In this issue:

Israeli President: Perspectives on Syria and Iran

Palestinian Leaders Reject Bush/Olmert 'Lame Duck' Plan

Assad: Peace with Israel Possible

Cheney Link To Ergenekon Coup Plot Exposed

Senior U.S. Diplomats Warn of Imminent Hit on Iran

British Run Ethnic Destabilization of Iran

From Volume 7, Issue 37 of EIR Online, Published Sept. 9, 2008
Southwest Asia News Digest

Israeli President: Perspectives on Syria and Iran

Sept. 6 (EIRNS)—Israeli President Shimon Peres made two important declarations at a conference of the Ambrosetti group in Italy. Regarding Syria, Peres "invited" President Bashar al-Assad to visit Israel, in the image of what Jordan's King Hussein and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat had done in the 1980s; and regarding, Iran, he said, "I do not support a military strike against Iran," while warning that Israel is prepared to carry one out if threatened by an Iranian nuclear weapon. Both declarations were made at a "debate" on Middle East policy, in which Peres was participating. The Ambrosetti conference is an annual event, and this year's is called "Intelligence on the World, Europe and Italy," held from Sept. 5-7.

Ambrosetti conferences, held since 1975, described by the Financial Times of London as a "mini-Davos," are off the record. This year's speakers include French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who just completed a Russia-bashing tour of Georgia and Ukraine.

Peres, who floated a call for Israel-Syria peace negotiations in April 2007, which was immediately supported by Lyndon LaRouche, pushed hard for negotiations between Israel and both Syria and Iran. Peres told reporters that, "I think the problem [with Iran] can be resolved not militarily but politically and economically," and that using a military strike would be "an error," reported Agence France Presse. But he also said that Iran's current government represents radicalism and religious fanaticism, and that neither Israel, nor the Arab world can accept Iran having a nuclear weapon.

About Syria, Peres said, "I think if President Assad will create a visit to Israel, or alternatively invite the prime minister of Israel to go to Damascus, we shall see a major change.... I believe the best way is to start with a meeting and then have negotiations." If this happens, "there could be a major change."

Palestinian Leaders Reject Bush/Olmert 'Lame Duck' Plan

Sept. 1 (EIRNS)—Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas flatly rejected the piece of paper that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put in front of him for an "interim agreement" between Israel and Palestine over a Palestinian state. The meeting was a near disaster—the shortest one the two ever held—after all of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's emergency efforts. PNA senior negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters that the piece of paper was unacceptable: "We want an agreement to end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," he told Associated Press. "President Abbas told Olmert that we will not be part of an interim or shelf agreement. Either we agree on all issues, or no agreement at all." EIRNS recently reported that informed sources said that Abbas would be signing his own death warrant if he accepted the shameful terms cooked up by the two lame-duck administrations—those of Olmert and Bush.

Assad: Peace with Israel Possible

Sept. 2 (EIRNS)—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reiterated that peace with Israel was a real possibility, especially since Syria began indirect peace talks with Israel with the mediation of Turkey.

In an interview with France-3 television, Assad said: "Today there is a possibility of peace. But nonetheless, we cannot say that we are close to achieving peace. We are preparing for direct negotiations. When we reach that step, we will be able to say that we are approaching peace. Today, we can only say that we have opened the door to peace."

Assad said that direct talks could begin with backing from the U.S., France, and Turkey, but especially the United States.

Commenting on possible U.S. participation, he said, "Of course we have to wait for the new administration to know what its orientations are. Afterward we can speak of direct negotiations."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Emir of Qatar will meet with Assad in Damascus on Sept. 4.

Cheney Link To Ergenekon Coup Plot Exposed

PARIS, Sept. 2 (EIRNS)—Three major Turkish news websites ran an article written by Birol Bicer, a journalist of Yeni Aktuel, a center-left weekly, on the Ergenekon affair. Ergenekon is a terrorist gang with backing from Britain and neoconservative networks internationally (see EIR, Aug. 1 and Aug. 15, 2008). The article is built around EIR's exposure of the Cheney connection to the NATO/Gladio apparatus that staged a coup attempt earlier this year, and targets Richard Perle, the American Enterprise Institute, and other neocon think tanks for being favorable to the new "strategy of tension." Bicer picked up translations of EIR material posted on the French Solidarité et Progrès website, quoted in the article.

Senior U.S. Diplomats Warn of Imminent Hit on Iran

Sept. 3 (EIRNS)—Senior U.S. diplomatic sources are sounding the alarm that there could be U.S. military action against Iran in the very near future. These warnings coincide with the assessment of Lyndon LaRouche that Vice President Dick Cheney is determined to launch such an attack before he leaves office, an attack which, in the context of the British-instigated Georgian assault on South Ossetia, could lead to thermonuclear war.

The global situation is currently on a hair-trigger, LaRouche has emphasized, made immeasurably worse by the Bush Administration's going along with the Saudi demand to remove Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. There is a very narrow window of opportunity to prevent new insane acts by Cheney.

British Run Ethnic Destabilization of Iran

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—The British Empire is targeting Iran for ethnic dismemberment. There are several significant ethnic groups in Iran which have been manipulated in a campaign of destabilization, all of them controlled by British intelligence circles. Some of the most important are the Baluchis in the South, bordering Baluchistan in Pakistan; the Turkmen in the Northeast; and the Kurds in the Northwest, bordering Kurdish regions of both Iraq and Turkey. The most important are the Ahwazi Shi'ite Arabs of Khuzestan province, where 90% of Iran's oil and gas resources are located.

Khuzestan province has been the target of the British Empire for over 150 years. In the last century it was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's main area of operations. In 1980, in part using British invasion plans of 1937 and 1941, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched his invasion of Iran. The British earned billions of dollars in arms sales and high oil prices throughout that nine-year war. Controlled by the British Empire's Arab Bureau, the Ahwazi separatists have traditionally been based in London; Ahwazi separatists were responsible for the 1980 hostage taking at the Iranian Embassy in London. The freeing of the hostages by British SAS commandos has bolstered the SAS mythology, despite the fact that it was, in effect, an inside job. In 2005, Iran accused Ahwazi terrorists of responsibility for a series of terror bombings in Khuzestan. The Iranian government accused both the CIA and Britain's MI-6 of controlling these groups.

Today, almost all the Ahwazi groups are based in London or Canada, including the Democratic Solidarity Party of Ahwaz, the website Ahwazi.org, the Ahwaz Human Rights Organization, Ahwaz Studies Center, and Ahwaz Television. Some of these websites display a map claiming that the land of the Ahwazis covers Iran's entire Persian Gulf coast line. All these groups receive the support of the British-Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS), which also links up with the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

The director of the BAFS is British national Daniel Brett, who, when he isn't fomenting ethnic separatism worldwide, is an oil and gas consultant with offices in both London and Washington, He is also a member of the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society, where he shares membership with neocon kingpin Richard Perle.

The involvement of Iranian Kurdish groups in Vice President Dick Cheney's efforts to destabilize Iran has been well document, but little has been reported on the Iranian Baluchis. Separatist organizations representing these groups, such as the Baluchistan United Front, the Baluchistan People's Front, and the Greater Balochistan Liberation Organization, operate out of London. These groups maintain links with Baluchi groups in Pakistan and an Afghanistan that could play into regionwide destabilization.

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