Attention!!!! Diversion ahead!!!!

THERE IS a widespread belief among American as well as international political observers, commentators and analysts that the hawks in the Bush administration might be tempted to stage a false-flag operation, either in the US or outside, in order to create a diversion of attention from the mounting crises Washington is facing today.
In fact, many are of the opinion that the crises are so serious that they represent a situation graver than that faced by Richard Nixon shortly before his resigned in the wake of the Watergate sandal.
President George W Bush himself and people close to him, including Vice-President Richard Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfled, are putting up a brave front against scathing criticism in the American media and the equally important blogsites. However, reports quoting "sources" in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon paint a different picture that shows an administration in disarray.
Bush himself has confined access to himself to a handful of people and White House meetings end up without conclusion, according to the reports. The president is said to lose his temper more often than not, he lapses into broodings, forcing his chief of staff Andrew Card to step in and speak up for the president, say the reports, which also suggest that Card himself might resign from his job soon.
It will be an understatement that the Bush administration officials are worried.
Former Cheney associate Lewis Libby has been indicted for perjury in a case that has deep ramifications for the administration's credibility and public confidence in the White House. More indictments are expected. Congress is expected soon to issue a report on whether pre-war intelligence was manipulated to suit the hardliners' quest to wage war against Iraq. The report need not indict the administration (after all Congress is dominated by the Republicans), but those preparing it have to take into consideration the growing voices within the electorate demanding truth and oblige them with a minimum level of credibility.
There seems to be a growing feeling that the neoconservative structure could collpase like a house of cards, bringing down even innocent administration officials. As a result, more "leaks" of what actually took place in the build-up to the war could be expected in the days ahead. These leaks could come from administration bureaucrats who had no choice but to follow orders from up, hoping that they would not be held to account if they volunteered information and thus establish, off-the-record at this point perhaps, that they were not party to planning anything and that they were simply obeying instructions from their bosses.
Definitely, the hawkish neoconservatives, who orchestrated the invasion of Iraq and continued occupation of that country, should be closely watching from the lines. They should be simply dumb not to recognise that things are coming to a head-on clash within the administration and in American political circles and soon it would be time for reckoning.
Members of Congress from within Bush's Republican camp are also growing increasingly restless that the present state of affairs does not bode well for the party in next year's mid-term elections to the legislature.
The Republicans also seem to have realised that it is no longer a matter of critics giving vent to their hostility through hard-hitting commentaries in the media or blogsites. They should know that it is the people of America who are demanding answers to key questions like whether their president lied to them in order to build a case against Iraq and whether similar action is being planned against Syria and Iran if only to serve Israel's interests.
Beset with such crises, the neocons, who have proved that they would stop at nothing to achieve their goal of American domination of the globe among other things (they are accused even of rigging Bush's re-election in some states), are more likely to orchestrate an action that would take American public attention away from the crises in Washington. It could come in the form of a major crisis with Syria or Iran and somewhere else. The neocons' objective will be to create a situation of national emergency that would also provide a platform for the president to reassert that he remains committed to protecting American national security and national interests, whether in terms of domestic policies or external intervention. That is the net conclusion of many seasoned analysts who are familar with the way the neocons function.
For many observers, it is only a question of whether any American agency or clandestine group would be involved in staging the operation, whatever it might be, or the neocons would call upon the services of their protege — or shall we say master — Israel.
Israeli intelligence reports have been suggesting that Lebanon's Hizbollah was being prepared for action against Israel across the border, particularly at the occupied Shebaa Farms area, at the behest of Syria.
On Monday, it was reported that Hizbollah fighters launched an intense bombardment of Israeli positions on the volatile area.
Israel said its forces killed five Hizbollah fighters while Hizbollah's Al Manar television said one person had been killed and two wounded.
The question remained open on Monday whether this flare-up, which occurred on the eve of Lebanon's independence day, would trigger a chain of events leading to a major military escalation that could pose the pretext for any neocon-engineered diversionary action.
Israel could easily argue that it was provoked into expanding the stand-off becasuse of Hizbollah attacks prompted by Syrian pressure. However, it is routine that Hizbollah does something across the border on every Lebanese independence day, and therefore the "advance" intelligence warning implicating Syria could be the just the ruse the Israeli could be seeking.
In the meantime, Syria remains under intense pressure over the UN investigating panel's finding that some top Syrian intelligence officers were involved in February bombing that killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut. Syria is also accused of "not doing enough" to stop the alleged infiltration of insurgents across the Syrian border into Iraq to fight the US-led coalition forces there.
It was reported last month that one of the options entertained by the US hawks was to bomb a few Syrian border villages saying they were sheltering anti-US insurgents bound for Iraq. At that time, the option was reportedly shelved at the behest of Rice, who wanted to give diplomacy and UN sanctions a chance and a little more time to work against Syria.
However, the possibility remains alive that those who proposed the border bombings might prevail this time around, particularly given the gravity of the political crises plaguing Washington.
Also being cooked in Washington is action against Iran in the name of Tehran's nuclear programmes. Many fear that Israel, for whom it is unacceptable that anyone in the Middle Eastern neighbourhood going nuclear, whether for peaceful purposes or otherwise, might carry out an attack against Iran's nuclear installations. Such an operation has to be major since, according to experts, it would take more than 300 substained bombings to deprive Iran of the ability to resume its nuclear work.
If that happens, it is a sure bet that Iran would hit back but the targets would be the American forces across the border in Iraq as well as Afghanistan who are sitting ducks for Iran's short- and medium-range missiles.
It is anyone's guess what could happen as and when Iran retaliates against the American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
These are hypotheses and what could actually happen could be anything anywhere. The only certainty is that the neocons, who, by definition and nature, refuse to accept that their policies have been going wrong for American interests, will opt for a false-flag operation sooner than later.