Down Card
As Bolton and Pompeo keep saying, the goalposts have been changed entirely. (Or should we say, finally revealed?) It's all about Iran's "bad behavior" in the region, its threat to US "allies and interests." This is the Trump administration reprising Hillary Clinton's definition of Iran as an "existential threat to Israel"--which means, precisely, that its very existence as the main power that can materially and militarily resist Israel's hyper-dominance of the region is unacceptable.
That's why Trump also executed Hillary's call for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be designated a terrorist organization. Iran must cease its support of Hezbollah, the most effective frontline fighting force, which prevented the Israeli seizure of South Lebanon. It must abandon the Palestinians, the Syrians, and the Lebanese, and neuter itself militarily, giving up any strategic weapons. Iran must agree to become a country that can be bombed at will by Israel and the US, as Syria is (for the moment).
Above all is Hillary's admonition (which Trump has again been happy to take up) that "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm president, we will attack Iran... totally obliterate them," should Iran attack Israel. Speaking for the whole of the bipartisan US political elite she meant "for any reason," including self-defense.
That's what this is about, as Iran knows well. The rest, including Iranian nuclear weapons, is diversionary bullshit.
Yes, the US also wants to prevent Iran from having any power to resist Saudi Arabia's dominance as the oil power and as the guarantor of reactionary Sunni rule against secular nationalism and socialism throughout the Muslim world. But the US's full embrace of Saudi Arabia depends on the latter's alliance with Israel. The US political and media establishment would turn on a dime against Saudi Arabia if Israel deemed that to be in its essential national interest. There is no possibility that that establishment would turn against Israel because Saudi Arabia wanted it. The US political and media establishment is thoroughly committed to Zionism; they will never be committed to Wahhabism. The interest and demands of Israel and Zionism are determinative of US policy in a way that Saudi interests and demands will never be.
So, ultimately, as Ray McGovern says: "The 'WHY,' quite simply, is Israel. It is impossible to understand U.S. Middle East policy without realizing the overwhelming influence of Israel on it and on opinion makers." That influence is the primary factor driving the enormous destruction that has already been wrought on the region by the US in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and will be wrought from a war on Iran. Though there are always other considerations, we would not have undertaken any of those wars but for the US commitment to Israel and Zionism. And it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
And Israel, and those in the US establishment for whom Israel's interests are central, do not care if an aircraft carrier is sunk, or if the region burns. (Why the carriers may not leave the danger zone.) That's what they want! They are trying to provoke a war in which they--either the US on their behalf or Israel directly with its nukes--can "obliterate" Iran. They don't care who else gets obliterated in the process, and they cannot imagine that could be them. Did I mention--Does anybody ever?--Israeli nukes? Ace in the hole, that they will play if necessary to steal the pot.
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