Remember Shakespeare’s line “he jests at scars that never felt a
wound?” That epithet could have been written with National Security Advisor
John Bolton in mind. Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam
War, like his current boss, not due to any scruples regarding what was
occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass. He is now credibly
believed to be the driving force behind the punishment being meted out to
Venezuela and, far more dangerously, of the creeping escalation that is taking
place in the Middle East that is seeking to draw Iran into a misstep that would
lead to war. Bolton, who has received the “Defender of Israel” award, has long
been an outspoken advocate for attacking Iran and now he has the power to do
just that.
The psychopaths in the White House have been pretending that the
United States “and its allies” are being threatened by Iran, a ridiculous
conceit in and of itself as the Persians are hugely outgunned by the local U.S.
presence as well as by the weapons in place in the region in the hands of the
Saudis and Israelis. Israel is, one might recall, armed to the teeth through
the beneficence of the United States and is also the region’s only nuclear
armed power by virtue of the theft of U.S. technology and enriched uranium. The
Saudis, meanwhile, are about to receive another $8 billion American made
weapons due to the “Iranian threat.” That Trump has arranged the arms sale on
his own questionable authority as an “emergency response” seems to bother some
in Washington and the media, but no one will ultimately do anything about it as
everyone inside the Beltway hates Iran due to the assiduous work of the Israel
Lobby.
Trump has already sent bombers to the Persian Gulf region as
well as an aircraft carrier and he is now adding 1500 more troops because the
Iranian threat is reportedly increasing. The alleged threat itself is based on
generic Israeli intelligence about what the Iranians might do if they choose to
react to U.S. pressure. The intelligence reportedly suggests that there might
be attacks on American diplomatic missions in Iraq, which has led to the
evacuation of dependents and unnecessary staff from the posts in Baghdad and
Irbil. It is also claimed that the Iranians were mounting anti-ship missiles on
small coastal vessels to deploy against American warships.
The Pentagon claims that it has photographic evidence of the
anti-ship missile threat, but Gareth Porter has demolished the
analysis that has been produced by the White House, noting that the truly
dangerous missiles are largely shore based and hidden.
The reality is that the Executive Branch of the federal
government is essentially contriving a phony war supportive of no conceivable
national interest that is based on lies and might even include a “false flag”
operation that will condemn Iran for something it did not do. Some have
compared it to the lead-up to Iraq, which is a fair judgment, but one has to
suspect that the current situation is much worse as a war with Iran is
potentially far more damaging to actual American interests than Saddam Hussein
ever was. Iran will fight back and has capable defenses, which means Americans,
not Israelis or Saudis, will die. So too will many thousands of innocent
Iranian civilians. And there will be new trillions of dollars to add to the
already crippling war debt being amassed Washington with absolutely nothing to
show in return.
If there is any hope on the
horizon it might be coming from a number of media reports that President Donald
Trump has expressed considerable irritation with the advice he is getting from
Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He reportedly began to see the light
when the attempted coup in Venezuela did not develop as planned, resulting in
some comments by the president that he had been misled into thinking that the
regime change would be “easy.” He has since that time stated that he does not
want war with Iran, though his actions would suggest otherwise, and some news
reports suggesting that he is unhappy and at odds with Bolton in pUnfortunately
the desktop warriors who are currently calling the shots in Washington have no
idea what they might be getting into. The only former soldier among them is
Pompeo, who is a West Point graduate. He missed Vietnam and has never been
involved in actual combat. He is also is a Christian Zionist who welcomes a
major war in the Middle East in hopes that it will bring about the second
coming of Jesus Christ.
Neither
Pompeo nor Bolton has any real understanding that war means death. If Bolton
has his way, many thousands will die and the United States will be reviled by
nearly the entire world. President Donald Trump for all his self-proclaimed
“genius” status does not appear to understand that reality either. For him,
megadeaths and national humiliation might mean little more than the numbers on
a balance sheet when one is reckoning up the costs of constructing a building.
This
impending tragedy must be stopped. Back in 2003, a hundred thousand Americans
gathered at the Washington Mall to protest against the drive to invade Iraq.
Nothing like that has developed yet, but the people must rise up to demand that
the government cease and desist from doing things in their name that do not
help a single American but instead only bring death and destruction. Trump
promised to do that when he ran for president. It is past time that he fulfill
that promise.