Signs of a Coming War? Mensheviks and Bolsheviks of DC.........
“The UAE alone has bought 80 F16 fighters, and (1) General Petraeus, the US commander, claims it could now "take out the entire Iranian airforce". The US insists the growing militarisation is defensive, aimed at deterring Iran, calming Israel and reassuring its allies. But the shift of policy is clear enough. Last week Barack Obama warned that Iran would face (2) "growing consequences" for failing to halt its nuclear programme, (3) while linking it with North Korea – as George Bush did, in his "axis of evil" speech in 2002…….. The US vice-president, Joe Biden, underlined that by insisting (4) Iran's leaders were "sowing the seeds of their own destruction".……… The echoes of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq are unmistakable. Just as in 2002-3, we are told that (5) a dictatorial Middle Eastern state is secretly ¬developing WMD, defying UN resolutions, obstructing inspections, threatening its neighbours and supporting terrorism……… Most recently, a former CIA official reported that US intelligence believed documents, published in the Times, purporting to show Iran planning to experiment on a (6) "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, had been forged. Shades of Iraq's non-existent attempts to buy uranium in Niger. In case anyone missed the parallels, (7) Tony Blair hammered them home at the Iraq inquiry last Friday. Far from showing remorse about the bloodshed he helped unleash on the Iraqi people, the former prime minister was allowed to turn what was supposed to be a grilling into a platform for war against Iran. In a timely demonstration that ¬neoconservatism is alive and well and living in London, Blair attempted to use the fact that Iraq had no ¬WMD as part of a case for ¬taking the same approach against Iran………….”
He does make a good job putting all the threads together. But I have my doubts about a war, unless someone gets careless in Tehran and provides a provocation, a casus belli. If that happens the neo-conservative majority of 41 senators in the United Senate will insist on retribution, and the terrified Democratic minority of 59 senators will be cowed into going along. This time the Menshevikis rule the Bolshevikis.
Cheers
mhg
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