Neocons seek to justify action against Teheran

Some US diplomats believe the exercise — reminiscent of attempts by vice-president Dick Cheney and the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to build the case against Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war — will boost calls for military action by neo-conservatives inside and outside the administration.

One diplomat revealed the plans for an Iran dossier to Steven Clemons, a fellow with the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, who has previously revealed attempts by Mr Cheney's allies to pressurise President George W Bush into war.

He said: "There are people more beholden to the Cheney side who have people searching for things that Iran has done wrong — making the case. They've been given instructions to build a dossier. They've been scouring around for stuff over the last couple of weeks." He recently exposed how a member of Mr Cheney's office used private meetings with neo-conservatives at the American Enterprise think- tank to reveal the vice-president's frustration that Mr Bush had authorised a diplomatic strategy against Iran by his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Last week, Newsweek magazine went further, claiming that David Wurmser, until last month Mr Cheney's Middle East adviser, had told fellow neo-conservatives that Mr Cheney had considered asking Israel to launch limited missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. The intention, it was said, would be to provoke a reaction from Teheran that would help justify wider US air strikes.

Mr Wurmser, an analyst in the Pentagon unit that tried to link Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks, denied the claims, saying, "That conspiracy is unrecognisable to anything I have ever seen or heard or done." But he refused to discuss Mr Cheney's views.

Opponents of military action were further alarmed last week when it emerged that Norman Podhoretz, one of the godfathers of neo-conservatism, used a 45-minute meeting with Mr Bush at the White House to lobby for the bombing of Iran's nuclear plants.

Mr Podhoretz disclosed that, when he said Mr Bush was just "giving futility its chance" by pursuing diplomacy, the president and his former aide Karl Rove had burst out laughing. "It struck me," Mr Podhoretz added, "that if they really believed that there was a chance for these negotiations and sanctions to work, they would not have laughed. They would have got their backs up and said, 'No, no, it's not futile, there's a very good chance'." He said he believed "Bush is going to hit" Iran before his presidency ends.

Mr Podhoretz is highly influential. His son-in-law is Elliott Abrams, Mr Bush's deputy national security adviser, who is regarded by US officials as a key advocate of bombing Iran. He was found guilty of withholding evidence from Congress over the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.

Concern is also growing in the CIA and the Pentagon that the White House exaggerated intelligence used to justify an Israeli air raid on a suspected nuclear facility in Syria earlier this month, which some neo-conservatives hope is a precursor to war with Iran.

Bruce Reidel, a former CIA Middle East desk officer, said the neo-conservatives realised their influence would wane rapidly when Mr Bush left office in just over 15 months. "Whatever crazy idea they have to try to transform the Middle East, they have to push now. The real hardline neo-conservatives are getting desperate that the door of history is about to close on them with an epitaph of total failure."

'Buy gold, rent a house and in the end move to a warm country': financial expert

I've already hedged my own capital by putting 10% of it into gold. I've already transferred my pension into raw materials and raw material shares. I sold my house in 2002, and I've been renting since then. As far as pension funds go, we're currently advising that a minumum of 10% of pension assets be put into gold.

read more

'House prices collapse by 60% in 7 years'

The housing market is only now starting to collapse, but soon it will be coupled with huge collapses...  

read more

The men behind Obama: interview with Webster Tarpley

Especially in politics it is of the utmost importance to try to look behind the facade: who makes up the team of the presidential candidate? The future president of the United States of America is for a large part dependent on and being fed by his team of advisors and future cabinet members. Webster Tarpley wrote a book on the men and women behind presidential hopeful Barack Obama. He argues that there is more to Obama than his charismatic appearance and that some of his advisors pose a danger to the US and the world in case Obama might be elected to become the next US president.

read more

Update on the credit crisis, March 2008, by Dutch financial expert

In this interview financial reporter Willem Middelkoop provides an update on the credit crisis. Middelkoop discusses the latest news and articulates what his expectations are for the future.
He is author of the bestseller - Available only in Dutch- If the dollar falls - What bankers and politicians aren't telling you about money and the credit crisis, and publishes the free newsletter Nieuws-Flash!.

read more

The increasing encirclement of Iran

Earlier this month the Annual Threat Assessment was released by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell.  The assessment, provided as a testimony for the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, offers an insight into the current outlook of the president's most important intelligence advisor. In his testimony McConnell emphasizes Iranian attempts to enrich uranium as well as Iran's capacity to fire long-range weapons. The combination of these two are now being presented at the highest levels of power as the central argument for branding Iran as a danger to world peace. As if the National Intelligence Estimate never even existed.

read more