by Uri Avnery
www.antiwar.com
A respected American paper posted a scoop this week: Vice President Dick Cheney, the King of Hawks, has thought up a Machiavellian scheme for an attack on Iran. Its main point: Israel will start by bombing an Iranian nuclear installation, Iran will respond by launching missiles at Israel, and this will serve as a pretext for an American attack on Iran.
Far-fetched? Not really. It is rather like what happened in 1956. Then France, Israel, and Britain secretly planned to attack Egypt in order to topple Gamal Abdel-Nasser ("regime change" in today's lingo.) It was agreed that Israeli paratroops would be dropped near the Suez Canal, and that the resulting conflict would serve as a pretext for the French and British to occupy the canal area in order to "secure" the waterway. This plan was implemented (and failed miserably).
