Iran is simply Bush's latest victim

[No Exit]

But as usual, we are being sold a bill of goods; our natural distrust of "foreigners" is being played upon; our patriotism--if we have any left--is being shamefully tortured and used to make us get behind another debacle, all so that the richest people in the New World Order can continue their subjugation of the rest of us...

excerpts from...

THE SURPRISING END OF THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

By Mike Whitney

Never the less, the wrangling of the Bush administration, aided by a well-crafted propaganda campaign in the media, has created a furor at the UN and a split in public opinion. The public is unaware that Germany just sold Israel two nuclear submarines which will carry nuclear-tipped weapons, or that Brazil is at the same stage of the enrichment-process as Iran, or that Russia just signed a deal with South Africa that will provide them with nuclear fuel, or that the US just brushed aside its treaty obligations under the NPT to provide sensitive nuclear technology to India. Notwithstanding the double-standards, the charade continues, the war plans move forward, and the threat of a region-wide conflagration increases.

(snip)

In a recent article by Gareth Porter “Iran Proposal to US offered Peace with Israel” the author states that in 2003 Iran not only offered “to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups” but made a “two page proposal for a broad US-Iran agreement covering all the issues facing the two countries”. The secret document was provided to IPS proves that Iran is neither committed to the destruction of Israel nor to the sponsorship of alleged terrorist groups.

(snip)

Iran has no choice but to take Bush’s saber rattling seriously and prepare for war. The administration’s stated goal of “regime change” poses a credible “existential threat” to current Iranian government and they must plan accordingly. They should expect that the US will prevail handily in the massive air campaign which will destroy much of Iran’s civil infrastructure leaving it in a state similar to that of Lebanon. But, following the aerial bombardment the real war will begin. (As was true in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon) If Iran intends to remove the persistent threat created by the neocon plan for regional hegemony, it must anticipate a decades-long struggle which will be aimed at undermining the ability of the United States to wage war. That means they will probably focus on targets that will destroy the US economy; asymmetrical attacks on the currency, attacks on tankers, pipelines, oil-platforms and energy sites around the world, destabilizing regional allies of America (particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) arming guerilla groups in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a concerted campaign to disrupt the flow of oil to western markets.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/802

As many a blogger has already pointed out, it isn't about Iran, which is no more "evil" or "good" than is the next country. Nor is it about Iran's Ahmadinejad, a "foreigner" whose shoes Bush is not fit to lick. It is about shameless imperialism (robbing/killing others for personal gain). If only we would listen...

[DemoTex]

1. Brother Bu$h's Traveling Salvation Show: the Christian Crusades redux.

I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.

-- Mark Twain, speech, "A Salutation from the 19th to the 20th Century" (December 31, 1900)