An excellent post by the Lenin’s Tomb Blog.
Of course, it goes without saying that our brave boys aren’t provocateurs. We don’t do that sort of thing. Iran does that sort of thing, but not us. On the other hand, our American overlords are busy with their Office of Iranian Affairs, and the Iran-Syria Operations Group. These groups, understand, are merely democracy-promotion cells, populated by a Capraesque array of madcap sweethearts.
Curious thing. Kurt Nimmo mentioned reports earlier this week that Iran was preparing to retaliate for a series of abduction attempts, or what the Times refers to as “a daring undercover operation by western intelligence services to kidnap senior officers in its Revolutionary Guard”. Obviously there is also the high-profile spying and the encouragement of separatists responsible for a string of 7/7s in Iran, the racist bestialisation of its President and the pressure brought to bear to blame Iran for the 1994 bombing of a community centre in Argentina. But of course, this stuff – the right to do it – is taken for granted, unlike Iranian retaliations, which are a total surprise, emerging as they do from the void, or some unbearable reservoir of extremism and Twelfth Imam silliness.
Aside from being wary of these eminently useful Mad March Surprises, we ought to be aware of exactly how much effort is being put into propaganda for an attack on Iran. The editors of the MediaLens have an excellent and useful interview with UK Watch talking about precisely this topic. As they rightly note, the baseless claims being made about Iran are if anything far more extreme than most of what was said about Saddam Hussein. Not only that they have a nuclear weapons programme, but that they are a natural enemy, would risk substantial destruction to themselves for the chance to wipe out Israel, are actively participating in the Iraqi insurgency (on wafer-thin evidence), and so on. It’s a ferocious, ceaseless, concerted effort, and it suggests that preparations for a military attack quite soon are underway. It was suggested in the newspapers not long ago that the US could attack by Spring if it wanted to. This is Spring, and they want to.