Iran, here we come

This morning's Times of London carries the first confirmation from a major news source that--just as the Bush administration's neo-cons had expected and plotted for--Israel is secretly preparing an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. You will recall that, on February 18, DIRELAND brought you reports from the European press of a Bush speech -- virtually ignored here in the U.S. -- in which The Twit gave his green light to an Israeli attack on Iran and said he'd support it.

That attack is no longer theoretical but in an advanced stage of planning. "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," the London Times reports today.
  Direland post

Well, that makes Scott Ritter's claim that Bush has "signed off" on an attack in June look correct.

This news comes just one day after the Financial Times reported -- to the indifference of the U.S. media -- that Iran was "offering to halt development of most of its nuclear fuel cycle facilities while retaining the ability to enrich small amounts of uranium." This back-channel compromise offer from the Iranians went unreported in the Stateside press. The Iranians have known an attack on their nuke-development centers was in the works ever since last Fall, when the story about the AIPAC spy ring at the Pentagon broke: the principle task of the spies was securing --for Israel -- classified U.S. intelligence on Iran in furtherance of plans for an attack. Which is why neo-cons in the administration -- who have an ideological commitment to a military strike against Iran -- lent themselves to this espionage and provided the documents to Israel.

[...]

The drive toward war-by-proxy with Iran is thus in high gear, with disastrous consequences not only for the Iranian people, but for the region and the world: a proliferating nuclear arms race motored by countries Washington doesn't like, who see a nuclear shield as the only protection against Bush's announced first-strike doctrine; and a new mega-motivation for those whom the Islamist mullahs are trying to recruit to respond to the call for more terrorist jihad.