AS THE MYTH OF IRAN’S ‘NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM’ FAILS TO IMPRESS, IRAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN MAY BE ALL OBAMA NEEDS.

You’d have to be blind Freddy not to be able to see what’s really going on here. Just as the Israelis and their neoconservative supporters in the George W. Bush administration created the myth of Saddam’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ which resulted in regime change in Iraq, so the Israelis and those same neoconservatives have been trying the same ruse again in order to get the US to strike Iran in order to effect regime change.

But just as the invasion and destruction of Iraq was never really about ridding Saddam of his WMDs, so a strike against Iran will not be about halting Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’. In both cases the objective is to change regimes to ones that are submissive to the US and, therefore, Israel. A neutered Iran with a compliant puppet government installed would then allow Israel to crush Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ever since the 2006 Israeli war against Hezbollah and the Lebanese people when Israel and the US attempted, but failed, to provoke a conflict that would escalate to include Iran directly, the US and Israel and their supporters have intensified their propaganda war against Iran. Four years later and both the US and Israel have failed to bring the first and very necessary stage of striking Iran over its ‘nuclear weapons program’ to a head. While sanctions do already exist against Iran, they are largely totally ineffective in terms of halting Iran’s determination from going ahead with a nuclear program which is designed for electrical power generation and which, without any evidence whatsoever, Israel and the US are saying is a nuclear weapons program.

The US are now having massive problems in getting Russia and China on board to go down the road of tighter sanctions which would be the next necessary step before the US could say sanctions have failed completely and launch an attack against Iran. Without Russian and Chinese support the US would be not be able to muster enough favourable Western and world public opinion to support any attack against Iran.

As a result, the neoconservatives are now trying another tactic that they believe will provide a casus belli to attack Iran, one that doesn’t need UN support. Iran’s supposed influence in, and supply of arms and training to, Afghanistan is now being promoted as a reason for striking Iran in order to effect regime change. The neoconservatives have pounced on statements made by US chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who has said that ‘significant shipments of arms’ are being delivered to Afghan fighters from Iran; arms that the neocons are saying are being used to ‘kill Americans’.

While the neocons would much prefer Obama to simply ignore world opinion and launch a massive fait accompli attack against Iran, Obama is aware that he cannot launch an attack against Iran without first trying the sanctions road despite knowing that the sanctions road will not stop Iran’s determination to see its nuclear program into fruition. Obama is also aware that the people of the US are in no mood to launch another war in the Middle East even if such a war does not involve ground troops. However, Obama, like Bush before him, has not taken the military option off the table and may well be open to considering alternative scenarios that would provide him with a casus belli to attack Iran that the American people might support.

The American people have a history of becoming supportive of their government once their leadership has committed them to war and, if Obama detects even a slight swing towards support for war against Iran, he might just be tempted to launch an attack if he finds a casus belli scenario that does not need to involve sanctions or the UN. Intensive Iranian involvement in Afghanistan, real or not, might just well be all he needs. While the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ rhetoric will continue, it may be that the neocon’s rhetoric about Iranian support of the Taliban in Afghanistan will ultimately tip Obama’s hand to attack Iran and hand to Israel everything it needs to crush Hezbollah and Hamas and create a Greater Israel.