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James North on
The true caption should be: Abject war criminals, led by Bibi Netannyahu, Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, gather in Warsaw to plot more schemes to destroy Iran as an independent player in Middle East affairs. The more polite version reads: Top US leaders and other global officials at the Warsaw summit on Middle East security — which was mainly about building pressure on Iran — on February 13, 2019 . This image should serve as a perp photo. (Photo: Michael Sohn/AP)
Israel wants the Trump administration to attack Iran, but U.S. mainstream media ignores Netanyahu’s instigating
James North on May 6, 2019 4 Comments
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hy is the Trump administration escalating its economic war against Iran, a dangerous policy that could eventually lead to a shooting war and trigger a world recession? Iran in 2019 is no danger to U.S. interests anywhere. Tehran is not threatening American shipping, or military bases; its allies, like Hizbollah in Lebanon, have not targeted U.S. civilians or soldiers for years.
The U.S. is squeezing Iran mainly because Israel wants it to. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia, and has warm relations with the other Gulf states and with the Abdel Fattah el-Sisi dictatorship in Egypt. Iran is the only regional power that is deterring him from completely annexing the West Bank. Iran is also a major supporter of Hamas, the resistance movement in Gaza.
Editor's Note: The author, commendably, tries to cap the article by appealing to the "US national interest..to avoid a tragedy". I find that appeal's slant wrong on several important grounds. First, it caters to the longstanding assumption (reinforced by constant use) that the American public will only respond to its self interest, not to questions of elementary morality. Unlimited selfishness is the moral cancer at the core of our cultural matrix, it should be attacked and exposed, not legitimated by deferential invocation. Second, this approach assumes there is a respectable and legitimate "national interest" liable to be honored by the US ruling class, which is simply delusional. A plutocracy—which is what the US government is—cannot ever respond to the genuine "national interest." Only a true democracy can do that. It can only—and invariably does—respond to the various plutocratic groups determining its course, none of which spouse policies good for the American people or the world at large.—PG
Israel wants the Iranian government destroyed, and Netanyahu has been instigating the United States for years to attack Teheran. Now that American foreign policy is in the hands of incompetent, bellicose officials like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, Israel senses that its hour has arrived. First, it encouraged the Trump administration to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, even though all the inspectors recognized Teheran was fully in compliance with the agreement. This economic assault is the next step. How long until an actual war?
The U.S. mainstream press is mostly missing the the Israel angle. Let’s start with the New York Times front-page report on the U.S. efforts to tighten the existing boycott and reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero by threatening importers like China and India. The word “Israel” appears nowhere in the fairly long article. Not once. The Washington Post made exactly the same omission: no mention of “Israel.”
Most mainstream coverage takes at face value Secretary of State Pompeo’s contention that U.S. pressure is only meant to make Iran act like a “normal” country. But it fell to the New York Times editorial board to tell the truth that should have been reported in its news pages; back in February, the Trump administration sponsored a conference in Warsaw that attracted officials from many Arab states and Israel. The Times dismissed the administration’s stated reason for the gathering. “The goal of their meeting. . . was not peacemaking,” the Times said. “It was to rally support for economic and political war with Iran. . .”
That Times editorial went even further. It cited a tweet by Benjamin Netanyahu, since deleted, in which the Israeli prime minister admitted that the Warsaw conference was in truth “an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran.”
Why aren’t the reporters who cover the State Department hammering Pompeo and his mouthpieces with tough questions about Israel’s connection to the tightening U.S. pressure on Iran?
Before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, there was at least a vigorous public debate, even though the Bush administration did sucker most of the U.S. mainstream media. This time around: silence. America could be sleepwalking into another tragedy that is not in our national interest.
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A beautifully written article that helps explain the sad state of our Fourth Estate. I’ll be saying to NPR, “For my continued contribution cover the war on Iran more professionally”.
It is interesting to note Trump and Iran share the same view on Israel-Palestine. One state or two, so long as both agree…. good to go. Until then both Israel and Iran will agitate for regime change in the other.
Closing words
Like vampires fearing light, capitalists elites have always been afraid of the socialist demonstration effect. A huge and constant effort is aimed at "showing" that socialism doesn't work, that it is tyrannical, inefficient, etc. Thus sabotaging and killing socialism wherever it may arise —Russia, China, Korea, Venezuela, Chile—by any means necessary, no matter how brutal and dishonest, is therefore standing policy. But socialist solutions work. And Medicare for All would show everyone in America, the key capitalist fortress, that many of our nightmares can easily vanish under socialism. For the capitalists and their hanger-ons it would be a Pandora's box.—P. Greanville
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James North hits the nail on the head, it is all for Israel, with the bonus that Saudi Arabia also wants the US to destroy Iran. Having failed with regime change in Syria which would have meant the downfall of Hezbollah too, the US are ramping up sanctions on Iran by trying to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero, these sanctions and secondary sanctions on legitimate buyers of Iranian oil are contrary to International law, they are in fact acts of war if the known anticipated result is the economic destruction of the country, followed by death and disease. The Issue here has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, rather it is Iran’s conventional weapons, especially its legal missile program, elements of which probably find their way to Hezbollah. The postage sized state of Israel with most of its population and industry in Metropolitan Tel Aviv could not withstand a sustained assault by the hundreds of thousands of missiles [many now precision] that would rain down on them from Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
In my opinion a war with Iran would be catastrophic for all sides and would cause a world economic recession due to Iran closing the Strait of Hormus and Saudi oil terminals bombed. Nevertheless with Israeli firster and Iran hater Bolton and the evangelical Pompeo who said recently “God may have sent President Donald Trump to Earth to protect Israel”, seemingly in charge of foreign policy, anything can happen