Excerpts from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/12/08/f-vp-stewart.html

ANALYSIS | Brian Stewart: The covert war in Iran
By Brian Stewart, special to CBC News
Posted: Dec 8, 2011 7:45 PM ET

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/12/08/f-vp-stewart.html
Last Updated: Dec 8, 2011 7:44 PM ET

Timeline: Iran and the West — a history of tensions

Iran focused war-hawk messages in the MSM mimic those propeling the U.S. into the Iraq war in 2003. A fiasco.
Newt Gingrich claimed recently that the U.S. "could break Iran in a year." despite what we know of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan..
Why support Israel? It is likely covertly attackingIran's supposed nuclear weapons sites.

There is now covert war that involves kidnappings and assassinations of scientists, the possible use of computer viruses to destroy information networks, and mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear sites, all of which seem to be escalating.
Last year, two leading nuclear physicists were killed and the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization was wounded by car-bomb attacks inside Iran, attacks Teheran blamed on Israeli and U.S. operatives.

Months later, Iran's nuclear program was sabotaged and put back at least a year by the Stuxnet computer virus which made secret adjustments to centrifuges at Iran's uranium enrichment site. Who would do such a thing? USA, Israel?

Nov. 12 this year, an enormous explosion virtually obliterated a top secret base near Teheran that was being used for developing long-range missiles and killed the head of Iran's missile program and 17 others, including key experts in the field. Not likely an accident.

Two weeks later, another large explosion damaged the key uranium enrichment plant at Isfahan.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard brought down a US spy drone electronically over its northeastern border with Afghanistan in November 2011. Iran has been directing Shia militia in the roadside bombings that killed and maimed American troops in Iraq, and it is a strong backer of Hamas and Hezbollah in their clashes with Israel. There was a bizarre plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington and blow up his embassy. Iranian demonstrators stormed the British Embassy in Teheran last week shouting "Death to Britain."

The Mossad and CIA are widely reported to be working with Iranian exiles of the MKO (sometimes called MEK) — the military wing of the National Council of Resistance, which has strong links to U.S. conservative groups favouring action against Iran.
Patrick Clawson at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, believes these campaigns of assassinations and cyber-war and only vaguely acknowledged sabotage mark a new form of conflict in our world where it's never made clear who is doing what.

The descent into chaos started a long time ago.
General Wesley Clark (ret.) told "Democracy Now" (2007) that ten days after September 11, 2011 another general had told him that the Bush government was planning to invade: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. What they have in common is that they were not members of banks within the Bank of International Settlements, and most of them have lots of oil.

The military industrial complex will tell you anything to get in your bed, and its hands on taxpayers money.
A lot of these unnecessary wars about oil and greed could be avoided if those pushing for war had to enlist and serve in a combat role or, at least have someone in their immediate family do it.

All the candidates for the Republican leadership, with the exception of Ron Paul use war rhetoric which is truly disturbing. The leading wingnut is Gingrich.Ron Paul's "misguided and extreme views" on Israel include ending subsidies to Israel, Pakistan, Egypt etc. and to strenuously oppose a military attack against Iran.
He wants to ditch the Fed too and people like Bernanke have targeted him with public criticism.

The Iranians have the capacity and probably will block the Straight of Hormus where half of the world oil passes. The consequences of that blockage by Iran would immediatly send the price of oil thru the roof. This covert war where iranian scientists are coldly assassinated by professional killers unites Iranians against the west and now we have the downing of the drone.

War is makes a few people rich and everyone else suffers. I wish the poor would stop fighting a rich man's war. If they feel so passionately about fighting someone, make them do it themselves. I doubt we would have been at war this long if our politicians were the ones fighting. I'm sick of killing innocent people that just want to be left alone, ironically to spread freedom and democracy while our freedoms at home are being stripped away one by one.

If Iran decided to come forward with evidence of being attacked, it would be immediately mistrusted for the sole reason that it is coming from Iran (which the war machine's media has been attacking for months - who needs objective reporting anyways?). They seem to be out of reach of congressional or presidential oversight. Who do they take their orders from? So war with Iran seems inevitable, regardless of who gets elected President. Political pundits take for granted that a Republican in the White House would almost certainly mean war, and Obama seems to be going out of his way to steal the right's thunder. Obama sold the Israelis the bunker buster bombs that they needed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, something even Bush refused to do. He has ratcheted up the rhetoric and the sanctions. Bush used the fiction of WMD as an excuse for war, Obama foists upon the world a most unlikely story of Iranian agents hiring the Mexican drug cartels to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US. All this strictly on the word of a paid FBI informant. At least Bush had a 5 star general spin his BS on the world stage.

As for the drone that was shot down, it is just a continuation of American covert activities in Iran which has been going on for years. These continued invasions of Iran's territory are acts of war in their own right and I fully support Iran's right to defend itself.

The greater force is not always the victor....Iran was once called Persia and was a great empire but was defeated eventually by a much smaller nation called Greece .

President Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomein (the man who Israel was supplying weapons to during the Iran-Contra affair) to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Iran has not launched an aggressive war in modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defence is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population.