Everyone, it seems, is talking about the upcoming invasion of Iran. Mark Cliffe, chief economist at the ING Group, argues that,
“Financial markets are assuming that an Israeli and/or US attack on Iran is unlikely. However, bellicose rhetoric from Israel and an imminent build-up of US forces in the Gulf suggest that they could be in for a shock,”
while the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, has warned that a U.S. attack on Iran is a “50/50 proposition”.
Sam Gardiner, a retired colonel with the U.S. Air Force, writes ominously that,
“The pieces are moving. They’ll be in place by the end of February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran.”
Col. Gardiner predicts that,
“As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.”
Worryingly, a Bulgarian news agency today reported that “American forces could be using their two USAF bases in Bulgaria and one at Romania’s Black Sea coast to launch an attack on Iran in April”. “The USAF’s positioning of vital refuelling facilities for its B-2 bombers in unusual places, including Bulgaria, falls within the perspective of such an attack,” the report continued. The news agency cited Col. Gardiner, referred to as a “US secret service officer stationed in Bulgaria”, as its source.
Paul Craig Roberts writes how the “entire world” knows of the planned attack on Iran, and describes how, at the January World Economic Forum conference in Davos, the “Secretary General of the League of Arab States and bankers and businessmen from such US allies as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates all warned of the coming attack and its catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and the world.”
Writing for Global Research, General Leonid Ivashov, a former chief of the General Affairs department in the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Defense and former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian armies (and much more besides), states confidently that,
“the US will use nuclear weapon against Iran. This will be the second case of the use of nuclear weapons in combat after the 1945 US attack on Japan.”
General Ivashov continues,
“Within weeks from now, we will see the informational warfare machine start working. The public opinion is already under pressure. There will be a growing anti-Iranian militaristic hysteria, new information leaks, disinformation, etc.”
John Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, agrees, saying, “To be honest, I’m afraid it will be Iraq all over again.”
Michael Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization, notes that the 2005 Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (.pdf) (‘the current U.S. doctrine on when and under which circumstances to use nuclear weapons’, to quote Wikipedia) explicitly permits the preventive use of nuclear weapons:
“Military forces must prepare to counter weapons and capabilities that exist or will exist in the near term even if no immediate likely scenarios for war are at hand. To maximize deterrence of WMD use, it is essential US forces prepare to use nuclear weapons effectively and that US forces are determined to employ nuclear weapons if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use (my emphasis)”,
and comments further that at no point since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 has “humanity been closer to the unthinkable”: a “nuclear holocaust”.
Now, I personally do not know for sure whether the U.S. or Israel will attack Iran. It certainly looks likely and, with President Ahmadinejad coming under increasing pressure at home, the window of opportunity for military action is closing fast. What’s more interesting is General Ivashov’s description of the essential role the media and the “informational warfare machine” more generally will play in facilitating an attack on Iran. As we know from the Iraq war and countless aggressions before it, the mainstream American and British press have a tendency (or, more accurately, a compulsion) to, in times of war, revert to a stance of unquestioning support for power. An academic study into media performance in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq found that “coverage mainly served to reinforce official justifications for war” and described the tendency of the media to “accept the official position” which “enabled the coalition’s moral case for the war to go by default.”
A brief examination of current reporting on Iran illustrates that, true to form, media coverage currently serves to reinforce official justification for conflict with Iran.
This BBC article, for example, describes how, “Some Western nations fear Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons.” Then, in a ridiculous attempt at journalistic “balance”, the BBC provides a countering view: “Tehran insists its programme is for peaceful uses only.” Except, of course, this isn’t the correct counter-view at all. Surely it would be far more sensible to quote the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the respected (though by no means impartial) authority on this issue, which has repeatedly stated that there is zero evidence of any secret Iranian nuclear weapons programme. This misleading juxtaposition of views about a possible Iranian nuclear weapons programme, which gives the false impression that it is just Iran’s word against the U.S.’, is standard throughout mainstream reporting.
Anne Penketh’s recent article in The Independent is a good example of another technique employed by the media that is critical to persuading the public to support a war: demonisation of the enemy. In this case, Penketh (mis)quotes President Ahmadinejad as threatening to “wipe Israel off the map”. As Professor Juan Cole and several others have repeatedly pointed out, Ahmadinejad said no such thing. It is interesting that this misquote is cited so often by the media, whilst explicit threats made against Iran, for example Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh’s promise to prevent Iran’s nuclear programme “at all costs”, are barely reported. Penketh’s piece also illustrates perfectly the way a seemingly balanced and objective article actually serves to restrict debate. You’ll notice that Penketh discusses whether or not an attack on Iran would be “productive”, what the likely Iranian response would be and the likelihood of a “regional war” developing as a consequence. International law is not mentioned once. The fact that, by threatening Iran, Israel and the U.S. are violating the UN Charter is not considered relevant, whilst the official stated motive of U.S./Israeli “concern” over Iran (that they are worried about its nuclear programme) is simply taken for granted. Relevant history is not even mentioned, let alone used to evaluate what the actual motives for aggression against Iran might be.
This should all be familiar from the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when the media restricted the limits of debate to whether or not the war would succeed, whether or not Iraq had nuclear weapons, how the war should be fought and so on. Rational discussion of underlying U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region, using relevant history to analyse statements of intent made by Bush and Blair, was almost non-existent, as was any suggestion that even if Iraq did have nuclear weapons, military aggression would still be unjustified.
So far I have focused on the bias evident in what the media has reported about the Iran “crisis”. But, equally important (if not more), is what hasn’t been reported. There is, for example, no analysis of the very real threat Iran faces from Israel, the U.S. and its neighbours (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq). There is virtually no attempt at understanding things from Iran’s point of view, and little awareness is shown of the outrageous hypocrisy of the U.S./Israeli condemnation of Iran’s nuclear programme. International law is treated as if it didn’t exist, whilst (as with Iraq) no attempt is made to discuss the possible motives for an attack on Iran by examining the relevant historical record. As with Iraq, “oil” is considered a dirty word when discussing possible reasons for invading. Whilst the media regularly quotes hostile rhetoric from Ahmadinejad, it almost never discloses the fact that, in reality, the President of Iran has no power whatsoever over matters of foreign or nuclear policy. He was elected on a platform of domestic economic reforms and his “fiery” speeches are simply an attempt to distract the Iranian public from the fact that he has not fulfilled his promises. As the increasing domestic political pressure on him shows, it isn’t working.
The “Iran crisis”, manufactured by Israel and the U.S., can be summed up thus: Iran has been accused by the U.S. and Israel of developing nuclear weapons, despite a complete lack of evidence to support this assertion. The NPT, to which Iran (unlike Israel, India and Pakistan) is a signatory, guarantees the inalienable right of a country to develop civilian nuclear technology and, as far as we know, Iran is simply exercising this right. The IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that it has no evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Iran has largely complied with IAEA weapons inspectors, voluntarily submitting itself to the most rigorous inspections of any state in history. The main reason for thinking Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons is that, as military historian Martin van Crevald put it, if they aren’t, “they’re crazy”. In other words, considering the major threat Israel and the U.S. pose to Iran, it would make sense for Iran to want a nuclear deterrent. Even if Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, its nuclear technology is “archaic” and its efforts to produce enriched uranium are “in chaos”. Experts estimate that Iran will not be able to manufacture a nuclear weapon for at least 10 years.
Israel and the U.S. have engaged in a persistent and aggressive campaign of verbal and, more recently, physical threats against Iran, in violation of international law. Whereas Iran has repeatedly called for the Middle East to be a nuclear weapons-free zone (a policy opposed by Israel and the U.S.) and denounced nuclear weapons as “un-Islamic”, the official policy of both Israel and the U.S. allows for preventive military action including, in the case of the United States, a preventive nuclear strike. Both Israel and the U.S. have a long history of aggression (the U.S. most recently in Iraq and Somalia, Israel in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories). Iran, on the other hand, has not attacked a country outside its borders for 200 years. Even if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would not use it against Israel, because to do so would, in effect, be an act of suicide.
The U.S. claims Iran is “interfering” in Iraq, and has even gone so far as to authorise U.S. troops to “kill or capture” any Iranian intelligence agents they discover in Iraq. As Juan Cole points out, “no hard evidence” has yet been made public to show that Iran is providing high-powered weaponry to forces in Iraq. At any rate, Cole continues, Iran would only be arming Shi’ite groups, and “99 perecent of all attacks on U.S. troops occur in Sunni Arab areas and are carried out by Baathist or Sunni fundamentalist (Salafi) guerrilla groups.” These groups receive outside help from countries allied to the U.S., like Saudi Arabia. As Cole notes, “Washington has yet to denounce Saudi aid to the Sunni insurgents who are killing U.S. troops.” In any event, the idea that America could dare criticise anyone else for intervening in Iraq is laughable. It is the U.S. that illegally invaded Iraq almost four years ago, and it is the U.S. that is maintaining an occupation against the wishes of the Iraqi population. In the past six weeks, U.S. forces have twice abducted Iranian officials inside Iraq. Iran has refrained from responding in a similar manner.
The U.S.’ interests in attacking Iran have nothing whatsoever to do with security and everything to do with the control of energy resources and a maintenance of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East.
Compare this reality with the picture provided by the media: Iran, a “belligerent” and “defiant” state that is very likely seeking to wipe out the Jews, is trying to develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Israel, concerned for their safety, are attempting to stop this from happening using diplomacy and sanctions. However, if all else fails, they may use force as a last resort.
The gap between the image and the reality (to borrow a phrase) is as massive as it is unsurprising.
The consequences of a strike, conventional or otherwise, on Iran would likely be devastating. We cannot rely on the corporate media to challenge power and to properly inform the people about a future war with Iran. Indeed, all signs indicate that the propaganda machine is already working flat-out to prepare the public for war (“watering the turf”, as one British military source puts it). It falls to us, as citizens in the most powerful democracies in the world, to ensure that our money and our lives are not used to fight yet another unnecessary, immoral and illegal war for the benefit of a tiny, elite minority. Let’s just hope we are not already too late.
Cross-posted at The Heathlander
