WAR AGAINST IRAN: ‘TIME’ MAGAZINE OUTLINES THE PATH TO WAR

In a major article appearing in the latest edition of Time magazine, Massimo Calabresi lays out the reasons why 2013 may be the year in which the long-anticipated and much threatened war against Iran will be launched by the US. Rather than précis it here, it is worth going to the link and reading it in full for yourself.

The argument as to whether ‘containment’ of a nuclear armed Iran was preferable to ‘prevention’ of Iran becoming nuclear armed is discussed and the conclusion is that, as far as President Obama is concerned, ‘prevention’ is the only logical step Obama could possibly take eventually because ‘containment’ could ultimately lead to failure.

The entire premise of the debate, however, revolves around the presumption that Iran actually has a nuclear weapons program. But for all the allegations regarding Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program, there has not been a single shred of hard evidence found to support such allegations. Yet still the US, the Israelis and their Western allies continue to accuse Iran of building a nuclear weapon.

Calabresi concludes that Obama will at some point – probably this year – launch an attack against Iran. Since there is nothing to actually ‘contain’ – and both Netanyahu and President Obama are aware of this – the propaganda from now on is likely to be ‘prevention’ by means of war which will, of course, end in war.

Conspicuously, ‘Regime change’ has not been a part of the rhetoric when debating the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme. ‘Regime change’ has always been discussed as a separate issue, mainly by neoconservatives, but usually outside of Iran’s nuclear program rhetoric. The connection is only made when neoconservatives bring up the ‘Iran is an existential threat to Israel’ propaganda in their rhetoric. ‘Regime change’ has too many negative connotations with the war against Iraq where ‘regime change’ was the main stated war aim of the allies.

‘Regime change’, however, is what the West is really aiming for – and not just in Iran. A war against Iran will provide an ideal opportunity for Israel to force ‘regime change’ in south Lebanon where Hezbollah are perceived as their enemy, and the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where Hamas and Fatah stand in the way of Zionist dreams of a Greater Israel.

For the US and the Israelis and their allies it’s simply now just a matter of opportunity and timing before they cause the Middle East to erupt in a conflagration that could make previous wars there seem like mere skirmishes.