Juan Cole has posted on his blog a map showing 44 US military bases surrounding Iran.
In
addition to the massive military preparations, there is the propaganda
war against Iran that has been ongoing since 1979 when Washington’s
puppet, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown by the Iranian revolution. Iran
is surrounded, but Washington and Israeli propaganda portray Iran as a
threatening aggressor nation. In fact, the aggressors are the Washington
and Tel Aviv governments which constantly threaten Iran with military
attack.
Neocon warmongers, such as David Goldman, compare the Iranian president to Hitler and declare that only war can stop him.
Washington’s
top military officials have created the impression that an act of
Israeli aggression against Iran is a done deal. On February 2 the
Washington Post reported that Pentagon chief Leon Panetta believes that
Israel is likely to attack Iran in two to four months.
Also
on February 2, Gareth Porter reported that General Martin Dempsey,
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed the Israeli
government that the US would not join Israel’s aggression against Iran unless Washington had given prior approval for the attack.
Porter
interprets Dempsey’s warning as a strong move by President Obama to
deter an attack that would involve Washington in a regional
conflagration with Iran. A different way to read Dempsey’s warning is
that Obama wants to hold off on attacking Iran until polls show him
losing the presidential election. It has generally been the case that
the patriotic electorate does not turn out a president who is at war.
On
February 5, President Obama canceled Dempsey’s warning to Israel when
Obama declared that he was in “lockstep” with the Israeli government.
Obama is in lockstep with Israel despite the fact that Obama told NBC
that “we don’t see any evidence that they [Iran] have those intentions
[attacks on the US] or capabilities.” By being in lockstep with Israel
and simultaneously calling for a “diplomatic solution,” Obama appeased
both the Israel Lobby and Democratic peace groups, thus upping his vote.
As
I wrote previously, this spring is a prime time for attacking Iran,
because there is a good chance that Russia will be in turmoil because of
its March election. The Russian opposition to Putin is financed by
Washington and encouraged by Washington’s statements, especially those
of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Whether Putin wins or there is an
indecisive result and a run-off election, Washington’s money will put
tens of thousands of Russians into the streets, just as Washington’s
money created the “Green Revolution” in Iran to protest the presidential
elections there.
On February 4 the former left-wing British newspaper, The Guardian,
reported a pre-election protest by 120,000 anti-Putin demonstrators
marching in Moscow and demanding “fair elections.” In other words,
Washington already has its minions declaring that a win by Putin in
March can only signify a stolen election. The problem for Obama is that
this spring is too early to tell whether his re-election is threatened
by a Republican candidate. Going to war prematurely, especially if the
result is a stiff rise in oil prices, is not an aid to re-election.
The
willingness of peoples around the world to be Washington’s puppets
instead of loyal citizens of their own countries is why the West has
been able to dominate the world during the modern era. There seems to be
an infinite supply of foreign leaders who prefer Washington’s money and
favor to loyalty to their own countries’ interests.
As
Karl Marx said, money turns everything into a commodity that can be
bought and sold. All other values are defeated--honor, integrity,
truth, justice, loyalty, even blood kin. Nothing remains but filthy
lucre. Money certainly turned UK prime minister Tony Blair into a
political commodity.
The
power of money was brought home to me many years ago. My Ph.D.
dissertation chairman found himself in the Nixon administration as
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security affairs. He
asked if I would go to Vietnam to administer the aid programs. I was
flattered that he thought I had the strength of character to stand up to
the corruption that usually defeats the purpose of aid programs, but I
declined the assignment.
The
conversation was one I will never forget. Warren Nutter was an
intelligent person of integrity. He thought regardless of whether the
war was necessary that we had been led into it by deception. He thought
democracy could not live with deception, and he objected to government
officials who were not honest with the American people. Nutter’s
position was that a democratic government had to rely on persuasion, not
on trickery. Otherwise, the outcomes were not democratic.
As
Nutter saw it, we were in a war, and we had involved the South
Vietnamese. Therefore, we had obligations to them. If we proved to be
feckless, the consequence would be to undermine commitments we had made
to other countries in our effort to
contain the Soviet Empire. The Soviet Union, unlike the “terrorist
threat” had the potential of being a real threat. People who have come
of age after the collapse of the Soviet Union don’t understand the cold
war era.
In
the course of the conversation I asked how Washington got so many other
governments to do its bidding. He answered, “Money.”
I asked, “You mean foreign aid?”
He said, “No, bags of money. We buy the leaders.”
He didn’t approve of it, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Purchasing the leadership of their enemies or of potential threats was the Roman way. Timothy H. Parsons in his book, The Rule of Empires,
describes the Romans as “deft practitioners of soft power.” Rome
preferred to rule the conquered and the potentially hostile through
“semiautonomous client kings which the Senate euphemistically termed
‘friends of the Roman people.’ Romans helped cooperative monarchs remain
in power with direct payments of coins and material goods. Acceptance
of these subsidies signified that an ally deferred to imperial
authority, and the Romans interpreted any defiance of their will as an
overt revolt. They also intervened freely in local succession disputes
to replace unsuitable clients.”
This
is the way Washington rules. Washington’s way of ruling other countries
is why there is no “Egyptian Spring,” but a military dictatorship as a
replacement for Washington’s discarded puppet Hosni Mubarak, and why
European puppet states are fighting Washington’s wars of hegemony in the
Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
Washington’s
National Endowment for Democracy funds non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) that interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. It is
through the operations of NGOs that Washington added the former Soviet
Republic of Georgia to Washington’s empire, along with the Baltic
States, and Eastern European countries.
Because of the hostility of many Russians to their Soviet past, Russia is vulnerable to Washington’s machinations.
As long as the dollar rules, Washington’s power will rule.
As Rome debased its silver denarius into lead, Rome’s power to purchase
compliance faded away. If “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke inflates away the
purchasing power of the dollar, Washington’s power will melt away also.
Read more at Paul Craig Roberts' website:
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