False Flag, it has begun: Bin Laden wants to provoke war between US and Iran

Foreign
Affairs

Al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy today than it has ever been before. It has suffered some setbacks since September 11, 2001: losing its state within a state in Afghanistan, having several of its top operatives killed, failing in its attempts to overthrow the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. But thanks largely to Washington's eagerness to go into Iraq rather than concentrate on hunting down al Qaeda's leaders, the organization now has a solid base of operations in the badlands of Pakistan and an effective franchise in western Iraq. Its reach has spread throughout the Muslim world, where it has developed a large cadre of operatives, and in Europe, where it can claim the support of some disenfranchised Muslim locals and members of the Arab and Asian diasporas. Osama bin Laden has mounted a successful propaganda campaign to make himself and his movement the primary symbols of Islamic resistance worldwide. His ideas now attract more followers than ever.

Bin Laden's goals remain the same, as does his basic strategy. He seeks to, as he puts it, "provoke and bait" the United States into "bleeding wars" throughout the Islamic world; he wants to bankrupt the country much as he helped bankrupt, he claims, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The demoralized "far enemy" would then go home, allowing al Qaeda to focus on destroying its "near enemies," Israel and the "corrupt" regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. occupation of Iraq helped move his plan along, and bin Laden has worked hard to turn it into a trap for Washington. Now he may be scheming to extend his strategy by exploiting or even triggering a war between the United States and Iran.

Osama bin Laden has mounted a successful propaganda campaign to make himself and his movement the primary symbols of Islamic resistance worldwide.

Ironic, wasn't it the US that launced the war on terrorism and claimed that Al Qaeda was behind everything and even had ties to Saddam Hussein (remember, one of the reasons for invading Iraq).

Offtopic: have you also noticed that since a year or so speeches rarely contain references to 9/11 or the War on Terror anymore?

No Osama wants to trigger war between the US and and Iran. Just blame good old (dead?) Osama to provoke war. The article also claims that Osama wants to bankrupt the US. To financial gurus it is already clear that the US is solely responsible itself for the coming bankruptcy.

Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett accused President Bush of "bankrupting" America and betraying the Reagan legacy in an interview on PBS's Tavis Smiley Show on Tuesday.

A domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and a treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, Bartlett assailed Bush's "big government conservatism" and said he was surprised at Bush's policies, despite his campaign pledge to be a "compassionate conservative."

"In 2000 I thought that was election year rhetoric," said Bartlett. "I didn't think it meant anything. I learned the hard way as a lot of us did what he really meant it when he talked about compassionate conservatism."

When asked how the current President Bush compared to his father, Bartlett responded, "If I didn't know with a certainty they were related, I wouldn't think that they were."

Bartlett also argued that current conservative fiscal rhetoric regarding supply-side economics is outdated. "We have a completely different economic situation, completely different fiscal and tax situation and I think people are still using rhetoric that was appropriate at one time for a situation that in which it is no longer appropriate."

Bartlett was also not optimistic about the remainer of Bush's term.

"I think we are on automatic pilot," said Bartlett. "Very few administrations do much of anything the last year and a half in office. I think the best thing we can hope for is a new president who will take America in a different direction."