Jim Lobe notes the deep contrast between the current neocon propaganda war against Iran and the neocon propaganda war which led to the attack on Iraq. The differences are even more striking if you consider the propaganda coming from the Bush Administration itself. The lies about Iraq were ubiquitous and unrelenting. There was essentially no dissent from the Bush Administration position, either in the reporting of the mainstream media or the statements of the spokesmodels for the Administration.
Iran is completely different. The lies are coming from anonymous sources, as if nobody wants to be associated with them... Important officials, often strikingly from the higher levels of the Pentagon (hardly an anti-war crowd), are obviously off-message. Even Bush can’t keep a consistent hard-line position.
The deep structure of the propaganda war is different. Remember Feith and the lies produced by the office of Special Plans? There is an equivalent lying group for Iran, but there is nothing like the same quantity and quality of ‘stovepiping’. Indeed, almost all the manipulation of intelligence, which formed the base story of the preamble to the attack on Iraq, is missing. So what’s going on?
I think Bush is trying to satisfy two masters. A passive-aggressive drunk like Bush can’t say no to anybody. The Zionists, both Christian and Jewish, blood dripping – as always – from their fangs, are screaming for yet another murderous attack. At the same time, Bush’s father’s friends have decided that American Establishment interests require an obvious effort by the U. S. to calm the Middle East. Bush tells the Zionists he is working as fast as he can within the limits of the powerful anti-Semites around him. The propaganda war, such as it is, is intended to make it seem that he is doing something for them. On the other hand, he is telling his father’s friends not to worry, that he is managing the Zionists. The ‘surge’ and the usual abandonment of the Palestinians is the sop he is throwing to the Zionists to assuage their lust for blood while he delays them on Iran.
Of course, if Bush keeps delaying, the Establishment wins and the Zionists lose. The Establishment feels comfortable that they can avert the ultimate disaster of an attack on Iran, but fears a traitorous Gulf of Tonkin incident arranged by Zionists in the Gulf (thus the peculiar ‘conspiracy theory’ warning by Brzezinski).
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The history explains why the American Zionists are so crazed about Iran, sometimes literally, in the case of Pipes and Dershowitz, foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs. The Zionists have put all their eggs in the basket of American support. Israel, easily the most hated nation in the world, has only one friend, and apparently no prospect of any others. Everybody, including the Zionists, knows that Iran poses no real threat to Israel. If Iran is very lucky in its science, changes its research interests, and has no moderation in its politics for the next ten years, there is a small chance that it might end up with a few bombs that would create, at most, the beginnings of mutually assured destruction with Israel and its nukes. So why all the Zionist preoccupation with Iran? The United States has to ‘prove its love’. The insecure Zionists quite properly fear the loss of American servitude. Israel keeps setting higher and higher tests for the Americans to follow if they are to remain tools of the Zionists. Lebanon was such a test and, for the first time ever, the Americans failed to take the Israeli bait. Thus the need to create the most insane test of all, an attack on Iran that would permanently destroy American wealth and power.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
the current neocon propaganda war
* xymphora:
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3 comments:
I saw that post on Xymphora this morning, and was with him right up until the "The United States has to ‘prove its love’" part. But nobody even seems to notice I'm even there when I post anything at Xymph that goes against the party line, so I'm going to bitch about it here instead. ;-)
The thing is that the Israelis and Neocons have been obsessed with Iran since the end of the first Gulf War. Other concerns have come and gone -- Osama, Saddam -- but Iran remains a constant, though the noise level is of varying intensity. That doesn't read to me like setting up a meaningless hoop for the US to jump through. It reads like a genuine concern.
My guess is that the Israelis are terrified of Iran for roughly the same reasons the Saudis are -- because it's not decadent and corrupt and under the thumb of the CIA. Because it has the will and the independence to go "boo" to Uncle Sam. And because it aspires to the same position of regional dominance that it's held periodically over the last 6000 years.
On the whole, the Middle East over the last few centuries has been impoverished, demoralized, and purposeless -- and the Israelis like it that way. It's what enabled them to move in and set up camp in the region (just as the decadence of the Aztecs gave an opening to the Spanish.) Israel's greatest fear is of a reinvigorated and self-confident Middle East -- and thus of any nation that could serve as a template for that sort of revival. That is why they believe (perhaps rightly) that their own survival depends on Iran being beaten back down into the mud.
And even if they don't get their war on, that flood of Afghan heroin moving west might serve the same purpose. Perhaps that's what it's really for.
I thought X's belief that Bush doesn't really want to attack Iran, though he wants to make it look like he does, has to do with the fact that it would not be good business for Bush to go into Iran and ruin their oil production facilities, and the idea that his acting like a crazy person only sets up the right Democrat or Republican to be put in a position to stop him before he "kills again."
That is, Bush makes himself look like a deranged killer so that the person who stops him, in the Senate say, gets to appear to be a hero.
This set up, as I understand X's idea, is to make sure a supporter of Israel becomes the next President.
I thought the idea sounded too complicated. The hope would be, of course, that the Iranians would not get spooked and themselves do something foolish.
Oh, let's correct that "anonymous sources" BS.
First of all it's not "sources" as in PLURAL; it should read "source" as in singular.
And "anonymous" has two names:
1. Manucher Ghorbanifar
2. Michael Ledeen
Ghorbanifar is the "source" and Ledeen is his long-time publicist.
Why is it that these two completely discredited scumbags are given so much as the time of day by ANYONE??
I mean, does anyone remember when Ledeen was claiming a month or so ago that Archbishop Grand PoooooBaaaahh Most Exalted of all Most Exalted Ay-Ay-Ayatollahs, Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei the Decrepit was DEAD???
OOPS!
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