Above, the USS Georgia has just been ordered to sail from Italy to the eastern Mediterranean in anticipation of an Iranian strike on Israel. Carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles it could be used to launch retaliatory strikes on Iran and its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Last Saturday, in the early afternoon, the massive US nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Theodore Roosevelt<\/em><\/a> sailed slowly from the Gulf of Oman north into the narrow channel of the Strait of Hormuz. Appropriately nicknamed \u201cthe Big Stick,\u201d it was on its way to the Persian Gulf, where it will take aim, like a primed and loaded cannon, directly at Iran. That was the same place it saw action during the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, supporting aircraft that dropped nearly 5 million pounds of bombs on the country. Now back, it\u2019s once again cocked, loaded with fighter jets, and ready for another bloody war, while escorted by heavily armed destroyers, cruisers, and submarines. To provide additional support for the Roosevelt<\/em>, last Saturday Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered to the region the nuclear carrier USS Abraham Lincoln<\/em>, along with its battle fleet of fighters, destroyers, and cruisers armed with both offensive and defensive ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n But this time it would be different. Instead of a war to rid the region of a brutal Iraqi dictator, it would be a war risking American lives and spending billions of American dollars to support a brutal Israeli prime minister\u2014one facing multiple felony charges in an Israeli court, and numerous charges of war crimes in The Hague. The catalyst for what many fear could soon become a new and deadly regional war was Israel\u2019s recent dual assassinations. The first, in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, targeted Fouad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander and adviser on military affairs to Hasan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hezbollah. Also killed was an Iranian military adviser along with three women and two children; at least 74 people were injured.<\/p>\n About a day later, Israel carried out another assassination, this one in Tehran and directed at Ismail Haniyeh, the man leading the negotiations on behalf of Hamas to bring a ceasefire to the long war in Gaza. As the group\u2019s political leader, much of Haniyeh\u2019s extended family had been killed by Israeli soldiers, and now he was among them. For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the murder of Haniyeh, in the works for months, was a big win. Since the start of the war, the Israeli leader had found every opportunity and excuse to delay and frustrate the ongoing peace talks so he could continue the war. \u201cThe prime minister has recently foiled the chances of achieving a deal, in part by toughening Israel\u2019s positions in the latest negotiations after Hamas had shown a certain amount of flexibility,\u201d noted Haaretz<\/em><\/a> last week.<\/p>\n Now with the opposing negotiator eliminated, there was nothing standing in the way of his total annihilation of the Palestinian population in Gaza. \u201cHow can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?\u201d asked<\/a> Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who had been heavily involved in the talks. Thus, unimpeded by negotiations, the carnage continued. On Sunday Israel unleashed brutal strikes<\/a> on two schools in Gaza City, where thousands of displaced persons were sheltering, killing at least another 30 Palestinians. An eyewitness to the attack, Osama Labad, told The Washington Post<\/em> that women and children were among the dead and injured.<\/p>\n On Saturday, Iran informed Arab diplomats<\/a> that \u201cit didn\u2019t care if the response triggered a war,\u201d reported The Wall Street Journal<\/em>. Should his decision to murder Haniyeh spark a bloody regional war, Netanyahu was confident that the US would, as always, come to Israel\u2019s defense. \u201cOur support for Israel\u2019s security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats, including Hezbollah,\u201d a State Department spokesperson said<\/a>, almost robotically.<\/p>\n In fact, the Carnegie Endowment\u2019s Michael Young believes<\/a> that the rapid one-two timing of the double assassinations \u201cstrongly suggests that Benjamin Netanyahu may be trying to railroad the United States into a military confrontation with Iran.\u201d Just prior to the assassinations, Iran\u2019s new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had been seeking to improve the country\u2019s relations with the West, something very worrisome to Netanyahu.<\/p>\n Only now, as a deadly new war looms on the horizon putting Americans at serious risk, is President Joe Biden beginning to understand how long and how badly he has allowed himself, and the country, to be duped by Netanyahu. \u201cBiden realized that Netanyahu was lying to him about the hostages,\u201d a senior White House official candidly admitted<\/a> to Haaretz<\/em> last Saturday. The official was referring to Biden\u2019s speech on May 31<\/a> in which he laid out what he said was an Israeli-approved plan for a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage release. But it was neither. Netanyahu had no intention of agreeing to it, leaving Biden to dangle embarrassingly in the wind for months, unable to show any progress at the negotiating table. \u201cHe\u2019s not saying it publicly yet, but in the meeting between them, he specifically told him, \u2018Stop bullshitting me,\u2019\u201d the official added, referring to the White House meeting with Netanyahu after the prime minister\u2019s address to Congress. The White House official then charged, \u201cNetanyahu is trying to prolong the war instead of focusing on how to get to a hostage deal. It\u2019s making it harder for us to continue supporting Israel over time.\u201d It was an extraordinary series of admissions from a White House normally silent on disagreements with Israel.<\/p>\n Long before the two most recent attacks, Netanyahu had already turned Israel into Assassination, Inc. In Iran alone, Israeli agents have assassinated more than half a dozen scientists and engineers involved with that country\u2019s nuclear program. With no pushback on Israel from the White House, it is apparently expected that Iran should simply accept such violent attacks on its citizens with no retribution. In 2019, for example, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top scientist, was killed by a remote-controlled robot gun<\/a> that had been concealed at the side of a road outside Tehran.<\/p>\n In a new Middle East war, as in all the previous ones, it would likely be Americans, not Israelis, who would fight and die\u2014especially because of the widespread suspicion that the US was at least aware of, if not behind, the assassinations. Shortly after the murder of Haniyeh, Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry said it emphasizes US \u201cresponsibility<\/a>\u201d for the assassination because of its support for Israel. And Iran therefore has \u201cthe right to respond appropriately against this aggressive action against its sovereignty\u201d\u2014an action that could be directed at US interests both abroad and at home. In a short and seemingly carefully worded statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said<\/a>, \u201cThis is something we were not aware of or involved in. It\u2019s very hard to speculate.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem is, for decades the US and Israel have had highly secret intelligence-sharing arrangements that have included \u201cframeworks\u201d dealing with the topic of providing assistance for assassinations\u2014targeted killings. This was revealed in several Top Secret\/Codeword documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. One, dated March 27, 2006, was written by Cindy Farkus, the NSA\u2019s assistant deputy director for Analysis and Production. It deals with her visit to Israel\u2019s equivalent of NSA, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU), also sometimes referred to simply as Unit 8200. In the memorandum, she makes it clear how important the intelligence-sharing relationship has become to both spy organizations, calling it \u201cprobably the most important relationship within NSA\u2019s Third Party Program.\u2026 It is viewed as the most productive and beneficial Third-Party partnership conducted within the US Intelligence Community.\u201d<\/p>\n Another was written a few months later by an NSA liaison officer temporarily assigned to the ISNU at the time of Israel\u2019s war with Hezbollah. It indicates that the Israelis may have access to the highly classified computer network shared by America\u2019s spy agencies. \u201cISNU is well plugged in to the USIC [US Intelligence Community] circuit, it was difficult at times to keep a step ahead of them,\u201d the officer says. But in addition to the massive amount of intelligence shared with them, the Israelis kept demanding more, including highly sophisticated geolocation information in order to conduct assassinations, something prohibited by US law. Nevertheless, bowing to Israel\u2019s insistence that it be given an \u201cexemption,\u201d in the end an apparent compromise was worked out:<\/p>\n ISNU\u2019s reliance on NSA was equally demanding and centered on requests for time-sensitive tasking, threat warning, including tactical ELINT [Electronic Intelligence]. And receipt of geolocational information on Hizballah elements. The latter request was particularly problematic and I had several late-night, sometimes tense, discussions with ISNU detailing NSA\u2019s legal prohibition on providing information that could be used in targeted killings. Even with his full understanding of the US situation, BG [Dani] Harari [Commander of the ISNU] sought assistance from NSA for an exemption to this legal policy.\u2026 In the end, a framework was decided upon by ODNI [the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence] that defined the parameters and methods of what could and could not be shared with the Israelis.\u2026 ISNU stressed their deep gratitude for the cooperation and support they received from NSA.<\/p>\n Considering the over-the-top number of weapons and other support provided to Israel by the Biden administration, it seems highly likely that it would also be given whatever it asked for in terms of intelligence\u2014including targeting and geolocation details as well as human source reporting, all of which could greatly assist in carrying out assassinations. Such actions, however, have serious consequences, including potentially involving the United States in another deadly and prolonged Middle East war. And the longer the genocide continues, the greater the chances of a large-scale regional war, with the US at the center.<\/p>\n Netanyahu deliberately lied to the American president about a hostages-and-ceasefire deal, and then brutally assassinated the other side\u2019s negotiator, possibly with the assistance of US intelligence, so that he could continue his war crimes, assassinations, and genocide. After Israel deliberately and violently has eliminated diplomacy to end the slaughter, the only option left for the United States is coercion. The Biden administration should immediately cut off all weapons and financial aid to Israel, and begin applying harsh sanctions\u2014just as it is doing with Russia over its war in Ukraine. As a lame-duck president, Biden has nothing to lose and a lot to gain, not least of which would be leaving office without a bloody, unending genocide and a potential new Middle East war as his lasting legacy.<\/p>\n