“ANOTHER DEADLY DECEPTION”

How long will Americans and international justice continue to tolerate being used by the shenanigans of their federal government to cover up the dirty dealings and deceptions of the state of Israel?

 

By Sidney Hey

It was the winter of 2018 and things could not have been more auspicious for Israel. Netanyahu had succeeded in 2017 in getting Donald Trump to hand over Jerusalem as Israel's capital on a plate, and at the same time he was threatening to involve the US in Syria, so it was necessary to take advantage of this as much as possible. This was the understanding of the heads of Mossad intelligence and Israeli military intelligence at an allegedly secret meeting in a private flat in Haifa. The plan was very ambitious and dangerous, but if successful they could kill two birds with one stone.

Trump is a good “goy” but his petulant character made him an unpredictable jerk, very dangerous to Israel's interests. His continued plan to demilitarise various points around the globe where US troops were stationed, especially in the Middle East and specifically in Syria (despite the “Shayrat” bombing in April 2017) was causing consternation in Tel Aviv because if that happened, things would get complicated for Israel and of course for all its partners on the payroll.

The stalemate over the Iranian nuclear development issue was driving Netanyahu and his supporters crazy and they were constantly calling their US contacts to press the issue in Congress. Hysteria was gripping the more extremists who were even pushing for a direct attack on Natanz. The criminal attempts by Mossad and military intelligence (Lakam) to create fake Iranian attacks against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf (in June 2019), degrade Iran's technological capability (with assassinations, limpet bombs and cyberattacks) were not yielding the expected results and to make matters worse, Iran was gaining more political influence in the whole region.

To this, the dismantling of the fomenting sectarian confrontation created around alleged Sunni extremists against Shiites, Israel was running out of counter-fires to distract the international community from its brutal occupation of Palestine.

Since ISIS was ousted by Iranian-backed Iraqi militias and invaluable Russian military assistance in Syria, the presence of Iranian elements within a few kilometres of the Golan Heights and Lebanese borders in Quneitra, Syria, was keeping not only the far-right politicians in Tel Aviv awake at night but also the religious Zionist extremists connected to AIPAC and the entire US pro-Israel lobby in which many of them, They are involved with the settlers in the real estate business of the settlements who were worried about the possibility of being hit not only from the north by the rockets of “Hesb'allah” and those of the Palestinian resistance “Hamas” in Gaza but also from the east by Iranian missiles.

The Americans had to be manipulated by convincing Trump that Iran posed an “imminent” threat to US troops in Iraq and so they chose Iraq as the softest country to mount a dirty operation against Tehran. This was yet another deception for Washington to swallow. Several rocket attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad preceded the execution of the one intended to make it appear that pro-Iranian militias were behind it. The confusion in Iraq provided the best terrain for the operation. But it was a similar attack in December 2019 on a US base in Kirkuk that finally made the Americans itch. Israeli military intelligence assured Washington that Iraq's “Kataib Hesb'allah” group was behind the attacks, which was not true.

Not only did the leaders of “Kataib Hesb'allah” deny the accusation, but there were indications that they were pointing elsewhere. It was known that the Mossad has a headquarters operating in Kurdistan under the aegis of the Kurds from where attacks are launched both on Iraqi territory and in Syria and Iran. It was therefore more likely that the attack was mounted by the Israelis than by the Shiites in a hostile region.

Why was this particular group singled out? The main reason was linked to its close relationship with Iran during the Anglo-American occupation and especially with the head of “Al Quds” and “IRGC” commander General Qassem Soleimani, the central figure and true architect of the defeat of ISIS in 2017. Another reason was because of his open opposition to the collaborationist government in Baghdad occupied by a bland prime minister like Adil Abdul Mahdi who was then controlled by a double-faced and unscrupulous player like Mustafa Al Khadimi an old CIA employee in charge of the arch corrupt National Intelligence Service (in the service of both the CIA and Iran), it became imperative to remove him from the scene and that was why hanging a dead man on his “Kataib” rivals would be very easy and convenient. This factor was important for the CIA Drones to be able to operate and execute their plan without interference. As the saying goes, they used “Kataib Hesb'allah” as a scapegoat.

One of the questions we might ask is, did the CIA and the Pentagon take the Israeli bait? Possibly not, but as on other occasions, they turned a blind eye.

For the Israeli instigators the central objectives were: to revive distrust between Washington and Tehran; to force a redeployment of US troops especially in Syria; and to eliminate a dangerous mastermind of the Arab-Islamic resistance, and best of all, the Americans would do it.

Others who would see this as auspicious would be the Saudis who are the Arab counterpart of the anti-Iranian alliance between the US and Israel.

Soleimani, in addition to having been the architect of the expulsion of ISIS from Mosul, was a charismatic and very influential figure in the region who inspired the creation of other resistance groups in places as far away as Africa, where Tel Aviv is trying to win some friends with gifts and false promises. Therein lay their concern, but it was the convenience of Israeli intelligence officials to take such risks that prevailed. They would therefore (as they usually do) fabricate a credible excuse so that the US would, in a sense, be forced to respond.

To this end, Military Intelligence Directorate chief Tamir Hayman and his Mossad colleague Yossi Cohen agreed to prepare a report for Washington in which they would argue (with false evidence) that the attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad and Kirkuk were the responsibility of the “pro-Iranian” militia. The rocket attacks were a central part of the plan's argument, and it was not difficult to reproduce them.

Convincing Donald Trump that Soleimani was behind it and planned to expand attacks against Americans in the region was the first step. Fabricating that the attacks would be repeated was the second, and making Trump believe that Tehran underestimated him as a mere loudmouth who would not dare to go further was undoubtedly the trigger for him to order Soleimani's assassination.

And so it was that Netanyahu managed to distance Washington from Tehran by adding this multiple assassination, in which the head of the Iraqi popular militia Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis and ten other men were also killed, to his long career of attacks induced by hoaxes and crimes. The only beneficiary of the attack executed on 3 January 2020 at the Baghdad airport exit was Israel, and all this at the cost of American, Iraqi and Iranian blood with which they lubricated the execution of this new crime.