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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announced last week that it launched a barrage of ballistic missiles into Iraq and as new details emerge, the strike seems to be a direct response to an Israeli airstrike on a drone factory in Iran last month, according to The New York Times.
The paper said the “tit-for-tat” strikes marked an “alarming escalation” in the shadow war between Tel Aviv and Tehran. The Trends Journal has been reporting on the war for years and had forecast the election of Neftali Bennett to replace Benjamin Netanyahu would mean more of the same. (See “IRAN MISSILE ATTACK HITS ISRAELI TARGET,” “MIDDLE-EAST WAR DRUMS BEATING” and “IRAN SEIZES OIL TANKER.”)
The paper reported that Israel has been increasing its aggression against Iran’s drone production. These drones have been deployed against Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Defense analysts told the paper that Iran has taken a more aggressive stance in its response to recent strikes from Israel.
Gheis Ghoreishi, an analyst close to the government in Tehran, told the paper that the country’s “strategic patience has ended and from now on it will be answering attacks with attacks.”
Iran said the target was a “strategic center” in Erbil Kurdistan, a region in northern Iraq. Some officials told the paper that the Israeli airstrike originated in Iraq. Iran accused Israel of killing two Revolutionary Guard officers.
Iran said it will continue to strike these Iraqi targets as long as Iraq harbors these “Zionist bases,” according to The Times of Israel.
“It is our natural right to destroy any base from which any attack is carried out against the security of Iran and this is a redline for us,” the Iranian official said.
War Drums Beating in U.S.
Iran has increased its attacks on U.S. forces over the last six months and it was only the result of “very good action” by commanders that prevented any U.S. casualties, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie said, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“Had U.S. casualties occurred, I think we might be in a very different place right now,” McKenzie said.
Iran opposes the U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq which America attacked and invaded 19 years ago yesterday, under the false pretext that its leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction.
The last time Iran launched missiles at U.S. military targets was shortly after U.S. president Donald Trump ordered a drone assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Ain Al Asad airbase in the western region of Iraq was targeted and dozens of U.S. forces suffered brain injuries.
McKenzie, the outgoing head of U.S. Central Command, told the Military Times on Friday that it is likely that American troops will be stationed in Iraq for many years to come.
TRENDPOST: While American and European media and their politicians condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “war crime,” and feature daily reports of civilians killed, they did no such coverage of America’s Iraq War “shock and awe” bombing campaign war crimes that killed nearly 7,500 Iraqi civilians in the early days of the war.
In total, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “…the science-based methods suggest a total of between 700,000 and one million “excess deaths” to date resulting from the Iraq war.
Mission Impossible
The U.S. withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011, but Nobel Peace Prize champ, President Barack Obama sent more troops back to defeat ISIS, which, of course, did not exist before the U.S./NATO supported Iraq mass murder invasion of a nation that was not threat to America.
In addition to ISIS, Iraq’s Shia militias have demanded U.S. forces leave their country.
Despite the aggression, the U.S. is still working on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and is considering removing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from its foreign terrorist organization blacklist, Reuters reported.
The consideration sparked swift backlash in Israel.
Bennett said in a statement that he does not believe the U.S. will abandon its “closest allies in exchange for empty promises from terrorists.”
Netanyahu also took to Twitter to criticize the nuclear deal and talked about the threat a nuclear-armed Iran has on the world.
TRENDPOST: While the media continues to report on Israel’s determination to stop Iran from going nuclear, rarely is it noted that according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Israel possesses at minimum some 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and has produced enough plutonium for 100-200 weapons.
Thus, it is OK for Israel and other nations to have nuclear weapons but not Iran… or, for that matter, North Korea.
Only nations sanctified by a higher political order are permitted to have nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction. And, as evidenced with Iraq, whether they possess them or not, the very thought of it is enough to invade and destroy an “enemy” nation.
TRENDPOST: In February 2003, one month before the much heralded invasion of Iraq, Celente predicted in a Trend Alert to subscribers: “While victory on the battlefield may be swift, considering the massive military power of the U.S., the war against Iraq will eventually be lost… They will not let the U.S., or any western sympathizer, run their country. So, while it may appear that victory is at hand, the battle will have just begun and the war won’t stop at the Iraqi borders.”
A year later (May 2004), in a special edition of the Trends Journal dedicated to Iraq, Celente observed that, “Iraq never was, and most likely never will be, a Western model democracy.”
He called out every pertinent lie, deception and misrepresentation of fact that political leaders delivered, and too many in the media bought into, that twisted the real facts behind the roots of turmoil in Iraq into a fantasy that, he predicted, would make “terrorism” the new “Communism.”
For his prescience, Celente became persona non grata for the mainstream media, no longer welcome on TV programs where he had long been a regular. “The press was complicit with government aims,” says Celente. “They were getting pressure from the top, from their corporate owners, and they folded.”
A study by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) bears Celente out. The study found that in the three weeks after the start of the invasion, the ratio of pro-war U.S. TV guests to anti-war guests was 25 to 1 and that 68 percent of the pro-war guests were current or former government officials.