From Basra to Beirut: US is gunning for Iran
Robert Fisk sees the recent eruption of conflict in Beirut as a “proxy” war between Washington and Tehran. Add this observation to US accusations that Hezbollah is training Iraqi militants in Iran, and the American military’s promised dossier on Iran’s role in the Iraq war, and you can see that the old drumbeat of war on Iran is growing louder again.
Hilary Clinton’s shocking comment that the US would “obliterate” Iran if it should “foolishly consider” launching an attack on Israel is pandering to a broad constituency that wants to hear tough rhetoric about Iran. Clinton stood by her remarks this month: “I don’t think it’s time to equivocate. [Iran has] to know they would face massive retaliation. That is the only way to rein them in.”
Clinton has added to the chorus of neocon voices seeking an excuse to bomb Iran, including major media outlets. A disgraceful Washington Post editorial on April 13 talked of Iran as “a growing menace that the Bush administration, and its successor, cannot afford to ignore”. In Britain, the appropriately named Con Coughlin, the Telegraph’s political editor, is once again publishing British and US military reports on Iran’s “lethal meddling on the battlefields of the war on terror”, under the headline: “Why the West moves closer to bombing Iran“.
But it’s not all going the neo-cons’ way. In the first week of May the US faced major embarrassment when a cache of supposedly Iranian weapons seized in the Shiite holy city of Karbala turned out to be no such thing. The US military had just taken the word for it of local Karbala police. In fact, the US and Iran are on the same side in southern Iraq, both fearful of the Sadr resistance. Even the Iraqi government has distanced itself from the US talk of conflict with Iran.
The website Spinwatch has started an extremely useful blog by the retired US air force colonel Sam Gardiner which aims to follow the media’s twists and turns on Iran. Gardiner has performed extensive analysis of the media coverage before the war on Iraq, during the war and during the occupation as well as of the statements of Administration officials.
So don’t just watch this space for alerts on warmongering towards Iran – watch Gardiner’s too.
