well i'm here with you this morning because for the last few years i've been tracking very carefully very closely the history of the iran nuclear program the iranian nuclear program and at the same time of the policies of the united states and israel toward that issue and what i want to do this morning is to focus on what i call the manufactured crisis which is the subject that the centerpiece of the book that has just been published by that same name because for one simple reason and that is that the role of israel in this manufactured crisis which was basically a means of accusing iran of having a covert nuclear weapons program which unfolded over a number of years of as a basis for further policy efforts to put pressure on iran and even as i will point out to lay the groundwork for an attack ultimately on iran that this crisis is what i call the manufactured crisis was one in which the role of israel in affecting the bush administration's policy toward iran was far more direct and far more central to the outcome than it was on iraq and i think that this is a fact which is not well understood that the situation surrounding the israeli role in u policy toward iran is really one in which the israelis had essentially the central role now to to explain this i have to go back a little bit to the context in which the the iran policy of the bush administration unfolded in the context of course is all about iraq change on a wide scale throughout the middle east across the entire face of the middle east every regime which was not cooperative with us policy in other words  essentially on the same side as israel the united states was targeted for regime change in that plan that of course included is syria it included lebanon and ultimately it was to include iran is not i mean this is this is open a well understood fact but what is not well known is that the plan involved essentially laying the groundwork for ultimately using military force against iran now this was not going to be israeli military force one of the points that i emphasized in my book is that at no time over the last two decades has been really israeli government ever seriously contemplated attacking iran despite the fact that there's been an awful lot of discussion an awful lot of talk emanating from various israeli governments over these two decades about the possibility that israel might be forced to use force against iran's nuclear program i show in the book that this has always been a political roots it has been used by the israelis to manipulate the policy of the united states in particular but also the policies of other major powers who have been involved in one way or another in the issue of iran and iran's nuclear program and it's been very useful it's been very successful in this regard particularly in the last few years of course the israelis under the netanyahu government have talked more and more about the possible necessity for israel to attack iran and that has been a point of leverage that has been used as leverage with regard to the policies of the europeans the chinese and the russians as well as the united states and it is widely recognized within israel the valve has been a successful policy and for that reason that has been it has enjoyed wide support within the security establishment among both idea if and mossad and other intelligence officials who would never contemplate would never agree or go along with any plan to attack iran by israel but what the israelis have wanted all along was for the united states to take up the idea of an attack on iran indeed this was the plan that the neoconservatives within the bush administration starting with john bolton david wurmser who worked for bolton originally  after the the iraq war he was on bolton staff briefly and then at the end of two thousand and three he moved to the vice president's office so it was really the vice president's office and b who were coordinating between the two of them this plan which ultimately it was to involve the use of force now bolton talks about this openly in his own memoirs so i'm not simply speculating about this and wormser when he quit the bush administration in two thousand and seven actually openly talked about his disappointment that the bush administration did not carry out any military action against iran and said that the idea of regime change which of course had been the bush administration's i should say to be more precise the neoconservatives within the bush administration's policy but was never officially accepted by the white house would would necessarily involve the use of military force to some degree so the two key players in this john  both have publicly confirmed that it was their intention that some kind of military force would be used by the bush administration at a later date and of course this would only happen after the united states had consolidated its control over iraq that of course was the strategic assumption on which this plan was based and as we all know now thankfully the united states was unable to establish control over iraq and as a result of that this idea of an attack on iran was never really a possibility and we also now know that the pentagon and the military service military assets in the middle east including the ships in strait the narrow eight abutting iran are too vulnerable far too vulnerable for the united states military to contemplate a war with iran and therefore that was never a serious possibility nevertheless in two thousand and three two thousand and four the neocon neoconservatives led by john bolton were attempting to lay the groundwork for the future use of force in iran what bolton was doing during that period was beginning to try to establish the idea that iran had a secret nuclear weapons program which idea was to be the basis for condemnation of iran in the board of governors of the international atomic energy agency quite rightly feared that all buried i would not cooperate with the strategy that the united states had in mind therefore it would to be it was to be moved to the united nations security council that of course would allow the united states either to get international support for whatever punishment of iran the bush administration would choose to adopt and of course the neoconservatives had in mind that that would involve military force or if it was not provided with international support at the at the security council the united states would act unilaterally in that regard bolton was doing that something much more important was happening in israel and that was that the israelis were preparing the evidence which up to that time had been missing that they simply lacked the evidence to accuse iran concretely of having a nuclear weapons program and that was what the israelis were working on in two thousand and three in two thousand  four and we know now the full story well not the full story but enough of the story to be able to understand how this unfolded for the first time in my book i tell the story of how the documents which surfaced mysteriously in two thousand and four the so called laptop documents because they were said to have been to have come directly from the laptop computer a scientist who was a participant in this alleged iranian nuclear weapons research project these documents we now know were handed over to german intelligence calc any k terrorist organization the any k of course had been accused of being a den listed as a terrorist organization by the united states state department and by european countries because they had killed a number of american civilians and military personnel in iran in the one nine hundred seventy s they have blown up civilian gatherings killed civilians in terrorist  bombings in iran in the one nine hundred eighty s and then had been used by the saddam hussein regime in the war against iran by iraq during the one nine hundred eighty s so this this was undoubtedly a terrorist organization which could not be regarded as in any way a reliable source of documentation on the iranian nuclear program and know that the the bush administration neoconservatives kept the any k provenance of these documents in terms of turning him over to western intelligence from the non neoconservative officials of the administration because collin powell made a public statement to reporters in november of two thousand and four in which he referred to information that came from these laptop documents saying we have information that iran is working very hard that was his term very hard to mate a the shahab three missile with a weapon by which of course even a nuclear weapon now if this sounds vaguely familiar to you it may be because you remember the curveball affair that of course also involved  intelligence which came from a source of the german intelligence agency b m d an iraqi which who was given the code name curveball who told wild tales of iraqi bio weapons labs mobile by weapons labs which were then passed on to the cia and which ultimately became the centerpiece of colin powell's united nations speech in february two thousand and three so understandably senior officials of the german intelligence agency were afraid that history was going to repeat itself and that the bush administration intended to use this information to build a case against iran just as it had building a case against iraq on w m d's a grounds as the basis for making war against iran well as mark twain said history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme and this was indeed a major rhyme in in u s policy and in israeli policy and here's the punchline of this story the emmy kay itself was not capable of producing those documents the documents were extremely sophisticated they wove around actual people actual  events and actual documents the narrative that of course made the point that they wanted to make that iran had a nuclear weapons program a secret nuclear weapons program but there are contradictions if you examine them carefully enough there are contradictions that give away the fact that they're not authentic which i won't go into now but the point i want to make is that the documents clearly were manufactured fabricated by an ally of the make a not the only case itself and that ally could only have been israel the any cave course we know we had extremely close relations with the israeli intelligence agency mossad and so this is really a story about the way in which israel played the central role in manufacturing the key evidence that was used by the bush administration passed on to the i a e a then became the major source of evidence on which to condemn iran from two thousand and eight to through two thousand and twelve then the israelis passed on more documents to the i a e a which i again document in my book which were used in a second major report two thousand and eleven by the i a e a which now is the is the gold standard if you will for the accusation against iran for having had a nuclear weapons program and just to conclude i think the the point that needs to be understood is that this is not just has demanded as part of its negotiating position in the nuclear talks with iran that that iran must come clean quote unquote about the evidence that supposedly shows that it had worked with you know experimented with nuclear weapons or had worked on nuclear weapons of this is extremely dangerous because of course the iranians have no intention of coming clean because they understand that those documents were not authentic and that they've been accused on the basis of intelligence that was indeed manufactured so essentially the obama administration is setting up a demand which would cause the the entire nuclear talks to fail and then we would all be in the soup because we don't know how what sort of dangers that that will lead us to or the neo conservatives with the driving force in the two thousand and three war in iraq and the neoconservatives have a close relationship with the israeli the crude nick right and they are sensually a original neo conservatives were converts from liberalism they were heavily jewish although there are a sizeable number of gentiles in the group and they are concerned about jewish interests they believe that a number of aspects of nine hundred seventy s liberalism had become dangerous to jewish interests one of these was liberalism's de emphasis on the threat of the soviet union the neoconservatives saw the soviet union as being anti semitic and anti israel and they took a very hard line anti soviet foreign policy position now after failing to move the democratic party in their direction the neo cons would switch to supporting the republicans in one nine hundred eighty  ronald reagan ran for the presidency and despite being newcomers the neoconservatives were able to get positions and a large number of positions in the reagan administrat and they played a significant role in pushing reagan's foreign policy and a hard line foreign policy direction i might say at that time they had support from traditional conservatives as well but they did play a significant role now with the demise of soviet communism the neo conservatives for most concern became israel in the middle east in two thousand and one as bush administration began the neoconservatives had already developed their plan to reconfigure the middle east when according to them this would make the middle east more peaceful democratic and less a threat to the united states however this plan to reconfigure the middle east would had strong similarities to a geo strategy that prevailed on the israeli right in the nineteen eighties and was best articulated by look crude nick oded you know and in one thousand nine hundred eighty two article in that article he maintained that israel's enemies were quite fragile and only held together by harsh dictatorial regimes this he claimed would make it relatively easy to bring them down since there wasn't any natural support in these countries for them other of course this would by weakening israel's adam mayes this would of course and hants the security of israel and you advocated that israel launch a that prevent presented a variant of this strategy to then in coming israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu sort of interesting that americans are israel and this plan and titled a clean break would again have israel begin this process of reconfiguring the middle east by war but very soon after this however the neo cons would have the us as the war additionally aider presumably acting for american interests however the neo cons acknowledged that their policy would benefit is real and held that this was simply because american and is rarely interest were identical but the background for many if not most of the neo cons shows a close personal identification with the state of israel it's reasonable to say i think that the neoconservatives viewed american foreign policy in the middle east through the lens of israeli interest now with the onset of the bush george w bush administration in two thousand and one the neo conservatives have become a powerful network of think tanks organizations and media outlets vice president dick cheney who had a very close connection to the neoconservatives for a number of years prior to two thousand and one played the major role in bringing them in to the george w bush administration the neoconservatives however didn't get the upper hand in shaping american middle east foreign policy until after the nine eleven terror attacks this terrorism and they build the neo cons a bogus propaganda and militaristic agenda to resonate with the american people and with congress that nine eleven they the american people fearful and angry and the neo cons provided a way of retaliate ing and of course the neo cons did connect saddam hussein with this terrorism along with emphasizing his alleged extremely their war on iraq the neo cons had to overcome opposition of one degree or another from other parts of the executive branch the military the state department the cia and from members of the traditional foreign policy establishment who put their emphasis on america maintaining stability in the middle east in order to facilitate the flow of oil of course the neo  plan would bring about instability now as the trauma of nine eleven wore out this opposition was able to prevent the neo conservatives from continuing their middle east war agenda to bring about regime change in iran and elsewhere in the middle east in the same direct manner as they had achieved war in iraq however the neo cons have been able to move american foreign policy and the middle east to some extent  significant in its extent in the direction that they saw it even though more indirectly than directly like war in iraq so now we know there are sanctions and require various requirements placed on iran put in lieu of war but certainly harming iran syria iran is in the state of collapse and fragmentation there is a regional shiite sunni war that spread from iraq all of israel's enemies are fighting among each other so essentially israel's enemies are fragmented warring among each other just as you know had predicted and of course hoped for so overall i think one could say israel's geo strategic position has improved at least from the viewpoint of the israeli right