Grooming Us to Go Along

by Berry Friesen (October 23, 2017)

We have long been groomed to go along with the conquest of Iran.  Now, with an abusive predator installed in the White House, consummation of the assault nears.

The grooming began in January 2002—just months after 9/11—when President George W. Bush denounced Iran as part of “an axis of evil” (Iraq, Iran and North Korea) threatening the world.  In May 2003—only two months after the collapse of Iraqi defenses and the US conquest there, White House officials crowed about who the US would rapaciously engage next.  “Anyone can go to Baghdad,” they said; “real men go to Tehran.”

Popular Iraqi resistance put that next conquest on hold.  But in 2007, the Bush Administration got serious about making its next score.  Here is journalist Gareth Porter:

"That's when the vice president (Cheney) began to make a proposal that the United States retaliate for some kind of incident in Iraq that they could blame on the Iranians which would result in American casualties. And that was the game plan that he was advancing within the national security state as a basis for getting at Iran."

Two factors prevented consummation.  William J. Fallon was the first.  Appointed Commander of the US Central Command in March, 2007, Adm. Fallon debunked the rush to start another war.

"This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful . . . I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for."

He also is reported to have said: "We are not going to do Iran on my watch" and that by launching a pre-emptive strike on Iran, "We'll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchilren will be battling our enemies here in America."

The second factor was the release in December, 2007 of a formal National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in which all 16 US intelligence agencies agreed that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003.  As former President Bush reported in his memoir, Decision Points, “the NIE tied my hands on the military side,” preventing him from ordering a preemptive war against Iran, an action favored by the uber-hawk,  Vice President Dick Cheney.

At about the same time, Bush went as far as he could go politically—a secret “Presidential Finding” that authorized covert US operations inside Iran to destabilize its government through assassinations, terror, sabotage and intelligence gathering. Congress committed $400 million to support the Finding.  Yet the Bush reign came to an end without adding Iran to the harem.

In January, 2009, President Barack Obama began to govern.  One of his objectives was a reset of US relations with the Arab world.  This did not include Iran.  Again, Gareth Porter reports:

“President Obama, once he was in office, repeated more or less the same stuff [about Iran] we were hearing during the Bush administration . . . Obama did not want a conventional war with Iran, but one of the first things he did when he got into the Oval Office was to start talking to the cyberwarfare people who were working hand-in-hand with Israel to plan a cyberattack against Natanz, the Iranian enrichment facility, which would become the first ever national cyberattack against another nation which would actually result in destruction of infrastructure, that is to say, the centrifuges which were affected by this attack. So, I mean, you know, clearly he was willing to carry out warfare against Iran, just not the conventional war.”

  

Meanwhile, here in my home state of Pennsylvania, another set of actors continued to groom the public to go along with the planned assault.

In 2010, US Senator Bob Casey joined state representatives Josh Shapiro and Bob Frankel in supporting state legislation requiring the divestment of public pension money from companies doing business in Iran’s oil and natural gas sector. Said Casey:

“Iran will only cease its illicit nuclear program and end its support for terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah when it is compelled to pay an economic price.”

Shapiro’s and Frankel’s proposal passed the Pennsylvania General Assembly and was signed into law by Governor Ed Rendell in July 2010.

After leaving the governor’s office later that year, Rendell became a public advocate for the M.E.K, an officially-listed terrorist organization seeking to overthrow the government of Iran.  Though Rendell’s advocacy almost certainly constituted criminal activity, federal prosecutors took no interest in his actions.  In September, 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed M.E.K. from the official list of terrorist organizations.

In the last two years, Iran has become intensely engaged in Syria and Iraq at the request of those governments, helping to defeat al-Qaeda and Da’esh.  More than 2000 Iranian troops have been killed in battles within Syria.  Though Iranian help has been a key factor in the defeat of those terrorist organizations and logically makes Iran a de facto ally of the US, leading Democrat and Republic politicians have chosen to characterize Iran’s fight against terror as evidence of an attempt to destabilize the Mideast.  This is utter nonsense, of course, but is routinely reported by the mainstream media as credible and well-sourced commentary.

Similarly, Iran is routinely slandered as fueling the genocidal war in Yemen, even though that war began with a Saudi-led invasion and even though there is no evidence of significant Iranian material or military support for Yemen’s defense forces (see also here).

What's more, Western media continue to characterize Iran's nuclear program as a "weapons program." This is a falsehood; Iran has a nuclear energy program to power electrical generation.  It has not had a nuclear weapons program since 2003.

Which brings us to the present.  Has 15 years of grooming produced a compliant American public?  As President Trump proceeds to have his way with Iran, will you and I stand by and do nothing?

Several more observations are important if we are to understand how this conquest is unfolding.

1. The Israeli government—especially when the Likud Party is in control as it has been since March, 2009—is driving this effort. Israel sees Iran as a threat to its bullying of neighboring nations.  It particularly hates the fact that Iran supports Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia that protects Lebanon from Israeli aggression and has been very effective against Israel’s proxies, al-Qaeda and Da’esh.  So it wants Iran crushed.  The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which sets its agenda based on Likud objectives, controls US Members of Congress on Mideast matters. On this issue, we can expect no help from our federal representatives; they function as lobbyists for Israel.

2.  The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—a.k.a. the Iran nuclear energy deal—is working just as planned; Iran is fully complying. As Pepe Escobar notes, so says the International Atomic Energy Agency, the agency responsible for monitoring the JCPOA.  Also, so say the EU, Russia and China. So say even Trump’s senior advisors–Rex Tillerson, General McMaster and General Mattis.

3.  President Trump is determined to sabotage the JCPOA and use its “failure” as an excuse to bend Iran to the will of the US-led empire, which includes Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel’s animus is explained above; the animus of the House of Saud is based on Iran’s success in modeling a more open, more humane, more economically productive and less corrupt version of Islamic governance.  Before the commencement of open war, there will be a debate in Congress about sanctions. I expect such to be imposed again.  Functionally, sanctions are a joke in circumstances like these where the rest of the world will continue trading with Iran.  But as part of grooming America to acquiesce to an assault, the sanctions debate will be useful.

4. Trump's refusal to certify Irans compliance with the JCPOA and his call for Congress to reinstate sanctions is stupid and unsupportable in achieving any objective but war.

5. Iran is very well led and is strong culturally, economically and militarily. It has not attacked a neighboring nation for the past 200 years.

6.  Trump’s plan to have his way with Iran will likely include a violent, false-flag event, which will fill mainstream media 24-7 with horrible images of Iranian brutality.  But it will be staged--made to appear that Iran is responsible--thus justifying war.  Truly responsible for the violence will be covert agents of the US, Israel and/or Saudi Arabia. *

What can we do to stop the US from violently assaulting Iran?

First, share this post widely.

Second, persuade any and all groups we are part of (religious bodies, civic associations, business and professional groups) to go on the record as opposing Trump’s policy and actions on Iran. 

Third, prepare ourselves to recognize and resist the herd mentality that will threaten to overwhelm America when the false-flag incident fills our screens.  By “resist,” I mean raising our voice to say, “I do not believe it!”

This is the least we can do to stop the predation of Iran.
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*  Another possible scenario for justifying the long-planned attack on Iran is outlined by Ulson Gunnar in "US Mercenaries, Iraqi Highways and the Mystery of the Never-ending ISIS Hordes."