Israel Versus Iran: What’s REALLY Going On …

(Before It's News)

The Conflict Only Makes Sense With Historical Perspective

Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and Iranian president Ahmadinejad both seem like hotheads.  Israel and Iran are making fiery accusations against each other.

There have been religious wars in the Middle East for thousands of years (think Crusades) … are we drifting towards WWIII?

What’s really going on?

It is only apparent when you learn the historical context:

• The people pushing for war against Iran are the same people who pushed for war against Iraq, and said it would be a “cakewalk”. See this and this

• In 2002, for example, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu helped convince the American Congress that Saddam was making weapons of mass destruction:

(Of course, American intelligence already knew that Saddam didn’t really possess WMDs. And see this.)

• The CIA admits that the U.S. overthrew the secular, moderate, suit-and-tie-wearing, Democratically-elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. He was overthrown because he had nationalized Iran’s oil, which had previously been controlled by BP and other Western oil companies. As part of that action, the CIA admits that it hired Iranians to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its prime minister

• If the U.S. hadn’t overthrown the moderate Iranian government, the fundamentalist Mullahs would have never taken over. (Moreover, the U.S. has had a large hand in strengthening radical Islam in the Middle East by supporting radicals to fight the Soviets and others)

• The U.S. armed and supported Iraq after it invaded Iran and engaged in a long, bloody war which included the use of chemical weapons. Here is former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam Hussein in the 1980′s, several months after Saddam had used chemical weapons in a massacre:

• Hotheads within the U.S. and Israeli have been claiming for more than 30 years that Iran was on the verge of nuclear capability

• The U.S. actually helped fund Iran’s nuclear program

• The decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11

• Indeed, the U.S. has been actively planning regime change in Iran – and throughout the oil-rich Middle East and North Africa – for 20 years

• So has Israel

• America and Israel both support a group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization which is trying to overthrow the Iranian government – the same group Bush focused on when he accused Saddam Hussein of harboring terrorists

• The war against Iran has already begun. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Postscript:   Top American and Israeli military and intelligence officials say:

• Iran has not decided to build a nuclear bomb

• Even if Iran did build a nuclear bomb – it would not be that dangerous, because Israel and America have so many more nukes. And see this

• Attacking Iran would only speed up its development of nuclear weapons, empower its hardliners, and undermine the chance for democratic reform

• Despite its heated rhetoric – Iran is a “rational actor”. For example, in 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before Congress that “we continue to judge Iran’s nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach.” In February 2012, General Ron Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress that “the agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or provoke a conflict.” Also in February, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “We are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor”

And despite the fact that Iran is a Muslim country, it actually treats Jews and Christians pretty well … much better than close U.S. ally Saudi Arabia.

Israel Versus Iran: What’s REALLY Going On … was originally published on Washington's Blog

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