!!!!!!!!!! Real Middle East Analysis: Not Authorized for Release – by Gordon Duff

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Jean

Prelude to World War III Outlined

by Gordon Duff
Source: Veterans Today
October 2, 2012

Today, Azerbaijan announced it would allow Israeli planes to use their air bases to attack Iran. Reuters published the press release from Baku, one originally released in Veterans Today 27 months ago. From Reuters:

BAKU (Reuters) – Israel’s “go-it-alone” option to attack Iran’s nuclear sites has set the Middle East on edge and unsettled its main ally at the height of a U.S. presidential election campaign.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exudes impatience, saying Tehran is barely a year from a “red line” for atomic capacity. Many fellow Israelis, however, fear a unilateral strike, lacking U.S. forces, would fail against such a large and distant enemy. But what if, even without Washington, Israel were not alone?

Azerbaijan, the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic on Iran’s far northern border, has, say local sources with knowledge of its military policy, explored with Israel how Azeri air bases and spy drones might help Israeli jets pull off a long-range attack.

An investigation done by independent intelligence organizations made up of former CIA, Army Intelligence and FBI personnel as published on June 18, 2010, discovered a plot between Israel, Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan to attack Iran.

At that time, Israeli planes were training in Turkey on terrain meant to simulate Iran. Israel would send over 8 planes at a time and 6 would return. Sources report that two would fly to Azerbaijan where Israel now occupies two former Soviet fighter bases.

Israel was building a secret air force in Azerbaijan. That “secret air force” is now no longer secret, it is public knowledge but few know its history or the threat to world peace this irresponsible act represents.

The bases were supplied through the Georgian port of Poti with cluster and bunker-buster bombs being delivered beginning June 10, 2010. Units of the Russian Navy observed the deliveries and reported the incident to a world press that suppressed the story. The ship delivering the illegal arms were flagged American, the USS Grapple.

In consultation with intelligence operatives, it was found that the USS Grapple had been leased to Germany who had then allowed Israel to use it to deliver bombs to the Black Sea port under American naval identity.

We have since learned that Turkey, despite what they claim is a hostile relationship with Israel, has allowed over flight by Israeli military planes who are using Turkish air space to relocate to Azerbaijan after a two year period of disagreement.

This relationship, negotiated between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Turkish President Erdogan includes provision for Turkey to assume partial territorial control of a border region inside Syria. Turkey is planning to seize this territory and call it a “buffer zone” but the “buffer” may include up to 30% of Syrian territory.

Israel and Turkey have agreed to “Balkanize” Syria. However, the roots of today’s announcement were known some time ago.

On June 18, 2010, over two years ago, this columnist released the following information:

“A week ago, Israel leaked to the press that they had permission from Saudi Arabia to use their air space to attack Iran. The Saudi’s quickly denied this.

The effort on Israel’s part was a ruse to cover their real plans, to attack from the Republic of Georgia, close to Iran’s northern border. [How will the recent Georgian election affect this plan, one in which Empire appears to have lost control? ~J]

However, the breakdown in relations with Turkey after miscalculating the response to their Flotilla raid on a Turkish ship in international waters may have ended this operation.

Israel, whose arms agreements with Turkey mounted to nearly 5 billion dollars over a period of years, had been training pilots in Turkey for bombing attacks on Iran. During these training missions, Israel was smuggling aircraft through Turkish airspace.

Sources indicate that Georgia has become a major transshipment point for narcotics from Afghanistan and other countries in the region. Both a land route through Turkey and into Northern Cyprus and air and sea routes directly into Europe and North America have been cited.

Turkey had allowed Israel to use their air space for training because their terrain closely resembled areas of Iran that Israel planned to attack. However, Turkey was unaware that planes involved in this effort were being relocated to forward staging areas in the Republic of Georgia, making Turkey, technically, fully complicit in this planned illegal attack.

Helping coordinate the attack are intelligence units forward stationed in Azerbaijan, under the guise of technicians, trainers and advisors under the broad armaments agreements with that small nation.

Supply operations, moving necessary ordnance, much of it supplied by the United States under ammunition storage agreements, is being moved through the Black Sea to the Georgian Port of Poti, a major site for exporting coal and manganese ore.

Cover for the supply operations is being performed by the Georgian Coast Guard, set up by Israel and manned with Israeli observers. Their job is to keep Russian surveillance craft away from supply operations under the guise of a “Gaza type” naval blockade of Abkhazia, a separatist province supported by Russia.”

Reuters, in its story published today indicated confirmed sources within the military intelligence community of Azerbaijan. Reuters goes further:

“Yet despite official denials by Azerbaijan and Israel, two Azeri former military officers with links to serving personnel and two Russian intelligence sources all told Reuters that Azerbaijan and Israel have been looking at how Azeri bases and intelligence could serve in a possible strike on Iran.

“Where planes would fly from – from here, from there, to where? – that’s what’s being planned now,” a security consultant with contacts at Azeri defense headquarters in Baku said. “The Israelis … would like to gain access to bases in Azerbaijan.”

“ICEBERG” RELATIONSHIP

That Aliyev, an autocratic ally of Western governments and oil firms, has become a rare Muslim friend of the Jewish state – and an object of scorn in Tehran – is no secret; a $1.6-billion arms deal involving dozens of Israeli drones, and Israel’s thirst for Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea crude, are well documented.

Israel’s foreign minister visited Baku in April this year.

But a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2009 quoted Aliyev, who succeeded his father in 2003, describing relations with Israel as “like an iceberg, nine tenths … below the surface”.

The unknown factor is Azerbaijan’s ability to withstand a massive and immediate ground assault from Iran. US Army experts on the region indicate that Iran has a “superhighway direct to Baku,” the capitol of Azerbaijan and keystone to the massive Baku/Ceyhan pipeline.

Azerbaijan’s military, 45,000 active duty, a few thousand reserves and an unarmed and untrained inactive reserve of 300,000 veterans is extremely small in comparison to Iran’s military. A reasonable estimate is that, under the best of cases with support from both Turkey and Israel, that Baku could fall in 48 hours or less, should they choose to participate in an unprovoked attack on Iran.

Azerbaijan is closely aligned with Turkey. However, they fought and lost a war in the early 1990’s against Armenia. Azerbaijan lost 16% of their territory at that time.

During that war, Azerbaijan turned to Al Qaeda and Chechen forces for support, an act that angered Russia. Azerbaijan is still a “safe haven” for terrorists and is commonly used to transit narcotics from Afghanistan and is a “way station” in human trafficking.

It is believed that an Israeli attack launched from Azerbaijan would unleash an immediate response from Armenia against Azerbaijan. The two nations have been at the verge of hostilities for nearly two decades.

A recent estimate of regional forces paints a very dark picture for Azerbaijan:

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Armenia has followed a policy of developing its armed forces into a professional, well trained, and mobile military. In 2000, Centre for International Studies and Research reported that at that time the Armenian Army had the strongest combat capability of the three Caucasus countries’ armies (the other two being Georgia and Azerbaijan.

CSTO Secretary, Nikolay Bordyuzha, came to a similar conclusion after collective military drills in 2007 when he stated that, “the Armenian Army is the most efficient one in the post-Soviet space”.

This was echoed more recently by Igor Korotchenko, a member of the Public Council, Russian Ministry of Defense, in a March 2011 interview with Voice of Russia radio.

CASPIAN OIL SUPPLIES AT RISK

The 1100 mile pipeline is the only outlet for oil from the Caspian basin to outlets on the Mediterranean. A branch of the pipeline services the massive Kirkuk oil fields of Northern Iraq.

The pipeline is owned by a number of companies with BP having a 30 percent stake. The 25% stake theoretically held by SOCAR, the state oil company of Azerbaijan is under Israeli control, as collateral to underwrite Israeli weapons sales.

Israel has an agreement to link to the pipeline through Iraq, a deal negotiated between the Elat Ashkian Pipeline Company of Israel and the US backed Chalabi government that assumed control of Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

It is no longer clear as to whether the current government in Baghdad is still interested in this project.

Additional threats to the pipeline are in Armenia, where it may also be intercepted and in Turkey, where the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group, has put the pipeline out of commission many times.

The significance of the pipeline is great in that, even if Iran has no rationale to cut oil supplies through the Straits of Hormuz, it could easily gain control of 5% of the world’s oil output and put all Caspian Basin oil off the market without in any way interfering with free transit of sea-lanes.

Additionally, the transit fees charged for use of the pipeline are a major source of revenue for both Georgia and Turkey, a source that would immediately end.

Two “wild card” issues are Russia and Iraq. As Iraq’s government is now under Shiite control and Azerbaijan’s relations with, not just Armenia but Russia have been extremely poor, the chances for this move by Israel turning into a regional conflict or world war are very high.

Taking into account Turkey’s “ham handed” plotting with Israel against Syria and their attempts to spread influence into Central Asia, their short lived position as a potential leader in the Islamic World has clearly taken a “back seat” to Iran, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Israel’s timetable to attack from Azerbaijan is entirely dependent on the risks their long time but highly secretive ally is willing to accept.

Minimally, Azerbaijan might actually disappear. In a best case scenario, they would lose additional territory to Armenia and suffer total devastation of their oil production and processing facilities and destruction of their armed forces.

For the rest of the world, the result, as expected, higher gasoline prices, higher food prices and more threats to currencies already nearing collapse.

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