Dick Cheney is cited in Newsweek as having concocted a plan where Israel would be encouraged to attack Iran's nuclear energy facilities, in the hope that Iran would strike back at Israel.
The United States would then be able to come to the defense of its key Middle East ally and attack Iran, leading to a full scale war :
Citing two unnamed sources (Newsweek) called knowledgeable, the magazine quoted David Wurmser, until last month Cheney's Middle East advisor, as having told a small group of people that "Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out."
According to the report, "The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran."
Newsweek said that it had corroborated Wurmser's remarks, which it said were first published by Washington foreign-policy blogger Steven Clemons.
This sounds very reminiscent of the plan by President Bush, in January, 2003, to fly planes dressed up as UN aircraft over Iraq in the hope that Saddam's military would shoot them down. Bush is claimed to have told British prime minister Tony Blair that this would make for the kind of international incident, and act of aggression by Saddam Hussein, that would help to legitamise President Bush and the NeoCons plan to invade and occupy Iraq.
An interesting side effect of Cheney's plan being made public has been rising tide of anger and disgust amongst the younger population of Israel, who clearly are aware that the Israeli Defence Force, majority compromised of Israelis under the age of 24, would be the main targets for a counter attack by Iran after the initial air strikes.
It will be hard for the Israeli government, and the Zionist-influenced media of Israel, to quiet the outrage spreading via internet news sites and blogs.
Conspiracy theories about the United States is willing to sacrifice Israel to win a wider war in the Middle East, and to secure oil reserves for decades to come, have already taken root amongst the 'wired' youth.
