GLOBAL WARFARE

WE`RE GOING TO TAKE OUT

7 COUNTRIES IN 5 YEARS

(IRAQ - SYRIA - LEBANON - LIBYA - SOMALIA - SUDAN)

ONE TO GO

IRAN

By

Søren Nielsen

2019

Retired 4-star US Army general. Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

Today, General Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general. He was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the Kosovo War. 

He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2004, he unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

He recently edited a series of books about famous US generals, including Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses Grant, both of whom became president after their military careers ended.

General Wesley Clark

Because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw "Secretary Rumsfeld" and "Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz".

I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. 

He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second."

I said, "Well, you're too busy." 

He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." 

This was on or about the 20th of September. 

I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" 

He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." 

So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" 

He said, "No, no." 

He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." 

He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." 

And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."


So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. 

I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. 

And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." 

And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." 

I said, "Is it classified?" 

He said, "Yes, sir." 

I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" 

He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!".

So, go through the countries again.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran. So when you look at Iran, you say, "Is it a replay?" 

It’s not exactly a replay. But here’s the truth: that Iran, from the beginning, has seen that the presence of the United States in Iraq was a threat — a blessing, because we took out Saddam Hussein and the Baathists. 

They couldn’t handle them. We took care of it for them. But also a threat, because they knew that they were next on the hit list. And so, of course, they got engaged. 

They lost a million people during the war with Iraq, and they’ve got a long and unprotectable, unsecurable border. So it was in their vital interest to be deeply involved inside Iraq.

They tolerated our attacks on the Baathists. They were happy we captured Saddam Hussein.

But they’re building up their own network of influence, and to cement it, they occasionally give some military assistance and training and advice, either directly or indirectly, to both the insurgents and to the militias. 

And in that sense, it’s not exactly parallel, because there has been, I believe, continuous Iranian engagement, some of it legitimate, some of it illegitimate. 

I mean, you can hardly fault Iran because they’re offering to do eye operations for Iraqis who need medical attention. That’s not an offense that you can go to war over, perhaps. But it is an effort to gain influence.

And the administration has stubbornly refused to talk with Iran about their perception, in part because they don’t want to pay the price with their domestic — our US domestic political base, the rightwing base, but also because they don’t want to legitimate a government that they’ve been trying to overthrow. 

If you were Iran, you’d probably believe that you were mostly already at war with the United States anyway, since we’ve asserted that their government needs regime change, and we’ve asked congress to appropriate $75 million to do it, and we are supporting terrorist groups, apparently, who are infiltrating and blowing up things inside Iraq — Iran.

And if we’re not doing it, let’s put it this way: we’re probably cognizant of it and encouraging it. So it’s not surprising that we’re moving to a point of confrontation and crisis with Iran.


My point on this is not that the Iranians are good guys — they’re not — but that you shouldn’t use force, except as a last, last, last resort. There is a military option, but it’s a bad one.

I wanted to get your response to Seymour Hersh’s piece in The New Yorker to two key points this week, reporting the Pentagon’s established a special planning group within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a bombing attack on Iran, that this is coming as the Bush administration and Saudi Arabia are pumping money for covert operations into many areas of the Middle East, including Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, in an effort to strengthen Saudi-supported Sunni Islam groups and weaken Iranian-backed Shias — some of the covert money has been given to jihadist groups in Lebanon with ties to al-Qaeda — fighting the Shias by funding with Prince Bandar and then with US money not approved by Congress, funding the Sunnis connected to al-Qaeda.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t have any direct information to confirm it or deny it. It’s certainly plausible. The Saudis have taken a more active role. You know, the Saudis have —

You were just in Saudi Arabia.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Hmm?

You just came back from Saudi Arabia.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Yeah. Well, the Saudis have basically recognized that they have an enormous stake in the outcome in Iraq, and they don’t particularly trust the judgment of the United States in this area. We haven’t exactly proved our competence in Iraq. So they’re trying to take matters into their own hands.


The real danger is, and one of the reasons this is so complicated is because — let’s say we did follow the desires of some people who say, "Just pull out, and pull out now." 

Well, yeah. We could mechanically do that. It would be ugly, and it might take three or four months, but you could line up the battalions on the road one by one, and you could put the gunners in the Humvees and load and cock their weapons and shoot their way out of Iraq. 

You’d have a few roadside bombs. But if you line everybody up there won’t be any roadside bombs. Maybe some sniping. 

You can fly helicopters over, do your air cover. You’d probably get safely out of there. But when you leave, the Saudis have got to find someone to fight the Shias. Who are they going to find? Al-Qaeda, because the groups of Sunnis who would be extremists and willing to fight would probably be the groups connected to al-Qaeda. 

So one of the weird inconsistencies in this is that were we to get out early, we’d be intensifying the threat against us of a super powerful Sunni extremist group, which was now legitimated by overt Saudi funding in an effort to hang onto a toehold inside Iraq and block Iranian expansionism.

And interestingly, today, John Negroponte has just become the number two man, resigning his post as National Intelligence Director to go to the State Department, Seymour Hersh says, because of his discomfort that the administration’s covert actions in the Middle East so closely echo the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, and Negroponte was involved with that.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I’m sure there are a lot of reasons why John would go back to the State Department. John’s a good — he’s a good man. But, you know, the question is, in government is, can you — are you bigger than your job? Because if you’re not bigger than your job, you get trapped by the pressures of events and processes into going along with actions that you know you shouldn’t. And I don’t know. I don’t know why he left the National Intelligence Director’s position. He started in the State Department. Maybe he’s got a fondness to return and finish off his career in State.

Do you agree with them?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I’ll put it this way. On Labor Day weekend of 1994, when I was the J5 — I was a three-star general. 

I was in the Pentagon. And it was a Saturday morning, and so I was in the office. Walt Kross was the director of the Joint Staff, and he was in the office. 

And I think it was either Howell Estes or Jack Sheehan who was the J3 at the time. The three of us — I think it was Jack still on the job for the last couple of days. 

And the three of us were in Shalikashvili’s office about 11:00 in the morning on a Saturday morning, and he had just come back from a White House meeting. 

And he was all fired up in the way that Shali could be. And he said, "So," he said, "we will see who will be the real soldiers this weekend! There’s much work to be done! This operation on Haiti has to be completed! The planning must be done correctly, and it must be done this weekend! So we will see who are the real soldiers!"


Then the phone buzzed, and he got up from this little round table the four of us were sitting at to take the call from the White House. We started looking at each other. 

We said, "Gosh, I wonder where this came from." I mean, we were all getting ready to check out of the building in an hour or so. We had finished off the messages and paperwork. 

And we just usually got together because there was normally a crisis every Saturday anyway, and so we normally would come in for the Saturday morning crisis. 

And so, Shali came back, and so I said to him, I said, "Well, sir, we’ve been talking amongst ourselves, and we’re happy to work all weekend to get all this done, but this is just a drill, right, on Haiti?".

He looked at me, and he said, "Wes," he said, "this is no drill." He said, "I’m not authorized to tell you this. But," he said "the decision has been made, and the United States will invade Haiti. The date is the 20th" — I think it was this date — "of the 20th of September. And the planning must be done, and it must be done now. And if any of you have reservations about this, this is the time to leave." 

So I looked at Jack, and I looked at Walt. They looked at me. I mean, we kind of shrugged our shoulders and said, "OK, if you want to invade Haiti, I mean, it’s not illegal. It’s not the country we’d most like to invade. The opposition there consists of five armored vehicles. But sure, I mean, if the President says to do it, yeah, we’re not going resign over it."

And so, we didn’t resign. Nobody resigned.


But Shali was a very smart man. He knew. He knew he was bigger than his job, and he knew that you had to ask yourself the moral, legal and ethical questions first. And so, I’m encouraged by the fact that some of these generals have said this about Iran. They should be asking these questions first.


The Truth about the Middle East
The truth about the Middle East is that, had there been no oli there, it would be like Afrika.

There is nobody who threatens to interfere in Africa, the problem is just the opposite.


We keep asking for people to interfere and stop it.

And there are no questions that the presence of petroleum 
through out the region, has spark great power involvement, but there has always been this attitude, that we some how could interfere and use force in that region.