But Iran is not the only possible target in the wake of a new 9/11. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the United Nations this past week, formally accused the US of preparing an unprovoked aggression against his country as well. Chavez promised a hundred years, war to beat back such an invasion.

Bush had pledged to the German CDU-CSU opposition that there would be no attack on Iran before today's German election. The result of the German voting indicates that Gerhard Schroeder of the SPD may well be able to remain in power as the chancellor of an independent Germany. Schroeder has pledged that he will not take part in a US-led attack on Iran. His challenger, Angelika Merkel, is a neocon and far too weak to be able to resist orders from Bush and Cheney to join in the planned suicidal adventure. This was sensed by German voters, who declined to give Merkel a mandate to rule.

The most immediate war signal is a 180-degree policy reversal by the British government, with an announcement that the long-touted pullout of UK troops from Iraq will not occur. Instead, one of the British elite units, the 7th Armoured Brigade, will arrive in Iraq in October:

"Secret plans by the Government to reduce troop numbers in Iraq have been shelved - and there is now no official date for the withdrawal of British soldiers, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.- "The decision comes as ministers prepare to announce an unexpected redeployment of up to 6,000 members of the 7th Armoured Brigade - the renowned Desert Rats - in the conflict zone next month. This follows growing concerns that Iraq is heading into full-scale civil war. Under the original withdrawal plans of John Reid, the Defence Secretary, up to 8,500 troops should have returned to Britain by next month with the rest coming home by the middle of next year.- (Sunday Telegraph, September 18, 2005)

It is necessary abandon any illusions that the Bush-Cheney disaster relief and civil defense debacle in the wake of hurricane Katrina will do anything to avoid or even postpone the war mobilization on the part of the US. Do not be deceived by the ostentatious presence, for the moment, of parts of the US 82nd Airborne Division in New Orleans. On Sept. 2, the Washington Post announced that the US military had discarded its plans to boost the troop presence in Iran during the October 15 to December 15 period, the time of the Iraqi constitutional referendum and the parliamentary elections. Defending these elections is the obvious cover story for a US buildup targeting Iran. General John Vines in Baghdad suggested that there would be only an increase of 2,000 soldiers over and above the current level of just under 140,000. (Washington Post, September 3, 2002) The Pentagon had earlier suggested that the level would have to be increased to 160,000 for the election period. What would the impact of the New Orleans situation be?

Rumsfeld and Meyers, in a Sept. 6 press conference at the Pentagon, told reporters that the "plus-up- was going to proceed on schedule, thus giving the US the extra capability needed for the type of raids into Iran that are now being contemplated:

Asked whether the military's response to the Katrina disaster had been hindered by the Iraq deployment, Rumsfeld shot back: "It's just flat wrong. Anyone who's saying that doesn't understand the situation." Myers concurred, pointing to the decision to bring back the Louisiana and Mississippi guard units as evidence of the military's flexibility.,

In addition to the ground forces, there is also evidence of a naval buildup, part of which was revealed by the following incident:

US submarine collides with cargo ship in Gulf

DUBAI - A US Navy submarine collided with a Turkish cargo ship in the Gulf in the dark hours of Monday morning, the US Navy reported. No one was hurt on either vessel. The USS Philadelphia was traveling on the surface of the Gulf when it slammed into the Turkish-flagged M/V Yaso Aysen at around 2:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT Sunday), the US Navy 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain reported in a statement. (AP, 5 September 2005)

The position of this sub was the optimal one for firing conventional or atomic cruise missiles at Iran. A seasoned Israeli observer, Amir Oren, noted as much in his column in Haaretz, September 11, 2005:

"If there was a fateful report this week, it did not come either from Gaza or from New Orleans, where Katrina seemed to threaten to become George Bush's Monica. The report from the Persian Gulf about the collision of the U.S. nuclear submarine Philadelphia with a Turkish freighter north of Bahrain, with Tehran within range of the sub's Tomahawk missiles, showed that the Americans are preparing seriously for the next confrontation, to which Israel will probably not be able to remain indifferent."

The backdrop for all of this is the announcement, published on the fourth anniversary of 9/11, of further US steps to render operative the new military doctrine of nuclear sneak attack against even non-nuclear states by which the US claims it feels threatened:

"The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.- (Washington Post, September 11, 2005)

The new US sneak attack nuclear doctrine has been viewed with alarm by Russian President Putin. This past week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov warned the United States about the new plans for pre-emptive nuclear strikes: "Lowering the threshold for use of atomic weapons is in itself dangerous. Such plans do not limit, but, in fact, promote efforts by others to develop nuclear weapons." (Wire service report, September 14)

THREATS

Ironically, the main accuser of Iran in the State Department is none other than the discredit hack Robert Joseph, who was responsible for the infamous 16 words about Iraq seeking nuclear weapons into Bush's January 2002 State of the Union Address; these words played an important role in setting up the attack on Iraq. Joseph's slide show is entitled "A History of Concealment and Deception,- and alleges that Ian is committed to developing nuclear weapons, although it offers no proof.

Joining in the bluster is Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq. Khalilzad, a leading neocon in his own right, delivered a diatribe against Syria from the podium of the State Department:

"Our patience is running out with Syria. They need to decide: Are they going to be with a successful Iraq or are they going to be an obstacle to the success of Iraq? Iraq will succeed. Iraq will succeed. Syria has to decide what price it's willing to pay in making Iraq success difficult. And time is running out for Damascus to decide on this issue.....- Special Briefing, Washington, September 12, 2005)

A few days later, State Department spokesman Ada Ereli repeated the same threats:

"Syria, more and more, is being recognized as a destabilizing element in the region." "It's not just about Iraq; it's about Iraq, it's about Lebanon, it's about the Palestinian Authority. Because there's a connection between Syria and terrorism and murder and mayhem in each of these three different areas." (Associated Press, 17/09/2005)

Are the neocons seriously proposing to attack both Iran and Syria at the same time, in a double flight forward from their current hopeless situation in Iraq? Or was this strategic deception, designed to let Iranians think they might not be next?

Bush himself, although nearer than ever to a nervous breakdown as a result of wide criticism of the Katrina disaster, is still on message, and the message is a new terror attack. On September 6, Bush remarked:

"What I intend to do is to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong. And I'll tell you why: It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastropheAnd the reason it's important is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm. And so I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong." (September 6, 2005)

A few days later, on Sept. 13, Bush specified that Iran is the main target of the US, at least for the moment. Speaking of his talks at the UN this past week, Bush stated that his main goal was to haul Iran before the UN Security Council:

"I will bring the subject up with leaders whom I'll be meeting with today and tomorrow and later on this weekI will be speaking candidly about Iran with the - Hu Jintao, as well as with President Putin, for example. Just had a conversation with Tony Blair and the subject came up.... It is very important for the world to understand that Iran with a nuclear weapon will be incredibly destabilizing. And, therefore, we must work together to prevent them from having the wherewithal to develop a nuclear weapon.-

WARNINGS

Knowledgeable observers around the world are fully aware of the slide towards an immensely wider war in the Middle East. At the end of August, Anthony Wedgewood Benn, the grand old man of the left wing of the British Labour Party, warned that Bush might see the attack on Iran as a "way to regain some of the political credibility he has lost.What must be intended is a US airstrike, or airstrikes, on Iranian nuclear installations, comparable to Israel's bombing of Iraq in 1981Some influential Americans appear to be convinced that the US will attack Iranthe build-up to a new war is taking exactly the same form as it did in 2002" against Iraq. While the US and UK talked of diplomatic measures, leaked UK memos show that the decision to go to war had already been taken long before. That may be the position now, and I fear that if a US attack does take place, the prime minister will give it his full support. Now that the US president has announced that he has not ruled out an attack on Iran, if it does not abandon its nuclear programme, the Middle East faces a crisis that could dwarf even the dangers arising from the war in Iraq. Even a conventional weapon fired at a nuclear research centre -- whether or not a bomb was being made there -- would almost certainly release radioactivity into the atmosphere, with consequences seen worldwide as a mini-Hiroshima.- (Guardian, Aug. 31, 2005)

George Galloway, on a book tour in the US, was alert to importance of a new synthetic terrorist to furnish the pretext for the coming attack. He told Alex Jones in a radio interview:

"So you cannot discount some kind of provocation being staged by those elements who want to propel the US into an even more disastrous invasion.-

As Alex Jones summed up the exchange, "Galloway went on to suggest that it is not beyond the realm of imagination for a situation to arise where the power hungry elite in the US uses staged provocation to drag Iran into a geopolitical set-to, using Israel as the hammer. If this were to happen, the consequences could be as far reaching as to start a third world war which would be devastating for humanity. This would provide the authorities with the perfect excuse to set up a police state domestically to regulate the activities of everyone and have complete control.- (Prisonplanet.com, September 13, 2005)

COUNTER-ARGUMENTS

Iran's new President Achmadinejad told the United Nations on September 16:

"A country which possesses the biggest nuclear arsenal, embarks on proliferation of nuclear weapons in defiance of the safeguards and threatens to use them against others, is not competent to comment on peaceful use of nuclear know-how by other states. These countries should be brought under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.- (IRNA, September 16, 2005)

The British International Institute for Strategic Studies has in effect confirmed the finding of the CIA's latest National Intelligence Estimate, which found that Iran was many years away from being able to build atomic bombs. According to the French press, "It appears probable that Iran does not have significant stocks of non-declared fissile material, or that it is dissimulating the installations capable of producing such material." (Le Monde, September 7, 2005)

Retired Gen. Colin Powell told Barbara Walters of 20/20 that "there is no military solution for the problem with Iran.- Powell recommended instead a creative diplomatic solution. (20/20, ABC television, September 9, 2005)

THE 9/11 FRONT

New revelations from the Pentagon's Able Danger military intelligence unit have, whatever the intentions of the leading actors, tended to re-open the entire 9/11 question in ways which pose serious dangers not only for Bush, but for the whole of the pro-war invisible government faction. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) revealed on September 15 that "a Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks.The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to name the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents.- (Associated Press, September 15, 2005)

SCENARIOS

The usual suspects have continued to beat the drum for a new 9/11. Joseph Farah offered the following terror scenario: "Raising new concerns about the use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists, al-Qaeda is planning spectacular attacks next month against the U.S., Russia and Europe in what it is calling the Great Ramadan Offensive., Ramadan, the holiest period in the Muslim calendar, begins Oct. 4 this year and lasts a month. (World Net Daily, September 8, 2005) Such an event would be the immediate prelude to a move against Iran.

An alleged America al-Qaeda has also been dredged up with a histrionic tape threatening terror attacks against Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia.

More to the point may be the following op-ed from Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post:

"Bush's informal minister of war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps best captures this spirit. Think constantly and urgently about 10/12, he reportedly tells Pentagon staffers in private meetings - and what you will wish you had done to prevent it. The 10/12 reference is Rumsfeld's epigrammatic way, not of predicting the date of a new terror attack, but of emphasizing that the horror of 9/11 is likely to be repeated and augmented. It is a chilling symbol of the broad challenge that Bush must confront.- (Jim Hoagland, "Cruel September,- Washington Post, September 15, 2005)

We might do well to take Rumsfeld quite seriously. As already noted, the immediate window for an attack on Iran would appear to be approximately the interval that spans the October 15 constitutional referendum and the December 15 general elections in Iran. The US invisible government might deliver a new 9/11 at any time within this interval, or even sooner. We should at the same time bear in mind that the US timetable for aggression will depend very heavily on surprise bombing attacks, with limited use of special forces and paratroopers to seize and destroy key labs, nuclear facilities, reactor sites, enrichment plants, and the like.

As in Desert Storm and the March 2003 attack, it must be expected that the US-UK bombers will prefer to go into action during the dark of the moon, when planes are harder to locate. The new moons of the last quarter of 2005 are as follows:

October 3

November 2

December 1

Everything points to one of these new moons as the period of maximum danger of a US-UK sneak attack on Iran. Working backward, we can assume that the new 9/11 provocation that must furnish the pretext for this attack will have to take place several days to two weeks earlier, in order to orchestrate public opinion and complete last-minute military preparations. We have therefore already entered the danger zone for spectacular terrorist events staged by the rogue network infesting the key departments and agencies of the US government. It is time for a political mobilization to stop these events from happening.