The first story is about a terror plot in London to blow up the Stock Exchange. The second is about the United States ratcheting up the claims about the alleged threat from Iran to the West. Both these themes - of domestic terrorism and western nations' plans for a new Middle East War - are central to The Overwhelming. The headline of the second piece reads
Iranian attack on America and allies increasingly likely - intelligence chief
but it should really have been 'American attack on Iran increasingly likely'
The following statement from the US intelligence chief is the clearest signal yet that the US military and political establishment is preparing for war with Iran.
Presenting his annual "worldwide threat assessment" to Congress, Clapper said an alleged plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year, which the US blamed on the Iran's Revolutionary Guard, "shows that some Iranian officials – probably including the supreme leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime."
Iran is the paramount threat to US and Israeli interests in the Middle East. A potential war n the dying days of the Bush adminstration - to top off the War on Terror conflicts of the last decade - was averted because the US was over committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But America is now - mostly - out of Afghanistan and its forces are available for a new war.
We have been here before in the build up to war with Iraq ten years ago. Again we have an unlovable dictatorship sitting on top of huge deposits of oil / gas. Both regimes were implacable enemies of Israel. A casus belli was needed to justify a war against Iraq. 9/11 created the atmosphere to convince western publics that war was justified, even though the evidence of threat from Iraq was tenuous. The same is the case with Iran. Any nuclear threat is still years off. Iran has not attacked any of its neighbours for centuries - in fact, it has been attacked many times. So plots such as the unlikely one in America last year against the Saudi ambassador appear to be cooked up to justify a pre-emptive strike. This is what is now being planned.
People must be ready to resist this war drive. It is real and we know that America, Britain and Israel are all capable of going to war on false pretences. Is this really going to happen again? I fear it is.
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