the NYT story he remarks:
Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai – 4:02 UTC – 21 Jun 2019
This is highly inaccurate and Iran “knew” about it yesterday: the US administration whispered this info for Trump to save his face.
I hinted to this info yesterday before it was released this morning by the US media. Iran – sources – rejected the “war-theatre scenario”. More details this evening.
Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai – 19:41 UTC – 20 Jun 2019
I have very valuable information on US intel sending a message to the Iranians to agree on a certain scenario to happen.
This and much more information will force me to write an article tomorrow (hopefully) on #Iran and #US crisis.
After the drone shoot down the price of oil jumped 10%. Trump will have noticed that. He was also already warned by Iran that there is no room for talks and that any strike against it would have deadly consequences:
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian officials told Reuters on Friday that Tehran had received a message from U.S. President Donald Trump through Oman overnight warning that a U.S. attack on Iran was imminent.
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The second official said: “We made it clear that the leader is against any talks, but the message will be conveyed to him to make a decision … However, we told the Omani official that any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences.”
The whole storyline of “a strike was ordered but Trump held back and saved the day” might well be fake.
When Trump spoke to the press yesterday afternoon he was already playing down the Iranian downing of a U.S. Global Hawk drone. As we wrote in the update to yesterday’s drone story:
Trump just held a press conference in the Oval Office. He seemed to play down (vid) the event. He empathized that the drone was unmanned. He said he had “a big, big feeling” that “someone made a mistake”, that “some Iranian general probably made a mistake”. That means that he does not accuse the government of Iran of the shoot down, but some lowly grunt who “might have made a mistake.”
That statement gives him room to avoid a large retaliation.
A strike in retaliation for the downed drone may have never been on the table. An alternative interpretation is that the U.S. sought agreement for a symbolic ‘strike’ from Iran. It would hit some empty desert place to allow Trump to save face. Iran would have disagreed with that plan.
But there are also signs that some strike was really in preparation:
The impotent goof, President Bullshit, is not in charge of anything except fooling the public.
It must be integrated that Iran shot down a stealth drone and deliberately avoided harming another nearby manned plane that would have been an easier target.
Ie they have capabilities that the US military were not aware of.
I suspect that the real goal was to induce the Iranians to shoot down the manned plane, have it observed (for publication) by the Global Hawk and then do the attack with impunity.
The Iranians fuked up this plan.
They Didn’t shoot down the intended target and demonstrated that an attack would Not be immune to defenses.
Well done Iran!j
You should always assume that the “official” story is bullshit. The correct default position is they are lying to cover something up. It is plausible that Trump did not approve of a strike – or that he did. Even Moon’s analysis may be a misdirection. Who knows?
What really happened Thursday night? I will tell you a plausible alt story that makes more sense based on all the evidence. The US did react to the downed drone like a knee jerk reaction. But something changed their minds about going in country for the attack.
Trump called off the attack because US forces were about to be obliterated. How do I know? Because everything the ZOG God Emperor says is a spin opposite of reality. Trump says he warned Iran, truthful Iran says he didn’t. He’s lying say I.
When Trump says war with Iran would cause ‘obliteration like you’ve never seen before’ he is spinning reality 180 degrees – it was going to be US Stealth obliteration.
The downed drone may have been part of the attack force. The US backed off so as not to be humiliated. What people don’t know is the real politik here, no defense contractor wants their inferior overpriced weapon systems exposed. Like the F-35. The bloated US arms industry can not be exposed as inferior, so the idea here is only attack third world nations with inferior defenses.
Quoting Jim Stone’s latest analysis: “There are rumors going around that Iran got tipped off to the attack and did indeed have the American planes perfectly targeted. They knew that if the planes actually entered Iran, they would be lost. There are several variants of this story and I am waiting for which variant ends up being confirmed. The bottom line is that the attack was called off because Iran was aware of it and too many American assets would be lost.”
Russia and China may have better missile/aircraft systems than America. America may be a paper tiger when up against a first world nation, and that is what Centcom doesn’t want revealed. Do you remember when Chinese hackers helped Iran land a US drone intact? How many US drones does Iran now have? Why wouldn’t China have it’s computer geniuses in Iran gaining intel on how US drones operate?
Iran–U.S. RQ-170 incident
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“On 5 December 2011, an American Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was captured by Iranian forces near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran. The Iranian government announced that the UAV was brought down by its cyberwarfare unit which commandeered the aircraft and safely landed it,”
What if the anti-aircraft missile systems in Iran could perfectly see all the stealth craft? According to Iran they shot down the Global Hawk after it shut it’s transponder off. Well, what do ‘ya know, the almighty United States of Israel is a giant pussy and doesn’t want to engage in a fair fight.
You know this whole episode reminds me when Israel invaded Lebanon (2006?) and it’s “invincible” Merkava tanks (God’s Chariot) got obliterated by Iran/Hesbollah fighters using wired guided anti-tank missiles. The big laugh here is that Israel is taken in by its own religious bullshit and believe in their fairy tale names given to weapon systems like “David’s Sling” or “Delilah”. “Why our tank in invincible because we name it after God”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e88n0xyqWrU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRePg43EafM
“might” well be fake? Haha 🙂 only absolute idiots would mess with Iran, China or Russia. The USA are playing their usual geo-political game. Having said that, practically every country is controlled by Talmudic Cabalists/Satanists and are on the same side. There is no left/right wing or east/west them and us. Its all just a big psyop to manipulate the worlds people into slavery to put the finishing touches to the NWO.