Philip Giraldi – Strategic Review Dec 31, 2020
The Bavar 373, Iran’s locally developed air defence system. Click to enlarge
One of the most perplexing narratives presented during the waning days of the administration of President Donald J. Trump is his apparent disengagement from dealing seriously or providing leadership regarding the surging Coronavirus while at the same time continuing an activist foreign policy that in no way benefits any American. Ironically, the new administration of Joe Biden will, undoubtedly, establish its own priorities after January 20th, presuming the result of the election holds, and could easily reverse any government actions initiated overseas by Trump.
So it is all perhaps much ado about nothing, but meddling in the politics of others, creating enemies where enemies do not actually exist, and starting “little wars” to make a point about one’s virility create an unfortunate legacy in that they do not exactly win friends and influence people around the world. There have been interactions in a number of contexts, perhaps most dangerously in the continued promotion of the “threat” coming from China. The U.S. continues to emphasize the growth of Chinese foreign investments, the creation of its new Silk Road across Asia and into Europe, and Beijing’s growing military might. The mainstream U.S. media regularly fearmongers that the Chinese economy will surpass that of the U.S. inside a decade if it has not done so already.
The Administration, sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly, links China directly to the emergence of the Coronavirus and has implied that its propagation is part of a global plan to destroy western democracy and replace it with communism. The new defense budget includes a shift in spending to dramatically increase expansion of the navy to confront the Chinese in their own coastal waters. To be sure, China’s armed forces are being reshaped commensurate with its world role, but it does not realistically challenge that of the United States and will not do so even if it chooses to continue its expansion. Nevertheless, what began as a trade war is now being recast as an Armageddon-like conflict for global dominance, with the White House, Democrats, Republicans and the media all on board.
Russia too, the perpetual enemy, has fortunately escaped direct assault from the White House, leading to renewed claims that Trump is Putin’s puppet. The latest assertion is that a wave of hacking of government and other internet sites in the United States was done by Russia, though there has been precious little evidence provided to support that claim. Joe Biden has picked up the slack by asserting that he will be responding to the attack “in kind,” hello cyberwar, while several Democratic Senators have asked rhetorically whether the hack is an “act of war.” It is even being suggested that Russia will be interfering in the upcoming runoff election for the two Senate seats in Georgia, which will possibly decide who controls the upper chamber of the U.S. Congress for the next two years.
But the biggest winner in the “hated by America” sweepstakes is the usual favorite, Iran. On December 20th several rockets landed inside the fortified U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which in turn sits inside the heavily guarded and protected Green Zone along the Euphrates River where most embassies and government offices are located. Insofar as has been reported, the missiles did little damage and killed one Iraqi civilian. It should be observed that the weapons were not very sophisticated and are of a type that is readily available in the Middle East. Similar attacks on the Green Zone using the same kind of unguided and crude rockets have become a regular feature of diplomatic and government life in Iraq’s capital.
Donald Trump responded three days later with a characteristically truculent series of tweets: “Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday by several rockets. Three rockets failed to launch. Guess where they were from: IRAN. Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq… Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.”
There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran either carried out or sponsored the attack on the Embassy and the photographs of the unexploded rockets, of a standard 107mm caliber widely available and used worldwide, have markings written in English, not Farsi. As is often the case, Trump chose to interpret the actual story and seeks both to demonstrate Iranian involvement and to define it as a provocation that would merit a military response that could start a war. He and his Pentagon wordsmiths would choose to call it “establishing deterrence” or “self-defense.” A spokesman for Central Command described the attack as “…almost certainly conducted by an Iranian-backed rogue militia group,” adding also that the 21-rocket barrage was “clearly NOT intended to avoid casualties.” “Almost certainly” in government speak means “we don’t know”: while a judgment of “clearly NOT intended” would be, under the circimstances, impossible to make definitively.
So unhinged is the hatred for Iran and all its friends that the Trump Administration has, in its last days in office, gone so far as to sanction Asma, the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as all her highly respectable family living in England, where she was born and raised. The reality is that the United States and Israel will stop at nothing to denigrate what they conveniently describe as “rogue regimes” when the only real rogues are in Washington and Jerusalem. Trump and Netanyahu have been wanting to start a war with Iran for the past four years and have been seeking to provoke the Iranians into a response that could be used to justify a massive counter-attack. Why all the tip-toeing around is taking place is because Americans and Israelis are seeking to establish a fig leaf to hide behind while they commit a war crime, i.e. initiating a war of aggression where there is no threat coming from the other side. Instead, they are engaging in what they refer to as “maximum pressure” using economic sanctions and assassinations, hoping to have Iran strike back hard against them so they can plausibly claim that they are the victims and are engaging in “deterrence” or “defense.”
That is what was behind the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qassim Soleimani eleven months ago and the Israeli killing of top Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November. Ironically, if there is considerable tension in the Middle East, to include the rocketing of the U.S. Embassy, it is due to actions undertaken by Israel and the U.S. themselves. Israel has kept the pot boiling by regularly attacking “targets” in Syria, many of which are described as “Iranian-linked.” On Christmas Day Israel violated Lebanese airspace before hitting the city of Masyaf in Syria, which has a large Christian minority, reportedly killing five and destroying a research facility. The relatively low intensity warfare by the Jewish state is a practice that is fully supported by the United States, which continues to maintain forces in Syria to “guard the oil fields” while also supporting the efforts to bring about regime change in Damascus.
The possibility that there will be a war in the Middle East instigated by the Trump White House as a final gift to Israel must be taken seriously in spite of the short time frame remaining. Trump is also pushing ahead with U.S. taxpayer funded “deals” with various Arab states to get them to establish diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. And there are other signs that something is about to happen. The Israelis have moved one of their nuclear missile capable and cruise missile armed submarines into the Persian Gulf to provide a better window for attacking Iran and are hinting that military action might be impending. And there are also rumors in Washington that the U.S. might be closing its embassy in Baghdad due to the “threat,” a possible first step in reducing the number of Americans vulnerable to a war zone that would inevitably include heavily Shi’a Iraq. And what might the Congress and American people do to stop it all from happening? Nothing that would actually have any impact.
The UK is a land under occupation
Taritor politicians here have accepted millions of muslim refugees expelled by Israel
The UK is not the country it was, in many places you can travel some distance before seeing a white face
There is no support at all in any community English or foreign for more wars, the general opinion s that israel should fight its own battles ad not bring in the UK or USA
As I predicted, or should I say ‘analysed’ in early 2019 that the US would take some form of direct military action against Iran in October 2019. For reasons that are not entirely clear, this was stopped. If Trump gets his second term, I think a new war will start on Iran. Apart from the two (at least 2, maybe more) Soviet nukes in Iranian hands, Iran is in my opinion now trying to build or has built its own nukes. Iran has probably had help from North Korea, Russia, and China through secondary channels & the US knows this. So the ideal weather window was last October/November, this time round I don’t think the US has the time to factor in the weather.
These actions must put Russia, China and North Korea on stand-by as well as Venezuela, Cuba and many others.
Well now, those mullahs are another effing cult wearing skirts, so they can go.
Same for China’s CCPee, and Israhell, of course. All messing with the eleckshon, all leaving digital fingerprints and XXL skirts behind.
Every day, another boogieman pops out, and the warmongering ramps up. My personal fav was the fear generated by the million man army.
I remember laughing at that, stating “we’ll kill more of our guys than they will, and it won’t last a week.”
If it ain’t Russia, it’s China, and if it ain’t those 2, it’s Iran or NK. Never mind that nary a carrier strike group is even near the gulf (reports are the Nimitz going away from near), there’s a couple of ancient B-52’s flying around, and hey, something has to justify that 3/4 trillion. I’d be more worried about the subs in the area, but everybody is sporting cruise missiles nowadays, and thankfully, it’s not my job to worry, or to keep Phil in the manner he’s accustomed.
Now if Trump actually presidentializes, there WILL be film at eleven.
Stand by to stand by, yawn in your mask if you have to.
Netanyahu’s government has collapsed again, and Trump is on the ropes. Now I agree with past comments and theories that war becomes more likely as these two could both salvage their careers and keep both of themselves from being prosecuted.
And Iran is the next target, never forget that Wesley Clark memo:
https://genius.com/General-wesley-clark-seven-countries-in-five-years-annotated
“This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.”
Because of the misguiding churches too many Americans obeyed the Jewish politicians with their 2000 years of Christ-hating and went to hurt whoever were the neighbours of the Zionist State, so the priority is to have an aware Christianity. Churches closed for COVID might be a good start.
Fig leaf protection appears to be wearing very thin these days.
In the early months of the Covid scam Iran seemed like an anomaly with relatively high death numbers. There was no IMF or World Bank backing for Iran, or attempted bribes from these two banks like what occurred in the summer in Belarus. However, most every government in the world that had such backing and push to impose the Covid lockdowns, must have regarded the Covid plandemic either as obligatory or else as an incredible opportunity for asserting top-down managerial control over their people, especially with the macro changes on the horizon scheduled to happen on a global scale. Before the Covid scam, Iran of all nations and apart from all other nations except Syria, had been subject to relentless subversion efforts together with frequent drone attacks from the US-UK-Israeli complex, giving rise to massive organized protests, and Iran most certainly did use the Covid scam to assert rigid control over its own people.
Iran like China, Germany, India and a host of other nations want the US dollar as the leading world-reserve currency “gone”, and replaced with a partially bullion-backed global currency, which is the exact promise and plan of the international banking cartel – the Rothschild and Rockefeller dynasties – backing the entire globalist agenda. This cartel is also the principal backer of the UN Agenda 21 goals, the World Economic Forum Great Reset, which is also supported by Brit and Dutch Royalty, the Davos billionaire crowd, and most major multinational corporations, all of whom appear to thrive on free trade with China and from wherever the labor costs for their economic advancement is cheapest.
There are at least two main geopolitical contending forces in the US which can be boiled down to the Trump Americans and the globalists. Both divergent prongs perhaps make up the devil’s pitchfork in the hand of the same banking cartel. It is difficult to tell. We know that continued trade with China and the future sovereignty of Western nations are stake with globalism. Adding more fuel to the fire, to thwart Trump chances, both globalist-governed nations, Germany and France, have just signed a massive trade deal with China. The global elites are now pulling out all stops to ensure that Biden is the new US President and that Trump and his followers will not make any waves for the WEF Resets.
The major economic issue of the election centered around China and obviously the Democrats and many Rhinos are on the globalist side of the fence wanting to trade more freely with China. The global elites have extensive holdings and investments in China, and China has extensive holdings and investments all throughout the West. The global elites have made fortunes in their Chinese ventures using Western markets for most of their profits, and turning our Western nations from creditor nations to debtor nations in 20 years since the process began in 1979.
The massive US election fraud may just be another orchestrated crisis used to paralyze the nation with matter caught up in the courts for a year, while the financial and WEF Resets are rolled out preventing Trump from:
– saving his nation from globalist deconstruction,
– curtailing open trade with China to build up US manufacturing and supply lines,
– saving the US dollar as the leading reserve currency,
– preserving national borders, and
– maintaining a strong military presence.
Or maybe, despite the will of the American people in the election, and seeing what a pushover the sheeple have been with the Covid scam despite the evidence, the global elites decided simply to put Biden in by hook or crook, and to go full-speed ahead imposing all of their totalitarian measures.
One thing is certain and that is that there is a great deal of IMF and World Bank money and most likely a huge amount of Chinese money as well now out there to support and implement the globalist coup of America, and no doubt the globalist are very anxious to put their plans into operation before the sheeple wake up to what has been going on. Had Trump used his powers more effectively to expose the Covid scam over this past year, the globalists likely would have been running for cover and not given the opportunity to pull off such massive and very obvious election rigging scam. However, the globalist fig leaf is very scanty, and Trump can still pull it off on January 6th.