{"id":349920,"date":"2018-02-26T17:22:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/growing-risk-of-u-s-iran-hostilities-based-on-false-pretexts-intel-vets-warn-antiwar-com-blog\/"},"modified":"2018-02-26T17:22:09","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T16:22:09","slug":"growing-risk-of-u-s-iran-hostilities-based-on-false-pretexts-intel-vets-warn-antiwar-com-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/growing-risk-of-u-s-iran-hostilities-based-on-false-pretexts-intel-vets-warn-antiwar-com-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Risk of U.S.-Iran Hostilities Based on False Pretexts, Intel Vets Warn \u2013 Antiwar.com Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

MEMORANDUM FOR:<\/b> The President
FROM: <\/b>Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT:<\/b> War With Iran<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n

In our December 21st Memorandum to you<\/a>, we cautioned that the claim that Iran is currently the world\u2019s top sponsor of terrorism is unsupported by hard evidence. Meanwhile, other false accusations against Iran have intensified. Thus, we feel obliged to alert you to the virtually inevitable consequences of war with Iran, just as we warned President George W. Bush six weeks before the U.S. attack on Iraq 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

In our first Memorandum in this genre<\/a> we told then-President Bush that we saw \u201cno compelling reason\u201d to attack Iraq, and warned \u201cthe unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.\u201d The consequences will be far worse, should the US become drawn into war with Iran. We fear that you are not getting the straight story on this from your intelligence and national security officials.<\/p>\n

After choosing \u201cWar With Iran\u201d for the subject-line of this Memo, we were reminded that we had used it before, namely, for a Memorandum to President Obama on August 3, 2010<\/a> in similar circumstances. You may wish to ask your staff to give you that one to read and ponder. It included a startling quote from then-Chairman of President Bush Jr.\u2019s Intelligence Advisory Board (and former national security adviser to Bush Sr.) Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who told the Financial Times<\/em> on October 14, 2004 that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush \u201cmesmerized;\u201d that \u201cSharon just has him wrapped around his little finger.\u201d We wanted to remind you of that history, as you prepare to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week.<\/p>\n

Rhetoric vs. Reality<\/strong><\/p>\n

We believe that the recent reporting regarding possible conflict with nuclear-armed North Korea has somewhat obscured consideration of the significantly higher probability that Israel or even Saudi Arabia will take steps that will lead to a war with Iran that will inevitably draw the United States in. Israel is particularly inclined to move aggressively, with potentially serious consequences for the US, in the wake of the recent incident involving an alleged Iranian drone and the shooting down of an Israeli aircraft.<\/p>\n

There is also considerable anti-Iran rhetoric in US media, which might well facilitate a transition from a cold war-type situation to a hot war involving US forces. We have for some time been observing with some concern the growing hostility towards Iran coming out of Washington and from the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is warning that the \u201ctime to act is now\u201d to thwart Iran\u2019s aggressive regional ambitions while US United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley sees a \u201cwake-up\u201d call in the recent shooting incident involving Syria and Israel. Particular concern has been expressed by the White House that Iran is exploiting Shi\u2019a minorities in neighboring Sunni dominated states to create…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEMORANDUM FOR: The PresidentFROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: War With Iran Introduction In our December 21st Memorandum to you, we cautioned that the claim that Iran is currently the world\u2019s top sponsor of terrorism is unsupported by hard evidence. Meanwhile, other false accusations against Iran have intensified. Thus, we feel obliged to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-349920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}