by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
April 22, 2013
Image by ultrascott via Flickr
American secretary of offence Chuck Hagel kicked off his Middle East tour this week with outrageous warmongering threats towards Iran, while at the same time giving a license for more state terrorism from Washington’s Israeli rogue regime.
Hagel’s cozying up to Israeli partners-in-crime nails the lie that the Obama White House is somehow at odds with Tel Aviv over Middle East policy and Iran in particular. Nothing could be further from the truth. Washington is as wired for war as ever, and this belligerent impetus comes from Washington, not the rogue entity in Tel Aviv.
In what can only be described as a grotesque display of lawlessness and incendiary rhetoric, Hagel declared Iran a “real threat” and said that the US would stand by the Israeli state if the latter chose to launch a preemptive military strike on the Islamic Republic. “The bottom line is that Iran is a threat, a real threat,” Hagel told reporters while onboard his weekend flight to the Middle East.
Hagel flew into Tel Aviv bearing gifts worth $10 billion in the latest American military hardware, including upgraded precision-guided missiles, stealth radar equipment, V22 Osprey transport warplanes and the giant 135-KC refueling aerial tankers.
The arms deal “sends a clear message to Iran” that the military option is on the table, warned Hagel. The items in the weapons inventory convey a thinly veiled threat of attack on Iran. The Israeli state, which has a wanton criminal track record for unilateral air strikes against neighbouring countries over many decades, will now be in a stronger position to conduct bombing raids on geographically more remote Iran, as a result of the latest longer-range capabilities bestowed by its US patron.
And it’s not just the Tel Aviv regime that the US is arming to the teeth. The Sunni dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – sworn enemies of Shia Iran in their proxy war-making in Syria and Iraq – are also to enjoy the latest military munificence from Washington. Reports say that the $10bn arms supply is to include air-to-ground missiles for Saudi Arabia and F-16 fighter jets for the UAE.
What this amounts to is an escalation of all-out war threat towards Iran from Washington and its regional client regimes. This display of unprovoked militarism by the US towards Iran constitutes an act of aggression, which is in itself a war crime. Iran’s government should
consider filing a lawsuit.
The crime is all the more damning because it has no rational or material foundation. It is a gratuitous threat of violence against a sovereign, peaceful country based on paranoid misinformation and downright calumny. Of course, nothing should surprise us about US or Israeli criminality and state terrorism given the recent genocides in Afghanistan and Iraq, and crimes against humanity in Lebanon and Libya and ongoing in Palestine, Syria, Pakistan and Somalia, among other places.
While pathetically fawning over his Israeli hosts, Hagel reiterated the hackneyed lies about Iran’s nuclear program. “The Iranians must be prevented from developing that capacity to build a nuclear weapon and deliver it,” said Hagel. This is disgraceful, asinine deception hardly worth repeating. But for the record, the US secretary of offence went on to say: “Iran presents a threat in its nuclear program and Israel will make its decisions that Israel must make to protect itself and defend itself.”
What is disturbing about this trope is that one of America’s senior military chiefs – who takes decisions on whether to go to war or not – is either telling barefaced lies or is woefully ignorant of hiscountry’s own intelligence estimates.
Only last week in Washington, the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told a Senate Committee that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. This is a well-established assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, which has been made previously by over a dozen US intelligence organizations, going back several years. Clapper also told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he did not know whether Iran’s leadership would in the future decide to build a nuclear weapon, but the fact is that the country did not have a nuclear weapons program now, nor was Iran pursuing an aggressive regional policy.
To that assessment, we can add the clear, unambiguous statements by Iranian leaders that the country has no intention to pursue the construction of nuclear arms out of deeply held ethical reasons and also out of many practical considerations. Only last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while on an official visit to Africa denounced the age of nuclear weapons as a relic of the past. However, he added that Iran has every right to develop nuclear energy, as for all nations.
So, if US militarism towards Iran is not justified or credible based on the false claims of nuclear threat, what is it really about? It harks back to the old chestnut, regime change. Many people know this already perhaps, but what seems necessary is to expose this agenda, and the American criminality behind it, beyond any doubt to the wider world and the Western public in particular.
Recent remarks from John Kerry, the US secretary of state, about tightening (illegal) economic sanctions on Iran and the possible influence the US intends that this will have on the outcome of the Iranian presidential elections in June has to be seen in the context of a multi-pronged offensive tactic. The American-backed proxy genocidal war on Iran’s main regional ally Syria is also part of this game plan.
The latest stepped-up threats of criminal war on Iran – under the spurious pretext of nuclear weapons and “Israeli security” – are evidently part of the wider effort by Washington to pile pressure on the Iranian people and their government. Criminal, heinous, and most likely futile, but nevertheless Washington feels that it can force Iran to buckle under the weight of political, economic and military war.
Finian Cunningham, is a columnist at Press TV and a Featured Writer on Dandelion Salad. He can be reached at cunninghamfinian@gmail.com.
***
[DS added the videos.]
‘US, Israel pursue war agenda against Iran’
PressTVGlobalNews – Apr 22, 2013
An analyst says the US back off to allow Israel to decide about a unilateral strike on Iran has brought out big talk and bluster from the Israeli side. In the background of this the United States has once again supported Israel’s war mongering rhetoric about a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has emphasized Washington’s willingness to let Israel decide when, where and how it might unilaterally strike Iran. This statement was also quickly backed up with statements by Israeli military officials saying they Israel can take out Iran on their own. Hagel did not comment on US direct military support should this eventuate. This threatening rhetoric has been steadily escalating for several years on the part of the US and Israel while at each step of the way the IAEA, MOSSAD and CIA have filed reports stating there is no evidence to suggest Iran’s nuclear program has any military objective. Iran has always stated that its nuclear program is domestic and peaceful, its leader Ayatollah Khamenei even went as far as issuing a fatwa against any change toward a militarized direction of the nuclear program.
Press TV has interviewed Ralph Schoenman, author of the Hidden history of Zionism, Berkeley about this issue.
***
‘US seeks Israel-Turkey alliance against Iran’
with Franklin Lamb
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Beirut, Lebanon
Apr. 22, 2013
PressTVGlobalNews – Apr 22, 2013
An analyst says the warming up to Turkey is so Israel can seek to have a military base on Turkish soil to be in closer proximity to attack Iran. In the background of this United States Secretary of State John Kerry said the unrest in Syria and Iran’s nuclear program are mutual threats to the security of the United States, Israel and Turkey in the region. The British Sunday Times news paper meanwhile said Israeli officials are seeking to use a military base in Ankara to train for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. John Kerry refused to comment on that report, instead promoting strong mutual interests between the US, Turkey and Israel in his speech.
Press TV has interviewed Franklin Lamb, political analyst and international lawyer, Beirut about this issue.
see
Iran Represents A Deathblow To US Global Hegemony by Finian Cunningham
Travesty of Saudi Dirty Tricks Against Iran by Finian Cunningham
Washington Speaks With Forked Tongue To Iran by Finian Cunningham
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this belligerent behavior of our leaders towards another sovereignty sends mixed signals to the citizenry: while it pushes the evil of street level bullying and threatens prosecution and punishment, it displays the opposite behavior at the international level. what a joke. our fascist leaders and their grovelling citizenry who live under authoritarianism deserve all the miser and loss of freedom that comes their way. i am ashamed to be a citizen of what has become of this land. last week’s live media circus show in boston of the disproportionate response by what has become a police state is case in point. disgusting. profane. i hope russia and china come to iran’s aid to stop this bullying.
The vast majority of people in the world who want peace, not a raging global war, need to come together to rein in the warmongerers. Attacking Iran or North Korea only serves the interests of the 1% who profit from wars. Everyone in the world needs to wake up to this reality so that we are no longer pawns in their deadly games.
Thank you, Finian, for telling it like it is. Hagel’s bellicose rhetoric resembles an attack dog lunging on its leash.
These grown men act like liitle boys who want to play their war games.
What’s wrong with these men, they can’t live without going to war with a picked out nation. Can’t stand not having the control over their oil and banking system? All soldiers should put down their weapons, tell these clowns we are not putting our lives on the line for your idiot power crab in other nations who are no danger to our nation.