To Bomb or not to Bomb

A front-page article in the The New York Times documents the struggle taking place between the State Department and Dick Cheney’s office over whether to attack Iran. While those in favour of an attack are dwindling in number, they remain a powerful and influential faction, not to mention the fact that Cheney remains Bush’s handler. The justifications to militarism continue to morph, from allegations of non-existent nuclear weapons programs, to blaming Iran for attacks against US interests from Lebanon to Afghanistan.

Sadly, but predictably, the NYT article amounts to stenography of administration talking points.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Again, we are bombarded with baseless claims dressed up as “facts” that depict Iran as being at war with the U.S. in multiple countries, arming and funding groups directly at war with the US military.

The problem is that most of these “facts” are completely absurd. While some U.S. officials have accused Iran of arming Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, not only has Iran categorically denied it, but even Robert Gates refuses to confirm the allegation.

Then there is the obligatory allegation intended for the uneducated, that insists Iran is “inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq . . . and in Gaza.” We are expected to believe that were it not for Iran, Gaza would be a desert oasis. Never mind that Hamas is not an “insurgency,” but rather, the democratically elected party of the Palestinians.

Even more bizarre is the ongoing propaganda that Iran aids the Shiite factions which are close to Iran and close to the Iraqi government, while omitting the fact that these groups are not the “insurgents.” So again, the idea that Iran “is inflaming the insurgency in Iraq” is too ridicules to mention, nonetheless, it passes for news at the NYT.

Meanwhile the US is:

  1. supporting groups inside and outside of their country seeking regime change.
  2. detaining multiple Iranian officials in Iraq.
  3. conducting military attacks on an Iranian consulate in Iraq.
  4. conducting multiple military maneuvers in the region, with the clear intent of threatening Iran.

Nor is there any mention that the Bush administration rebuffed Iranian efforts to negotiate all issues of dispute back in 2003.

Yet according to the “liberal” NYT, Iran is at war with the US.

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