Skip to main content

Iran: Is the US sabre-rattling?

George Bush, and his cohorts, seem to be more and more shrill by the day about Iran. It is not unfair to suggest that the rhetoric basically parallels what we all heard about Iraq before The Coalition of the Willing launched the invasion of Iraq.

The Independent puts it this way:

"President Bush and other US officials have upped the anti-Iranian rhetoric alarmingly recently. The new verbal onslaught began with Mr Bush's address to the nation on 10 January this year, when he rejected the Iraq Study Group plan for Iraq, and specifically its recommendation to talk to Iran. He ratcheted up the language further in his State of the Union address last week, accusing Iran of sponsoring terrorism.

Now, the US State Department's Iraq co-ordinator is touring Europe, inveighing against what the US sees as Iran's misdeeds in the region. Reinforcing the rhetoric in the US are television adverts, depicting Iran as a nuclear menace and demanding tougher UN sanctions. What is striking is how far the emotive and intemperate language now being directed against Iran echoes the tirades that preceded the war in Iraq."

and then proceeds to analyse on a question and answer basis the critical question of whether the US is merely sabre-rattling in relation to the Iran - or this is the ramp-up to another war.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reading the Chilcot Inquiry Report more closely

Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary.   The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the

An unpalatable truth!

Quinoa has for the last years been the "new" food on the block for foodies. Known for its health properties, foodies the world over have taken to it. Many restaurants have added it to their menu. But, as this piece " Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? " from The Guardian so clearly details, the cost to Bolivians and Peruvians - from where quinoa hails - has been substantial. "Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods". Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as

Climate change: Well-organised hoax?

There are still some - all too sadly people with a voice who are listened to - who assert that climate change is a hoax. Try telling that to the people of Colorado who recently experienced horrendous bushfires, or the people of Croatia suffering with endless days of temps of 40 degrees (and not much less than 30 at night time) some 8-10 degrees above the norm. Bill McKibben, take up the issue of whether climate change is a hoax, on The Daily Beast : Please don’t sweat the 2,132 new high temperature marks in June—remember, climate change is a hoax. The first to figure this out was Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who in fact called it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” apparently topping even the staged moon landing. But others have been catching on. Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out that the idea that carbon dioxide is “harmful to the environment is almost comical.” The always cautious Mitt Romney scoffed at any damage too: “Scientists will fig