Immediately after Condoleezza Rice’s visit to the north of England for a series of secret meetings and public appearances with Foreign Minister Jack Straw, the UK top brass held their own secret meeting Monday in London to prepare Britain for what they now describe as the “inevitable” U.S. military strike against Iran.
Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Sir Michael Walker; Chief of Defense Intelligence Lt. Gen. Andrew Ridgway, and Assistant Chief of the General Staff Maj. Gen. Bill Rollo were scheduled to attend the secret meeting along with top-ranking civilian officials from Downing Street and the Foreign Office.
Experts confirm that the U.S. strike against multiple targets in Iran is positively in the pipeline; only its date remains uncertain. Current White Hall speculation is that the U.S. will strike Iran’s nuclear sites at some obscure date vaguely described as sometime later this year or next.
The UK government’s most loyal supporters in the British media have reported plans for the secret meeting of the top brass and begun the process of preparing the UK public for what will be a very unpopular U.S. military intervention.
In a candid lead editorial, the Sunday Telegraph pointed to the oil factor as one of the primary objectives driving U.S. policy in the region and a key element in its plan to bomb multiple targets in Iran.
In Britain, there are grave concerns that the U.S. strike will have a cascade effect and will produce deeply negative reactions across the board in Iraq, the Middle East, and throughout the world. One risk that is being weighed very heavily in White Hall is that the U.S. bombing campaign will strengthen the hand of Iran’s controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Anticipating massive political repercussions throughout the region, observers are predicting the eruption of strident and violent anti-American protests in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. Some British officials will argue against any visible UK involvement in what is being seen by many as yet another foolish move on the international chessboard by Bush and Rice one that follows a revealing reference to “thousands of mistakes” in Iraq that were openly confessed by Secretary Rice during her latest high-profile visit to Britain.
Planetary Movement has been informed that the timing of the U.S. strike will be synchronized with the political cycle in Bush’s America.
Political intelligence experts based in Washington, D.C., advise that the U.S. strike against Iran will likely occur between Labor Day (Sept. 4) and election day (Nov. 6) although it could come earlier if the president’s popularity continues its precipitous decline. The political spin of the U.S. action is now being designed by Karl Rove and his minions to strengthen the weakening hand of a deeply unpopular presidency and to stave off a drastic defeat for the Republicans in this year’s midterm elections by galvanizing the American voters with the bombing campaign that will be ballyhooed as”essential for national security.”
After their public appearances in the north of England, Rice and Straw unexpectedly boarded Rice’s 757 and flew overnight to Baghdad for a face-to-face confrontation with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, whom they hope to convince to abdicate his office for a more malleable replacement.
Adel Abdul Mahdi is a Shi’ite politician deemed by Rice and Straw to be a somewhat more reliable pair of hands than Jaafari. Rice and Straw view Mahdi as a political operative who might be somewhat less hostile to U.S. objectives in the region than Jaafari.
In Baghdad, the pair met with President Jalal Talabani and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to arrange the ouster of Jaafari and his replacement by Mahdi. The imminent regime change in Baghdad is merely a first step in their preparations for the U.S. air strike against Iran, which will create massive political pressures on the U.S.-backed government in Iraq.
