The 2020 Game

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Soleimani was not killed because the Americans brilliantly tracked him down and caught him off guard, but because he was betrayed by his own people. And they didn’t just betray him. They guided the Americans to their target in the most direct and immediate way.

 

An Analytical Report

 

My associates have asked me to digress from strategic and ideological questions and speak out on current issues, which are very confusing; and I am convinced, can in no way be reduced to the classical pattern of straightforward geopolitical conflicts, which frighten so many people. My belief is that there is no such conflict, but there is something else much more vague and dangerous.

There are some thing I should leave behind the scenes. But something can be said. And if it can be said, then it must be said. Because there is nothing worse than confusion in the face of subtle and hardly recognizable games, in which direct geopolitical conflicts can play a supporting role to the fullest extent. And these conflicts can also be used as an elementary smoke screen.

It is easy to imagine how events in the Middle East would have unfolded if we were dealing with classic confrontation between the United States and Iran.

In this case, the United States makes the first move, killing a major Iranian politician and claiming responsibility for carrying out the murder. That is what it smelled like when on January 3, 2020 the world learned that the prominent Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani had been killed and that U.S. President Donald Trump had openly stated that Soleimani had been killed on his direct orders.

In response to this, within the framework of the classical geopolitical confrontation, Iran should have struck against various facilities where US troops are present. Or Iran could have killed an American military leader commensurate in importance to Qassem Soleimani. Moreover, Qassem Soleimani was not just a lieutenant general and commander of the Al-Quds special forces, which are part of the Guards of the Islamic Revolution. Soleimani was also a major politician, capable of even running for president in a certain scenario.

So for the third time, I’ll make a reservation: in the framework of the classical geopolitical conflict, Iran needed to respond to the first move made by the United States with a second move and either kill a few dozen US troops in one of their areas of deployment, or kill a prominent US general, taking responsibility for this act.

In this case, Donald Trump would have to, taking the third move within the framework of the same classic geopolitical conflict, perform a retaliatory strike against Iran.

And Iran, making the fourth move, would have to fully respond to this strike.

After which a major war in the Middle East would begin. The scale of this war would depend on what Iran’s fourth move would be in this case: Iran could strike at the Strait of Hormuz, provoking an oil crisis, or at Israel, provoking a nuclear response, or at both the Strait of Hormuz and Israel. In any of these options, we would now be discussing a major war in the Middle East. Such a big war that it would fit to talk about the possibility of its development into very large-scale military operations, that is, something like the Third World War, on the threshold of which the world has constantly been located ever since the US atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is, for more than seventy years.

But nothing of the kind happened. Someone will tell me, “It hasn’t happened so far.” And he will refer to Iran’s promises to execute a real act of retaliation and thereby return events to the mainstream of the classic geopolitical conflict. Well, the present world is so unstable that such an objection, of course, must be taken into account. But no more than that. Because classic geopolitical conflicts unfold quickly.

And when everything starts to stall, then the likelihood of a classic conflict’s escalation is sharply reduced.

The likelihood of such an escalation began to decline after the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps launched a missile strike on two US military bases located on the territory of Iraq as part of Operation Martyr Soleimani. The attack was directed at Ain al-Assad airbase located in western Iraq and at an airfield located in the northern province of Erbil.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said that Iran had warned him of an impending strike on these US military facilities located in Iraq. And that the Prime Minister of Iraq was informed only that certain attacks were being prepared. This was reported about two hours before the strikes.

Fox News, citing military sources, confirms that the Iraqis relayed the Iranian information to the US.

Initially, Iran announced that 80 US troops were killed as a result of the attacks. But it soon became clear that this was not so. In addition to constantly updated information saying that this is not so, the US reaction also says the same. Because if 80 US troops had indeed been killed, then Trump could not talk about de-escalation of the conflict with Iran. In this case, the conflict would have passed into the next phase, which would be the third move in the framework of a classical geopolitical conflict unfolding that we have considered.

True, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the strike againts the US military bases in Iraq, while a slap in the face by Iran to the United States, is not an equivalent response to the death of General Qassem Soleimani. And Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that “our final response to his murder (meaning the murder of Soleimani. – S.K.) will be that we will expel all US forces from the region.” But at the same time, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the attacks on US bases in Iraq “a proportional response to the cowardly attacks against our citizens and high-ranking political figures.”

Javad Zarif emphasized that Iran is completing its legitimate revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani with these strikes. And that Iran’s goal is not to escalate the conflict.

In an obvious hidden debate with Zarif, the commander of the aerospace forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that the attack on the US bases in Iraq was just the beginning of Operation Martyr Soleimani. And that Iran’s actions against the US in the entire region of the Middle East will be its continuation.

So who is telling the truth? The Iranian Foreign Minister or the Supreme Religious Leader and the representative of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, who directly reports to this leader?

Qassem Soleimani

In 1978, the Islamic Revolution began in Iran. The date of the beginning of the revolution is considered January 8, 1978. It was then that in Qom, the future religious capital of the new Iran, the shah of Iran crushed an anti-government demonstration with particular cruelty.

In response, demonstrations began throughout the country. They were dispersed by the guard of the Shah of Iran and the troops of the Ministry of State Security (SAVAK) controlled by the Shah of Iran.

Towards the end of 1978, strikes paralyzed Iran’s economy, and the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, unable to further hold on to power, fled, transferring power to moderate opposition leader Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar.

Bakhtiar disbanded the SAVAK, freed political prisoners, ordered the army not to interfere in politics, and promised to hold free elections in the near future. He contacted Ayatollah Khomeini, who flew with his supporters on February 1, 1979 from Paris to Tehran.

Khomeini refused to support Bakhtiar, who was grovelling before him. After landing at the capital’s Mehrabad airport, Khomeini, accompanied by crowds of enthusiastic supporters, headed for the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, located in the southern suburbs of Tehran.

There Khomeini made his famous 20-minute speech in which he called Bakhtiar, his government, and his parliament illegal.

On February 4, Khomeini appointed his prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan.

Fighting broke out between the followers of Khomeini and the Shah’s guards, who declared their allegiance to Bakhtiar.

However, already on February 11, 1979, the Supreme Military Council of Iran, and most importantly, the commander of the Shah’s Guard, General Ali Neshat, declared their solidarity with Khomeini’s revolution.

Bakhtiar fled to France, and he created an emigre opposition movement there. He was killed in 1991.

As for Khomeini, he held a referendum in Iran. As a result of the referendum, on April 1, 1979, the Iranian state was renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In December 1979, the new constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted. According to this constitution, which is still in force today, the highest authority in the country belongs to the clergy in the person of Imam Khomeini, and after the death of Khomeini, to the one whom the Ayatollah appoints as a successor.

As for the civil authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is subordinate to the spiritual authority, it is exercised by the president, the parliament (Majles) and the prime minister.

Khomeini and his successors rejected everything that could be a pillar of influence for Western powers in Iran. They simultaneously rejected both capitalism and communism. And proclaimed their own Islamic path of development.

The political revolution in Iran was complemented by a cultural revolution, anti-Western in political direction and religious in spirit.

All this was accompanied by mass arrests and executions.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), one of whose current leaders, Qassem Soleimani was killed by the United States, is an elite Iranian military-political organization. It was created in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, which we just briefly discussed in order to make it clearer what the murder of Qassem Soleimani exactly marks.

The IRGC is officially considered part of the armed forces of Iran. But this is a special part of the armed forces. The IRGC is the shock detachment of the Islamic revolution. At the time of its creation, it consisted of those Islamic revolutionary committees that were the military locomotive of the revolution.

The tasks of the IRGC include assisting the army in protecting the independence and territorial integrity of the state and the Islamic system; the spread of Islamic dominance in the Islamic Republic of Iran under the current constitution; support for Muslim ideas in the world; combating subversive elements opposing the Islamic revolution; ensuring the security of state institutions, religious and political figures; providing assistance to intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, strengthening the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in cooperation with army units; the creation and military training of the Basij militia; disaster relief operations. The mere enumeration of the functions of the IRGC indicates the complete dissimilarity of the IRGC to both conventional military formations and anything else. For example, the state security or the police. The above functions of the IRGC are effectively comprehensive.

The IRGC includes the ground forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the air forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Quds forces, which were led by the late Soleimani, which we are discussing, and the Basij organization, which is also a broad Iranian paramilitary militia, whose tasks include not only assistance to the IRGC, but also social assistance, organization of religious ceremonies, moral and political oversight.

Basij alone is already a superparty, which is ready to counteract all kinds of opposition. As for the IRGC, the tiny part of which is the Basij, it is a huge military force that includes all kinds of troops, which is both the core of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the core of the Iranian special services.

I can say that in the whole world today there is nothing like the IRGC. And that the uniqueness of the IRGC comes from uniqueness of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to which the supreme power belongs to the religious leadership, and the operational power to the ordinary civilian leadership.

Such a unique political system relies precisely on the IRGC. Because according to the charter of the IRGC, approved in May 1982, the supreme commander of the IRGC is the highest spiritual leader of Iran. He is the head and leader of the state.

Here is what the 5th article of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran says: “During the absence (ghayba) of his holiness, the Lord of the Age (meaning the coming of a secret imam expected by the Shiites, he is the Shiite messiah. – S.K.) May God all mighty hasten his appearance, the sovereignty of the command [of God] and religious leadership of the community [of believers] in the Islamic Republic of Iran is the responsibility of the faqīh who is just, pious, knowledgeable about his era, courageous, and a capable and efficient administrator, as indicated in Article 107.”

Article 107 says: “After the honorable source of emulation, the great leader of the global Islamic Revolution, and the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the venerated Grand Ayatollah, Imam Khomeini, may his noble character be sanctified, who was acknowledged and accepted by the undisputed majority of the people as the marja (the infallible representative of the hidden imam. – S.K.), ‘and the leader the responsibility for designating the leader shall be with the Experts who are appointed by the people. The Experts consider all the qualified jurisprudents as discussed in Articles 5 and 109, and consult with one another about them. If they find one of them the most knowledgeable about the rules and subjects of jurisprudence, or political and social issues, or acceptability by the public, or significance in any one of the qualifications indicated in Article 109, that person shall be selected as the leader; otherwise, one of the Experts is chosen and declared as the leader. The leader who is appointed by the Experts is in charge of the sovereignty of the command and all the responsibilities that derive from it. Before the law, the leader is equal to other people in the country.”

The reader is already familiar with the list of qualities of the leader that are listed in the fifth article of the constitution. In addition, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the qualities of the leader listed in article 109 of the constitution, which is referred to in article 107, which actually sets out the basis of the foundations of state power in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The qualifications and attributes of the leader are as follows:

1) scholarly qualification for issuing religious ruling ( fatwa) concerning various discussions in jurisprudence;

2) required justice and piety in leading the Islamic community;

3) sound political and social perspective, prudence, courage, sufficient administrative capability, and power for leadership.

In case there are a number of candidates who meet these qualifications, the person with a more efficacious political and jurisprudential insight has priority.

As we see, a decisive role in the election of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran is played by a special state body called the Council of Experts. The Council of Experts consists of the most respected Islamic theologians, the Mujtahids. In order to become such a theologian, one must confirm his particular theological authority. And who confirms it? Of course, first of all, the clergy themselves.

Yes, the people elect a Council of Experts. But they select these experts from among the higher spiritual authorities proposed by the clergy.

It is hardly worthwhile to go into more details about the structure of the supreme political power in the Islamic Republic of Iran. What is said above is sufficient. Because it is clear from the aove who exactly leads the Islamic Republic of Iran. It remains to establish with what help this Supreme Leader, or Rahbar exercises his leadership functions.

I would venture to assert that the Rahbar can fulfill his functions as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran only because he alone, and not the president, who is secondary in Iran, commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Is the Islamic Republic of Iran a theocratic or, as they say sometimes, a mullacratic state?

Yes, since the highest power belongs, as we have seen, to the Rahbar.

Is the Islamic Republic of Iran a democracy?

Yes, since there is a Majles, a president, and election procedures.

So what is Iran really?

It is, in its current form, a unique fusion of theocracy and democracy. The core of power, of course, is theocracy. Present-day Iran is an essentially ideological country dominated by the clergy. But the clergy has managed to build a multilevel system.

At the highest level of this system is the Rahbar itself (that is, the Supreme Leader), who is obligatorily called ayatollah, that is, “the reflection of God.” The Rahbar is elected for life. He is the main Muslim legal scholar, and at the same time, the main Iranian politician. His functions include:

  • the recognition or non-recognition of the presidential elections;
  • the appointment or dismissal of the president;
  • the declaration of war or the conclusion of peace;
  • leadership of the government in strategic matters;
  • the formation of the country’s foreign policy;
  • the appointment of judges.

At the next level of the power pyramid is a system of power structures, such as the Supreme National Security Council, the Council for Special Operations, the Council for the Policy of Reconstruction, the Council for the Cultural Revolution.

And only at the third level of the pyramid is the president himself.

And then below him are officials subordinate to him.

So who was Qassem Soleimani who the Americans killed? He was not an ordinary military officer, even of a high rank. He was among those who ensure the stability of the supreme spiritual level of power in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And it is guaranteed, as I said, by the IRGC. Without the IRGC, the entire pyramid of power collapses, despite the fact that this power is organized in a complex manner, and within this complexity there is room for conflict between the president and the clergy.

Qassem Soleimani was not the commander-in-chief of the IRGC. The commander-in-chief of the IRGC is Major General Hossein Salami.

Before heading the IRGC, Hossein Salami commanded, among other things, the IRGC forces, which are called the “aerospace forces”.

I draw the reader’s attention to this so that there is no temptation to reduce the IRGC to an ordinary security structure or a select unit of elite special forces. The IRGC is something much bigger and truly unique.

Qassem Soleimani, who interests us, did not lead the IRGC; he led the special Al-Quds unit. Quds or Cods is the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem.

What is Al Quds? It is the IRGC’s special forces. The task of these special forces is to carry out special operations outside the territory of Iran.

Al-Quds was created on the basis of the IRGC in 1980, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

It was immediately involved in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. Moreover, Al-Quds was entrusted with the task of supporting the Iraqi Kurds who fought against Saddam Hussein.

In 1982, Al-Quds deployed in Lebanon. The Lebanese Hezbollah is considered its creation.

The Al-Quds forces have also been active in Afghanistan. Consideration of how exactly they worked there requires a more thoughtful discussion of the role of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the global geopolitical process.

It is believed that the Islamic revolution in Iran was purely anti-American and anti-Israeli in nature. But this is not entirely true. When I say “not entirely true,” I do not mean a 100% denial of the anti-American, anti-Israeli, and generally anti-Western nature of this revolution. But since the revolution took place in 1979, that is, in an era when the world was split into the Soviet and anti-Soviet camp, it was important for the organizers of the so-called Great Game to strengthen the anti-Soviet camp, even if it is both anti-Western and anti-American, or even anti-Israeli in an extremist way. The organizers of the Great Game did not care about all this. It was important for them to weaken the USSR by pitting it against the radical Islamic world (Zbigniew Brzezinski’s idea) and even against radical anti-Soviet communism of a Maoist or other type (Henry Kissenger’s idea).

I have repeatedly cited the acknowledgement by Brzezinski himself and other US leaders regarding US participation in the creation of the so-called Green Anti-Soviet Belt. According to these statements, the United States began to destabilize Afghanistan long before Soviet troops were sent there, and this destabilization was openly Islamist in nature.

Much has been said about the special role of Bin Laden in this radicalization. But Iranian radical Islam played no less of an important role. It was nurtured or structured in Western special centers located outside of Iran.

The West, even before the Islamic Revolution, constantly expressed concern that the Iranian Shah was too worried about Iran’s modernization and could inadvertently turn Iran into an excessively strong Persian state.

A certain part of the US elite considered this option even more dangerous than the radical Islamization of Iran. I have repeatedly had to listen to the confessions from high Israeli leaders that a certain part of the US elite categorically did not want to help the Shah in his fight against the forces of the Islamic Revolution. And that is just why the Iranian security officials did not dare to take radical repressive actions against this revolution.

At the same time, some groups of Western shadow players (the so-called anti-Sovietists) supported the Iran’s Islamic revolution because of the anti-Soviet character of Iranian Islam. By virtue of the same, they supported other Islamist radical movements. And other shadow groups of Western players (the so-called anti-modernists) supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran for more fundamental reasons. They considered preventing rapid modernization of Middle Eastern countries as a top priority, and they expressed indignation at the desire of the Shah of Iran to acquire modern industry (metallurgical and otherwise), as well as everything else, including nuclear weapons.

The Anti-Sovietists and anti-modernists interacted in complex ways. Their role in the Islamic Iranian revolution is very complex and contradictory. It is still not fully understood. But the information available today (both relatively confidential and relatively open) allows us to clarify something. And in this clarification, a structure called the Safari Club plays an important role.

I draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the discussion of the role of this structure in the process of our interest has nothing to do with the notorious conspiracy theories, which freely address something vague and dubious.

The Safari Club this is not gossip about the machinations of secret forces. The Safari Club is a very peculiar international special services union, the reputation of which precedes it. It was created in 1976. It included special services, particularly one that were alarmed by the growing communist threat.

Such special services from France laid the foundation for the creating of the Safari Club had. The unquestionable initiator creating the Club was the Director of the French External Documentation and Counterintelligence Service (SDECE), Alexandre de Marenches (1921–1995). De Marenches led the SDECE throughout the 1970s. Leaving the post of head of the SDECE, he became political adviser to US President Ronald Reagan.

 

Alexandre de Marenches

 

De Marenches fought in the army of de Gaulle against the Nazis. He supported de Gaulle in the postwar years, but in 1962 he expressed a sharp protest against de Gaulle’s consent to the separation of Algeria. It would seem that on this de Marenches’ career would be over. But everything happened in a diametrically opposite way.

The successor of de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou (Prime Minister of France in 1962-1968 and the President of France from 1969 to 1974) appointed Alexandre de Marenches as Director of the SDECE in 1970.

De Marenches turned the SDECE into the main structure determining France’s political course. And he gave this course a fiercely anti-communist and anti-Soviet character.

De Marenches’s participation in the anti-Nazi resistance did not affect de Marenches’s hatred of the Communists, whom he called the only enemies of the free world.

De Marenches made extraordinary efforts to turn the SDECE into an extremely ideological organization, giving this organization a far-right character. In this capacity, the SDECE was concerned about the successor to Pompidou, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who sought to pursue a more restrained course. But de Maranche became the owner of the entire Pompidou archive. And this archive contained a massive amount of information that compromised both d’Estaing and others. Therefore, de Marenches was virtually unsinkable for many years.

In the Soviet Union, de Marenches created a network of agents with a very deep foundation. Experts believe that this network had a significant impact on the late Soviet perestroika processes.

Jacques Foccart

De Marenches acted in close conjunction with another French extreme anti-communist, Jacques Foccart (1913–1997).

Foccart was a member of the Resistance just like de Marenches. He specialized on the African field. His goal was to implement the project of French Africa. And the prevention of any rapprochement between the African regimes and the USSR. In the special services, Foccart was called “Mr. Africa.” Foccart persistently and consistently supported all anti-Soviet forces in Africa. Nor were there any methods he disdained.

Unlike de Marenches, Foccart’s positions suffered at the hands of d’Estaing. But he stayed afloat. And he played a decisive role in everything related to arms trade on the African continent.

The Safari Club is the collective brainchild of de Marenches and Foccart. Unlike Foccart, who was mainly concerned with Africa, de Marenches acted in three directions: Soviet, Middle Eastern and African.

In 1976, de Marenches and Foccart created the Safari Club, which they conceived as an anti-communist alliance of Moroccan, Egyptian, Saudi, and Iranian intelligence.

France played a key role in this alliance. More precisely, the very radical anti-communist France. This sharp anti-communism did not find proper understanding from US President Carter, who disapproved of the Safari Club operations. But de Marenches managed to establish relations with the CIA, bypassing Carter’s hostility. In this he was greatly helped by George H.W. Bush.

Why was this special service club called the Safari Club? Because the first meeting of this elite community of special services gathered by de Marenches and Foccart took place at the Safari mountain resort in Kenya. The meeting noted that the Soviet Union was gaining an unacceptably strong foothold in Angola and other parts of Africa, and that this strengthening must be countered through extraordinary methods.

Together with de Marenches, the pact founding the Safari Club was signed by Kamal Adham, director of the Saudi general intelligence service, Kamal Hassan Ali, director of the Egyptian general intelligence service, Ahmed Dlimi, head of the Moroccan intelligence service, and (attention!) the Iranian SAVAK intelligence service chief Nematollah Nassiri.

I refer to these well-known facts in order to emphasize that the discussion of the Safari Club has nothing to do with fabricated conspiracy theories. That this is not conspiracy theories; this is special history, that is, a respectable history of the special services, based on existing documents and eyewitness accounts.

In addition, the reason for listing the members of the Safari Club by name is the fact that among these members is Nematollah Nassiri, who is extremely interesting to us.

Nassiri was one of the figures closest to the Shah of Iran. Nassiri participated in the overthrow of the left-wing government of Mosaddegh. Powerful military figures participated in this overthrow, whose influence bothered the Shah of Iran despite the fact that these figures initially worked for him. The Shah did not trust these officers, but he trusted Nassiri. By virtue of this trust, the Shah instructed Nassiri to work against both the leftists and the Islamic fundamentalists.

Nassiri specialized in covert assassinations. He created a very powerful intelligence network, designed to exterminate the “red threat” in Iran.

Rather quickly, Nassiri became very rich. He fought not only with the Communists and other enemies of the Shah, but also with the Shah’s inner circle.

Nematollah Nassiri

After the start of the Islamic Revolution, Nassiri was relieved of his post as head of the SAVAK and appointed ambassador to Pakistan.

Later, Nassiri returned to Iran, where people from the Shah’s entourage who hated Nassiri were in power. And on February 15, 1979, Nassiri was executed by decision of the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal. This gave Nassiri the halo of a martyr, a victim of the so-called clique of Khomeini.

But in reality, everything in no way comes down to this story of sacrifice.

My Western conversation partners, primarily Israeli ones, who held high places in the special services and participated in the Middle Eastern affairs of that era, simply insisted that Nassiri became caught up in his own game. And that in fact he had a fairly close relationship both to Khomeini’s circle and to those Western groups that actively supported this circle.

My partners in conversation insisted that without the support of these Western groups, the Khomeini circle would have been eradicated in the West before the members of this circle started returning to Iran with direct support from the French, and not only the French. And that without the help of SAVAK, which was a toy in Nassiri’s hands not only while he was in an official position, but also later, Khomeini’s plane simply would not have reached Iran. They provide very specific information indicating that Nassiri assumed such a role. And I have every reason to trust this information.

As for Nassiri’s execution, my respondents are firmly convinced that Sadek Khalkhali (1926-2003), who conferred the sentence, was a rather dubious Islamic radical, and the initiators of the trial simply hid the ends in the water and demanded that Nassiri surrender his agents, as well as guarantees that the defamatory information on relations with the SAVAK be destroyed. They claim that Nassiri refused to fulfill these requests, and showed sufficient steadfastness when they demanded that they be met, using monstrous torture.

What was the role of Nassiri in the Safari Club, and what did this club achieve in terms of the development of the Iranian political process?

The club’s operations center was located in Cairo. The Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi (1935–2017) was responsible for financing the club.

Khashoggi was an arms dealer. His father was the personal physician of the King of Saudi Arabia. Studies have already been written about Khashoggi. And probably, we have much more yet to learn. But in this case we are talking about only one circumstance. The fact that Khashoggi was one of the key operators in the case of arms shipments to Iran.

This case was called Iran-Contras or Irangate. It erupted at the end of 1986. It was then that it became known that certain groups in the US elite organized secret deliveries of weapons to Iran, despite the ban at the time on selling weapons to Iran.

The investigation showed that the money received from the sale of weapons, Islamic Republic of Iran, which as it were was extremely hostile to the West, went to finance Nicaraguan rebels, called the “Contras”. While the US Congress banned such funding to Nicaraguan far-right rebels.

This strange undertaking was performed by retired Major General of the United States Air Force Richard Secord and Iranian emigre Albert Hakim.

The first batch of weapons was sold to Iran in May 1985. A certain part of the Israeli elite served as a mediator in these sales. Specifically, then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who held supposedly leftist views, Director General David Kimchi of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and two well-known arms dealers: A. Schwimmer and Y. Nimrodi are specifically named. From the US side, Michael Ledeen, consultant of the US National Security Council, and the notorious Oliver North, who was ultimately blamed for everything, took part in this affair.

Weapons were supplied to Iran in large quantities. An investigation by the US commission led by Senator John Tower revealed only the top of the iceberg. It was also shown that the operation actively included: the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and one of its key figures, retired General John Singlaub. But the really big figure was the notorious William Casey (1913–1987), CIA director and Reagan’s campaign manager, Allen Dulles, a participant in wartime and post-war games, and the creator of a very specific intelligence network known under the abbreviation “C”. This network, due to its strategic focus on the so-called Black Project (Casey is credited with saying that one ought to employ the villains if you want to get the job done quickly) later had to be partly eliminated, and partly transferred to an even deeper foundation.

What is the Ronald Reagan election campaign? This event is very strongly connected with Iran. Because on November 4, 1979, several dozen hostages were seized at the US Embassy. The invaders demanded the extradition of the Shah of Iran, who was undergoing treatment at a New York hospital. The rebels who had taken hostages found support from Khomeini. In the United States, tantrums began about the need to save the hostages.

All this happened in the context of the US presidential election. The sitting president, Jimmy Carter, and his opponent, Ronald Reagan, competed. The failure of the US to return the hostages politically killed Carter and presented the victory to Reagan. Negotiations with the Iranians, who held in their hands the fate of the US presidential election, were conducted by William Casey. He later conducted the Iran-Contras affair. Casey died strangely: supposedly from a brain cancer, as a result of which he could not tell anyone anything at the end of his life for medical reasons.

The Iranians retained the American hostages and subsequently began to trade them, including in exchange for weapons.

Khashoggi was arrested as a key mediator in the case of the arms shipments to Iran in 1988 in Switzerland. And then transferred to the United States. There he was released on bail.

Without the participation of the Safari Club, Khashoggi could not have carried out such operations. Yes, he did not conduct them without the participation of his patrons. The prince of Saudi Arabia, Turki ibn Faisal Al Saud, who headed the Saudi Arabian foreign intelligence service for a very long time, personally met with Osama bin Laden and was part of very elite international circles close to the Safari Club, admitted that after Nixon’s being exposed with Watergate, the CIA and the entire intelligence community associated with the CIA, were too overregulated, palced in too tight of a framework. That the US Congress put the intelligence services in this tight framework. That to overcome the huge troubles arising from such a framework, the Safari Club was created. That the CIA maintained constant operational contacts with this club. That very prominent arms and drug dealers took part in its work. The financial schemes with which the Safari Club operated were described in detail. The activities of the London-based International Credit and Commercial Bank (BCCI), which implemented these schemes, have been described.

The role of Bush Sr. in this muddy game has been described. It has also been described how the same arms shipment games were conducted in the post-Soviet years with very active participation from Ukraine. Moreover, Ukraine’s participation in these games was determined by the same circle of players who then carried out the Maidan.

But such a game could not be played without the participation of Iranian special organizations in general, and above all those special organizations that were moved beyond the framework of public Iranian politics. And only Al-Quds was this kind of special organization in Iran, as the international intelligence service of the IRGC, that is, in fact the intelligence service of theocratic Qom, and not the much more transparent Tehran.

Soleimani was not killed because the Americans brilliantly tracked him down and caught him off guard, but because he was betrayed by his own people. And they didn’t just betray him. They guided the Americans to their target in the most direct and immediate way.

And these same “own people” shot down the Ukrainian airliner.

Who are they? How are they connected with the past and what new game are they involved in? This remains to be seen. And all the details of such an investigation will not necessarily be brought to light.

My intermediate conclusion is this: there is no direct geopolitical conflict between Iran and the United States now, as there was no such conflict in the 1980s. But there is something else, much more murky and dangerous.

I repeat again.

It is not difficult to understand that some “friends” guided the Americans to Soleimani or even acted in place of the Americans, even if one has ordinary competency in what pertains to intelligence services. But then the darkest things begin. Trump, under someone’s pressure, agreed to act as the person covering the murder of Soleimani. I emphasize, precisely as the one covering it. This means that Trump can fight violently with Biden, Hillary Clinton, and other anti-conservative globalists, but he is powerless in the face of the alliance of these globalists with the far-right elites of the United States. Meanwhile, what happened is the first sign of everything regarding the formation of such an alliance.

But this does not only apply to Trump. This applies to all global politics. And that means ours too.

Putin in Russia …

Trump in the USA …

The crumbling house of cards in Europe …

The Chinese economic victory …

The Ukrainian abscess …

Chinese games in Africa …

There are still many other large and small plots as part of this regrouping of elite forces.

This regrouping is in full swing.

In order to execute it, it is necessary to intensify the activities of semiofficial special structures, new Safari Clubs. These special structures do not exist on their own. They are very tightly connected with official special services. But at the same time they are much more dangerous, more audacious and more effective, than the clumsy official structures. Moreover, these official structures are constrained in their actions by both relative political transparency and the internal clan struggle. Semiofficial structures are more consolidated and decisive, smarter and more delicate than their official partners.

These structures hide their ends in the water and bring back to life what was hidden in the secret-most depths of the special services. Soleimani knew something about this. This suited neither strangers nor his own. He interfered with a new round of the game, and he was eliminated. This is not the last such elimination.

When, as a result of eliminations and relocations, a new elite contour arises, something more dangerous than the Gulf War will begin. As they say in such cases: “He who is warned is armed.”

 

Source (for copy): https://eu.eot.su/2020/01/28/the-2020-game/

 

This is the translation of an article by Sergey Kurginyan, first published in the Essence of Time newspaper issue 360 on January 24, 2020.

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