The US foreign policy pundits have done all they can to stir the pot in the past……for Iraq, for Syria and those are just the most recent.
These people have lied to the American people in an attempt to get them to support their adventurism and intervention and their silly regime change fantasies.
Well nothing is new…the Trump Pentagon is set about lyimng to make an armed strike against Iran tolerable.
How are they doing this?
When the Pentagon starts throwing around estimates of who got killed and how in its assorted wars in the Middle East, they are often wildly inaccurate. Nowhere was this more apparent than a new briefing this week on estimates in the 2003-2011 Iraq War.
Designed for Special Envoy Brian Hook to give hawkish speeches on Iran, the briefing estimated that Iran was “responsible” for the deaths of 608 US troops during the Iraq War. This was an upward revision from a 2015 estimate of 500, and seemingly was only done to allow Hook to bring it up now.
A more accurate estimate would, of course, be zero deaths. Despite years of anti-Iran rhetoric, the US has never conclusively pinned a single death on the Iranian government or its forces. Rather, these deaths are all loosely attributable to Iraqi Shi’ite factions.
That anyone Shi’ite is necessarily under Iranian command is a popular conceit for US officials, and in Iraq, where 60 percent of the population is Shi’ite, there are no shortage of Shi’ites to blame, particularly militias that didn’t support the US occupation of Iraq.
Some of these groups had ideological ties to Iran, though other substantial factions, like the Mehdi Army, were nationalist groups that opposed both US and Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs. It is convenient for the US to blame Iran, however, so that’s what they’re doing.
Trying to make all Shi’ites equal Iran has continued beyond the Iraq War. In Syria, the US has routinely threatened Shi’ite militias for being “Iranian fighters,” and the entire justification for US meddling in the Yemen War is that the Shi’ite Houthi movement, whose form of Shi’a Islam is distinct from the one in Iran, must be in league with Iran.
This is the usual lie and if ignored then we will be in conflict with yet another country because of a damn lie perpetrated only as a way to enhance the profits of the M-IC.
This accusation is a LIE!
But that is what they do……they do as they are told by the defense industry…after all that is why the pay Congress to do their bidding.
Now the ante is upped……
The Trump administration is preparing to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization,” an unprecedented move against a national armed force that could have widespread implications for US personnel and policy in the Middle East and elsewhere, the AP reports. Officials informed of the step said an announcement was expected Monday, after a monthslong escalation in the administration’s rhetoric against Iran, its support for militia groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as anti-Israel groups in the region and beyond. It would be the first such designation by any American administration of an entire foreign government entity, although portions of the Guard, notably its elite Quds Force, have been targeted previously by the US.
Two US officials and a congressional aide confirmed the planned move. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, seemed to anticipate the designation, saying in a tweet Sunday aimed at President Donald Trump that Trump “should know better than to be conned into another US disaster.” The designation, planning for which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes with sanctions, including freezes on assets the Guard may have in US jurisdictions, and a ban on Americans doing business with it or providing material support for its activities. The designation could significantly complicate US military and diplomatic work, notably in Iraq, where many Shiite militias and Iraqi political parties have close ties to the Guard.
Just one brick in the wall……making a case for armed action…..and making the case for the US to involve itself in yet another war…..
When is enough enough with the American public?